The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz.

The newspaper was formerly distributed only in the suburbs of Washington, under the titles of Montgomery Journal, Prince George's Journal, and Northern Virginia Journal. Anschutz purchased their parent company, Journal Newspapers Inc., in October 2004. On February 1, 2005, the paper's name changed to the Washington Examiner, and it adopted a logo and format similar to that of another newspaper owned by Anschutz, the San Francisco Examiner. The Examiner's parent company, Clarity Media Group, also owns the conservative opinion magazine The Weekly Standard.

The Examiner co-sponsored the Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa on August 11, 2011.

The newspaper is supported entirely by advertisements and is distributed in the Washington, DC, area. The paper is available at most Washington Metro subway stations. It is delivered to 300,000 houses on Thursdays and 250,000 on Sundays. It is printed in a "compact" format, also known as a tabloid format. The Examiner covers world, national, and local news and sports. The Examiner's executive editor is Stephen G. Smith. The newspaper employs staff writers, news services, syndicated writers, and freelance writers.

John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior United States Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to then President George W. Bush.

The son of an Army Air Corps serviceman, Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado. He attended boarding school in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and went on to graduate from Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in political science. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1966 and, during 1968-1969, served a four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a Swift Boat. For that service he was awarded several combat medals that include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally recognized spokesperson and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war. During that period, he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes".

John Andrew Boehner ( /ˈbeɪnər/ BAY-nər; born November 17, 1949) is the 61st and current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Republican Party, he is the U.S. Representative from Ohio's 8th congressional district, serving since 1991. The district includes several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton, and a small portion of Dayton itself.

Boehner previously served as the House Minority Leader from 2007 until 2011, and House Majority Leader from 2006 until 2007. As Speaker of the House, Boehner is second in line to the presidency of the United States following the Vice President in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act.

Boehner was born in Reading, Ohio, the son of Mary Anne (née Hall) and Earl Henry Boehner, the second of twelve children. His father was of German descent and his mother had German and Irish ancestry. He grew up in modest circumstances, having shared one bathroom with his eleven siblings in a two-bedroom house in Cincinnati. His parents slept on a pull-out couch. He started working at his family's bar at age 8, a business founded by their grandfather Andy Boehner in 1938. He has lived in Southwest Ohio his entire life. All but two of his siblings still live within a few miles of each other; two are unemployed and most of the others have blue-collar jobs.

Sara Carter (July 21, 1898 – January 8, 1979) was an American Country music musician. Known for her deep and distinctive singing voice, she was the lead singer on most of the recordings of the historic Carter Family act in the 1920s and 1930s.

Born Sara Elizabeth Dougherty in Copper Creek, Virginia, (Rich Valley), she was the daughter of William Sevier Dougherty and Nancy Elizabeth Kilgore. Sara married A. P. Carter on June 18, 1915, but they were later divorced in 1939. They had three children: Gladys (Millard), Janette (Jett), and Joe.

In 1927, she and A.P. began performing as the Carter Family, perhaps the first commercial rural Country music group. They were joined by her cousin, Maybelle, who was married to A.P.'s brother, Ezra Carter. She later remarried to Coy Bayes, A.P.'s first cousin, and moved to California in 1943, and the original group disbanded. In the late 1940s, Maybelle began performing with her daughters Helen, June, and Anita as The Carter Sisters (the act was renamed The Carter Family during the 1960s).

James Richard "Rick" Perry (born March 4, 1950) is the 47th and current Governor of Texas. Perry, a Republican, was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and assumed the governorship in December 2000 when then-governor George W. Bush resigned to become President of the United States. Perry was elected to full gubernatorial terms in 2002, 2006 and 2010. With a tenure in office to date of &1000000000000001100000011 years, &10000000000000188000000188 days, Perry is the longest continuously serving current U.S. governor, and the second longest serving current U.S. governor—after Terry Branstad of Iowa. Perry served as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2008 (succeeding Sonny Perdue of Georgia) and again in 2011. Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas state history. As a result, he is the only governor in modern Texas history to have appointed at least one person to every eligible state office, board, or commission position (as well as to several elected offices to which the governor can appoint someone to fill an unexpired term, such as six of the nine current members of the Texas Supreme Court).