The son of an elderly South Carolina veteran charged with threatening to kill the President can’t say enough good things about how the Secret Service has handled the situation, but tells TPM that in his view the local VA hospital failed to act when his father started showing signs of depression and having suicidal thoughts.
The President needs 12 stitches after an errant elbow to his lip during a pickup basketball game with friends and family at Fort McNair in Washington.
China reportedly working with U.S. and South Korea to deescalate the situation on the peninsula.
There are 168 members of the Republican National Committee. The AP interviewed 51 of them, 39 of which said they’d prefer Michael Steele not be on the ballot for reelection as RNC chairman in January.
Be careful though and don’t over-read that. As we saw with Nancy Pelosi’s re-election as the top Dem in the House, it takes more than general discontent to oust a leader. You need the opposition to coalesce around a viable alternative. Heck, you need a viable alternative.
Yitzhak Rabin’s son, Yuval, has released a new peace initiative dubbed the Israeli Peace Initiative, a response to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. You can see the details in the Haaretz column linked above. What’s most remarkable about the outlines of the plan is, frankly, how unremarkable it is. That’s not a criticism but rather a recognition that all the plans that seem genuinely interested in a viable and plausible two state solution look very, very similar. A two state solution, based on ’67 borders with equitable/one for one land swaps, international security agreements, refugee question resolved with payments and a symbolic level of repatriation within pre-67 Israel, special arrangements for the Temple Mount area, both states’ capitals in Jerusalem.
The hard reality is that there’s no lack of plans — there’s a lack of political formula on either side to get there. That, or outside pressure.
We’ve gotten used to one or two House races being declared each week in November. But one other contest was settled earlier this week: the incredibly tight race for Attorney General of California, a very powerful position and often a stepping stone to bigger things. Kamala Harris, San Francisco DA, was up against Steve Cooley, LA District Attorney.
Tom Delay, following his money laundering conviction: “This is an abuse of power. It’s a miscarriage of justice and I still maintain that I am innocent.”
U.S. government warns allies — among them the UK, Turkey, Israel, Denmark and Norway — about potential embarrassment in the upcoming round of Wikileaks disclosures that reportedly will “include thousands of diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against politicians in Russia, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations,” according to Reuters.
Speaker-to-be John Boehner is trying to keep his caucus reined in — particularly the huge unruly class of incoming freshman — to prevent them from causing House Republicans any undue embarrassment.
Meet five freshmen Boehner may want to keep on an especially tight leash on.
With the aircraft carrier USS George Washington preparing to begin joint military exercises with South Korea Sunday in the Yellow Sea, China formally issued a warning against military activity near its coastline while North Korea fired a new salvo of artillery rounds within sight of — though apparently not aimed at — the South Korean island bombarded to deadly effect earlier this week.