Seed Savers Exchange Decorah, Iowa 5:17 P.M. CDT THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Decorah! (Applause.) Hello, Iowa! (Applause.) It is good to be back. This place is as pretty as I remembered it. (Applause.) It is spectacular. Everybody please have a seat. Everybody have a seat. It is wonderful to see all of you. First of all, […]
Obama
Posted inOp-Eds
Incumbency benefits some more than others
Will being incumbents help President Barack Obama when he runs next year and Maine Gov. Paul LePage, should he seek re-election in 2014? History suggests that Obama may get less from incumbency than LePage. The governor might benefit from a three-way race — an unlikely event on the national level. Political wisdom is that incumbency […]
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Posted inOur View
Conspiracy theorists will never go away
In 2009, Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin was confronted in public by a man making a “documentary” movie about how the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing was faked by the U.S. government. This is, of course, a stupid conspiracy theory that just never goes away. Aldrin graduated third in his class at West Point and flew […]
Posted inNational Sports
Boston to build statue of Celts legend Russell
BOSTON (AP) — Boston is building a statue of Celtics legend Bill Russell months after President Barack Obama suggested the city needed one. The basketball franchise announced Wednesday the statue would be designed by a local artist and would commemorate Russell as a sports champion, human rights leader and youth mentoring advocate. Russell says in […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Americans gather joyfully to mark bin Laden death
NEW YORK (AP) — Joyous at the release of a decade’s frustration, Americans streamed to the site of the World Trade Center, the gates of the White House and smaller but no less jubilant gatherings across the nation to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden — cheering, waving flags and belting the national anthem. […]
Posted inOur View
Obama again expands role In Libyan war
The war in Libya is going the way many feared it would, mushrooming into a deeper conflict with even wider U.S. involvement. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the U.S. now has CIA agents on the ground in Libya. This, despite assurances from President Barack Obama on Monday that the conflict would not involve […]
Posted inOur View
What’s another war when you have two going?
It is interesting how comfortable Americans seem to have become with war without end. We are now so complacent that our president can apparently call in a new war while on spring break in Rio. The start of hostilities was so unremarkable, meanwhile, that all three major TV networks Saturday cancelled their evening news broadcasts […]
Posted inOur View
Partisanship seems to pollute all subjects
Sitting presidents probably expect to have their every word and deed ripped apart by their political rivals. But when the president can’t even talk about sports without it becoming a political hot potato, perhaps things have gone too far. As he has for the past two years, President Barack Obama spent 10 minutes on ESPN […]
Posted inOur View
More class days just one factor in better education
Proposing a longer school year for American school students certainly isn’t going to win President Barack Obama any votes. And the idea will not be a crowd-pleaser for Peter Edgecomb, R-Caibou, a member of the Legislature’s Education Committee. Edgecomb has introduced LD 18 to extend the minimum school year from 180 to 185 days. While […]
Posted inOur View
Obama budget a timid, political spending plan
President Barack Obama once said in the midst of the health care debate that he would rather be a one-term president who tackled tough issues than a two-term president who dodged them. If the president once believed that, his budget blueprint Monday showed he is now more concerned about winning a second term than providing […]