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Lamar Alexander's New Try for the White House
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (2)After two failed tries for the presidency, is Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander ready to dust off his plaid shirt for another run? Washington's exclusive Alfalfa Club thinks so. The group of big shot politicians and Washingtonians, whose main purpose is to hold a late January joke-filled dinner and political roast, picked Alexander as their nominee for president at Saturday night's soiree. [See a slide show of 10 GOP frontrunners in 2012.]
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Obama Not a Stereotypical Black Leader
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (3)Barack Obama is proving that he’s not a stereotypical black leader, despite being the nation’s first African-American president. He’s not caught up in affirmative action, hasn’t created tons of race commissions, and goes out of his way to avoid black-white politics. And when asked directly by our White House correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh if he’s even conscious of his race when making major decisions, Obama says, “You just don’t think about it; you really don’t. You’ve got too many other things to worry about.”
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Clinton Aide: Twitter Revolts, Like in Egypt, Take Just Weeks
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2011 Comment (1)Beware the social media organized revolutions taking place in countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Albania. A top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says they work, and fast.
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Obama's Hopeful Speech Beats Ryan's Fearful One
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2011 Comment (1)Pollster John Zogby updates our weekly Obama Report Card with a grade on the president's performance. Zogby uses his polling, expert analysis, and interaction with major players to come up with a grade and some comments that capture how he sees the president's week ending.
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Radical Cleric Urges Jihadists to Steal
Tweet Share on Facebook January 27, 2011 CommentAnwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical cleric with ties to al-Qaeda, is using his online magazine, Inspire, to urge jihadists to steal “booty”—money and property—from people or institutions that don’t believe in his holy war. And it’s not really theft, he adds, explaining that ill-gotten wealth is really just fuel for jihad. “The reasoning behind comparing booty to hunting and wood gathering is because the property which exists in the hands of the disbelievers is not considered to be rightfully theirs,” writes al-Awlaki, a key suspect in the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas 2009.
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GOP’s Dick Lugar Knocks Tea Party
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2011 Comment (19)Dumping on the Tea Party isn’t just a Democratic hobby, though some take it to an art form, as when former Democratic Party boss Howard Dean recently called the movement “the last gasp of the generation that has trouble with diversity.” Republicans do it too, especially those facing a Tea Party challenge. Long-serving Indiana Republican Sen. Dick Lugar, whose reelection bid is under Tea Party attack, offers this review of the movement: “I think there are a great number of Americans, not just in Indiana, who are genuinely angry about how things have turned out for them. Sometimes they are unemployed or they have family members who have been unemployed or they are in situations in which they feel a heavy governmental restriction of their activities. In essence, they are unhappy about life in America and they want to express themselves.” Lugar says most just want to be heard, but really can’t focus on what’s bugging them. “We want this or that stopped or there is spending, big government—these are all, we would say, sort of large cliché titles, but they are not able to articulate all the specifics,” he says.
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Chamber of Commerce Launches Attack on Unions
Tweet Share on Facebook January 25, 2011 Comment (1)The election didn’t end conservative threats to public employee labor unions. A Texas GOP congressman this month proposed a 10 percent cut in federal workers. And for the first time, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched an attack on public unions. Boss Tom Donohue, in his recent State of American Business address, said, “Some unions—particularly the public employee unions—are pushing an extreme agenda that extends well beyond representing their members in the workplace.” One beef: Teachers unions want to “perpetuate the status quo in our failing public schools.”
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Obama's 'Freeze' Rehashes Failed 2010 Try
Tweet Share on Facebook January 25, 2011 CommentTax and spending experts, echoed by Republican leaders, say that President Obama's plan to call for a spending freeze and earmark ban in his State of the Union address is deja vu all over again, to quote former Yankee Manager Yogi Berra. "He came out with the same thing last year," says a key GOP-er, "but still came out with $70 billion in new spending."
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Obama’s Re-election in 2012 Looks Good
Tweet Share on Facebook January 25, 2011 CommentRepublicans aren’t as cocky about firing Obama in 2012 as they were just a few months ago. Aides to top GOP presidential prospects say the slow but upward trajectory of the economy could be a game-changer in the election.
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Obama’s Michael Vick Talk a Poor Move
Tweet Share on Facebook January 24, 2011 Comment (11)The next time President Obama tries to glom on to a sports star for a little boost, he’d better consult the Nielsens first. The firm has just started rating the political and commercial endorsement value of sports stars and, with a quick look, Obama would have discovered that kissing up to Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning would have done him a whole lot better than sympathizing with Philadelphia Eagles QB Michael Vick, who’s still living down a dogfighting conviction. Vick’s Nielsen/E-Poll “N-score” is poor nationally: 25, a “starter” on the new chart, says Nielsen Sports Vice President Stephen Master. Though if Obama was trying to reach African-Americans, then it was a touchdown, because Vick’s brand is sky-high among blacks.
