in case you missed it. @GovernorKayIvey @realdonaldtrump 🤮 https://t.co/JmcOPlzcHk
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CHIKA (@oranicuhh) May 23, 2019****
Posts Tagged ‘muslim
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Our Muslim Soldier
When he was young in his country of birth
His loving mother would tell her friends
This day my son took his first steps
And the next day he would
Try again and take two more
And within a short amount of time
In a year that seems like forever ago
He was walking toward me
One step, five, ten steps.
Ten steps.
The father wanted to pursue
Some of his own dreams
For higher education and
To provide a happy life
For his family
And brought them to our country.
They learned our culture
They made the most of it
They pocketed our Constitution
They became like us
Our neighbors, co-workers, friends
Exactly as some of our ancestors
Who were immigrants
To the land of the free
The home of the brave
The place most of us
Take for granted.
In time, this son took more steps
As an American
Learned from his parents
How to care for others around him
In high school helped disabled children
Learn to swim
Learned from the Army recruiter
How he could further give back
Could become a soldier, himself
Law school could wait as he would
Offer a few years to the country
Where he had walked and grown.
The young soldier served his tour
And was set to serve another
And traveled to what is referred to as
“The cradle of civilization”
To fulfill his wartime duties
And his parents asked him
To stay home where he had once been
And always would be
Cradled in their loving embrace.
He said he had to go.
Our young Muslim soldier had to go.
He had to support his troops
He had to go.
One day a challenge occurred
And he looked it in the eye
To save the Muslims on one side of the wall
And to save his troops on the other
He held up his hand and
Marched into battle alone
He marched into battle
They say he took ten steps
Ten steps
And saved everyone
Hearing the story we
Can only ask ourselves
How many of us
Would have had
Such courage.
As we sit and learn of his life
Of his parents’ grief and our country’s loss
One thing we know for sure
He believed in a God who would welcome him
If he lived a good life
A good and civil life
And if his constitution stayed strong
One thing we can imagine at the end
As his parents grieved and
Temporarily gave him up
Our Muslim Soldier heard the
Invitation into heaven
And it was a voice calling out to him
Or it was a feeling he got
That it was time to take
Those last ten steps
And he would indeed
Be home again.
Mission done.
Boots on.
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U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan
1976-2004
American Hero
Our Muslim Soldier
President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque in Catonsville, Maryland
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President Barack Obama goes without shoes, out of deference, as he delivers remarks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque
Well, Il Douche went full Nazi yesterday. At a rally, he proposed banning all Muslims from entering the US. The crowd, of course, went wild.
Various GOP grandees clutched their pearls and averred that this was unconstitutional, un-American, and bad politics. Even Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney snapped back at Il Douche. (Of course, he was probably mostly concerned with his rich Saudi friends not being able to visit him at his secure, undisclosed location.)
Forgive me if I take their protestations with an ounce of salt.
The GOP, for 50 years, has covertly stoked racism among the white working class, the people who feel disenfranchised since the social justice movements of the 1960s and who form the bedrock of the Republican voting base. As a wise Republican once said, you can no longer say “nigger”, but you can say “welfare queen”, or “forced busing”. The code is understood.
Continue reading ‘The First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce’
11
Feb
15
A Tweet Or Two
The world over, this is what the victims of terrorism look like #ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/EEdW4nWRVT
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Ryan Cummings (@Pol_Sec_Analyst) February 11, 2015My cousin, his wife and sister in law were murdered for being muslim. Someone tell me racism/hate crimes don't exist. #MuslimLivesMatter
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Haya Barakat (@HayaBarakat) February 11, 2015****
Yusor Abu-Salha, murdered in #ChapelHillShooting, recently provided dental aid to Syrian refugees. http://t.co/UUCsHf5EFj
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Raquel E Saraswati (@RaquelEvita) February 11, 2015Deah Barakat, murdered in #ChapelHillShooting, also gave back, providing dental and food supplies to the homeless. http://t.co/r2LPhuZyss
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Raquel E Saraswati (@RaquelEvita) February 11, 2015****
People calling this a dispute over parking are full of BS. Whenever a white person does this to a minority community, we always look for loopholes to justify it. This is a hate crime
Victims’ father on #ChapelHillShooting: “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime." newsobserver.com/2015/02/11/454…
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Brady Dennis (@brady_dennis) February 11, 2015Twitter today: "why don't the media cover killings of minorities like they do killings by minorities?" Um, hello. That's what racism is.
