It’s the centrepiece of Obama’s domestic agenda, and there have been months of haggling, deal-cutting and sausage-making in order to push it through. The prospect of a Democratic loss in the Massachusetts special election has further injected a sense of urgency. Given the unwieldy, dysfunctional nature of the Senate, with its seemingly interminable succession of [...]
Filed under: health, uspolitics on January 19th, 2010 | No Comments »
…this guy would be dead by now. Of course, if Bush were Saddam, he’d never have tried his luck. But he knew his action would be interpreted as an act of political dissent — in a country where dissent is now allowed. He may serve a jail term, but it seems far more likely that [...]
Filed under: afghanistan, al qaeda, clarepoliticsnews, democracy, humanrights, ideas, iraq, jonathanbirch, society, uspolitics on December 15th, 2008 | No Comments »
The polls were right all along — America has elected Barack Obama, and proved itself not to be a hateful, bigoted nation. I hope anyone who secretly expected a racist “Bradley effect” to propel John McCain to the White House is now hanging their head in shame: McCain won an honest 47% and bowed out [...]
Filed under: barackobama, democracy, election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, republican, uspolitics on November 5th, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user 1flatworld.
For me, the story of the U.S. election run-in has not been the story of the inevitable march to power of Barack Obama. It’s been the story of how an immeasurably more experienced candidate — John McCain — has rendered himself unelectable with a solid month of cackhanded campaigning. When [...]
Filed under: election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on October 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Jim Mone/Associated Press.
Monday 27th October, 8.45pm
On the back of Tuesday’s successful talk from Salim Tamari, Clare Politics brings you another must-see event, as Jodi Williams addresses the society.
As one of the first member’s of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign - a campaign which by now has reached the home straight - she helped [...]
Filed under: barackobama, clarepoliticsnews, election2008, jodiwilliams, uspolitics on October 24th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user shazam791.
Of all the bizarre and interesting features of the 2008 US presidential election, here’s one you may not have noticed: it’s the first time both tickets have been topped by a serving senator. It guarantees that America’s 44th president will be the third to assume the job from a Senate [...]
Filed under: barackobama, democracy, election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on October 8th, 2008 | No Comments »
Illustration courtesy of Flickr user Ricardo Carreon.
Like a small unhappy section of society I spent most of Friday morning yawning profusely looking to all the world like I was suffering the consequences of a particularly heavy night out. But alas, I must confess to night-time pursuit far less socially acceptable and indeed more sordid and [...]
Filed under: election2008, podcasts, presidentialdebate, uspolitics on October 5th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Army.mil
The 44th President of the United States will be a crisis president. But he won’t just have an economic disaster to deal with. He’ll also inherit twin military deployments in the region between Israel and India — an area we should perhaps think of as one massive region, one massive problem, but [...]
Filed under: afghanistan, barackobama, election2008, iraq, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on October 2nd, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user ucumari.
The House of Representatives has rejected a $700bn bailout for stricken Wall Street banks. The cause? Primarily rebellious Republican congressmen, less than 50% of whom backed the Republican administration’s proposal. Why? Because they fear for their seats — approval ratings for the bill vary from 12% to 22%, depending on [...]
Filed under: election2008, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on September 30th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
They always have to go one better, don’t they? The week Europe tries to recreate the Big Bang, America decides to kick off the Big Crunch. In the eye of the storm stands US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson: perhaps the world’s most powerful man, at least for this week. The kind of financial titan we’d [...]
Filed under: gambling, jonathanbirch, labour, ukpolitics, uspolitics on September 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
