How to Improve the Trust Factor of Your Blog

Trust is a big word and it doesn’t come at a cheap price.

Either you could build trust from day one or it takes years to build that trust factor and boost your credibility.

Be it ShoutMeLoud, Problogger, DailyBlogTips, every blog needs to have a trust factor, else you will find it hard to convert visitors into regular readers and customers.

The good thing is, as a blogger most of you are aware of a few factors that increase the trust factor for a blog.

Here is one question that you should ask yourself:

What made you subscribe to a blog for the first place?What factors made you hate a Website?

If you know the answers to the above question, you are already on the right track. In this article, I will mention a few things which increase the trust factor for your blog, and help you look like an expert in your niche.

Do remember one thing, there is a huge difference between a content Website, and a blog. When it comes to a blog, people look for a Face, a person and someone they can connect to. Before you create your blog, look around, and make a list of the top blogs, every one of these blogs has a face associated with it. This helps people connect and eventually make it easier for them to know like and trust you.

When it comes to Websites, it works differently. For example, a Website selling product, I usually look out for Verisign signature. I prefer to read testimonials, and so on. But with blogs, you can achieve trust factor with following tips:

Pages on your blog:

Every blog needs to have few pages like (About, contact, archive, social/subscribe) and many others. These pages are the building block for your blog trust factor. Specially, when ever I check my analytic, my blog about page is one of the most viewed page on my blog. A good about page is all about you and your blog. It should not be mechanical, and should let your first time visitor know what your blog is all about, who is the person/company behind the blog. Infact, if you have a great about page, you can use it to get more Email subscribers, and more social media fans.

Blog design:

Think of your blog design as first impression. A good blog design is a turn-on, and a cluttered design is a turn-off. It doesn’t matter if you are using a Premium WordPress theme, free theme or a custom design, if your blog design is not appealing, you are sending your visitors away. If you have never made any major investment on your blog till now, spend money on getting a unique design for your blog. It may cost you anything from $300-1000, but it will be one of the best investment for your blog.

Your Social media accounts:

We all know how important social media marketing is for any blog, and Facebook is one of the best places to market your blog. A simple fan page will do all the magic you need to get started on Facebook. Facebook offers the like box, which will let you add a fan page like button on your blog. This helps your readers to connect with your blog on Facebook and provides a way for you to eventually promote your blog for free. I usually recommend to wait for first 200-300 fans, and than integrate like box on your blog.

I have also tried Facebook page promoter WordPress plugin, which helped a lot in increasing the number of fans on my page. Do remember, your social media profile is all about being social, and connecting socially with your blog readers. So, make sure it’s not a ghost town.

Make use of 3rd party apps like Post Planner and Bufferapp to schedule updates, and keep your page engaging. An active social media profile of your blog, certainly helps in increasing the trust factor for your blog.

eBook:

Every blogger have something great about them. I could talk endlessly about Blogging and SEO. Similarly, you can talk something about Email-marketing, raising a child and so on. You might have covered about the topic you write about in different posts, and now how about combine them in one single blog post and giving it away for free. This will not only help you in gaining new readers, but also helps you to establish as an expert.

Creating an eBook might sound like a very tedious task, but you can always follow this simple trick, which will help you create the eBook in no time.

Follow my video called: How to Convert a Webpage into PDF in Mac Without Software

Once you have created a draft of your eBook, hire someone from Fiverr to design an eBook cover or do the final touch-up. You can also use 3-D pack to create free eBook cover. With a mere investment of 2 hours and $30-$50, you are actually creating an asset for your blog, which will give a great ROI over the time.

Author Bio:

Blog is all about connecting with reader. When ever I read an awesome content on any blog, first thing which I want to know about is the author of the blog post. Author bio is one of those thing, that hangs out at the end of blog post, and work as a connecting channel between readers and you.

Depending upon your creativity, you can always spice up your author bio box, and use it to convert visitors into readers.  You don’t have to be a coder to add an author box below your blog post, you can use a plugin like this to quickly add with no coding requirement.

Don’t forget to update your Google+ profile and register your email with Gravatar then upload a beautiful mugshot of yours.