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umair (@umairh) February 11, 2015****
The father of two of three students shot to death in Chapel Hill on Tuesday says the shooting was a “hate crime” based on the Muslim faith of the victims. Chapel Hill police said Wednesday morning that a dispute about parking in the neighborhood of rented condominiums near Meadowmont may have led Craig Stephen Hicks to shoot his neighbors, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and Abu-Salha’s sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh. But the women’s father, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, said regardless of the precise trigger Tuesday night, Hicks’ underlying animosity toward Barakat and Abu-Salha was based on their religion and culture.
Sorry your dream was so brutally snatched from you. #ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/2zFa1oNCVc
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_ (@random_ukht) February 11, 2015Deah Barakat tweeted this in October. Ended up getting shot & killed by a man from his community. #ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/M7fUagPvsB
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Saba (@smalfuhaid) February 11, 2015A couple months ago Deah texted me, always trying to change the world for the better. #ChapelHillShooting #deah #rip http://t.co/NeIZ7wv9Dd
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danabarakat (@danabarakat3) February 11, 2015Abu-Salha said police told him Hicks shot the three inside their apartment. “It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha said Wednesday morning. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.” Abu-Salha said his daughter who lived next door to Hicks wore a Muslim head scarf and told her family a week ago that she had “a hateful neighbor.” “Honest to God, she said, ‘He hates us for what we are and how we look,’” he said.
More here
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The victims have names and faces:
- Deah Barakat
- Yusor Abu-Salha
- Razan Abu-Salha
RIP. #ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/f1Bp8gNfPA
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Khaled Bey (@KhaledBeydoun) February 11, 2015#Breaking: statement from @ChapelHillPD Chief @ChrisBlue840 regarding motive in #ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/vaQaqbWQrO
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Lauren Horsch (@LaurenHorsch) February 11, 2015****
#WeAreBlackHistory on @ELLEmagazine!! Check out me & other amazing Black women elle.com/culture/art-de… http://t.co/q5WaSyBVuP
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MyFeminismRealAF (@FeministaJones) February 11, 20151 million+ African Americans worked on the home front during WWII & 60% were women #AAHM #BlackHistory @RosieTrust http://t.co/ykJ4SlJHm7
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NationalParkService (@NatlParkService) February 09, 2015****
Horrible news. Chapel Hill shooting: Three American Muslim students killed near University of North Carolina ibt.uk/A006ExC
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Brooklyn Middleton (@BklynMiddleton) February 11, 201587% of U.S. mass shooting are committed by caucasians 13-56. Why don't we spy on this community? #ChapelHillShooting http://t.co/zu7MHD2Gl4”
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Aamir | KASHMIR (@aamiryatoo) February 11, 2015****
03
Apr
12
rise and shine
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12:30: White House llive and CNN Live streaming
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TPM: Today the presidential gloves really come off.
In a Tuesday speech hosted by the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., President Obama will deliver a broadside to the House-passed Republican budget, which calls for upending Medicare and making deep cuts to domestic social programs. Obama will describe it as a dark vision for America and draw a clear contrast with his campaign themes of reducing inequality and asking the wealthy to help pay down the nation’s debt.
“This congressional Republican budget, however, is something different altogether. It’s a Trojan Horse,” Obama plans to say, according to excerpts provided by the White House. “Disguised as deficit-reduction plan, it’s really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It’s nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism. It’s antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who’s willing to work for it — a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training; research and development — it’s a prescription for decline.”
More here
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Business Insider: Over the next eight hours, twenty automakers will report March auto sales in the U.S. Already, it appears the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales will top all industry estimates, new data out of Business Insider shows.
