Eisenhower: Republican Party is Running Out of Ideas

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Life long Republican and granddaughter of Ike, Susan Eisenhower, said today on an Obama campaign conference call featuring campaign manager David Plouffe and herself that while she truly regrets it, the direction John McCain has been pressured to go is showing that “the Republican Party is running out of ideas.

Conservative Credit Card King Says Iraq War Wrecking American Economy

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Richard Vague is a conservative businessman disgusted with the party he has belonged to for a very long time. He was the Founding CEO of the former First USA Bank which ran at the time the largest credit card operation in the United States. He later started a group called AmericanRespect.

Promoting Democracy: Lessons From Turkey

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Last night, Turkey’s staunchly secular Constitutional Court decided against throwing out the ruling, moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). The decision, which cut Prime Minister Erdogan’s party’s public financing in half and warned it to abide by Turkey’s strictly secular constitution, averted a potential political crisis.

TERRORISM SALON: Fourth (and Final) Prompt — OBL and Al Qaeda

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Is Osama bin Laden still relevant? Or rather, is the threat more from a reconstituted, centralized Al Qaeda, or from more local groups radicalized by preachers or outside forces? (See the recent arguments between Marc Sageman and Bruce Hoffman).