State of the Union driven by economy, election

The President's speech called for tax reform and government accountability.

Declaring the American dream under siege, President Barack Obama called Tuesday night for a flurry of help for a hurting middle class and higher taxes on millionaires, delivering a State of the Union address packed with re-election themes. Restoring a fair shot for all, Obama said, is "the defining issue of our time."

Skip to next paragraph

Obama outlined a vastly different vision for fixing the country than the one pressed by the Republicans challenging him in Congress and fighting to take his job in the November election. He pleaded for an active government that ensures economic fairness for everyone, just as his opponents demand that the government back off and let the free market rule.

Obama offered steps to help students afford college, a plan for more struggling homeowners to refinance their homes and tax cuts for manufacturers. He threw in politically appealing references to accountability, including warning universities they will lose federal aid if they don't stop tuition from soaring.

RELATED: State of the Union Transcript

Standing in front of a divided Congress, with bleak hope this election year for much of his legislative agenda, Obama spoke with voters in mind.

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by," Obama said. "Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

A rare wave of unity splashed over the House chamber at the start. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, survivor of an assassination attempt one year ago, received sustained applause from her peers and cheers of "Gabby, Gabby, Gabby." She blew a kiss to the podium. Obama embraced her.

Lawmakers leapt to their feet when Obama said near the start of his speech that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, killed by a raid authorized by the president, will no longer threaten America.

At the core of Obama's address was the improving but deeply wounded economy ? the matter still driving Americans' anxiety and the one likely to determine the next presidency.

"The state of our union is getting stronger," Obama said, calibrating his words as millions remain unemployed. Implicit in his declaration that the American dream is "within our reach" was the recognition that, after three years of an Obama presidency, the country is not there yet.

He spoke of restoring basic goals: owning a home, earning enough to raise a family, putting a little money away for retirement.

"We can do this," Obama said. "I know we can." He said Americans are convinced that "Washington is broken," but he also said it wasn't too late to cooperate on important matters.

Republicans were not impressed. They applauded infrequently, though they did cheer when the president quoted "Republican Abraham Lincoln" as saying: "That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves ? and no more."

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, offering the formal GOP response, called Obama's policies "pro-poverty" and his tactics divisive.

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said in excerpts released before the address.

In a signature swipe at the nation's growing income gap, Obama called for a new minimum tax rate of at least 30 percent on anyone making over $1 million. Many millionaires ? including one of his chief rivals, Republican Mitt Romney ? pay a rate less than that because they get most of their income from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.

"Now you can call this class warfare all you want," Obama said, responding to a frequent criticism from the GOP presidential field. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/v7nMDyx3nDw/State-of-the-Union-driven-by-economy-election

matt moore national grid day light savings time 2011 hocus pocus hocus pocus bj penn roasted pumpkin seeds

TCTV Debate: What SOPA & PIPA 2.0 Should Look Like

On Friday The House withdrew the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) from being put to a vote and the Senate postponed voting on its version of the bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). As the debate continues over the best way to shield copyrighted material from being pirated, we invited David Sohn, General Counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology and?Viacom's General Counsel, Michael Fricklas to discuss language that should be included in any future SOPA/PIPA legislation.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/YLt25jIPZnk/

jack del rio fired made in america made in america icam patrice o neal. osteopathy osteopathy

I'm fluffy... and reapery?

RolePlayGateway is proudly powered by obscene amounts of caffeine, duct tape, Wordpress, Moodle, phpBB, AJAX Chat, Mantis, and the efforts of many dedicated writers and roleplayers. It operates under a "don't like it, suggest an improvement" platform, and we gladly take suggestions for improvements or changes.

The custom-built "roleplay" system was designed and implemented by Eric Martindale as of July 2009. All attempts to replicate or otherwise emulate this system and its method of organizing roleplay are strictly prohibited without his express written and contractual permission; violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

? RolePlayGateway, LLC

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/mngbYX64JtI/viewtopic.php

the band perry faith hill cma awards 2011 cma awards 2011 western black rhino western black rhino jefferson county alabama

Aretha Franklin calls off her wedding (AP)

NEW YORK ? Aretha Franklin won't be getting fitted for a wedding gown after all: She's called off her engagement.

