Epstein Secrets

since 2007, Carl Levin leads Senate oversight of the Pentagon and is at the forefront of the raging debate over the defense budget. Levin and Sen. John McCain, the committee's ranking member, agree that the $600 billion in military cuts set to take effect next year unless a new budget passes would be, in

passes would be, in Levin's words, "a train wreck." (Defense Secretary Panetta has preferred the more apocalyptic "doomsday mechanism.") But while McCain has proposed protecting the defense budget by reducing federal spending elsewhere, Levin has argued, "We should do something intelligent, which mea

n, recently suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is primarily responsible for the failure of the Middle East peace process. 8. Ben Rhodes Behind Obama's biggest foreign-policy speeches -- his campaign address before 200,000 people in Berlin, his 2009 Cairo remarks on Middle East poli

t that wasn't their approach—to put it mildly." He insisted that the G.O.P. had moved too far to the right to make bipartisanship possible. He and John McCain had agreed on issues like immigration, climate change, and campaign finance. "The center of gravity for their party has shifted." But maybe, Obama

de and welfare reform. In 2000, Bush ran on a more progressive education platform than E FTA_R1_02204187 EFTA02720658 his Republican colleagues. McCain once supported a cap-and- trade system and a version of immigration reform now condemned by almost all Republicans. There would be no such "zones o

like to leave." VII E FTA_R1_02204189 EFTA02720660 After I talked with Plouffe, I wandered down to the basement of the White House to meet with Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national-security adviser. That day, Obama was meeting with Francois Hollande, the new French President; the building was filled w

troops will come home from Afghanistan this year. As he promised in his first Presidential campaign—to the outraged protests of Hillary Clinton and John McCain alike—he has extended a hand to EFTA00684488 traditional enemies, from Iran to Cuba. And he has not hesitated in his public rhetoric to acknowled

he outraged protests of Hillary Clinton and John McCain alike—he has extended a hand to EFTA00684488 t

an XXL France or Germany." Obama's "long game" on foreign policy calls for traditional categories of American power and ideology to be reordered. Ben Rhodes, the deputy national-security adviser for strategic communications, told me that Washington was "trapped in very stale narratives." "In the foreig