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Jennifer Harper

Jennifer Harper

jharper@washingtontimes.com

Jennifer Harper wrote the daily Inside the Beltway column for The Washington Times.

Articles by Jennifer Harper

A sign is posted as a joke at an entrance to the Occupy Portland camp Oregon. Occupy protesters want shoppers to boycott door-buster sales at big-box stores on Black Friday. (Associated Press)

Inside the Beltway

Doubts about Mitt Romney's fitness for the White House disappear when skittish Republicans, conservatives and even evangelicals consider the alternative: another four years of President Obama and his evolving administration.

November 24, 2011

Inside the Beltway

A reassuring 96 percent of Americans are still thankful for their lot in life, despite claims from moody pundits and much of the alarmist press that the U.S. has seen "better days," or words to that effect.

November 23, 2011
Humorist Mark Twain observed, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session."

Inside the Beltway

There's some tea party support brewing for Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent suggestion that Congress be retooled into a part-time gig for lawmakers who don't appear to earn their keep - a notion keenly amplified after the supercommittee's failure.

November 22, 2011
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is touting himself as "the only real Washington outsider in the race for the White House."

Inside the Beltway

There are limousine liberals, and now limousine Occupiers.

November 20, 2011
Online retailer Zazzle.com offers a variety of campaign T-shirts supporting Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. (Photo courtesy Zazzle.com)

Inside the Beltway

The potent, promising allure of Iowa has drawn all the Republican hopefuls to a pair of significant events this weekend — all except roguish Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Jr., that is, who prefer New Hampshire.

November 17, 2011

Inside the Beltway

First it was Texas. Gov. Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, who shot to giddy fame and then slumped in the polls after their imperfections were magnified in an unfriendly media marketplace. But alas. Now it's Newt Gingrich's turn, some insist.

November 16, 2011
The Amazing Kreskin, a mentalist, has offered to meet with Herman Cain and the women accusing him of sexual misconduct so he can guess who is telling the truth.

Inside the Beltway

The Amazing Kreskin, a longtime mentalist, contends that the women who recently accused Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain of sexual harassment should consider taking a polygraph test, as Mr. Cain has offered to do.

November 15, 2011
Chelsea Clinton

Inside the Beltway

Memo to the supercommittee: Get it done in the next week, or else.

November 14, 2011
A spokesman for presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann said "liberal mainstream media elites" are trying to suppress the conservative message of the Minnesota Republican. (Associated Press)

Inside the Beltway

Fireworks and accusations follow the 10th presidential debate hosted by CBS News and the National Journal, even though the Republican candidates went for the gravitas and steely polish Saturday night.

November 13, 2011

Inside the Beltway

The presidential debates are Mitt Romney-centric: He gets more time on camera than any other candidate, offering some quantifiable proof that, indeed, Mr. Romney is the "inevitable" candidate - the mainstream media's preferred choice for Republican nominee.

November 10, 2011
Will Portal, of Suffolk County, N.Y., expresses his views Wednesday at the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park in New York. Global Language Monitor has selected "occupy" as its "top word of 2011." Associated Press

Inside the Beltway

The Occupy Wall Street crowd appears to have made a lasting cultural mark: The Global Language Monitor has announced that "Occupy" is the "top word of 2011," based on the number of times it was cited in about 75,000 print and electronic news sources in the past year.

November 9, 2011
An inadvertent "open mic" night caught French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Obama disparaging their Israeli counterpart. (Associated Press)

Inside the Beltway

It is a revealing and possibly damning bit of presidential carelessness: That would be President Obama's "open mic" mishap with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

November 8, 2011
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has axed the "holiday tree" this year in favor of "the Christmas tree displayed in our state capitol."

Inside the Beltway

The "Cain media" was essentially all over the map following the press conference of Sharon Bialek, presidential hopeful Herman Cain's blonde accuser, and her attorney Gloria Allred.

November 7, 2011
FILE - In this June 24, 2011 file photo Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks in Jacksonville, Fla. Twitter is abuzz with presidential candidates this year, though not all in the Twittersphere are equal. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson, File)

Inside the Beltway

The next Republican debate looms Thursday, with 14 more to follow in the next three months.

November 6, 2011
Health Care for America Now and 11 other progressive groups hope to disrupt Americans for Prosperity's "Defending the American Dream Summit" with "Occupy the Kochs' Guerrilla Drive-In" - an outdoor film festival staged just outside the event. (Health Care for America Now)

Inside the Beltway

Those quarterback sacks, the excruciating tackles: Republicans are apparently more appreciative of NFL "violence" than Democrats. There's a partisan divide even when it comes to football, says a new Poll Position survey of 1,032 voters revealing that GOPers actually favor the rough stuff more than other respondents in multiple demographic categories. A quarter of all Americans say that professional football is "too violent," compared to 21 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats.

November 3, 2011
Former first lady Laura Bush and daughters Barbara Bush (left) and Jenna Bush Hager were named to Glamour magazine's 2011 Women of the Year list for their advocacy for "women, children and the world's neediest." When Laura and former President George W. Bush had their daughters, their odds of having twins were 3 in 100 — or 3%.

Inside the Beltway

The toxic press continues to dwell on sexual-harassment charges against presidential hopeful Herman Cain, to the point that one CBS story erroneously reported he had been accused of "sexual assault," says Matthew Balan, an analyst with the watchdog site Newsbusters.

November 2, 2011
"We don't have to sit back and allow a minority in the Congress, known as the tea party, to dominate the discussion in our households," Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis recently said.

Inside the Beltway

"I'll be darned if I'm going to set that aside now because a few teabaggers want to somehow muzzle my voice. We don't have to sit back and allow a minority in the Congress, known as the tea party, to dominate the discussion in our households," Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis recently told an enthusiastic audience at the Florida Democratic convention, citing federal assistance that once helped her family.

November 1, 2011
Former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld must be looking forward to American Spectator's Robert L. Bartley Dinner on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

Inside the Beltway

Politics is a full contact sport tended by frantic journalists. But the show must go on.

October 31, 2011
Popular among Democrats this Halloween? The Mitt Romney over-the-head vinyl mask is sold out nationwide say some sources. (Image from Costumecraze.com)

Inside the Beltway

"Halloween ... and the New Hampshire Democratic Party has everything you need right here to dress up as this year's most famous 1-percenter: Mitt Romney. Just like Mitt Romney, the hardest part will be choosing which Mitt you want to be. There's Unemployed Mitt, Millionaire Mitt, Middle Class Mitt, Mean Mitt and Career Politician Mitt," advises the waggish New Hampshire Democratic Party.

October 30, 2011