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Gas Prices Spike 15 Percent in Obama's Neighborhood
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2011 CommentIt doesn't pay to live in President Obama's neighborhood, at least in the pain in the gas department. The Watergate Exxon, pictured on top, and the M Street Exxon, shown at bottom, are just a mile from the White House. It is highly unlikely that President Obama is aware of these high prices, but Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi all pass by these stations from time to time, giving them a bird's eye view of the gas price surges Americans have been witnessing. [See a slide show of the 10 states with the highest energy use.]
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Palin Questions Who Wrote Obama’s Book
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2011 Comment (23)One set of conspiracy theories may have finally been put to rest last week, when President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, putting the lie to the contention that he was actually born in Kenya. A poll conducted this month found that 47 percent of Republicans believe that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. On Tuesday, however, former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin raised another theory popular with the far right when she questioned if former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers was the true author of Obama’s best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father. The day before Obama released his long-form birth certificate in an effort to move beyond what the president called “silliness,” Palin appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News program and defended those who questioned Obama’s “consistency with what he says today versus what he said in both the memoirs that he wrote or Bill Ayers or whomever wrote.” The real villain, Palin says, is the media that make Americans who raise questions about the president “sound kinda crazy.”
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Killed by Tea Party GOP, Second F-35 Engine Revived
Tweet Share on Facebook May 4, 2011 CommentSo much for the influence of the new fiscally-assertive Tea Party GOP in the House. Two months after they snubbed the GOP leadership, including Speaker John Boehner, and voted 233-198 to kill a costly, duplicate F-35 jet engine the Pentagon doesn't want, a House panel is planning to revive it.
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Rumsfeld’s Grumpy Memoir a Long Time Coming
Tweet Share on Facebook May 4, 2011 CommentFormer Defense chief Donald Rumsfeld took several years to pen his take on the George W. Bush years, Known and Unknown: a Memoir. The time allowed him to get the last word long after dozens of other staffers and the former president himself had released their memoirs. But the 78-year-old says he’s had sufficient time to think about his tenure. “I’ve lived a third of our country’s history and I’m unlikely to live the next third,” says Rumsfeld. “People have been urging me to write a book for 15, 20, 40 years. I don’t suppose I could wait another 10. . . . I’ve been out [of government] for four years; that’s enough time to reflect on it.”
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RNC Chief: Wait for Surprise Candidates in 2012 White House Race
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2011 Comment (18)The pool of GOP White House hopefuls could be getting bigger. Last week, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour jumped out and Rep. Ron Paul dipped his toes in, but Republican National Committee chief Reince Priebus says some surprise candidates are waiting to jump in. “The very idea of America is at stake in this next election,” Priebus says. “Many people are going to feel compelled to get into the race.” He doesn’t know who that might be, though two new polls show Mike Huckabee leading in South Carolina. But he does say the field will be solidified by summer’s end. And by the time of the convention in Tampa next year, Republicans will “feel that they will have a very good alternative to Barack Obama.” Priebus also says the RNC can have its debt down to under $5 million from $20 million by the end of the year by “reaching out and earning trust.”
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Pentagon Kills Billion Dollar Jet Engine Program
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2011 Comment (3)The Defense Department surprised no one last week when it formally killed the multibillion-dollar General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate jet fighter engine program. The program was an effort to develop a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with the goal of keeping maintenance costs down. With $3 billion already spent, the remaining development costs for the engine are estimated between $1.9 billion and $2.6 billion. But making sure the program stays dead and buried will be a struggle for DOD. Canceling the program was a big win for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, President Obama, and other frugalists setting their sights on DOD bloat. The program was slated for termination by the Pentagon as far back as January 2006, but some congressmen objected and the program lived on. “The earmark that just won’t die,” Politico called it.
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Senate GOP Unveils Jobs Plan, Tax Cuts
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2011 Comment (3)Senate Republicans today will unveil their highly-anticipated new jobs program the relies heavily on corporate tax cuts, energy exploration, spending cuts, and a simpler version to the president's healthcare program, which the GOP wants to kill.
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Obama's Bin Laden Bounce May Be Short-Lived
Tweet Share on Facebook May 2, 2011 Comment (33)Despite the cheering from supporters and some media pundits that the killing of Osama bin Laden will be a "game changer" in the 2012 presidential election, polling from the two recent wartime headlines—victory in the first Gulf war and the capture of Iraq's Saddam Hussein—show that public euphoria is fleeting.
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Killing Bin Laden Boosts Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook May 2, 2011 Comment (4)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.
