By Steve Clemons

Brazilian President Luiz In

This has to be watched. As the narrator says, “the Gulf appears to be bleeding.” Thanks to UT Austin/LBJ School’s James Galbraith for sending my way. For those of you following this disaster, the blog Gulf Oil Slick is a good resource.

Andrew Lebovich, a frequent TWN contributor and staff member at the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program, prepared today the AfPak page brief for Foreign Policy this morning. This slightly disturbing kicker caught my attention: Afghanistan’s creepiest game When not on the watch for Taliban, U.S.

I am worried that there is substantial confusion in Democratic party ranks about what the appropriate role and function of the United States military is and isn’t.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, a champion of tough-edged humanitarianism, too frequently falls into a linear, knee-jerk approach to global justice causes rather than embracing the complexity of most global problems. Nations are good or bad. We must take forceful action against some country or are otherwise appeasing them. And so on.

Joe Biden had AMTRAK trips between D.C. and Wilmington, Delaware so imprinted in his DNA that he must really miss them now. For 35 years, then Senator Biden commuted each working morning and each working night — 100 miles each way — to be with his wife and children.

(photo is of White House Treaty Room, White House Museum Archives) During a Maria Leavey Memorial Breakfast Series discussion with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), I asked the Senator in May 2008 whether there would be any action before the end of that Congress on the “Law of the Sea Treaty“.

I am traveling today — but wanted to note that the UK election yesterday is tracking with so many other elections in the world today like we recently saw in Iraq, and even in Afghanistan, not to mention the US presidential race in 2004.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Here is an exchange I had with Keith Olbermann yesterday on MSNBC’s Countdown on what the broader geopolitical implications of the Faisal Shahzad case may be.

Noman Benotman, a former top tier member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and a mujahadeen who fought along with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, has helped broker “reconciliation” between members of his former group and the Libyan government.