The White House on Monday dismissed as "overreaching" a federal judge's ruling in Florida that President Obama's sweeping health care reform law is unconstitutional and should be struck down. "We don't believe this kind of judicial activism will be upheld, and we are confident that the Affordable Care Act will ultimately be declared constitutional by the courts," Stephanie Cutter, deputy senior advisor, said on the administration's blog.
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Since he first ran for president, Barack Obama has often been defined by what others projected on him: Some conservatives saw a socialist, hopeful Democrats a liberal, and others a perplexing, hard-to-define centrist.
With his re-election bid approaching, Obama has become more active in defining himself, increasingly as a steely pragmatist willing to break the hearts of liberals in pursuit of larger aims.
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By Sara A. Carter National Security Correspondent
The turmoil in Egypt kept America's security and military leaders on edge Saturday, fearful of a worst-case scenario in which a massive arsenal supplied by the U.S. falls into the hands of Islamic extremists.
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The Obama administration is reviewing America's annual $1.3 billion aid package to Egypt as the White House walks a careful line between siding with an embattled ally and supporting a popular uprising demanding democratic reform. For several days, the administration remained circumspect while demonstrators gathered in Egypt's major cities, protesting poverty and government corruption and demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
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"Within the Reagan household, and perhaps in Ronald Reagan's heart," his definitive biographer Lou Cannon writes, "there was an early sense that he was a child of destiny." Certainly there was not much in his family background to suggest that. The 40th president was born one hundred years ago on February 6 in the second floor of a gritty-looking building in Tampico, Illinois. The family moved to other towns, and briefly to Chicago, before shoe salesman Jack Reagan and his wife Nell settled in the prosperous town of Dixon when Reagan was nine.
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It's not for a lack of enthusiasm, but the 2012 Republican field is taking it's time taking shape, while the contenders size up President Obama -- and each other.
"In 2008 it was an open seat and it attracted a lot of candidates on both sides," said Cal Jillson, a Southern Methodist University political scientist. "Now we have a case with an incumbent Democratic president who appeared a few months ago to be highly vulnerable -- but since then has gained a lot of momentum."
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"We do big things," President Obama declared in a State of the Union address filled with star-spangled bon mots and sounding at times like a patriotic pep-talk.
"We need to outinnovate, outeducate and outbuild the rest of the world," Obama said, spurring his first standing ovation of the night.
Amid the jingoism, the pro-business language, and the repeated call to "win the future," a question went unanswered: Who is this "we"?
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President Obama's State of the Union repeat of a promise to "begin" a pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July hides the reality that American and NATO troops are years away from securing gains that would allow that country to defend itself from the Taliban, experts said. "The president continues to want to be all things to all people on Afghanistan policy," said James Carafano, senior defense analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.
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President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech had many of the ingredients needed to appeal to newly empowered congressional Republicans, including a call for a five-year spending freeze and ban on earmarks. But his overtures to the GOP often fell flat, with Republican lawmakers declaring that far more drastic measures are needed to reduce federal spending and make a dent in the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit.
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Expanding on a promise to freeze discretionary spending for five years, President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged an ambitious reorganization of federal government to make it more nimble and cost-effective.In a State of the Union address that offered a few big ideas in lieu of what the White House dismissed as a “laundry list” of smaller objectives, Obama exhorted members of Congress to put their new civility to work.“What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow,” Obama said.
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