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Contributions from Michael Barone

  • Is Obama losing young voters?

    By Michael Barone | 06/17/13 05:00 PM

    Barack Obama’s job approval rating is down to 45% in the lastest CNN/ORC poll, conducted June 11-13, with 54% disapproval; the approval number is down from 53% in CNN/ORC’s May 17-18 poll. Most interesting result: Obama is getting only 48 approval from those age 18 to 34, only 3% above his...

  • A libertarian turn on social issues

    By Michael Barone | 06/17/13 11:25 AM

    Are Americans becoming more libertarian on cultural issues? I see evidence that they are, in poll findings and election results on three unrelated issues — marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage and gun rights. Start with pot. Last November voters in the states of Colorado and Washington...

  • Michael Barone: I was wrong on Syria

    By Michael Barone | 06/15/13 03:10 PM

    Like most journalists, I like to point back to predictions which proved true and analyses which proved prescient. Also like most journalists–and unlike the great political reporter and columnist David Broder, who wrote a column every year setting forth his mistakes–I don’t like to look...

  • Democratic governor in Colorado not so popular as widely assumed

    By Michael Barone | 06/14/13 12:50 PM

    Quinnipiac has an interesting poll in Colorado, showing Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper less popular than I had assumed. Hickenlooper is a former brewpub owner and mayor of Denver who has a very appealing personality. But his job approval is only 47%, with 43% disapproving, and he leads...

  • Obama administration: Some religions are more equal than others

    By Michael Barone | 06/13/13 02:45 PM

    The Obama administration “strongly objects” to a proposed House amendment to the defense authorization bill which would require, in the words of its sponsor, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), “the Armed Forces to accommodate ‘actions and speech’ reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or...

  • George Wallace was a Democrat; so was Bull Connor

    By Michael Barone | 06/13/13 02:10 PM

    MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who seems like a nice person, got caught making a huge historical mistake; he said George Wallace, the Alabama Governor who defied a desegregation order 50 years ago, was a Republican. Nope. He was a Democrat and ran in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1964, 1972...

  • Silicon Valley built the surveillance state

    By Michael Barone | 06/12/13 05:25 PM

    That’s the title of a very interesting article by Michael Hirsch in The Daily Beast/Newsweek. The don’t-be-evil folks at Google and the kids at Facebook won’t like it, since they don’t like to be associated with the National Security Agency surveillance programs. But they’re all...

  • Almost all government lawyers’ campaign cash goes to Obama

    By Michael Barone | 06/12/13 03:40 PM

    That’s the finding of TaxProf blogger Robert Anderson, who went through the records and reports that in the 2012 presidential campaign, 84 percent of contributions to major party nominees went to Barack Obama and 16 percent to Mitt Romney. No government lawyers at the National Labor Relations...

  • Michael Barone: NSA surveillance, if ungentlemanly, is not illegal

    By Michael Barone | 06/11/13 06:35 PM

    "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." That's what Secretary of State Henry Stimson said to explain why he shut down the government's cryptanalysis operations in 1929. Edward Snowden, who leaked National Security Agency surveillance projects to Britain's Guardian, evidently feels the same...

  • Scholar: Hillary Clinton supports 'powerful role' for U.S. overseas

    By Michael Barone | 06/11/13 01:30 PM

    James Mann, author-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, has been one of the most perceptive and fair-minded commentators on foreign policy. I’ve found his books on foreign policy to be illuminating and a pleasure to read. So I thought...



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