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Politics

Boehner Confidence – Will Run for House Speaker Again, Says He Will Win

Under his leadership, the People’s House, also called the House of Representatives, produced the least amount of legislations for any Congress in the history of this country. But Boehner is not done yet. He plans to run again to lead the House and he is confident that he will win.

“I think I’m in better shape with my own caucus than I ever have been in the last three years,” Boehner told his hometown Cincinnati Enquirer in an interview Monday.

The speaker dismissed speculation that he’s going to step aside from Congress and give up the House’s top leadership job, which was fueled partly because Boehner and his wife recently purchased a condo in Florida. The vacation home “has nothing to do with my future,” Boehner is quoted as saying.

There’s no question that Boehner sometimes has had difficulty with his restive GOP caucus — especially some of the newer members elected with Tea Party support in 2010 who helped Republicans win the House majority

 ”I need this job like a hole in my head,” Boehner told The Wall Street Journal early last year after a dozen Republicans declined to back his second term as speaker and he battled with his fellow Republicans on a deal to avoid going over the “fiscal cliff.”

Boehner got props from his GOP troops after he stuck with them in last fall’s government shutdown, going ahead with a legislative strategy that saw some Republicans try to defund President Obama’s health care law even as federal workers were furloughed.

But Boehner infuriated some of the Tea Party-backed conservative groups late last year when he criticized the Senate Conservatives Fund, Heritage Action, FreedomWorks and others as  having “lost all credibility” for coming out against a two-year budget deal that averted another shutdown.

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Charlie Sheen Politics

Rand Paul: “We are winning, and I am not on any drugs”

Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that Republicans are like Charlie Sheen and are actually “winning” despite criticisms this week of party disarray over a budget strategy that would defund Obamacare, according to reports.

“Does anybody remember Charlie Sheen when he was kind of going crazy…And he was going around, jumping around saying ‘Winning, winning, we’re winning,’” Paul (R-Ky.) said, according to an MSNBC report. “Well I kind of feel like that, we are winning. And I’m not on any drugs.”

Paul’s comments, which were from an appearance before an audience of the Liberty Political Action Committee in Virginia, come after a week of Republicans sparring over whether to move ahead with a resolution proposal that would also seek to defund Obamacare. However, Paul ensures that the party has the public’s support on a variety of issues.

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Sports

Opening Day: A Day of Tradition

It’s that wonderful time of year again. No matter what team you prefer, you can be optimistic about the season ahead. No matter what moves your team made in the off season, it’s Opening Day and everyone is tied for first place. Here in the Bronx though, we know something that others don’t realize. No matter what moves your team made and no matter what “Sports Illustrated” says, this is our house and this is our time. Opening Day in the Bronx marks the beginning of a new pursuit for another championship. That’s because as far as we are concerned, the World Series has a home, and it’s home is on 161st Street and River Avenue. Welcome to the Bronx, where Opening Day might as well be a holiday.

Yankee Baseball is deeply rooted in the Bronx. The Yankee’s began their storied history with a brief stint as the Baltimore Orioles. They were formed in 1901 as one of the American League’s original eight teams. The organization moved to New York shortly after, in 1903. In upper Manhattan’s Hilltop Park, they played as the Highlanders until 1913 when the team’s official name was changed to the Yankees. In 1923, the Yankees moved directly across the Harlem River into the Bronx. Yankee Stadium was opened and there it stayed until 2008 when its heir was built. Bronx natives as well as other Yankee fans, have packed the house year after year starting with Opening Day on April 18, 1923. Not much has changed in that regard since that day. Yankee fans are among the most loyal fans in baseball. Despite the traditional weekday scheduling, Opening Day in the Bronx promises to be a max capacity event.

If you are a Yankee fan then you know what I’m talking about. It’s that day of the year when the kids get to play hooky from school while the adults play hooky from work. It’s a day for tradition, and we as Yankee fans know a thing or two about tradition. Every year, my brother, my friends and I get bleacher seats for the home opener. We all take the day off and wake up early. We meet at my house for breakfast and then its onto the train and down to Stan’s. We get to the bar no later than 9:30am because after all, we are celebrating our holiday. Stan’s is a haven for Yankee die hards, especially on this particular day. Everyone is there for the same reasons; eat, drink and be Yankee fans.

