Us politics

Nigel Farage is becoming a jet setter. Yesterday evening, he addressed the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) of Republicans in Maryland. Later today, he is delivering the final speech at Ukip’s spring conference in Margate. It’s a tough life, but why did he bother going 3,000 miles for a 20 minute speech? His friendly style appeared to go down well with the Americans, far more customised to his style of politics, but it he did not draw a huge crowd: I’d estimate 250 people listening to Farage in a vast room that can seat 5,500. But those here are loving him. pic.twitter.com/0TRkieUGxo — Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) February 27, 2015 The topics were

  Fredericksburg, Virginia Obama forgot he had a cup in his hand as he saluted and nearly poured the contents over his own head Americans crave traditions. The older they are the more we cherish them. Thanksgiving, which beats out Christmas, was invented by Abe Lincoln in 1863 but it is an outgrowth of the timeless harvest festival celebrated by the generations of mankind that formed the earliest agricultural communities. Much harder is inventing traditions from something new. In this we are unsurpassed. Take the president’s annual State of the Union address to congress. Ever since Thomas Jefferson’s time, a clerk from the House of Representatives read it in a

Washington, DC The American election cycle is beginning to resemble the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. In the film, you may recall, Bill Murray plays an egomaniacal Pittsburgh weatherman named Phil Connors who discovers that he’s stuck in a time loop in which the same day repeats itself over and over. He goes bonkers, driving a truck over a cliff in a suicide attempt, only to wake up again the next morning. Substitute the American public for Connors and you have a sense of the prevailing political atmosphere in the US. Ever since 9/11 shattered its illusion of omnipotence, the United States has been unable to escape its troubles. Instead, it

When America’s National Institutes of Heath said that it hadn’t cured Ebola yet because of budget cuts, Senator Rand Paul had an acidic answer. No, he told an audience of Republicans, the problem was not underfunding. It was bad priorities. ‘Have you seen what the NIH spends money on?’ he asked. ‘$939,000 spent to discover whether or not male fruit flies would like to consort with younger female fruit flies. $117,000 spent to determine if most monkeys are right-handed and like to throw poop with their right hands.’ And best of all, $2.4 million for an ‘origami condom’, which suggests something shaped like a swan. In fact, it’s modelled on

Washington, D.C. Ed Miliband met with Barack Obama yesterday, haven’t you heard? The British press covered the visit with their usual gusto but the visit barely registered on the radar of American outlets. Out of the country’s most influential papers, neither the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal wrote a single word about the potential next prime minister of the United Kingdom meeting the president. Miliband wasn’t covered on any of the blogs or TV stations either. Only one US paper said anything about the visit. In yesterday’s Washington Post, I described the lack of interest in Miliband’s visit from Washington’s point of view and why the trip matters for the Labour leader: ‘The Miliband brush-by would not be the first