First out the gate this month is Chrysler, with a better-than-expected sales gain of 34.2 percent, moving 163,381 units in March.
At that healthy gain, Business Insider estimates total U.S. SAAR will run between 15.2 million and 16.1 million. This is well above current estimates of 14.6 million units, per Bloomberg.
The last time auto sales topped an annualized pace of 15.2 million was four years ago, in February 2008.
More here
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Detroit News: Chrysler Group LLC sold 163,381 cars and trucks last month, translating into a 34 percent year-over-year increase and making March another stellar month for the Auburn Hills automaker.
Meanwhile, Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday that its auto sales were up 5 percent in March — the company’s best March in five years. And Hyundai Motor Co. said it set a new all-time record for U.S. auto sales in March, up 13 percent to 69,728 on strong sales of its fuel-efficient models.
More here
Thanks VC
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NYT: For several weeks, Mitt Romney has seized on the rising cost of gasoline to attack President Obama and his environmental aides for what Mr. Romney calls their misguided desire to see higher energy prices.
…. But Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has in the past appeared much more open to the notion that rising energy costs could be good for the American economy. In his 2010 book, “No Apology,” Mr. Romney described a gradual increase in the cost of energy as the kind of market-based incentive that conservatives could embrace.
…. Charles Ebinger, the director of the energy security initiative at the Brookings Institution, said Mr. Romney’s openness to the benefits of higher energy prices was similar to the approach that Mr. Obama’s advisers had espoused for years.
More here
Steve Benen: ….. The main problem, as the New York Times reported today, is that Romney has already argued for the same policies he’s now against.
…. As governor, Romney also raised gas taxes — by 400% — and hired an energy advisor who opposes reduction in oil prices. Romney even pushed for more energy-efficient light bulbs, though he now opposes the idea.
Clearly, the former governor is aware of public concerns and wants to incorporate energy policy into the 2012 race, but between Romney’s Big Oil ties and his previous personas, it’s not going to be easy for him to stay coherent on the subject.
More here
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TPM: A new report by an independent government auditor concludes that implementing President Obama’s health care law as intended will make a significant dent in the long-term debt forecast.
…. it concludes that if key cost-control measures in the law, and other automatic cuts to Medicare spending baked into current law, are ignored, or overridden by Congress, the implications for the national debt are vast.
If “Obamacare” is implemented as intended, and other measures, such as automatic payment cuts to Medicare physicians, take effect, “spending on Medicare and Medicaid grows from 5 percent of GDP in 2010 to over 7 percent by 2030.”
By contrast, if Congress overrides those provisions, “spending on health care grows much more rapidly ….”
More here
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Morning everyone 😉
23
Feb
12
rise and shine
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Steve Benen: The general trend on initial unemployment claims over the last few months has been largely encouraging, despite occasional setbacks, and most analysts expected this morning’s report to show a modest uptick in filings.
The good news is, that didn’t happen. In fact, initial jobless claims reached a four-year low last week, and the new totals were unchanged this week.
More here
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Greg Sargent: At yesterday’s debate, Mitt Romney and the other candidates went all in on birth control – sorry, “religious liberty” – in blasting President Obama over the contraception controversy…. But some new polling out this morning from Quinnipiac illustrates the risk Republicans are taking with this latest reprise of the culture wars:
President Obama recently announced an adjustment to the administration’s health-care rule regarding religiously affiliated employers providing birth control coverage to female employees. Women will still be guaranteed coverage for birth control without any out-of-pocket cost, but will have to seek the coverage directly from their insurance companies if their employers object to birth control on religious grounds. Do you approve or disapprove of President Obama’s decision?
Approve: 54
Disapprove: 38
Independents approve 56-36; women 56-34.
More here
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Steve Benen: …… Romney added that Obama is “requiring the Catholic Church to provide for its employees and its various enterprises health care insurance that would include birth control, sterilization and the morning-after pill. Unbelievable.”
