American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow Desmond Lachman is an excellent forecaster and describer of economic trends and their likely consequences.

Oliver Lough is a research intern at the New America Foundation. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Willy Lam broke a disturbing story on China’s burgeoning police state: “On December 2, senior state-security personnel met in Tianjin to fine-tune a new nationwide antisubversion network to help safeguard the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling status.

The Washington Note Publisher Steve Clemons is flying off to Portland, Oregon this evening to speak to the Portland Business Alliance tomorrow on the subject of America’s “Green Trade Deficit.” Steve will be delivering a presentation based on “Green Trade Balance,” a New America Foundation/Economic Growth Program policy paper.

A new survey commissioned by the New America Foundation and conducted this November by Gerstein Agne Strategic Communications reveals that Israeli opinions of President Obama and the peace process contrast starkly with popular reports — though Israeli support for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his security-focused policies also remains strong.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, in response to declining interest in H1N1 immunization from risk group citizens, opened up the immunization pool to those who wanted it. I’m out at the colonial era founded liberal arts college founded in 1782, Washington College, and decided to go ahead and get immunized.

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has this soft side that Ted Kennedy often connected with — and it’s on display in this video (hat tip to Adele Stan and Mike Rogers).

I have to admit that since watching Afghanistan Commander General Stanley McChrystal‘s mesmerizing interview on 60 Minutes, I have made time nearly every day to get back in shape and do some running.

Sitting in my Berlin hotel room last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at about 1:30 am, I saw a note from the White House come through the transom that was not about the President’s West Point speech on Afghanistan and Pakistan but rather about new presidential appointments.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) is speaking at Brookings today on the Obama administration’s course in Afghanistan. His speech, while largely supportive of the frame that Obama has brought to the challenge — a narrowed mission, discussion of an offramp, and more — also includes lingering doubts.

This is a guest note by Nicholas Kitchen, Editor of IDEAS Reports and a Fellow of the LSE IDEAS — or for acronym-challenged, Diplomacy & Strategy at the London School of Economics Barack Obama: Last Transatlantic President? When Barack Obama took office in January, expectations of what the new President could bring to international affairs…