President Obama spoke at a toy factory in Pennsylvania Friday as part of his tour to gain public support(WaPo) in the negotiations over the fiscal cliff, where he emphasized his demand that Congress extend the middle-class tax cuts immediately even if an agreement other parts of the budget take longer to hammer out. Read more »

On the Secretary of State

In the Washington Post, Stephanie McCrummen speculates what Hillary Clinton will do after leaving the Obama administration, and reflects on  her time as secretary of state: Read more »

Richard Lugar (R-IN), outgoing ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, writes in The National Interest that there needs to be more cooperation between the president and Congress on foreign policy and national security issues. Read more »

The Fiscal Cliff

In Forbes, John Tamny writes that the United States won’t actually reach the point of going over the so-called fiscal cliff because politicians have incentives to reach a deal: Read more »

In this week’s Views, we head to Myanmar, where President Obama will be making a historic visit next week. In the Democratic Voice of Burma, Zaw Nay Aung writes that it’s a disgrace for Obama to visit while hundreds of political prisoners remain jailed: Read more »

Although neither the House nor the Senate switched hands in the recent election, the chairpersons, along with many other influential members, of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will be changing. In Foreign Policy, Josh Rogin writes, “Several key committee leadership posts are changing hands, influential leaders are exiting Washington, and a new crop of national security lawmakers is looking to fill their void. Read more »

Foreign Policy

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius details the decisions President Obama will have to make on China, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Middle East in his second term. He writes: Read more »

In this week’s Views we head to Pakistan, where  Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad writes in Pakistan Today that “Unless Pakistan and US manage to remove the deep seated suspicions they entertain about one another, there is little likelihood of any significant improvement in their relations. The relations may in fact further deteriorate.” He also says of President Asif Zardari and his challenger Imran Khan in the upcoming election that: Read more »

Obama’s Reelection and the Economy

The LA Times editorial board writes that President Obama’s most immediate challenge is averting the fiscal cliff, which has the potential to send the United States back into recession if a deal isn’t reached before January. They also say that the “longer-term problem for the president will be coping with the dueling pressures of an economy that’s growing too slowly and a federal debt that’s growing too fast, largely because of the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid.” Read more »

President Barack Obama was reelected to a second term (WashPost) Tuesday, winning a majority of both the electoral vote and the popular vote, and now faces a tough road ahead on economic and national security issues. Read more »