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The political supporter who told President Obama that she was “exhausted” of defending him, becoming a voice for disappointed Americans this fall, has now become another casualty of the weak economy.

Velma Hart said she learned late last week that she had been laid off as chief financial officer of AmVets, a nonprofit veterans service organization based outside of Washington. Even when she addressed Mr. Obama in a CNBC town-hall-style meeting  on the economy on Sept. 20, Ms. Hart said, she knew that the recent recession had put her job in danger through its dampening effect on donations, memberships and sponsorships at AmVets.

A spokesman for AmVets confirmed that Ms. Hart’s layoff was “an economic decision that had nothing to do with her job performance.” A White House spokeswoman had no comment.

“What’s in my heart is now, even more than I did before, I appreciate what millions of people who are in my condition now have been experiencing for the last two, three, four years,” Ms. Hart said at her home in Upper Marlboro, Md. “I don’t take lightly the fact that I know friends who’ve been looking for jobs for two years.”

“Could it take me two years to find a job?” Ms. Hart said. “Wow, that’s a scary proposition for me and my family.”

Ms. Hart said she continued to support Mr. Obama. And this Thanksgiving week, the wife and mother of two teenage girls is trying to remain upbeat.

“I want to focus on the positive and be optimistic,” she concluded. “And assume that somehow things will work out, that there’s an opportunity out there with Velma’s name on it that’s right around the corner.”

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Velma Hart, a woman who got President Obama’s attention when she said she was “exhausted” from defending him and his policies, has lost her job as chief financial officer with a Maryland-based veterans group. Hart has been laid off by Am Vets, but not because of any failure of her part. “She got bit by [...]

1:04 p.m. | Updated Joyce Kaufman has decided not to become Allen West’s chief of staff in the wake of a series of news media reports about controversial statements she has made, including the Caucus report below.

Ms. Kaufman announced the decision during her radio show Thursday. In a statement on the WFTL-AM radio web site, she writes: “Last night I called Congressman-elect Allen West and told him I would not be able to accept the position of chief of staff for Congressional District 22.”

She adds: “It has been an incredible journey watching this extraordinary American hero touch the hearts and minds of the voters here in South Florida and across the country. I am confident that he will be an excellent representative and will remain a close friend. I am proud of his decisive victory on Nov. 2, but I will not be complicit in this effort to diminish his stature by attacks against me or endanger myself and others by serving as his chief.”

“I return to my program on 850 WFTL and as I have always believed, I am in God’s hands. God bless Congressman-elect Allen West and God bless the United States of America.”

The original post follows:

Rarely do congressional aides make news.

But then, rarely do congressional aides call the House speaker “garbage” even before they arrive in Washington.

Joyce Kaufman, an outspoken conservative talk show host from south Florida, will be serving as chief of staff to Tea Party favorite Allen West, a Republican and former Army colonel who won a seat in Florida’s 22nd district in Boca Raton.

On her show this week, she demonstrated the blunt, acerbic style that has captivated her audience, explain that she decided to work for West because “I looked at this family and [told] myself, how do you not fight and put them up on the pedestal when we’ve got this garbage up on the pedestal now, people like Nancy Pelosi?”

That kind of rhetoric is common for Ms. Kaufman, whose show features a steady stream of angry conservatism, especially when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration.

At a recent rally, Ms. Kaufman described her own style as “aggressive” as she ranted about the “risk of losing our culture” from immigrants who come to America illegally.

In particular, she complained about the “politically correct” people who “Want me to embrace everybody and consider every culture equal. I don’t feel that way. If I wanted to live in a third-world country, I could move to one.”

Later in the rally, referring to illegal immigrants who speak Spanish, not English, she said, “they reproduce at a rate about three times what American citizens do. And that’s not bigotry and that’s just fact.”

Mr. West’s Decision to bring Ms. Kaufman to Capitol Hill is not typical. But her intensity fits with the campaign he ran to snare his seat in Congress. Mr. West embraced the Tea Party movement and was endorsed by Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska.

Despite her new job, Ms. Kaufman appears to be holding on to her job at WFTL-AM, the radio station that has been home to her show. The station praised her move on its website this week, but said she will remain as the “Washington correspondent.”

“WFTL is proud of their midday drive talk host as she goes into the belly of the beast to report to us live from DC!” the statement said. “While Joyce has accepted a position on the staff of Congressman-Elect Allen West, CD 22’, she has been retained as our Washington correspondent, with details on her new exciting schedule to be announced soon…keep listening for details!”

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The new House leadership position that Republicans created just for freshman will likely inject a Tea Party voice into high-level decision-making as soon as the next Congress convenes.

The two lawmakers vying for the job — Tim Scott of South Carolina and Kristi Noem of South Dakota – rode the Tea Party wave to victory last week and would bring anti-Washington sentiment to an exclusive circle that has never before included rookie members.

In a gesture to the sheer power of such a large freshman class, Minority Leader John Boehner, the presumptive Speaker of the House, announced earlier this week that he would add a 10th member to his elected leadership team just for new a lawmaker. That freshman representative will attend weekly leadership meetings and be involved in policy and legislative decisions.

Either of the two candidates would give the Republican Party a chance to diversify its image.

Mr. Scott, a fiscal conservative who was backed by The Club for Growth, is the first black Republican elected to the House from South Carolina in over a century. Ms. Noem would become the second woman in the 10-member leadership team.

Ms. Noem and Mr. Scott have officially requested to be considered for the job, their spokesmen said on Thursday afternoon.

Though there is no clear front-runner in the contest, senior Republicans seem to be keeping an eye on Mr. Scott, who has already been tapped to represent his class on the 22-member G.O.P. Majority transition team.

On Nov. 17, after a few days of orientation activities in Washington, the 84 newly elected House members will vote for their leadership representative, the same day as the elections for the team’s other nine members.

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Dear Sarah (Palin), Mitt (Romney), Mike (Huckabee), Mitch (Daniels), Newt (Gingrich), Tim (Pawlenty), Haley (Barbour), John (Thune) and all the other Republican White House Dreamers: The prize shimmers in the distance like palm trees guarding a desert oasis — a wide-open field for the 2012 GOP nomination, an aroused conservative electorate and a wounded Democratic [...]

Lawrence H. Summers, the chief architect of the Obama administration’s economic policies who is leaving the White House, received an accidental back-handed compliment from his boss. Appearing on “The Daily Show with John Stewart” on Wednesday night, President Obama said, “In fairness, Larry Summers did a heck of a job in trying to figure out [...]