With Barbour out, new questions for 2012 Republican field. Obama, too, is less popular than he was when he was sworn in two years ago. But he comes to the race with the significant advantages of incumbency. As he steams ahead with fundraising and organizing, Republicans are under growing pressure to tamp down concerns about whether they can find a candidate capable of defeating him. Barbour registered in the single digits in early polls, so his decision will not have a dramatic impact on the contest, at least in terms of voter support. But it will give some candidates an opportunity to nail down some of the volunteers who were committed or leaning toward Barbour as well as money that would have been his.
As a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the Republican Governors Association, Barbour is the consummate member of the GOP establishment and is widely respected for his political smarts. His decision not to enter the contest, he said in a statement, grew out of his conclusion that he lacked the necessary fire in the belly. Economic anxiety threatens Obama in 2012, but in poll he edges GOP rivals. Driving the downward movement in Obama’s standing are renewed concerns about the economy and fresh worry about rising prices, particularly for gasoline. Despite signs of economic growth, 44 percent of Americans see the economy as getting worse, the highest percentage to say so in more than two years. The toll on Obama is direct: 57 percent disapprove of the job the president is doing dealing with the economy, tying his highest negative rating when it comes to the issue.
And the president is doing a bit worse among politically important independents. If Obama is running into headwinds, however, his potential Republican opponents face serious problems, as well. Less than half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are satisfied with the field of GOP candidates. That field is still taking shape, but the sentiment is a big falloff from four years ago, when nearly two-thirds of Republicans were satisfied with their options. Possible challengers Gas prices an indicator. I’d expect this from UKIP, or the Daily Mail. Not from a government leaflet. Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, 15 April 2011 HM Government have issued a new leaflet to justify their NHS reforms: Working Together For A Stronger NHS. It was produced by Number 10, appears on the Department of Health website, and many of the figures it contains are misleading, out of date, or flatly incorrect.
It begins, like much pseudoscience, with uncontroversial truths: the number of people over 85 will double, and the cost of drugs is rising. Then the trouble starts. In large letters, alone on one entire page, you see: “If the NHS was performing at truly world-class levels we would save an extra 5,000 lives from cancer every year.” The reference for this is a paper in the British Journal of Cancer called “What if cancer survival in Britain were the same as in Europe: how many deaths are avoidable?” This study does not aim to predict the future: in fact, it looks at data from 1985 to 1999 (seriously) which is a very long time ago. Mmunication in the presidential ... Enforcing human rights: the UN machinery - United Nations; World Conference on Human Rights - includes related information on conference participation | UN Chronicle | Find Articles at BNET. In Search of..... - TV.com www.tv.com/shows/in-search-of Narrarated by Leonard Nimoy, In search of was a 30 minute syndicated show that covered a wide range of paranormal topics.
It pioneered a lot of the methodology that ... Search Engine - Download.com download.cnet.com/s/search-engine search engine free download - GSA Search Engine Ranker, Nomao - The personalized search engine, Zoom Search Engine, and many more programs Google Search - Download.com download.cnet.com/s/google-search google search free download - Google Search, Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, Google Search, and many more programs Star Search - Episode Guide - TV.com www.tv.com/shows/star-search-2003/episodes Star Search episode guides on TV.com. Looting in Japan: Why so little looting in Japan? The explanation is legal as much as cultural. - By Christopher Beam. If your home was hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a tsunami, and radiation from a nuclear power plant, you'd be forgiven for not remaining calm. Yet that's what many Japanese quake victims appear to be doing. People are forming lines outside supermarkets. Life is "particularly orderly,"according to PBS.
"Japanese discipline rules despite disaster," says a columnist for The Philippine Star. Anyone who has seen Big Bird in Japan knows the shorthand for Japanese culture: They're so honest and disciplined! There's a circularity to these cultural explanations, says Mark D. Honesty, with incentives. Police presence. Organized crime. That's not to say that a culture of reciprocity and community doesn't play a role in the relatively calm response to the quake. Correction, March 17, 2011: This article originally misattributed data on the clearance rate for murder to Jake Adelstein. Middle East in turmoil: Tracking the protests | The Washington Post. Is Obama a Muslim? Birthers, bigots, and Boehner's cowardice. - By William Saletan. The party that was supposed to stand up to President Obama can't even stand up to its own fringe. Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.
Follow him on Twitter. Follow Six months ago on Meet the Press, NBC's David Gregory asked Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell about a survey in which 31 percent of Republicans said President Obama was a Muslim. McConnell demurred: "I think the faith that most Americans are questioning is the president's faith in the government to generate jobs. " The best McConnell would do was this: "The president says he's a Christian. Well, that was half a year ago. But since then, the leadership's pattern of cowardice in the face of Obamaphobic falsehoods has grown. On Jan. 6, John Boehner's first day of business as speaker of the House, a heckler in the chamber challenged Obama's citizenship. Not up to me. Yesterday on Meet the Press, Gregory gave Boehner another chance. Iran's Natanz nuclear facility recovered quickly from Stuxnet cyberattack. VIENNA - In an underground chamber near the Iranian city of Natanz, a network of surveillance cameras offers the outside world a rare glimpse into Iran's largest nuclear facility.
