Verizon claims that the FCC’s new net neutrality regulations violates their constitutional rights.
Romney setting himself up as the Republican presidential candidate for Republicans who don’t like the Tea Party?
We’ve been reporting of late that a number of major cities across the country are considering running aerial drones as part of their law enforcement strategies. But the Mayor of Ogden, Utah has another idea: he wants the city to buy a special new surveillance blimp.
Check out our map of the world of organized crime as alleged by the feds in the big Mafia case that became public just yesterday.
I was just on in the opening segment of Olbermann tonight. And I get home and get this press release from NBC saying this was the last episode of Countdown. At first I figured it had to be a spoof email because, jeez, I was on and I didn’t have any sense that any other than a regular Friday evening show was on. But sure enough I pulled up the recording and now I’m watching his final sign off.
I doubt I would have had any heads up or known anything was happening if Olbermann was going to go off the air. But I was a bit more stunned than I might otherwise have been because I was just over there. And I did not have any sense that there was anything any different than normal going on. Everything seemed calm and pretty sedate. I didn’t sense anything different in Keith’s manner or affect (though it’s not like we’re tight and I would have been the person to notice.) There were a few more people than I’m used to seeing in the studio — maybe two or three, seated, who seemed to be there to watch. (Something I don’t remember seeing before.) But nothing that made me think twice that anything odd was going on.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing soon enough what on earth happened here. But color me stunned. And really disappointed.
(The text of the quite terse press release reads: “MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.”)
This is the chart of President Obama’s approval ratings over the last twelve months. For those scoring at home, the cross over dates are May 19th (when he went into negative territory) and December 31st, when he crossed back into positive territory. The current TPM Poll Average has his approval at 49.1% approve, 45.9% disapprove, a +3.2% spread.
Full size interactive graph after the jump. Read More
I saw the news on Friday that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will base his presidential campaign in Georgia. Isn’t this like my telling you that my imaginary friend is quitting the venture capital business and becoming a folk singer? Interesting news but somehow the premise is more telling than the news itself.
The pre-packaged Hallmark moment that Congress has planned for tomorrow night’s State of the Union address — Republicans and Democrats sitting together rather than on opposite sides of the aisle — may not convince Americans of their bipartisanship as much as reinforce the impression that Capitol Hill is one big high school.
If you’re not aware of it, I want to draw your attention to an open letter to the president that went out last week calling on the President and the Secretary of State either to support or, more plausibly, not to veto an upcoming Security Council resolution condemning on-going Israeli settlement activity in the Occupied Territories. For the US to allow something like this to go forward is usually close to unthinkable. But this new resolution has the awkward dimension of lining up pretty exactly with longstanding US policy, which considers the settlements not only an impediment to peace but in violation of international law.
The signatories are some folks you’d expect and also some you would not.
Whether or not this initiative succeeds though I believe we’re going to see more of this, particularly a new willingness to rethink some of the conventions of the US-Israel relationship and a growing realization that the Israelis and Palestinians are unable to solve this impasse on their own. Some of this is rooted in changing views among American Jews. And some is rooted in the increasingly obvious toll the never-ending impasse takes on US interests in the region and indeed throughout the world. For the futures of both countries, Israelis and Palestinians are in great need of an outside force to help settle the matter. And in the nature of things probably only the US can be that force.