The Londoner

Untouchable Why Hillary Clinton is the Teflon secretary. Washington can be a cruel and unforgiving place. Want a friend? Harry Truman once said. Get a dog. Or maybe he didn't say it . But it's a good point: In this town, nobody gets a free pass from the press, the pundits, and the pols. Nobody, that is, until Hillary Clinton. At the end of her tenure as secretary of state, she alone has emerged virtually unscathed -- the lone superstar of the president's first term. A recent poll has her numbers well above the president's and exceeded only by -- you guessed it -- her husband Bill. And those high favorability ratings have remained pretty consistent since 2008. There's no denying that Clinton has done a very good job as the nation's top diplomat. But to read the media adulation, you'd think she was about to be admitted into the secretary of state

Mexico's Maya face Dec. 21 with ancestral calm Meanwhile, advertisers capitalize on the doomsday theme Two Maya priests hold a water blessing ceremony at the Noc Ac cenote — a natural deep deposit of water — in the Mexican town of the same name on Saturday. The ceremony was part of a Maya cultural festival to celebrate the end of a cycle in the Maya Long Count calendar, and the beginning of a new era. UH-MAY, Mexico  — Amid a worldwide frenzy of advertisers and new-agers preparing for a Maya apocalypse, one group is approaching Dec. 21 with calm and equanimity — the people whose ancestors supposedly made the prediction in the first place. Mexico's 800

Birth Control In United States Lost amid the shock and horror of Friday's news was a remarkable op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who should no longer be called a "rising star" of the GOP. He commands attention by virtue of being smart, good at his job, and not a white guy. So it's significant that he chose to use his platform to break ranks with many social conservatives in his party by calling for over-the-counter sales of birth control pills. Of course, Jindal did so by couching his argument in a hyper-partisan defensive posture, lashing out at "Democrats [who] demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control." Jindal recognizes that the vast majority of Americans support the use of contraception, and that the issue of access to contraception is a loser for Republicans. So he proposes to take the

  S ilence Is Not An Option What will it take? What will it take for a majority of Americans to speak out for a sensible firearms policy in our nation? It will take more than a congresswoman being shot point-blank in the face as she gathers for a town meeting in Arizona. It will take more than a deranged gunman with a hundred-round magazine spraying bullets into a crowded movie theater in Colorado. It will take more t

Deficit solution must preserve the American dream For families still struggling to get by, the holiday season is a time for hope that the coming year will bring new opportunities. While our economic recovery has seen significant progress, there is still much more to be done to get Americans back to work and expand our middle class. However, a serious impediment to doing so exists in the form of the fiscal cliff. That combination of automatic tax increases and arbitrary spending cuts, if allowed to hit on January 1, would significantly undermine Congress’s ability to invest in moving our recovery forward, creating new opportunities, and working toward sustained job growth. If we don’t prioritize spending or bring in sufficient revenues, programs that expand our economy and protect the most vulnerable are at risk. Indiscriminate cuts to those kinds of programs would damage the economy even furthe

The Bracing Political Reality of Gun Control If there is any good that came of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, it is that the informal stricture against “politicizing tragedy” enforced by the gun lobby and its allies, and generally complied with by the news media, crumpled, in something akin to a mass act of civil disobedience. The injunction against politicizing tragedy was itself political; now the rest of us are politicizing it back. The trouble is that most gun-control advocates are politicizing it the wrong way, in a way that’s deeply naive, and likely to crash quickly on the shoals of disillusionment. Michael Bloomberg emblemized the naivete when he spoke for vast swaths of America — and especially center-left America —  yesterday : It's time for the president, I think, to stand up and lead and tell this country what we should do — not go to Congress and s

IT hasn’t been a good year for evangelicals. I should know. I’m one of them. In 2012 we witnessed a collapse in American evangelicalism. The old religious right largely failed to affect the Republican primaries, much less the presidential election. Last month, Americans voted in favor of same-sex marriage in four states, while Florida voters rejected an amendment to restrict abortion. Much has been said about conservative Christians and their need to retool politically. But that is a smaller story, riding on the back of a larger reality: Evangelicalism as we knew it in the 20th century is disintegrating. In 2011 the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life polled church leaders from around the world. Evangelical ministers from the United States reported a greater loss of influence than church leaders from any other country — with some 82 percent indicating that their movement was losing ground. I grew up hearing tales of my grandfathe

  As some Canadian industries struggle to find skilled workers, others face a glut of qualified candidates and not enough jobs to go around. University professor Peter Fragiskatos says emphasising the importance of a university education only makes the problem worse. Last week, Canadians were told what many of them already suspected, in a report filled with bad news and a very subtle silver lining. According to its author, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal, Canada's economy faces a major skills shortage. An estimated 30% of businesses have difficulty filling positions because they cannot find qualified individuals - a number that doubles the 2010 rate. Most of the gaps are in mining, engineering (civil, chemical, electrical and mechanical) and health care (doctors, nurses, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists and dieticians are all mentioned). The problem is most serious in Saskatchewan, On

