Gore Vidal has departed the stage given news today that he has died of complications from pneumonia at age 86. I shook Vidal’s hand once — and when he took mine, his smirk pretty much sheared off several layers of identity protection I had cloaked around myself.
Wall Street Journal economics correspondent David Wessel published a roster of what he calls “digestible morsels” to help Americans better understand what is at play in the federal budget. Among the realities he notes are that “two-thirds of annual federal spending goes out the door without any vote by Congress” and that “the U.S.
Restructuring Private Debt May Be Better Option than Austerity or More Stimulusby Steve Clemons and Richard Vague In the Spring of 2011, the Obama administration started to rev up a campaign called “The Summer of Recovery” and planned to deploy the President, VP Joe Biden, and the economically connected Cabinet members and advisers to go…
Official White House Photo/Pete Souza Vice President Joe Biden never apologized to President Obama for getting a “bit over his skis” in endorsing gay marriage before the president did — and according to very senior White House sources, Obama didn’t ask for or want an apology from Biden. But google “Joe Biden”, “apology”, and “gay”….
They are most likely not ‘armed drones’, but news has surfaced that the US Air Force is training drone pilots to trail civilian auto traffic on New Mexico’s highways.
A few months ago, I was a guest (a plus one of someone invited) at an impressive evening thrown by the Washington National Opera to thank key board members, volunteers and significant donors.
David Ignatius reveals this morning that US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter has fought hard and ultimately failed to maintain ultimate ‘country authority’ over the CIA’s drone attacks inside Pakistan. Ignatius writes: As America’s relationship with Pakistan has unraveled over the past 18 months, an important debate has been going on within the U.S.
After the end of America’s Civil War and the death of Abraham Lincoln, an envoy from Tunisia presented President Andrew Johnson with a huge portrait of the ‘Bey of Tunis’, His Highness the Mushir Mohammed Essadek.
When I started working in the US Senate in the mid-1990s, my then boss Senator Jeff Bingaman handed me, like he did to every incoming member of his staff, a copy of Eric Redman’s book, The Dance of Legislation: An Insider’s Account of the Workings of the United States Senate.
There are many who really detest the DC social scene — but others who love to know who is where and doing what to whom. It’s why West Wing was such a hit. People want to know what powerful Washingtonians are up.
