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Dolley Madison was the model for savvy

Opinion column

When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty”: “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.” We thought of Dolley when President Obama started implementing his own version of the “squeeze” — dinner with 12

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Who decides what’s fair in who we marry?

Opinion column

Given his track record on marital fidelity, former President Bill Clinton is not the person I would consult about “committed, loving relationships.” Clinton used those words in a Washington Post op-ed last week, urging the Supreme Court to overturn the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman, which he signed into law.

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Administration has spending flexibility

Opinion column

Find this story and other news, sports and features items at www.albanyherald.com.

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Polarized society has no winners

Opinion column

Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.

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Essential government tasks need reliable funding

Opinion column

Here's hoping that Stewart Parnell goes to prison. The former president of the now-bankrupt Peanut Corp. of America, Parnell ran a filthy Georgia processing plant contaminated with salmonella that injured more than 600 people in a 2008-2009 outbreak, killing nine. Last month, federal prosecutors charged Parnell and three others with criminal offenses, claiming the executives intentionally shipped out contaminated peanut products.

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President's hopes are on pain from sequestration

Opinion column

"The worst-case scenario for us," a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Washington Post, "is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens."

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Voting Rights Act still necessary

Opinion column

If you want to stare into the ugly face of racial resentment, take a good look at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. His frank, if stunningly injudicious, remarks about a key portion of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) laid bare the bitterness that so many hyper-conservatives still harbor toward black progress

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Ryan’s hope is to buy time in order to win war

Opinion column

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is looking beyond today and the beginning of the sequestration. In an interview I conducted with him on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Ryan told me he believes a majority of Americans will come to understand how bad the debt is after the rhetoric gives way to reality.

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Judge Yahoo CEO by job, not gender

Opinion column

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is abolishing the company’s work-at-home policy and ordering everyone to show up at the office. Her decision has sparked intense and often nasty debate, with Mayer usually landing on the losing end. Many women, in particular, sound betrayed after daring to expect more from such a high-profile female boss. How could she?

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Get out of the political weeds

Opinion column

America’s got some serious problems to solve.

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Fox News chief knows how to count

Opinion column

Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News Channel, is a very smart man. And he knows how to count, a skill that has apparently eluded many of his fellow conservatives.

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Noble origins of 'black history' outdated

Eighty-seven years ago — when about half of households owned an automobile, women's suffrage was new and black Americans were still terrorized by lynching, especially in the South — black historian Carter G. Woodson had a simple but powerful idea: Designate a week to celebrate the contributions that black Americans had made to their country. Woodson chose the second week of February to commemorate the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

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State of the Union speech recycled

Opinion column

President Obama’s approach to so-called “climate change” appears to include recycling old ideas.

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President Obama is still impaired ideologically

Opinion column

Our failure in chief gave us his annual blurred vision of America again Tuesday night.

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Media has double standard on drone attacks against Americans

Opinion column

An unsigned and undated Justice Department white paper, obtained by NBC News, reports The New York Times, “... is the most detailed analysis yet to come into public view regarding the Obama legal team’s views about the lawfulness of killing, without a trial, an American citizen who executive branch officials decide is an operational leader of Al Qaeda or one of its allies.”