Geithner on the Need of Reform
The treasury secretary misdiagnoses the financial crisis and offers the wrong solutions.
Nick Ottens
Nick Ottens is a public affairs officer for the Dutch Animal Coalition and a board member for Liberal Green, the sustainability network of the Dutch liberal party VVD. He is a former political risk consultant and a former research manager for XPRIZE, where he designed prize competitions to incentivize breakthrough innovation in agriculture, food and health care. He has also worked as a journalist in Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York for EUobserver, NRC, Trouw, World Politics Review and Wynia’s Week, among others.
Russian Bombers Penetrate British Airspace
Two weeks ago, two British Tornado F3 fighter aircraft were scrambled from the Royal Air Force base Leuchars, the United Kingdom’s most northerly air defense station, to pursue two Russian Tupolev 160 bombers which were approximately one hundred nautical miles to the west of Stornaway on the northwest coast of Scotland. More than twenty of […]
Public Option Still an Option
The health-care reform bill must to back to the House for a revote. Democratic lawmakers in the Senate now have the possibility of including a public option after all.
The Age of Reagan Has Expired
Change has come to America with the passing of health-care reform earlier this week. The bill has been one of the most divise in recent political history, leaving the left ecstatic and the right in a state of distress. In an article for The New York Times, representing the left, is David Leonhardt, praising the […]
Parties on the Verge of Collapse
Right-wing commentators have repeatedly opined that the United States Democratic Party is pursuing a radical left-wing agenda that is undermining its appeal with moderate voters. On the left, a similar argument is made against the Republican Party now. On his Fox News show earlier this week, Bill O’Reilly urged Democratic leaders to understand that “the […]
Left on the Rise in France
The Parti socialiste won France’s second round of regional elections conclusively this Sunday, gathering over half the votes nationwide while President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives trailed in second place with just a third of the electorate. The socialists already controlled twenty out of France’s 22 departments in Europe, gaining the island of Corsica this weekend. The […]
Arctic Tensions Rising
Tensions between Russia and its Arctic neighbor states flared up against last week when President Dmitri Medvedev told his Security Council on Wednesday that the country must be prepared to defend its claim on the region’s natural resources. With global warming rapidly changing the Arctic landscape, the region might well emerge as a future battleground […]
Dutch Ask, Dutch Tell
Retired US Marine Corps General John Sheehan’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee of March 18 caused quite a stir on both sides of the Atlantic last week. Sheehan was asked to remark on the proposed repeal of the American military’s infamous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which allows gay men and women to […]
States Fighting Health Care Bill
Health care reform may have passed through Congress but individual states are lining up to contest its constitutionality, in court, if need be. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia was the first to announce on Monday that he will file a legal challenge as soon as the president signs the reconciliation bill into law. Cuccinelli’s […]
Greece Continues to Divide Europe
Germany is critical of a European Commission proposal to bail out Greece.
What Change Looks Like
Health care reform passed in the House of Representatives last night. A bloc of pro-life Democrats gave the party the 219 over 212 votes needed to enact the health insurance overhaul previously accepted in the Senate. Thirty-four Democrats voted against the measure. The House also voted 220 to 211 to support a “reconciliation” bill that […]
Prime Minister Obama
“President Obama could become de facto Prime Minister Obama.” So much predicts Harlan Ullman, columnist for The Washington Times and a member of the Strategic Advisors Group of the Atlantic Council, at the New Atlanticist. Washington isn’t just “broken,” writes Ullman. The very political foundation of the United States as envisioned in the Constitution has […]
Isolating Iran
Sanctions and negotiations aren’t working anymore. Iran is determined to acquire the Bomb so the West must start thinking ahead. How to deal with a nuclear Iran? “Containing” the country has been suggested before, specifically by cutting Iran’s financial ties abroad and quietly working to destabilize the regime from within. Last December, Danielle Pletka of […]
Russian Obstructionism?
With Russia refusing to commit to sanctions on Iran while protracting the negotiations on nuclear arms reduction, the average American politico might begin to wonder whether their former Cold War rival is obstructing American foreign policy for the sheer fun of it. Owen Matthews believes it’s exactly that. Writing for Newsweek, he claims that as […]
Israel Is Not an Isolated Problem
David Petraeus asks that the Palestinian territories be placed under his Central Command.