The cameras were installed by U.N. inspectors to keep tabs on Iran's nuclear progress, but last year they recorded something unexpected: workers hauling away crate after crate of broken equipment. In a six-month period between late 2009 and last spring, U.N. officials watched in amazement as Iran dismantled more than 10 percent of the Natanz plant's 9,000 centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium. Then, just as remarkably, hundreds of new machines arrived at the plant to replace the ones that were lost. The story told by the video footage is a shorthand recounting of the most significant cyberattack to date on a nuclear installation. "They have been able to quickly replace broken machines," said a Western diplomat with access to confidential IAEA reports. The worm's effect. The Fast Fix (washingtonpost.com) Crashing the party: Republican strategist turned gay rights activist ponders a White House run.
ON ROUTE 202, N.H. — The candidate can't find his lane. The road is a crunchy carpet of snow. The candidate drifts too far to the right. The rumble strip rattles his car. The candidate drifts too far to the left. "I can't tell where — " he says, squinting into the swirling void. "We're in the middle of the road," says his research assistant calmly. The car stereo belts the Act 1 finale from the Broadway musical "Wicked," which is about the Wicked Witch of the West and how she chose Evil to get ahead but then chose Good because that's how all fables end.
The candidate — the man behind the wheel, the man who can't find his lane — is a guy named Fred. He is doing this as an openly gay Republican who's never held elective office, using money he amassed as a conservative consultant who helped torpedo Michael Dukakis with the Willie Horton ads in 1988 and worked for the tobacco industry to stave off smoking bans in California in the '90s. Fred Karger, 61, is a nice guy. Cable Viewer. Viewing cable 09CAIRO326, SENATOR LIEBERMAN'S FEBRUARY 17 MEETING WITH GAMAL Understanding cables Every cable message consists of three parts: The top box shows each cables unique reference number, when and by whom it originally was sent, and what its initial classification was.The middle box contains the header information that is associated with the cable.
It includes information about the receiver(s) as well as a general subject.The bottom box presents the body of the cable. The opening can contain a more specific subject, references to other cables (browse by origin to find them) or additional comment. This is followed by the main contents of the cable: a summary, a collection of specific topics and a comment section. Discussing cables If you find meaningful or important information in a cable, please link directly to its unique reference number. Charles Krauthammer - Constitutionalism. For decades, Democrats and Republicans fought over who owns the American flag. Now they're fighting over who owns the Constitution. The flag debates began during the Vietnam era when leftist radicals made the fatal error of burning it. For decades since, non-suicidal liberals have tried to undo the damage.
Demeaningly, and somewhat unfairly, they are forever having to prove their fealty to the flag. Amazingly, though, some still couldn't get it quite right. During the last presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama, asked why he was not wearing a flag pin, answered that it represented "a substitute" for "true patriotism. " Today, the issue is the Constitution. Americans are in the midst of a great national debate over the power, scope and reach of the government established by that document. Call it constitutionalism.
What originalism is to jurisprudence, constitutionalism is to governance: a call for restraint rooted in constitutional text. But still mostly symbolic. 2012 Presidential Election Interactive Map and History of the Electoral College. 2010 Political Cartoons - Best Political Cartoons of 2010. Entertainment Political Humor Share this page on: Send to a Friend via Email Your suggestion is on its way! An email with a link to: was emailed to: Thanks for sharing About.com with others! Most Emailed Articles Top 10 Essential Items to Take to the Warped TourTranscript of Colberts Presidential SmackdownFunny Marijuana MemesBest George Carlin Quotes EverCows and Politics Explained See More About Best Political Cartoons of 2013 The Year's Best Political Cartoons by the Nation's Top Cartoonists Click on the cartoon to load another share on facebook share on twitter share on Google+ share via email More Political Cartoons Funny Political Memes More Political Humor Related Articles Daniel Kurtzman About.com Political Humor Sign up for My Newsletter Headlines Advertisement Related Video 5 Politics-Themed Costumes for Halloween More Entertainment Videos Explore All About.com Videos More from the Web The Next Big IPO?
Sponsored Content by nRelate. Sarah Palin’s Transparency Problem. Dec 29, 2010 Sarah Palin has a problem with the truth. Despite repeated requests — and even more delays — the former Alaska Governor has yet to release emails sent and received while she was in office. Meanwhile, the origin story for “refudiate” took on shades of untruth this week. Palin’s lack of transparency will only hurt her dimming chances in 2012. Back in 2008, when John McCain chose Palin has his running mate, a number of news organizations—the Associated Press, NBC News and ‘The Juneau Empire’—filed a Freedom of Information request to review 25,000 of Palin’s gubernatorial correspondence with her husband and senior staff. Alaska law says all requests must be processed within 10 days, but state staffers, all hired by either Palin or her former running mate, have filed fifteen delays in the emails’ release. So, which is it, Sarah: were you furthering the language with “refudiate,” or simply too embarrassed to admit a mistake that brought so much press?
POLL: Alaskans Can't Stand Sarah Palin. Familiarity breeds contempt? Apparently Alaskans did not participate in this year's Gallup poll that concluded Sarah Palin was the second most-admired woman in the world. According to a new Public Policy Polling survey she is not well-liked at all. In Alaska just 33% of voters have a favorable opinion of her to 58% with a negative one. The only place where fewer voters see her positively than her own home state is dark blue Massachusetts. But it's not just blue Alaska that has a problem. What makes her home state numbers unusually bad is that Republicans see her favorably by only a 60/30 margin.
And while this may hurt Palin's hometown pride, the real problem (if she's serious about running for president) is that no one really likes her anywhere. Knowing Palin, she will somehow manage to turn this into a campaign platform. Read the full results here > Obama to Enact End-of-Life Planning for Medicare.