It is, in fact, literally “unbelievable,” since that’s not at all what the administration is doing.
It was painful enough to have so much of the debate focus on opposition to birth control, but Romney’s dishonesty managed to make a mind-numbing discussion even worse.
Full post here
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TPM (Thanks Desertflower)
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Ronald Brownstein (National Journal): ….. Some of Romney’s answers could come back to haunt him, not in the primary but in a general election, if he gets that far.
At a time when some Republicans are already concerned that he has narrowed his potential support among Latinos with an unflinching embrace of conservative positions on immigration (like “self-deportation”), Romney doubled down by insisting that on “day one” as president he would drop the federal legal challenge to Arizona’s tough state statute against illegal immigration.
And on the same day that an NBC/Marist poll already showed Romney trailing President Obama by 18 percentage points in Michigan, a state Republicans once hoped to contest this fall, Romney likewise doubled down on his criticism of the auto rescue engineered by Bush and Obama – and sprinkled in some especially sharp rhetoric against the United Auto Workers union for good measure.
More here
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ThinkProgress (Thanks Ladyhawke)
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E.J. Dionne: They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist….
Whatever our president is, he is never allowed to be a garden-variety American who plays basketball and golf, has a remarkably old-fashioned family life and, in the manner we regularly recommend to our kids, got ahead by getting a good education.
Please forgive this outburst. It’s simply astonishing that a man in his fourth year as our president continues to be the object of the most extraordinary paranoid fantasies … And now that the economy is improving, short-circuiting easy criticisms, Obama’s adversaries are reheating all the old tropes and cliches and slanders.
….. As for Obama as a socialist, ponder two numbers: 13,005, which the Dow Jones average hit this week, up from a low point of 6,547 in March 2009. Some socialist.
We are blessed with the freedom to say whatever we want about our president. But those who cast Obama as something other than one of us don’t understand him and don’t understand what it means to be American.
Full article here
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10:45: PBO departs the White House
1:25 Arrives in Miami, Florida.
1:45: Tours the Industrial Assessment Center at the University of Miami.
2:25: Delivers remarks to University of Miami students and faculty members.
4:20: Delivers remarks at a campaign event at the Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, Florida.
5:55: Delivers remarks at a campaign event.
7:00L Departs Miami, Florida en route Orlando, Florida.
8:15: Arrives in Orlando, Florida.
8:55: Delivers remarks at a campaign event.
10:30: Departs Orlando, Florida en route Joint Base Andrews.
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Morning everyone 😉
19
Dec
11
rise and shine
Two years ago today
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USA Today: Nuclear weapons are very much on the mind of the Obama administration today as they monitor events in North Korea following the death of dictator Kim Jung Il.
Obama spoke with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak shortly after North Korea announced Kim’s death overnight.
On the domestic front today, Obama aides will wait and see if House Republicans vote down a Senate plan to extend the payroll tax cut for two months. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, says the extension should be for a year, as reported by USA TODAY’s Aamer Madhani.
If the House does reject the Senate plan, lawmakers will resume negotiations — as Obama stresses, the payroll tax cut expires at the end of the year.
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Steve Benen: The pieces were in place. Senate leads from both parties agreed to a temporary compromise that looked pretty sensible: Dems would get a two-month extension of the payroll tax break and a clean extension of unemployment benefits, while GOP lawmakers would get an expedited decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. It was quickly approved with overwhelming, bipartisan support, 89 to 10.
…. But Boehner then took this victory to his caucus … the Speaker quickly realized his job is to take, not give, orders from his right-wing members: “It’s pretty clear that I and our members oppose the Senate bill.”
…. Why is it, exactly, that Boehner called the compromise a “good deal” and a “victory” on Saturday, only to say he opposes the deal on Sunday?…
Indeed, the House will likely take up the Senate deal later today, simply to prove it can’t pass the lower chamber. In the bigger picture, it’s pretty amazing: House Republicans are going to kill a bipartisan compromise on a middle-class tax cut, which just passed the Senate 89 to 10, the week before Christmas.
