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Federal Judge Declares Obamacare Unconstitutional
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (36)In a stunning setback for President Barack Obama in his drive to remake the U.S. healthcare system, a federal judge ruled Monday that a key provision of the new law was unconstitutional and therefore, “the entire act must be declared void.”
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Obama Needs Outside Help Handling Egypt Protests
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (7)Events in Egypt present the Obama administration with its most serious foreign policy crisis to date—serious because, unlike the other issues on the table, it is not likely to be resolved in the short term and could easily go in a way that runs counter to U.S. strategic and economic long-term interests.
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What's Behind Jon Hunstman for President 2012?
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (3)Jon Huntsman, the Republican former governor of Utah currently serving as U.S. ambassador to China, is reportedly expected to resign his post in the near future. Apparently he has an eye on replacing his boss, and I don’t mean Hillary Clinton at State. Huntsman has reportedly already assembled a presidential campaign team (heavy on John McCain veterans) so a Huntsman 2012 bid could indeed be in the offing.
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Why WikiLeaks's Julian Assange Isn't a Journalist
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (19)Julian Assange still doesn’t know who he is.
The man behind WikiLeaks is not a victim of government persecution, he is not a courageous teller of the truth, and he is certainly not a journalist, as he suggested in a self-serving interview on 60 Minutes Sunday night. He is an agitator, and one whose ego (and operating budget) is driven by masses of people who feel disempowered and like the idea of making governments and businesses as nervous as so many people have been during this era of war and recession.
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Michele Bachmann Rises as Sarah Palin Falls
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (17)January brought—or wrought—a new narrative for the radical right: let's call it the Rise of Michele Bachmann and the Fall of Sarah Palin. And I'm not sayin' that's a bad or good thing—but a thing I feel in my winter bones.
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Obama Has Mentioned 'American Exceptionalism' More Than Bush
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2011 Comment (15)Only one sitting president in the last 82 years has publicly uttered the magical phrase “American exceptionalism”--care to guess who it is? Ronald Reagan, he of the “shining city on a hill?” George W. Bush, who closed his speeches by asking that “God continue to bless” America? Nope. The only president to publicly discuss (and for that matter embrace) “American exceptionalism” is Barack Obama.
This would be the same president, of course, who is subject to a steadily rising stream of suspicion because of his supposed refusal to give voice sufficient voice to his love of country.
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Obama's Corporate Tax Cut Could Be a Tax Hike
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2011 Comment (6)In an otherwise largely forgettable State of the Union address, President Barack Obama surprisingly called for a cut in the U.S. corporate income tax rate.
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Egypt Cuts the Internet in the Face of Revolution
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2011 Comment (1)Here in Washington, the snow has knocked out electricity and cable TV in many neighborhoods, so the live pictures of Egyptian unrest on television. The best thing to do is to go on a computer or mobile device to see what’s really going on. So far, the Washington Post’s website is carrying a live video stream from Al-Jazeera, and MSNBC is following the English version of the RNN Facebook page. (RNN is the Rassd News Network, a citizen-journalist website.) When the unrest started on the streets of Tehran in 2009, everyone followed on Twitter, until the Iranian government briefly interrupted online service. But the Egyptian government has completely shut down all Internet service, in an unprecedented move cutting all four major Internet providers there at exactly 12:34 a.m. last night. Take a look at this graphic from Newser.
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Michele Bachmann Is a Real Face of the GOP and Tea Party
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2011 Comment (28)Rep. Michele Bachmann clearly has become a real face of the Republican Party as well as the Tea Party, and that is a big problem for House Speaker John Boehner and mainstream Republicans. Thanks to 24/7 cable and the fact that her outrageous statements make good copy, Bachmann can now get on television nearly any time she desires.
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Palin Disses Reagan With Anti-Obama 'Sputnik Moment' Jab
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2011 Comment (23)It’s an article of faith among conservatives that Ronald Reagan “won” the Cold War, consigning the Soviet Union to what he eloquently termed the “ash heap of history.” The argument goes that Reagan’s acceleration of the arms race, including pursuing his Strategic Defense Initiative “Star Wars” pipedream, brought the Soviet Union to its knees when they couldn’t match it.
So how to square this with the recent comments by Fox News talking head (and potential 2012 presidential candidate) Sarah Palin who, while directing another rhetorical assault against President Obama, gave credit for the U.S.S.R.’s downfall to its “Sputnik moment”? Perhaps her Mama Grizzly instinct to attack Obama has overwhelmed her natural conservative reverence for the Gipper?