Jonathan Rauch’s (Mostly) Failed Agenda for Hurting Workers – and What Would Work College of the Ozarks’ “Hard Work U” Program I see lots of attention being paid to this article by Jonathan Rauch on the economic crisis of America’s working class. He’s looking at the right problem, but he’s looking at it all wrong. As a result, he misunderstands both the cause and the needed remedy. Rauch is right that the bottom half of workers have a long-term problem: the economy still produces lots of wealth for the top half, but not so much for the bottom. Unfortunately, Rauch mostly thinks of this in terms of moving wealth from the top half to the bottom – not, to be sure, through government transfer programs, but through wages. Unfortunately for Rauch, transferring wealth from one social class to another is not the purpose of wages. The purpose of wages is to compensate workers for their work. The value of wages therefore reflects the value of their work (excep

The votes in Washington and Colorado last month legalizing marijuana were just the latest developments in the debate over marijuana use in the United States. Lawmakers and activists in some other states are contemplating their next moves in regards to marijuana: —DELAWARE: Lawmakers passed a bill last year allowing the use of medical marijuana obtained from state-licensed ‘‘compassion centers,’’ but Gov. Jack Markell halted implementation after federal officials indicated that people involved in cultivating and distributing marijuana could be subject to civil fines or prosecution. As far as legalization for recreational purposes, Markell spokeswoman Cathy Rossi said there are the same concerns about medical marijuana. ‘‘That is, if the federal government is saying it won’t pursue persons with a medical need or recreational users, but it is prosecuting persons who provide that marijuana in a safe manner, then we are forcing people to obtain marijuana from the illega

Chicago Muslims aim to reclaim meaning of 'jihad' from extremists New ad campaign on Chicago buses, launched Friday, aims to raise awareness of how most Muslims experience 'jihad' – as personal struggle, not 'holy war.' Starting Friday, 25 Chicago buses will carry exterior signs that promote a more positive interpretation of jihad , as expressed by moderate Muslims who say the term has been widely misrepresented by both Muslim extremists and anti-Muslim critics. “We are taking ownership of our faith and taking it back from Muslim and anti-Muslim extremists, which both have hijacked the conversation, one through bloody actions and the other with extreme rhetoric,” says Ahmed Rehab , executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) . IN PICTURES: Islam in America The ads feature photographs of young Muslims alongside personal testimonials – “My J

Twenty-seven people, including 20 children, are dead after a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman killed himself inside the school. Another person was found dead at 36 Yogananda St. in Newtown, sources told The Courant. The shooter is dead inside the school, and the situation is secure, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance. Students described being ushered from their classrooms hand-in-hand, with their eyes closed, to the safety of a nearby fire station as police converged on the school. There were conflicting reports about the identity of the shooter. The state police have not identified him. Several news outlets, including The Associated Press and  CNN , initially identified the shooter as Ryan Lanza and said his younger br

The Republican Party has gone insane. Not whacky-but-basically-harmless, Uncle Joe Biden insane. We’re talking remorseless-sociopath insane. Analysts on the Left say so. The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber charges that the GOP “has completely lost its marbles, having turned into a collection of anti-tax jihadis bent on the upward redistribution of wealth.” His colleague John Judis agrees. Republicans have “transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority.” According to the New Yorker ’s George Packer, the “extremism of the Republican Party,” intensified by the “rabid reaction to its 2008 defeat and Obama’s Presidency ,” is now “destroying American politics .” Read the full story here.

PRESIDENT OBAMA :This afternoon, I spoke with Governor Malloy and FBI Director Mueller. I offered Governor Malloy my condolences on behalf of the nation and made it clear he will have every single resource that he needs to investigate this heinous crime, care for the victims, counsel their families . We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news, I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do. The majority of those who died today were children -- beautiful, little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams. So our hearts are broken today for the parents a

Dear Supreme Court Justices, Last week, you agreed to hear two landmark cases about gay marriage. In the broader of the two cases, which comes out of California, you could establish same-sex marriage nationwide as a matter of constitutional right. This is a ruling that most gay Americans would celebrate as a historic victory for civil rights. But I want to suggest that you make history, and advance the cause of gay equality, in a different way: by butting out. I bow to no one in my support for marriage equality. I have been fighting for it since 1996, when the cause seemed crazy and only the courts offered any hope at all. As part of that fight, the hardest thing I have done is to counsel my gay friends and allies that litigation was necessary, but that real civil rights—durable, deeply rooted civil rights, as opposed to what James Madison called “parchment barriers”—come from consensus, not from courts. That was true in the African-American civil rights battle.  Read

Four years ago she was beaten and bitter, and now she's practically a shoo-in for 2016. GOP contenders, take note Look at Hillary's shift from sore loser to next-in-line: the way for the GOP to succeed in beating Clinton is learn from her. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images Newt Gingrich 's declaration this week that "the Republican party today is incapable of competing" against Hillary Clinton should she run for president is, most of all, a statement about Newt Gingrich. That he made the pronouncement on NBC's Meet the Press was an indication of just how adrift his party is. The line is a testament to his genius for self-promotion and his ability to attach himself to prevailing winds. I've always presumed that Gingrich would be an excellent ambassador to his predicted lunar colony primarily because he only needs publicity, not oxygen, to breathe. But what does the quote say about Hillary Clinton? Not as much as