I don’t know if you have been to other stadiums but I have. Baseball really is an amazing game no matter where it’s played, but it just has this special aura in the Bronx. It belongs here. Even with a new $1.3 billion mammoth of a stadium, Opening Day still feels special. We have the only perfect game ever thrown in the World Series, we’ve got Mr. October and Mr. November, and we started standing on two strikes. We’ve blown ‘em away and we’ve walked ‘em off. We have pulled off upsets and we have swept opponents aside on the way to 27 World Championships, and all that starts with Opening Day. This year has the makings of an interesting season. Everyone seems to be underestimating our Bombers. Labeling this team as underdogs is a crucial mistake and they have everything it takes to make teams pay.

Tradition means everything to us fans. It’s a way of starting off the season on the right foot. After all, if we break tradition we may jinx our beloved Yankees. Lets keep the traditions going and lets enjoy another beautiful Yankee game. We deserve it because we have the greatest team in the world and we are the greatest fans in the world. It’s time we do our pre-game rituals and then head to the stadium. Scan your ticket, grab a beer, find your seat and quiet down because role call is about to begin. It’s Opening Day, and all is right in the Bronx.

So come that special morning, you will find me at Stan’s bright and early. That’s our tradition. What’s yours?

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Sports

Tiger Woods Winning Again – Thanks Obama!

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Fifty-three weeks after he relinquished the No. 1 ranking in the world for the first time in more than five years, Tiger Woods dropped to his lowest point since his early days as a professional.

Because of injuries, he had barely played in 2011, was a controversial captain’s pick of Fred Couples for the U.S. Presidents Cup team, competed in just one tournament following a missed cut at the PGA Championship, and produced a mediocre tie for 30th at the Frys.com Open.

Woods was ranked 58th in the world.

It was easily explained away: He had missed so many tournaments, his ranking was bound to slip. He hadn’t won in more than two years, the points from all of those 2009 victories disappearing.

Almost exactly 16 months later, Woods is a strong No. 2 and in position to surpass Rory McIlroy for the top spot, depending on the results of the next several weeks. Woods has won five times in the past year on the PGA Tour, more than anybody in that span, and matched McIlroy’s worldwide victory total during that period.

McIlroy won money titles on both the PGA Tour and European Tour last year and also captured a major championship. Undoubtedly, Woods’ ability to claim a major in 2013 and snap a five-year drought in the game’s biggest tournaments will be closely watched as the rest of this season unfolds.

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Alabama Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney – All the Grits In The World Cannot Help You Win The South

Although he won some delegates in Mississippi and Alabama in yesterday’s primaries, Romney’s clear focus on “math” as his only way to winning the Republican nomination is quite frankly, lame. What we are  witnessing before our very eyes is a Republican candidate who is proving time and time again, that he simply cannot win a majority of the Republican votes in southern states – something that must be done if he expects to come close to competing against President Obama in the general elections.

Given yet another chance to seal the deal and wrap up this primary process, Romney placed third with 29% of the votes in Alabama with Gingrich slightly ahead. Santorum came in first with 35%. The story wasn’t much different in Mississippi – Santorum 33%, Gingrich 31% and Romney 30%. For entertainment value, 4% of the Republicans voted for Ron Paul. But even with this problem with winning the popular vote in southern States on their hands, Romney’s campaign went on CNN to highlight that they managed to win some delegates in those two states, inching them even more closer to the magic figure of 1144 – the total amount needed to win the Republican nomination. According to a CNN tally, Romney has 489 and leads second place Santorum by 255 delegates.

But can math alone bring Mitt Romney a victory? Newt Gingrich puts it this way: “The elite media’s effort to convince the nation that Mitt Romney is inevitable just collapsed. The fact is that in both states, the conservative candidates got nearly 70% of the vote, and if you’re the frontrunner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a frontrunner. And frankly, I do not believe that a Massachusetts moderate who created Romneycare as the forerunner of Obamneycare is going to be in a position to win any debates this fall, and that is part of the reason I’ve insisted in staying in this race.”

If you’re the Republican candidate and you cannot get Republicans in Republican states to vote for you, then you have some serious problems. The math may work to get you the nomination, but at some point, you have to prove you can get the votes.

McKay Coppins wrote:

“…while the campaign’s slow, methodical approach to collecting delegates in obscure, boring, or otherwise un-noteworthy contests has served them well logistically, it hasn’t helped them win the argument. The rhetoric of strength and leadership that could give them momentum heading into the general has been replaced with a list of math-centered talking points that deal with delegate counts, percentages, and margins of victory.

Campaign in poetry and govern in prose, the old political adage goes. The Romney campaign, it appears, has chosen to forego words altogether and make their case with numbers. But how long can the party’s would-be standard-bearer hinge his entire campaign message on math?”

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