A statement released Monday by her representative said Franklin's wedding to Willie Wilkerson wasn't going to happen.

"Will and I have decided we were moving a little too fast, and there were a number of things that had not been thought through thoroughly. There will be no wedding at this time," Franklin said. "We will not comment on it any further because of the very personal and sensitive nature of it. ?We appreciate all of the many well wishes from friends."

Franklin, 69, announced shortly after New Year's Day that she was getting married. In an interview with The Associated Press, the jovial Queen of Soul talked about getting fitted for gowns by designers including Vera Wang and Donna Karan, and said she hoped for a summer wedding in either Miami or the Hamptons on Long Island, N.Y.

Franklin said Wilkerson was the one for her and that the relationship was particularly strong because they had been friends first.

"We're very compatible, and he supports me and I support him a lot, and he has given me specialized attention that I don't think I've received from anyone else," she said.

It's unclear if the pair are still romantically involved.

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_en_ot/us_people_aretha_franklin

matilda new jersey weather halloween movies halloween movies new york snow new york snow braxton miller

Gingrich wins SC primary, upsets Romney (AP)

Newt Gingrich has stormed to an upset victory over Mitt Romney in the South Carolina GOP primary with a pair of strong debate performances that most voters said was important to their choice.

Within minutes, the former speaker of the House was looking ahead to the next contest Jan. 31.

"Thank you South Carolina!," he tweeted. "Help me deliver the knockout punch in Florida."

In exit polls, most voters said they made up their minds in the last few days of the campaign. Two-thirds said the debates were an important factor in their vote.

Gingrich led among the state's conservatives, tea party supporters and born-again Christians. Romney held a small advantage among moderate and liberal voters, and those who are not born-again Christians.

.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign_vote_returns

amanda knox latest news brass monkey x factor auditions x factor auditions flds flds revenge

Islamist insurgents kill over 178 in Nigeria's Kano (Reuters)

KANO (Reuters) ? Gun and bomb attacks by Islamist insurgents in the northern Nigerian city of Kano last week killed at least 178 people, a hospital doctor said on Sunday, underscoring the challenge President Goodluck Jonathan faces to prevent his country sliding further into chaos.

A coordinated series of bomb blasts and shooting sprees mostly targeting police stations Friday sent panicked residents of Nigeria's second biggest city of more than 10 million people running for cover.

The scale of the carnage makes this by far the deadliest strike claimed by Boko Haram, a shadowy Islamist sect that started out as a clerical movement opposed to western education but has become the biggest security menace facing Africa's top oil producer.

"We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals," the senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital said following Friday's attacks, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa.

"There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early."

The streets were quiet Sunday in Kano, a vast metropolis of wide paved highways, normally buzzing with motorbikes, and sandy alleyways where hawkers sell grilled meat and donkeys pull carts heaped with fruit and vegetables.

Churches, which would usually be filled with worshippers in the religiously mixed city, were largely empty.

Jonathan, a Christian from the south, travelled to Kano on Sunday, visiting hospitals to speak to victims.

"Our coming today is to express our condolence to the good people of Kano over the dastardly acts," Jonathan said at the palace of the Emir, the city's Muslim figurehead.

"Those causing havoc will never succeed ... The federal government will not rest until the perpetrators are brought to book. We will not rest until these terrorist are wiped out," said Jonathan, wearing a traditional northern Nigerian kaftan and hat.

Boko Haram has been blamed for killing hundreds of people in increasingly sophisticated bombings and shootings, mostly targeting security forces, establishment figures and more recently Christians, in the country of 160 million people split roughly evenly between them and Muslims.

MORE ATTACKS ON SUNDAY

Apart from a handful of forays into the capital Abuja, the sect's energies have been concentrated in the majority Muslim north, far from the oil producing facilities along the southern coast that keep Africa's second biggest economy afloat.

