Line of voting booths ready for voters

The worst of Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit the coast of New Jersey sometime on Monday, October 29. At its peak, tropical storm force winds may reach from Boston into North Carolina and west to central Pennsylvania. Millions of people are expected to lose power with some predictions suggesting the blackout may last a week or more. In addition, many people living in flood prone areas will have been evacuated and may not have returned home by Election Day.
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The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 has been passed by the House and reported out of committee in the Senate. In an October 18 letter, a group of ten public employee unions and public interest groups pushed for the Senate to amend the bill to lower the maximum amount that the Department of Defense can pay for contractor compensation. The amount is currently $763,029 and the proposal would reduce it to $230,700, a seventy percent reduction.
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Mitt Romney for President

Mitt Romney today delivered the following remarks in Norfolk, Virginia after he selected Paul Ryan to be his Vice Presidential running mate:

Ladies and gentlemen:

It’s great to be back in Virginia and here in Norfolk. Your city’s beauty is only matched by its proud heritage as a defender of freedom. Today we take another step forward in helping restore the promise of America. As we move forward in this campaign and on to help lead the nation to better days, it is an honor to announce my running mate and the next Vice President of the United States: Paul Ryan.
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UPDATE 5/8/2012 5:14 pm:  Let’s look at the arguments against Warren’s heritage.

1. The son gained no advantage by claiming his mother was Indian.
2. The area where O.C. Sarah Neoma Smith was born was Indian land.
3. The census records are only a valid proof if the census taker had the option to put Indian down for race. One of the comments states that assimilated Indians were listed as white at the time.
4. The Jonathan that is claimed to be the militia member is not Warren’s ancestor but a distant  cousin. There are two Jonathans in the family tree. The report linked below only covers her direct ancestry.

Everyone is forgetting that the Cherokee were one of the “civilized” tribes. They had adopted the English way of life to a great extent, including keeping slaves. They were as civilized as any white settler in the area at that time and cannot be differentiated based on occupation or residence.

UPDATE 5/1/2012 10:19 pm: Child is correct in his research. Neoma or Sarah Smith, born 1794 in North Carolina, seems to be Warren’s Cherokee ancestor. Two caveats. The family is not enrolled with the tribe. The sole reason to believe that she was Cherokee was her son, William’s statement upon his marriage. Clearly it would seem that Warren can claim to be 1/32 Cherokee.

I can find no support for the story that Warren told to the Boston Globe about her pioneering grandmother. While she was the oldest child at the time of the Oklahoma land rush, research appears to show that her mother was still alive.
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Sandra Fluke has been the center of a whirlwind of publicity and opinion making since her appearance on February 23 before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. The hearing was to permit Ms. Fluke a platform where she could discuss reproductive rights, the medical insurance coverage at Georgetown University and related topics.

Democratic members of the House had attempted to have Ms. Fluke testify before an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on a religious exemption from Obama administration regulations on medical insurance and mandatory coverage for birth control. Fluke was not on the agenda and the committee chairman, Darrell Issa (R-CA), refused to allow her testimony. The Democratic Steering Committee hearing was scheduled to take that testimony.
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