After surpassing Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy behind the U.S. and Japan, hosting a successful Olympic Games and conducting its first space walk, you’d think China would be happy
A New Book Reveals Why China Is Unhappy
Tag Archives: Obama
Obama’s late-night slip teaches how words hurt
In a quick and clearly unscripted moment, President Obama exhibited the power of words during his history-making visit Thursday with Jay Leno. While joking on The Tonight Show about his bowling prowess (during last year’s campaign trail he shamefully scored 37 in a game), Obama said he’d been practicing at the White House lanes and boasted to Leno, “I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics or something.” The comment during the taping of the show prompted Obama to pick up the phone on Air Force One and call Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver to preemptively apologize for the remark before it hit television screens.
The AIG Backlash: Has Congress Flipped Out?
Barely a day goes by on Capitol Hill without some politician expressing a good measure of righteous indignation.
Don’t Panic About the Economy
Unlike many of my colleagues in the mass media, I am suffering from outrage-deficit disorder. It’s not that I’m not angry
Obama announces new housing money for California
President Barack Obama continued a two-day campaign-style swing through California Thursday, announcing the distribution of $145 million in new Housing and Urban Development funds at a town hall meeting in Los Angeles. The funds, which will target those communities hardest hit by the home foreclosure crisis, “will be used to buy up and rehabilitate vacant and foreclosed homes, and resell those homes with affordable mortgages, (as well as) to provide mortgage assistance and rehabilitation loans for low-income and middle-income families,” Obama said to an enthusiastic crowd at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center
Obama offers Iran ‘the promise of a new beginning’
President Barack Obama reached out to Iran on Friday — the start of the Iranian New Year — in a video message offering "the promise of a new beginning" that is "grounded in mutual respect." The message is a dramatic shift in tone from that of the Bush administration, which included Iran, along with North Korea and Iraq, in an “axis of evil.” It also echoes Obama’s inaugural speech, in which he said to the Muslim world, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” In Friday’s video, Obama said: “The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right, but it comes with real responsibilities. And that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.” There was no immediate response from Tehran to Obama’s message, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month that his country would welcome talks with the United States “in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect.” The United States, several European nations and Israel suspect that Tehran has been trying to acquire the capacity to build nuclear weapons, but Iran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.
Watch AIG’s payouts, not the bonuses, Spitzer says
Outrage over bailed-out insurance giant American International Group’s million-dollar bonuses may grab headlines, but its payouts on complicated financial instruments deserve closer examination, ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Thursday
House passes bill taxing Wall Street bonuses
The House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday to try to recoup bonuses paid to Wall Street executives with taxpayer money. The measure passed, 328-93; most Democrats supported the measure, while Republicans were sharply divided.
Analysis: Obama’s ‘blame me’ means ‘move on’
President Obama topped a town hall appearance Wednesday by claiming responsibility for the bonuses paid out to executives at the bailed-out insurance giant American International Group, saying, "I’m outraged, too." Cushioned by high approval ratings, analysts said Obama can emerge from this controversy relatively unscathed, but there’s only so many times he can get away with saying, “Blame me.” AIG accepted more than $170 billion in federal assistance in the past six months. It was revealed this week that since accepting those funds, the company doled out more than $165 million in bonuses.
Obama to appear on ‘Tonight Show’
Guests on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" usually appear to promote a movie, TV show, book or album, but President Obama will visit the NBC show Thursday to make the case for his financial rescue plans. While presidential candidates — as far back as Richard Nixon’s performance on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in 1968 — have used comedy shows for campaigning, Obama becomes the first sitting president to appear. “We don’t look at it as the process of demonstrating the president’s sense of humor,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs