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| Cover of Bill Clinton |
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| Republican Party (United States) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Two-thirds of all federal spending comes from entitlement spending - that means when you wake up in the morning, two-thirds of the money is already spent. By 2020, that goes up to 90%."Markets rally on US fiscal cliff deal
Many politicians within his own party refuse to work with him, fearing he will taint their image. .... Roughly 25 percent who cast their ballots for the BJP this election were Muslim ..... That’s up from just 3 percent in 2007 .... a growing number of young educated Muslims are opting for the BJP .... They believe Modi is the most viable option for sustained growth and career opportunities in the state. ..... Given Muslims' low literacy rates, low rate of employment in government jobs, and lagging per capita income across India, Sufi Saint Mehbubali Baba Saheb says life for the minority religious group is much better under Modi’s rule. A volunteer with the BJP, he points out that since the Gujarat riots, there has been no communal violence in the state. Some 10 percent of Muslims have government jobs and their per capita income is the highest in the country. .... 40 percent of children are still malnourished, and hundreds of thousands of Muslims live in slums because they can’t find affordable housing. ..... “Modi has very little to offer to India’s villages, to its agriculture sector and to the very large constituencies that make up Indian politics,” says political analyst Ashish Nandy, adding that Modi’s constituency is the middle class. “While the middle class may make up a significant portion of the country, over two-thirds of the Indian population does not fall in that category. I think that will be more his undoing than being [known as] a master of inciting a blood bath.”Nepal PM calls for Indian investments in auto, hydropower sectors
the overall GDP growth rate of the country, which has been hovering at a mere 3 per cent since the last four decades..... “We want to take this figure to a double-digit number in the next three years,” he said, adding that the Government is proactive in attracting Foreign Direct Investment to achieve high economic growth. ..... Development of hydropower can overcome the current power shortage in the country, speed up tourism and agriculture development, and enhance production capability of the country through rapid industrialisation, Bhattarai said. At present, the country faces a load shedding of 7-10 hours a day, thus impacting various other industrial and commercial activities. ..... “There is a large cigarette factory which is defunct and can be utilised as an auto manufacturing factory,” he added.The Eighteenth Brumaire of Barack Obama
Some alleged experts still think we’ll have a deal before we go over the cliff. Maybe they know their business, but I don’t see it.Barack Obama's dual agenda
letting the fiscal cliff kick in may better serve his other main incentive: dividing and weakening the Republican Party...... The GOP is suffering tremendous political stress while the standoff continues, and that stress will become unbearable once tax hikes and defence sequesters kick in. Mr Boehner will have to come up with a Republican position that Democrats can accept, and it is likely to be very close to the offer Mr Obama put forth on Monday. ..... A vote over such a compromise deal would tear the GOP's congressional faction apart. ..... Democrats could achieve a fiscal-cliff deal by winning the votes of a couple of dozen moderate Republicans, but such a move would be electoral suicide for any Republican who tried it. Republicans will need to form a large bloc to give themselves cover for a compromise, but the larger the bloc, the more dangerous the division between the party's tea-party and moderate factions will be for its overall future. ...... Fostering the civil war in the Republican Party is crucial to Mr Obama's chances of getting any part of his agenda passed over the next four years. The top items on that agenda are climate-change legislation, immigration reform, and (suddenly) gun control, along with keeping up some measure of progressive stimulus until the economy is fully recovering ..... he can look forward to elections against a divided, angry GOP in 2014 ..... Republicans have locked themselves into an impossible position on budgeting by simultaneously vowing never to allow taxes hikes, and passing long-term budgets that create a fiscal cliff necessitating tax hikes. It's in Mr Obama's interests to gain Republican cooperation to work out the best possible deal, but if that's not forthcoming, it's also in his interests to use the impossibility of the Republicans' position to weaken them..... 'we have to break the Republicans on taxes.'Louisiana economy is strong, Jindal declares
the right climate of low taxes, a revamped workforce training program, tough new ethics laws and bold education reform .... Louisiana being one of the top 10 states for private sector job growth ..... "In 2012 alone, we have announced projects that will result in over 24,000 new jobs and more than $18 billion in capital investment, bringing our five-year total to more than 63,000 new jobs and more than $28 billion in new capital investment" .... "Our tax code is too complex, too littered with loopholes, and too burdensome on families and businesses," he wrote. "We need to make our tax code fairer, flatter and simpler for Louisiana families and businesses."Setting the Stage for a Second Term
Modi won 115 seats, just a couple short of his previous tally of 117 seats in the 2007 election. Modi's victory came against the backdrop of indifference, even opposition, from a section of the RSS, hostility of an influential and tenacious faction of the civil society and Congress's tacit understanding with BJP rebel Keshubhai Patel who sought to rally his community against the chief minister. ..... his politics which combines uncompromising Hindutva with an unsentimental focus on development. .... the risk of putting off allies like Nitish Kumar and the political risk of a Muslim consolidation behind Congress.Narendra Modi juggernaut rolls on, BJP to form govt in Gujarat
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists announced its support last month for selling oral contraceptives over the counter without a prescription in the United States. I agree with this opinion, which if embraced by the federal government would take contraception out of the political arena.
Democratic House candidates appear to have won more of the popular vote than their Republican counterparts on Tuesday, despite what looks as though it will be a 33- or 35-seat GOP majority. .... Democrats have won roughly 49 percent of the House vote, compared to 48.2 percent for Republicans. ..... Despite losing the popular vote, Republicans are set to have their second-biggest House majority in 60 years and their third-biggest since the Great Depression. ..... Redistricting drew such a GOP-friendly map that, in a neutral environment, Republicans have an inherent advantage. ..... Republicans were clearly favored in 195 House districts, compared to Democrats being favored in 166. Some of this is because Democratic voters are more concentrated in urban areas, but it’s also because the GOP drew some very favorable redistricting maps in important states like North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. ..... Republicans were clearly favored in 195 House districts, compared to Democrats being favored in 166. Some of this is because Democratic voters are more concentrated in urban areas, but it’s also because the GOP drew some very favorable redistricting maps in important states like North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.How redistricting leads to a more partisan Congress — in two charts
89 of 435 congressional districts performed between 46 percent and 54 percent for each major political party in recent years. In other words, those were the real swing districts. ...... under the new congressional map created by redistricting — the districts where candidates are currently campaigning for seats in the next Congress — there are just 74 districts that fit that “swing district” bill. ..... 83 percent of congressional districts now clearly favor either Republicans or Democrats..... Redistricting is handled by the state legislatures in the vast majority of states — which leads lawmakers to draw safe districts for incumbents or, at least, draw districts that their party will be able to win. ..... There is an emerging movement to put that power in the hands of nonpartisan redistricting commissions.
For many voters in broad swaths of the country — throughout California and elsewhere along the Pacific Coast, across the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic states — the Republican brand is poison. ...... "If we're going to be anything but a regional, middle-aged white-man party, we have to do the obvious thing, which is, first, accept the reality that America is a diverse nation and we need to start selling to those people," Weaver said. "There is climate change. Accept that. There are gay people in our midst, marrying one another. Get over it.... The government isn't going to deport 15 million [illegal immigrants], and they're not going to deport themselves."
