Elections & Political Parties

In Private Empire Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.

Recently, there has been considerable debate over whether President Obama should run against the Supreme Court as part of his reelection campaign. High-ranking Democratic Rep. James Clyburn has endorsed the idea, and Obama himself has seemed to test the waters with anticipatory criticism of a decision striking down his health-care law as unconstitutional.

With just months to go before the presidential campaign ends all meaningful activity on Capitol Hill, members of Congress are struggling to move a few must-pass pieces of legislation. One of the most pressing is the highway bill, which Congress is considering this week. Not only does all federal funding for transportation depend on passing a bill by March 31; the highway trust fund itself is scheduled to go broke in 2013 and the deal in the making pays for only two years.

This is essential national maintenance. Yet Congress is - you guessed it - gridlocked.

Bibi was coming again, and the White House was determined: this visit would not play out like the last one. On Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previous trip to Washington, Obama had proposed that Israel and the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal based on the armistice lines drawn after Israel’s birth. Netanyahu reacted badly, lecturing the president publicly that “we can’t go back to those indefensible lines.”

Should Barack Obama win reelection this fall, he’ll almost immediately face one of the biggest issues of his second term: the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. George W. Bush originally passed the tax breaks in two quick bursts—slashing income taxes in 2001, and lowering taxes on investment income in 2003. Then, just before these cuts were set to expire on Jan. 1, 2011, Obama struck a deal with congressional Republicans to extend them for two more years.

There’s a lot to admire about conservatives. By conservatives, I mean people who believe that when you cast aside the inherited wisdom of past generations in a bid to make society dramatically better, you usually make it worse. The problem with many in today’s Republican Party isn’t that they share this skepticism about change. It’s that they apply it selectively. When conservative principles restrain their country, their religion, their class, today’s conservative leaders cast them aside.

The best question at last night’s CNN debate in Arizona was not asked by the network’s John King. It was asked by Ron Paul to his fellow candidates: If you’re so open to attacking Iran, why not declare war?

In this episode of The Sidebar, the weekly podcast from the New America Foundation that looks at what's in and what's underlying the news.

Justin King, Noam Sheiber, and Marc Goldwein discuss President Obama's budget proposal and Rick Santorum's surge in the Republican Primaries. Pamela Chan hosts.

A question: Does it matter who wins the upcoming Michigan primary? I can only foresee two scenarios in which it does: First, if Romney were to lose to Santorum decisively, one could imagine the GOP establishment waking up the next morning and scouring the country for a white-knight alternative. At that point all hell breaks loose, and you and I are as likely to be the GOP nominee as Mitt Romney.

The press has offered basically two explanations for Mitt Romney’s failure to win over conservative voters. The first is ideological: conservatives know that Romney was once a moderate, and they don’t consider his swing to the right sincere. The second is personal: whether because of his money, his faith, or his hair, average Republican voters just don’t relate to him.