enlarge John Huntsman turned down the Grover Norquist pledge to never raise taxes which did surprise me. Less surprising is the news that Pawlenty is standing on the fence about it: Howard Fineman: It’s Grover time in the GOP, which has nothing to do with “Sesame Street” and everything to do with Jon Huntsman’s effort to distinguish himself from the other two BWFGs (bland, white former governors) in the Republican presidential race. This is the season in which the bearded, Harvard-trained ayatollah of the anti-tax movement, Grover Norquist, demands (almost always successfully) that candidates sign a document pledging to oppose any tax increase of any kind. The founder and leader of the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist is clever, meticulous and persistent — and the leading enforcer and symbol of Republican tax-cutting orthodoxy. Most Republican presidential contenders have signed since Norquist started demanding that they do so back in 1988. [..] Tim Pawlenty signed a Norquist-style pledge when he was governor of Minnesota, but has not signed the official one yet this year. “I expect that he will,” Norquist said, adding “I expect that they ALL will.” Maybe not. “We haven’t said either way,” said Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant. And Huntsman told reporters Tuesday that he would not sign Norquist’s or any other pledge this year — on abortion, gay rights or any other topic. “First of all, I don’t sign pledges,” he told reporters after announcing his candidacy near the Statue of Liberty. “I was asked to sign a pledge when I ran for governor in 2004, and I didn’t. And I got attacked because I didn’t. And then we went around and ended up cutting and reforming taxes at record levels [and] I never heard anything in the aftermath of our work. My take on all of this is, your record should say everything about where you are and where you’re going. I don’t need to sign a pledge.” I imagine Pawlenty will sign the pledge as soon as Grover turns up the heat on him, but Huntsman won’t for sure now. However, on Fineman’s report I find one terrible flaw: But there are signs that his grip on the Party may be weakening a bit, which presents an opening for Huntsman and a dilemma for Tim Pawlenty. Sorry Howard, I don’t buy that for one second. Grover was once considered a radical Tea Party type when he first started his activism with Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff and the College Republicans thirty years ago, but today, tax cuts and never raising taxes is the mantra of Conservatives and the GOP. There’s little doubt about his strength in their party.
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Continue reading …Isn’t in inspiring? Once again , the Obama family is bringing peace and raising esteem for America in a foreign land by their very presence. Back on March 21, New York Times reporters Alexei Barrionuevo and Jackie Calmes with Obama gushed “Brazilians who gathered at a plaza trying to catch a glimpse of him said that he had inspired millions in this country because of his African heritage.” Paris correspondent Scott Sayare on September 23, 2010 praised Obama’s magical abilities: “But anti-American sentiment, once pervasive in these neighborhoods, seems to have been all but erased since the election of Mr. Obama, who has proved to be a powerful symbol of hope here and a powerful diplomatic tool.” This time it’s first lady Michelle Obama’s turn to work a personal diplomatic miracle, in South Africa. Celia Dugger reported from Soweto for Thursday’s “ South Africa Embraces Mrs. Obama With Fervor .” The prickly ambivalence that South Africans often show toward the United States, which is often perceived here as an overbearing superpower, seems to have been suspended for Mrs. Obama. South Africans have embraced her with stirring emotion since she arrived on Monday, and she has been hugging them back, one by one, stop after stop. Both the choreography of her appearances, and the nationally broadcast speech she gave here on Wednesday, have evoked the commonalities between the freedom struggles of black people in South Africa and the United States — an approach that has resonated with South Africans. At the Regina Mundi church, which was both a sanctuary and an organizing hub for those fighting apartheid, much like black churches in the United States during the civil rights movement, Mrs. Obama told the story of young people in both countries “who marched until their feet were raw, who endured beatings and bullets and decades behind bars, who risked and sacrificed everything they had for the freedom they deserved.” “It is because of them,” she said, “that I stand here before you as first lady of the United States of America.” Donald Gips, the American ambassador, who has cultivated friendships with a wide range of South Africans, said he believed that Mrs. Obama’s visit would contribute to a further warming of relations between the United States and Africa’s leading democracy. …. Having the first African-American couple in the White House has not hurt relations between South Africa and the United States, either. …. Mrs. Obama spoke to each guest individually, those present said. Several guests said they were touched that Mrs. Obama quoted Albertina Sisulu, a beloved mother of the antiapartheid movement who died this month at age 92. And they chuckled when she told them her husband was “pouty” that he had been unable to come to South Africa with her.
Continue reading …Twenty-one-year-old Willard Yoder, who is Amish, was arrested in Indiana last week for “sexting” a 12-year-old girl and trying to solicit her outside a restaurant. Their correspondence began when he texted a random number and received a response. A forensic probe of the girl’s cell phone revealed that Yoder had sent her more than 600
Continue reading …File this under ‘questionably useful, but darling nonetheless.’ ZviZvi over at Instructables needed to update an outdated product for his Industrial Design portfolio, so he took grandpa’s old rotary phone and implanted an Arduino soul . With an involved bit of slap n’ solder and a WiFly shield , our enterprising Israeli modder transformed this once-luddite tech into an emoticon-tweeting wireless terminal. While the phone’s LED-lit dial is only capable of outputting ten heartwarming expressions, that’s still ten more than any rotary phone’s ever had before. Sure, you could always use that ever-accessible laptop (or smartphone) for your Twitter needs, but where’s the fun in that? Per usual, budding inventors can tickle their Emo in the source link below. Rotary phone mod tweets your emoticons, heavy soldering still required originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …At this rate, the FBI isn’t going to need a Most Wanted list much longer. 2011 is turning into a good year to be in law enforcement. Hot on the heels of Osama bin Laden being taken out, alleged Boston gang boss James “Whitey” Bulger, and fellow member of the FBI’s Most Wanted list, was
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