Obama to NAACP: Progress made but much still to accomplish

President Obama commended the progress of African-Americans in a speech on the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, but said there was still much work to be done. Speaking at the organization’s annual convention in New York, the city where the organization was founded, Obama evoked symbols of the civil rights movement to describe the NAACP’s influence on race relations in the United States.

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Sotomayor Keeps Her Cool on the Senate Hot Seat

Whatever Sonia Sotomayor does to reward herself — a glass of wine, an ice cream sundae, a bubble bath — surely she must be giving herself a small pat on the back after surviving her first day of cross-examination by the Senate Judiciary Committee without any kind of gaffe. Despite the best efforts of some Republicans to elicit a hot-tempered response, the Supreme Court nominee answered every question in the same deliberate, dulcet tones that seemed to lull her opposition into, if not complacency, then at least resignation

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Behind Florida’s Property Tax Revolt

People have often said that Florida is the new California, but this week the Sunshine State hopes to really drive the point home — all the way into homeowners’ pockets. On Tuesday the legislature started a special session to reform Florida’s dysfunctional property tax system, aiming to save residents the tens of billions of dollars that Californians reaped a generation ago

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On Tehran’s Streets: Defiance and a Crushing Response

Nearly two weeks of silence on the streets of Tehran were broken in the evening of July 9 when thousands marched through the central districts of the Iranian capital to protest the June 12 presidential election. Another anniversary helped precipitate the show of apparent defiance: the 10th anniversary of a bloody student uprising that was brutally put down by the government. Despite threats earlier in the day of a “crushing” response, men, women and even some children went onto the streets with chants of “Death to the dictator” and “Mousavi, Mousavi!” But the response was indeed crushing

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Commentary: We’ll be hearing from Palin for a long time

"Everything changed on August 29 in politics in Alaska," Sarah Palin told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell this week. The reference was to the day last year when John McCain announced that Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five who became Alaska’s governor only in December 2006, would be his presidential running mate. (CNN) — “Everything changed on August 29 in politics in Alaska,” Sarah Palin told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell this week.

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GOP says White House sends mixed messages on stimulus

Republicans disappointed with the president’s stimulus plan are expected to hit the Obama administration and Democrats hard Wednesday during a House hearing on oversight of the stimulus spending. Republican lawmakers will accuse the administration of misreading the effectiveness of the stimulus and say the administration has “rigged the game” by using what they call the immeasurable metric of “jobs created or saved,” according to a Republican memo obtained by CNN

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