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22 May 2011 02:14

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U.S.: GOP field narrows further: Mitch Daniels won’t run for president

Another high-profile contender in 2012 is out — because his family said no. “Simply put, I find myself caught between two duties,” the Indiana governor said. “I love my country; I love my family more.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 May 2011 14:19

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Politics: Herman Cain: Nobody knows him, but those who do like him

  • “I once Ate a pizza, and it was this big. That’s why they called me the Godfather.” (OK, he didn’t say that; we just love the photo.) Herman Cain, who we’ve covered before on numerous occasions, is the latest guy to drop his hat into the presidential ring. “Let me tell you some of the reasons why I’m running for president of the United States.We have become a nation of crises,” he said when making his announcement today. He’s a bit of a wildcard — he doesn’t have strong name recognition, but he does have the kind of business acumen which makes him pretty desirable. His polling shows a pretty interesting trend — not many people know him, but those who do freaking love him. More:
  • 29% of self-described GOP voters know who Herman Cain even is, according to a May 17 Gallup poll
  • <0.5% of voters in that poll picked the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO as their first choice for president in 2012
  • 71% of people who did know anything about the Herminator, however, had positive feelings about him source
  • » Can he make a run? As we noted in a Webdoc we made a couple weeks back, he kinda killed it at the Fox News presidential debate — which didn’t feature any major candidates, to Cain’s benefit. With big-name establishment Republicans failing to wow the field and loaded with reasons to nick their reputation (looking at you Newt), folks like Cain and Ron Paul have a good chance of doing well this time around. We expect his name recognition to go way up. (photo from Gage Skidmore‘s Flickr page)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 May 2011 13:50

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U.S.: Pawlenty set to announce 2012 presidential bid

  • Tim “Michael Bay” Pawlenty reportedly plans to announce his presidential bid Monday. We hope he wins the nomination, because it would be an epic election season with T-Paw’s overproduced ads like this. It seems like he’s taking his own advice, and getting off the sideline. He’s going to need a lot of money to keep making ads like that, though — we can’t wait to see his 2012 election trailer that will undoubtedly go with the announcement. Robots? Explosions? Dramatic music? T-Paw has it in spades. In fact, we’d argue he’s a Republobot. (pic via Gage Skidmore‘s Flickr page) source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 May 2011 11:51

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U.S.: John Boehner: Obama isn’t serious about cutting the deficit

“He’s talking about [the deficit],” Boehner says. “But I’m not seeing real action here.” Obama put the Bush tax cuts on the cutting board. You won’t. Who’s serious again? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 May 2011 16:58

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Politics: Speaker Boehner wants it both ways on debt ceiling debate

  • That would be a financial disaster, not only for us, but for the worldwide economy. I don’t think it’s a question that’s even on the table.
  • Speaker Of The House John Boehner • Commenting on the looming necessity to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, all the way back in late January. See how quickly things change? Seriously, though, the above statement is almost certainly Speaker Boehner’s true opinion on this issue. The fact that he’s now trying to game some more political leverage out of it is unsurprising, as it’s very similar to the way he handled last month’s budget battle. Greg Sargent has a pretty astute take on this — that Boehner knows failure to raise the limit is unthinkable, but wants to push this debate as close to the eleventh hour as possible, hoping that will make it easier to convince members of his own party that he got all he could out of the White House. Sounds about right to us. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Mar 2011 14:11

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U.S.: Washington Post political reporter David S. Broder has died

  • David S. Broder, dead at 81: The legendary Washington Post political reporter passed away today. A veteran of cataclysmic American news stories, not least of all the Watergate scandal, Broder was a deeply respected and revered figure in print news, and had last contributed a column to the Post on February 6th. I think most everybody understands the dream of loving your work so much that you want to just keep doing it, even into your 80s. That Broder knew this joy, and showed this industriousness, is a credit both to himself and the people who surrounded him. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Feb 2011 21:00

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Politics: Michelle Obama’s healthy food fight has some bipartisan support

  • It’s not all Rush Limbaugh inexplicably calling Michelle Obama fat over on the right. For some reason completely confusing to anyone with half a brain, Michelle Obama has gotten criticism from some conservatives, who somehow have equated “the First Lady encouraging good dieting and exercise” to “forcing people be healthy.” But not everyone is going crazy about what is pretty much the stupidest controversy ever – especially one in an era when there’s a government shutdown and insane unrest in the Middle East. Here are a couple of examples we can get behind:
  • supporter New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has struggled with weight, supports her campaign. “I think it’s a really good goal to encourage kids to eat better,” he said. If a kid can avoid that in his adult years or her adult years, more power to them, and I think the first lady’s speaking out well.”
  • supporter Mike Huckabee, who famously lost a ton of weight while in office, says that while he doesn’t think the government should tell us what to eat, “I think Mrs. Obama being out there. encouraging people in a positive way to eat well and to exercise and to be healthy, I don’t have a problem with that.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

21 Feb 2011 00:45

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U.S.: On the run: Wisconsin Dems still have time for continental breakfasts

Meet perhaps the most comfortable, relaxed fugitives the state of Wisconsin has ever seen. Never before have people on the run from the law looked so well-rested. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Feb 2011 15:50

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U.S.: Another paper tiger? House pushes to strip Planned Parenthood funding

  • 240-185 to strip the org of funding source
  • » This has nothing to do with abortions: This bill, which only passed in the GOP-controlled house, affects preventative-health services like cancer screenings or contraception – not abortions, which are maybe 3% of Planned Parenthood’s entire array of services and are already not supported through federal funding – at the grand cost of $330 million. Now, the likelihood that this would actually affect Planned Parenthood as-is? That’s very low, because this is part of that whole Republican-pushed spending plan that will likely not get through the Senate or Obama in its current form, but the fact that it’s even on the table is getting a lot of people worked up.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Feb 2011 20:13

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U.S.: PATRIOT Act renewal passes House – with simple majority in tow

  • last week It appeared a far-right uprising had sidelined the PATRIOT Act’s renewal in the House, with the bill falling short of the two-thirds total it needed to succeed.
  • this week By passing the bill with rules that only required a simple majority, the extension will go over to the Senate. The vote totals were nearly the same as last week. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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