A further 10 people were killed Sunday in Bauchi state, which neighbors Kano, when police fought gunmen attempting to rob a bank, the police said. Boko Haram robbed several banks last year to fund its insurgency.

"In the early hours of today gunmen killed 10 people at a military checkpoint and a nearby hotel at Tafawa Balewa local government area," police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba told Reuters.

"One police officer, an army corporal and eight civilians (were killed) after gunmen were earlier repelled from robbing a bank."

Explosions also struck two churches in Bauchi Sunday, witnesses said, destroying one of them completely, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The government has announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Kano, an ancient city that was once part of an Islamic caliphate trading riches on caravan routes connecting sub-Saharan Africa with the Mediterranean.

Jonathan, who helped broker a deal that largely ended an insurgency by militants in the oil-rich southeast in 2009, has been criticized for failing to grasp the gravity of the crisis unfolding in the north, and of treating it as a pure security issue that will fizzle out by itself.

Worsening insecurity has led some to question whether Nigeria isn't sliding into civil war, 40 years after the secessionist Biafra conflict killed over a million people, though few think an all-out war splitting the country into two or more pieces is a likely outcome.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks and called for "swift and transparent investigations" into the killings. European powers and the African Union have also condemned the attacks.

SECT CHANGING

Boko Haram became active around 2003 in the remote, northeastern state of Borno, on the threshold of the Sahara, but its attacks have spread into other northern states, including Yobe, Kano, Bauchi and Gombe.

Boko Haram, a Hausa term meaning "Western education is sinful," is loosely modeled on Afghanistan's Taliban, but analysts say the anger it channels reflects a perception that the north has been marginalized from oil riches concentrated in the south.

The sect originally said it wanted sharia, Islamic law, to be applied more widely across Nigeria but its aims appear to have changed. Recent messages from its leaders have said it is attacking anyone who opposes it, at present mainly police, the government and Christian groups.

"Since 2009 it is an insurgency that has gathered pace almost in slow motion, incrementally - apparently absorbed and accommodated with no clear evidence that government has the capacity, competence or will to turn the tide," said Antony Goldman, head of Nigeria-focused PM Consulting.

"Boko Haram was a work in progress when (former President) Obasanjo, who had a deserved 'no nonsense' reputation, was in power; and it was Yar'Adua, a Muslim President, who ordered a bloody crackdown in 2009. It was a difficult inheritance for Jonathan but the problems have only grown more complex."

Boko Haram's attacks have become increasingly deadly in the last few months.

At least 65 people were killed in the northeast Nigerian city of Damaturu, Yobe state, in a spate of gun and bomb attacks in November.

A bomb attack on a Catholic church just outside the capital Abuja on Christmas Day, claimed by Boko Haram, killed 37 people and wounded 57.

In a Reuters interview in late December, National Security Adviser General Owoye Andrew Azazi said officials are considering making contact with moderate members of shadowy sect via "back channels," even though explicit talks are officially ruled out.

(Additional reporting by Joe Brock in Abuja; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/wl_nm/us_nigeria_violence

nicki minaj barbie doll nicki minaj barbie doll black dahlia drew drew lady gaga marry the night video lady gaga marry the night video

Idaho unemployment falls for 5th straight month (AP)

BOISE, Idaho ? The Idaho Department of Labor says the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December fell to 8.4 percent, the lowest level since September 2009.

The state's unemployment rate has dropped for five straight months, and fell from 8.5 percent in November. The national unemployment rate for December was 8.5 percent.

The Labor Department says over 698,000 Idahoans were working in December ? 13,000 more than in December 2010 ? and the largest total since March 2009.

Unemployment benefit payments totaled $31.5 million to 32,000 jobless workers in December. That total is 25 percent less than the $41.8 million paid to over 39,900 unemployed workers in December 2010, when the unemployment rate stood at 9.7 percent.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_bi_ge/us_idaho_unemployment_idaho

james carville james carville rimm brad pitt brad pitt us constitution us constitution