House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan did an admirable job rebutting President Obama’s state of the union speech tonight. As Republicans with more stature have learned the hard way, ahem Bobby Jindal, answering the President’s hour-long speech in under 15 minutes can be tough. But the Wisconsin Republican’s biggest competition
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(White House/Lawrence Jackson)
–Rather than offer such gems of wisdom as “Obama Speech to Offer Broad Defense of Priorities,” I’ll just say he’ll be addressing a joint session of Congress tonight at 9 p.m. ET and we’ll have plenty of coverage here on time.com.
–Noam Scheiber thinks Obama has mollified and outmaneuvered big …
President Obama stops to view a generator as he tours a General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York on January 21. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
–John Heilemann tells the story of Obama’s White House realignment at the hands of Pete Rouse and the first flickers of the re-election effort as a shattering of hubris.
–His State of …
It’s been a tough two years for House Democrats. Legislative victories won on difficult votes piled up in the Senate mire and it was members of the lower chamber who bore the electoral brunt when voters stripped them of their majority in November. With Republicans now setting the agenda, those iniatives that made it into law are being …
President Obama welcomes China’s Hu Jintao to the White House for a State Dinner on January 19. (REUTERS/Jim Young)
–The Obama approval bump seems to be more than statistical noise; another poll shows him creeping up into the 50 percent range.
–China agrees to purchase $45 billion in American exports and the pandas get all the …
“The reason I have decided not to run for re-election in 2012 is best expressed in the wise words from Ecclesiastes,” Joe Lieberman told the gathered crowd Wednesday afternoon in a hotel ballroom in Stamford, Connecticut. “‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven.'” For many Democrats, Lieberman’s …
President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China have dinner in the White House on Jan. 18. (White House/Pete Souza)
—Austin Ramzy writes that despite the grand language of cooperation requisite in a state visit, domestic concerns are likely to push Hu and Obama inward in the near future:
While the two sides will put on a bright
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REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
–Senator Kent Conrad, North Dakota’s last Democrat in Congress and a likely Republican target in 2012 , will reportedly announce his retirement today.
–Joe Lieberman draws his first Democratic challenger.
–Orrin Hatch looks very vulnerable.
President Obama and family attend church services at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, Jan. 16.
(White House/Pete Souza)
–Gabrielle Giffords’s condition improves.
–Some federal authorities reportedly want Jared Loughner’s trial moved to San Diego. The Justice Department
Ashley Westbrook Turton, 37, was a fierce advocate. She was a mother, a public servant, a daughter, a Democrat, a sister and, yes, a lobbyist. She was a demure southern belle with a sometimes R-rated vocabulary. She was a debutante who loved the Grateful Dead so much she went to a concert shortly before giving birth to one of her …
The three-term Senator from Texas announced today that she won’t seek reelection after-all. From the Houston Chronicle:
In an open letter to Texans, Hutchison said she wanted to live “full-time in Texas with my family” and was “forever grateful for the privilege of working for you in the United States Senate.”
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“I intended to
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Our colleague Bryan Walsh reports the Environmental Protection Agency today vetoed the largest mountaintop mining removal permit in West Virginia’s history. The move, which red-lights the 2,300-acre Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, comes the morning after acting Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin vowed to “aggressively pursue” legal …
–In this week’s newsstand edition of TIME: David Von Drehle retells the Tucson shooting as a war on normalcy, observers from Glenn Beck to Deepak Chopra weigh incivility, Fareed Zakaria considers a combative China in transition, and more.
–Obama’s speech last night in Arizona is worth watching in full if you haven’t already seen …
