Going to war against Obama’s money-saving student loan reform plan.
Can it really be true that the list of Americans who will appear on the Sunday shows this weekend is David Petraeus, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and John McCain?
I guess it really is a center-right nation.
We dug up this 1986 CBS News report on the court nomination of now-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). The piece ran just after the Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination.
President Obama will be among Washington society tonight, for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. That and other political news in today’s TPMDC Saturday Roundup.
In what seem to be the very good reviews for the new Star Trek movie, there’s been discussion of a scene that perhaps alludes to our current public discussion of torture. Juliet Lapidos has a nice piece up at Slate on an episode for Star Trek TNG that focused on the power, degradation and ineffectiveness of the practice.
(It’s a good episode; have to crack out that DVD.)
Earlier in this decade, in the heat of the debate over gay marriage in Massachusetts, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) predicted that once marriages actually started happening, opponents would realize it just wasn’t that big a deal (a very big deal of course to those getting married, but not a big deal in terms of the sky falling down or Western Civilization coming to an end) and it would simply fade away as a political issue. And five years on, that’s what seems to be happening.
A third person has died in the US from the Swine Flu; and there’s now been a fatality in Canada as well. Both were in their 30s; but both also apparently had underlying medical conditions.
Dick Cheney speaks up again, says his political opponents are “prepared to sacrifice American lives.” That and other political news in today’s TPMDC Sunday Roundup.
The Washington Times goes in for a little unintended self-parody, taking President Obama to task for his corrosive, unilateralist approach to … cracking down on tax havens and money laundering.
President Obama has attempted to distinguish himself from his predecessor by stressing a more cooperative approach in foreign affairs. Mr. Obama declared at a press conference upon his arrival in London for the recent summit of the group of the world’s 20 richest countries: “We can start with the notion that we’re prepared to – to listen and to work cooperatively with countries around the world.”
Yet in one area of foreign policy, Mr. Obama has taken an approach as – if not more – unilateral than that of the Bush administration. On other nations’ tax and financial privacy policies, the Obama administration has taken an aggressive, almost bullying, stance in denouncing some countries as “tax havens” or lax regulators.
The administration recently stunned the nation of Switzerland when, after obtaining, with the Swiss government’s full cooperation, the names of 250 UBS AG bank customers suspected of violating U.S. tax laws, it then demanded the names of an additional 52,000 American UBS clients.
Thanks to TPMer Moe Tkacik for the catch.
Global War against Tax Cheats.