Aug 08 Credit Downgrade Becomes Political Football A ticker in Times Square gives the news Friday evening about S&P downgrading the U.S. credit rating. Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images. The intensity and scale of the Obama administration pushback against Standard & Poor's downgrading of… Continue reading
Aug 05 S&P Downgrades U.S. Credit Rating From AAA for First Time Hours after U.S. markets closed Friday, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's announced it downgraded the credit rating of the United States for the first time in the ratings' history. S&P said it's cutting the No. 1 economy's top AAA… Continue reading
Aug 05 Underground Protest Organization Coming Online From Syria Syrian protest; file photo The Syrian uprising is escalating as the size, number and geographic range of protests have continued to increase day-by-day. The holy month of Ramadan has only added an automatic reason for large groups of people… Continue reading
Aug 05 Watch Shields and Douthat on Disdain for Washington After Debt Deal, FAA Showdown Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat sort through the week's top political news, including their takes on the American public's disgust with Washington, the July jobs report and the partial FAA shutdown. Continue watching
Aug 05 Watch New Orleans Officers Convicted in Killings: a Turning Point for a Healing City? Five current or former New Orleans police officers were convicted Friday in connection with a deadly shooting on Danziger Bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. New York Times reporter Campbell Robertson discusses how the convictions are being viewed in… Continue watching
Aug 05 New Obama Directive Aims to Prevent Genocide, Violent Outbreaks By Larisa Epatko President Obama signed a directive Thursday setting up an interagency board to come up with a coordinated governmental approach in the next four months to prevent mass atrocities and genocide. Continue reading
Aug 05 With 117,00 New Jobs in July, a Slight Improvement in the Solman Unemployment Scale By Paul Solman "Employment Report Damned with Faint Praise: It Could Have Been Worse." Thus does Nigel Gault, Chief U.S. Economist of IHS Global Insight, sum up the consensus view of Friday's unemployment numbers. Jobs added in July; upward revision for June. Even… Continue reading
Aug 05 Gwen's Take: All the King's Horses and All the King's Men By Gwen Ifill In the fine tradition of the well-executed post-mortem, we now find ourselves in the season of the "tick-tock" -- the well-reported explanations of how a big story unfolded. We have been treated to the finest of the genre in the… Continue reading
Aug 05 Woodruff: Dissecting the Dysfunction It's possible we'll look back on this period at some distant time in the future and smile, but right now, that's hard to imagine. With the stock market plummeting (a drop of 1,200 points in the Dow Industrials in… Continue reading
Aug 05 Obama Can Tout Improved Jobless Rate, but the Race Will Be Won in 2012 President Obama will speak about the economy Friday. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images. There's only one story worth watching in American politics today and it's the story that will likely determine the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. Continue reading