Alabama issued a statement yesterday imploring parents to send their children to school even if they don’t have a birth certificate, after thousands of Hispanic students failed to show up for classes this week. Alabama’s strict new immigration law requires all enrolling students to present a birth certificate, but state…
Continue reading …In a letter to supporters, Sarah Palin said: ‘I have decided that I will not be seeking the GOP nomination for president of the US’ Sarah Palin has ended her year-long tease of American conservatives by finally announcing she will not be joining the presidential race. In a letter to supporters, Palin said: “After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for president of the United States. “When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.” Her departure clarifies the Republican field, with no other candidates likely to join the race at this late stage. The Republican contest is shaping up basically as between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas governor Rick Perry, in spite of a recent surge in support for businessman Herman Cain. As well as saying she was putting her family first, she added she could be more effective for the conservative cause in helping getting Tea Party supporters and other rightwingers elected to Congress, governorships and the White House rather than standing herself. She did not need a title to help America recover, she said. “My decision is based upon a review of what commonsense conservatives and independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the presidency.” Still a strong voice in the Tea Party movement, she intends in the coming weeks to co-ordinate strategies to help Republicans retake the White House and Senate next year, and hold its control of the House. Palin has long toyed with the idea of a presidential run but has come up against poor poll ratings. One of the most recent polls, in the Washington Post this week, showed two-thirds of Republicans did not want her to stand. Palin rose to prominence in 2008 when she was the surprise choice of John McCain as his running mate against Barack Obama. She enjoyed high ratings among conservatives in the aftermath of the election and remains a popular figure on the right. Last year, she seemed to be a likely contender for the presidency but with each month that passed this year, her chances became slimmer, and irritation crept in among her supporters over her indecision. She was too late, seeing the right-wing ground she would have sought to occupy already claimed by figures such as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and now Texas governor Rick Perry. She frequently left an impression that she would liked to have stood, turning up at key Republican events throughout the year that were attended by declared candidates. She launched a tour this year accompanied by her family aboard a bus painted like a campaign one and arrived in New Hampshire at roughly the same time as Romney was there announcing his decision to stand. In August, she dropped into Iowa as Republican candidates gathered for the Ames straw poll. She developed a strong dislike of much of the media, with the exception of a few trusted friends at Fox, where she is a paid employee. Some commentators predicted she would not stand because she feared the impact of renewed media scrutiny on her family, while others said she was enjoying the money from her new celebrity career too much to enter the fray. She suffered a serious political setback with the attempted assassination of the Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, in January. The attempt came after Palin had put out a graphic saying that Giffords was in her crosshairs. Although there was no evidence linking that to the shooting, it opened up a debate about whether rhetoric in American politics had become too violent. In her letter, Palin thanked her supporters who had defended her throughout the years and encouraged her to stand. She insisted that her decision not to stand meant she will fade out of politics and she set out her agenda for smaller government. “I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for president where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimise government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.” Sarah Palin Republicans United States US politics Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Josh Ozersky is a James Beard award-winning food writer, but he’s no morality cop: In an essay for Time , he admits to eating our planet’s wee creatures: “veal cutlets, suckling pigs, spring lambs, game hens.” And he has come to terms with that. But he does want to share one…
Continue reading …Mitt Romney may think Occupy Wall Street is dangerous “class warfare,” but Herman Cain’s criticism of the protesters gets personal: “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself,” he tells the Wall Street Journal in an interview….
Continue reading …The good news: According to self-reported data, Americans are driving drunk less often. The bad news: It may not be because we’re more responsible, but because … we’re broke. The CDC data shows that self-reported drunk driving among adults was down 30% from 161 million instances in 2006 to about 112…
Continue reading …On Labor Day, Carl Levin gave President Obama the text of a speech by Harry Truman—who won reelection despite a bad economy by attacking Republicans so viciously that he earned the nickname “Give ‘Em Hell Harry.” Ever since, Obama’s been giving Republicans hell, the Washington Post observes. With liberals…
Continue reading …Rosamund Pike surprised everyone when she was cast as a Bond Girl 10 years ago. And
Continue reading …Courtney Love is getting a lot of press for a recent Vanity Fair interview in which she says that if Kurt Cobain came back to life, she’d kill him again for committing suicide. But that’s far from the only interesting thing she says. Highlights: The full Cobain quote : “Mad? Ya…
Continue reading …Johnny Depp really stepped in it in a recent Vanity Fair interview, when he compared photo shoots to rape. “Well, you just feel like you’re being raped somehow,” he said. “Raped … It feels like a kind of weird—just weird, man.” Anti-rape activists, of course, were not amused. “While…
Continue reading …Bummer news for an Oakland marijuana dispensary that calls itself the world’s largest: IRS auditors say it owes $2.5 million in back taxes for 2007 and 2008, a figure so high it may force Harborside Health Center to close its doors, reports the San Francisco Chronicle . Here’s the twist:…
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