It’s not yet even February, but lawmakers are already dumping an armload of bad ideas onto their respective state governments. The sheer ridiculousness of a few proposed laws has resulted in some legislators quickly abandoning their efforts with a shrug and an excuse. “Haha! J-K. I didn’t really think it would actually GO anywhere.” (more)
1.) Obama’s jobs team gets green-washed — “President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,” reports Bloomberg News. “Immelt has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama ‘are committed’ to making the U.S. ‘the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.’” According to Bloomberg, “Immelt is among a group of executives — Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney; Motorola Solutions Inc. CEO Greg Brown, and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote — who have voiced support for Obama policies. The four serve on several of the president’s outside advisory boards”–and all four have made a killing on green jobs subsidies (more)
The unemployment rate and the nation’s increasingly precarious fiscal position – its enormous budget deficits and its ballooning debt – will be the dual points of emphasis in President Obama’s second State of the Union address on Tuesday. (more)
Though she’s often viewed as the world’s most influential woman, Oprah Winfrey can’t always have her way. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A passenger plane briefly lost radio contact with air traffic controllers when the pilot turned to the wrong frequency as he approached Washington, leading to the scrambling of fighter jets and the evacuation of the U.S. Capitol, federal officials said Saturday. (more)
More than nine out of 10 Americans celebrate Christmas – even atheists, agnostics or believers in other faiths, according to surveys by LifeWay Research and USA TODAY/Gallup. They might be roasting chestnuts over an open fire, decking the halls with boughs of holly or trying to get the Chipmunks Christmas song out of their heads, but they are celebrating. The problem is, what are they celebrating? (more)
Andrew Davis, [the ex-governor's] adviser, saw the Palins off, and I met him for coffee later that morning in Midtown Manhattan. Davis is a personable and quick-witted 33-year-old Massachusetts native who was a deputy campaign manager for and in 2004 and later an opposition researcher for the before working with Palin at the close of the 2008 campaign. He’s nonetheless low-profile in the extreme, like all of Palin’s senior associates. (The New York Times Magazine’s photo editors had been trying to find an image of Davis; he assured me that they would not succeed.) Davis and his colleagues recognize that the issue of trust informs Sarah Palin’s every dealing with the world beyond Wasilla since her circular-firing-squad experience at the close of the 2008 presidential campaign. Her inner circle shuns the media and would speak to me only after Palin authorized it, a process that took months. They are content to labor in a world without hierarchy or even job descriptions — “None of us has titles,” Davis said — and where the adhesive is a personal devotion to Palin rather than the furtherance of her political career. (more)
Former U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was pacing the second floor of the Richland County Courthouse around 9 a.m. Tuesday in a pair of wind pants, a gray Army T-shirt and a green baseball cap, which an officer later told him to remove when he entered the courtroom without his attorney. (more)
Southern Miss officials today identified the victims of an early morning shooting as football players Martez Smith, 22, of Canton, Tim Green, 21, of Columbia, S.C., and Deddrick Jones, 23, of Bastrop, La. (more)
NEW YORK (AP) — Watch out, TCU. Boise State is gaining. (more)
Look closely at the recently-elected 112th Congress. Notice all those bright new faces of “color”? Guess what, most of those faces are Republican. The GOP fielded a large number of ethnic candidates, and, to the surprise of some, a large number won. The new Republican crop includes five Hispanic freshmen, including one woman, Jaime Herrera, who won an open seat in, of all places, Washington. And the two Hispanic Republican candidates in Texas won by defeating Democratic incumbents. (more)
AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn quarterback Cam Newton has been stalked by news reports that his father shopped him to Mississippi State, asking for money for his son to play football. The rumors seemed to be everywhere over the past two weeks, except inside Jordan-Hare Stadium. (more)
A younger generation of Democrats is chafing at being asked to stand aside and let a triumvirate of elders keep their leadership positions in the wake of a catastrophic midterm election result. (more)
With the 2010 midterm elections behind us, the focus has turned to the new class of Republican leaders that were swept into office. Several have already been labeled as future stars of the party. Among them are Senator-elect Marco Rubio of Florida, Congresswoman-elect Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Governor-elect Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Senator-elect Rob Portman of Ohio, and Governor-elect Brian Sandoval of Nevada. These names have been floated as potential presidential and vice presidential candidates in the coming years. Here is a look at several other newly elected officeholders who have the potential be stars for the GOP: (more)
In what could become a showdown for the No. 2 spot in Democratic House leadership, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer announced Friday that he would consider a run for Minority Whip, a position South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn says he intends to keep in 2011. (more)
ROCK HILL, S.C. | Republican efforts to unseat House Budget Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina got a boost Wednesday when former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney stumped for GOP challenger Mick Mulvaney, the day after a poll showed Mulvaney leading by ten points. (more)
In the wake of the firing of former National Public Radio news analyst Juan Williams over public comments made about Muslims, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would support a bill that ends federal funding for public broadcasting media outlets. (more)
Tom Clements, Green Party candidate challenging Sen. Jim DeMint encourages voters who vote for the first name on the ballot to “keep doing what you’re doing,” despite disagreeing with with their “methodology,” in a Web ad released Wednesday. (more)
In the Hampton Building, not far from the deep-fried hubbub of the State Fair, the Democratic Party has a table set up to remind fairgoers about its candidates for political office. (more)
Democratic strategists acknowledged they are abandoning a dozen House seats the party now holds, as they try to salvage their majority in the chamber by shoring up candidates with better chances. (more)
