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Does he use Just for Men on his beard, or what?

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I'm not overly enthused about this. Ryan Sager is reporting that Fred Thompson has decided to back a federal marriage amendment. Not necessarily the Federal Marriage Amendment, mind you (at least not so far as I can tell right now). But still, he wants to do an amendment that would restrain judges and prevent states from having to recognize gay marriages sealed in other states.

This from a guy who has on the "Principles" page of his website "Federalism."

I will say this: what...

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The beard is dyed.



Let me take a minute to point out how hilarious this is. The dude supposedly is this ascetic, devout Muslim, but in actual fact, he's an image obsessed preener. I can't imagine that him evidently being so concerned about the color of his beard that he would dye it (while living in a cave, for God's sake) makes him look like anything less than a girlie-man (to steal Ahnold's phrase) in the men-are-men Middle East. And I'm thinking that in addition to trying...

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So, as I mentioned in my story in the American today, Rep. Charlie Rangel has been holding hearings on overhauling the US tax system today. In the crosshairs is the private equity industry, on which Rangel wants to raise taxes (like a lot of people these days, Rangel doesn't understand that asset-based moneys properly correspond to capital gains tax, whereas things like salary properly correspond to earned income tax).

I've just received a clip of Rep. Phil English taking Democrats (led...

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For those who haven't heard, former Rep. Jennifer Dunn, my fellow Washingtonian, passed away yesterday. In addition, Rep. Paul Gillmor of Ohio was found dead in his apartment today.

My condolences go out to the families of Ms. Dunn and Rep. Gillmor. Both will be missed, but for me, Ms. Dunn's passing is particularly said. She represented the district across Lake Washington from my house until 2005, and was in many ways a role model to me as a fellow female, Republican Washingtonian...

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On one level, this is kind of worrying, because it means that Romney is being treated as a serious threat by at least some Democrats. On the other, it's just bad news for Romney because while a Democratic attack on a Republican in the pre-primary stage is usually a good thing, this website contains some pretty bad stuff. All the usual Mitt-Flips are on parade-- no news there. But there is a detailed file on tax and fee hiking efforts-- one of the aspects of Mitt that those of us who are...

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If you haven't seen it already, Ryan Sager has a column up today at the NY Sun about how GOP candidates are snubbing social conservatives, namely the chappies running the ValueVoters.org debate. I recommend you read it.

Ryan accurately described the agenda of these social cons as "anti-abortion, anti-stem-cell-research, anti-judicial-independence, anti-immigration, and pro-censorship."

More to the point, he accurately notes that it is unlikely that any of the candidates are going...

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Some debate thoughts:

1. McCain cleaned everyone's clock tonight. I was really impressed with him, particularly when he hammered Romney over his withdrawal-friendly stance on Iraq. I don't necessarily disagree with Romney's apparent premise that we need to be monitoring progress in Iraq closely and need to keep in mind whether it is appropriate to look at withdrawal, but I do sense a lot of clever political positioning on the issue (as with every other one, just about, where Mitt is...

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Who calls hot dogs "tube steaks" (OK, apart from Mitt)?

WIiWYzKQh-s.tube

If you have ever heard this term used to describe any kind of sausage, or sausage-like edibles, please email me.

It may just be that having grown up in extra liberal Seattle, where we don't even really eat hot dogs (OK, we eat tofu dogs, not the same thing, though) and then having moved back to the land of fried Mars Bars and Haggis, I've just never heard the term.

But somehow, I doubt it...

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Yes, yes, we've all heard about Hillary and Mr. Hsu, but what about this fundraiser of Romney's?

While I hate to quote sites like Crooks and Liars, I will agree with their assertion that relatively little was said about this particular bit of drama.

Fine team Romney seems to have assembled. There's Robert Lichfield, this Fabian chap, Bruce Benson (who evidently said he wanted to kill his wife back in the day), and so on and so forth.

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