…. If Americans find all of this ridiculous, they should have been a little more careful before the 2010 midterms.
Full post here
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ThinkProgress: The Florida Family Association has managed to do a lot of damage with its All-American Muslim boycott over the last week and a half, whether by convincing companies like Lowe’s and Kayak to absolutely humiliate themselves, or by stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment against the cast of a touching and totally uncontroversial reality show.
But fortunately one thing sanctimonious moralizers do well is make lists, and they’ve kept track of advertisers who stuck to their guns and either continued to advertise on the show after the FFA started its campaign.
So if you’re withdrawing your business from Lowe’s and Kayak and, during the holiday season, looking for new places to spend some money, you can use their list against them. Those advertisers include:
– Big Lots
– Conagra’s Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes
– Discover Card
– Disney for The Muppets
– GeicoHonda North America, for the Accord and Odyssey
– HTC Phones
– Mucinex
– Delsym
– Resolve Clean
– Drano
– Glade
– Scrubbing Bubbles
– Kay Jewelers
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NYT: Almost 13 years ago, Mitt Romney left Bain Capital, the successful private equity firm he had helped start, and moved to Utah to rescue the Salt Lake City Olympic Games and begin a second career in public life.
Yet when it came to his considerable personal wealth, Mr. Romney never really left Bain.
In what would be the final deal of his private equity career, he negotiated a retirement agreement with his former partners that has paid him a share of Bain’s profits ever since, bringing the Romney family millions of dollars in income each year and bolstering the fortune that has helped finance Mr. Romney’s political aspirations.
More here
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I had to read this headline twice. Just as well they remembered that comma:
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Morning everyone 😉
12
Dec
11
evening all
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President Barack Obama, accompanied by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and Vice President Joe Biden, salutes as he departs the White House en route to Arlington National Cemetery, Dec. 12, 2011. The President and Prime Minister participated in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. An interpreter, center, walks with the group. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Don’t miss our good friend Tien’s brilliant post at The People’s View – here
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Eugene Robinson: I guess I was wrong. I thought Republicans surely would have come to their senses by now. Instead, they seem to be rushing deeper into madness.
With less than a month to go before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney, the candidate shown by polls to have the best chance of defeating President Obama, evidently remains unacceptable to most of his party. He has spent the summer and fall playing second fiddle to a series of unconvincing “front-runners” who fade into the shadows once their shortcomings become obvious.
The latest is Newt Gingrich, a man with more baggage than Louis Vuitton – and the taste for fine jewelry of Louis XIV, judging by his Tiffany’s bill. Be honest: Is there anybody out there who believes Gingrich would make it through a general-election campaign against Obama without self-destructing? I didn’t think so.
Full article here
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Media Matters – thanks Linda
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Wow:
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Steve Benen: What’s worse than Fox News’ attempts at reporting? Fox News’ attempts to convey information through images.
Media Matters’ Zachary Pleat highlights this doozy from the Republican news network today, which intends to show the fluctuations in the unemployment rate over 2011 to date.
…. the truly amazing this about the image is that it (a) shows no change between 9% unemployment and 8.6% unemployment; and (b) tells viewers that 8.6% unemployment is higher than 8.8% unemployment.
….. There’s a very good reason Fox News viewers are so confused, so often, about so much.
Full post here
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Washington Post: Michelle Obama now holds part of a world record.
The first lady announced in an email Monday that her October bid to break the record for the most people doing jumping jacks in a 24-hour period succeeded. Mrs. Obama says 300,265 people participated, shattering the old record.
In order to achieve her goal, Mrs. Obama led about 400 elementary and middle-school students from Washington in jumping jacks on the South Lawn of the White House. Other jumping jacks events were held around the world on Oct. 11.
The effort was organized by National Geographic Kids magazine in support of the first lady’s Let’s Move! initiative to promote physical fitness and healthy eating for children.
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CBS: Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich – who has acknowledged marital infidelity in the past – pledged in a written statement to an Iowa social conservative group to “uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.”
More here
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The Obama Diary 
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