Internal linking:

To become an expert in a niche, you have to be consistent with your writing. Internal linking will help readers to read other articles on similar topic on your blog. There are more advantages of internal linking, as it reduces the bounce rate, improve avg. time spent on the site, and to get more views. There are many WordPress plugins which helps in internal linking.

Do remember, link when it’s necessary, else no linking is better than an irrelevant link.

If you are a professional blogger, you have to suit up like a pro-blogger. If your blog is making money for you, it’s time to treat it like a business. For a business to succeed, brand value plays major role. Start treating your blog like a brand. Focus more on branding your blog with logo, videos, design, social media profile and other ways possible. Create a business card for yourself, print your blog logo in a T-Shirt and giveaway for free.

These are some of the basic tips to create a trust factor for your blog. I have tried most of these tips, and they worked great.

Though, by the end it’s your honest content, that will win millions of heart.

Tagged as: Branding, Create an ebook, Trust Factor

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Richard A. Clarke: Never Forget: Our Invasion of Iraq Was a Breach of Trust

Richard A. Clarke: Never Forget: Our Invasion of Iraq Was a Breach of Trust HPFB.init();
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Paul Ryan iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app More Log in Create Account Notifications Profile Settings Logout #topnav_margin_btm { margin:0 !important } March 19, 2013 Edition: U.S. CA Canada FR France IT Italia ES España US United States UK United Kingdom FRONT PAGE Politics Elizabeth Warren Talks $22-An-Hour Minimum Wage12k More Evidence Emerges That Cheney Had Eyes On Iraqi Oil5k Florida Elections Website Targeted By Cyberattack: Report5k Hillary Clinton Comes Out For Gay Marriage12k Fox News Contributor Makes Shocking Judd Joke7k Go to Politics More in Politics Pollster Politics Blog Speculatron Off The Bus Election Maps You might also like World Green Black Voices Latino Voices Gay Voices Business 8 Things Ikea Wants You To Forget About398 Cookie Crumbs! 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Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributorsHot on the BlogRichard A. ClarkeBernard-Henri LévyAlec BaldwinEvan Handler
Richard A. ClarkeFormer Advisor to the President on Cyber Security

GET UPDATES FROM Richard A. Clarke   Like 3 Never Forget: Our Invasion of Iraq Was a Breach of Trust Posted: 03/19/2013 7:00 am Follow   War Wire ,   Iraq , Iraq Invasion , Iraq War Anniversary , Politics News
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On Tuesday, at this 10th anniversary of the American Invasion of Iraq, we would do well to remind ourselves about some painful facts.

Keeping those facts in our collective memory may make it easier for us as a nation to prevent future mistakes. So, let us recall five unfortunate facts about the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

First, the leaders of the Bush administration were intent on invading from the beginning of their time in the White House. When the 9-11 attacks occurred, Bush cabinet members immediately discussed how that tragedy could be used to justify an invasion.

Bush himself asked me to try to pin the blame for 9-11 on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney propagated a myth that a hijacker had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, even though we knew at the time Cheney said it that the report was false and that the hijacker was in Virginia at the time of the alleged meeting.

Second, the Bush-Cheney team settled on the excuse for invading that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction. They trotted out to Congress, the American people and the United Nations a series of fabricated intelligence reports.

Iraq was allegedly buying "yellow cake" uranium from Niger. The documentary proof used turns out to have been a forgery. Iraq had mobile biological-weapons labs. The eyewitness has been shown to be a liar. Iraq was allegedly training al Qaida. The only evidence of that were the ravings of a terrorist under extreme torture.

The proof that these and other fabricated intelligence reports were erroneous was available well before we invaded.

Third, the mismanagement of the war cost thousands of American lives and more than 100,000 Iraqi lives and disfigured, dismembered or traumatized tens of thousands of Americans. The financial and human cost of those casualties will be felt for decades.

The Bush administration had no real plan for occupying Iraq, but it dismissed the Iraqi army, despite the fact that the army had access to a trove of arms. An insurgency immediately followed, and for months thereafter, the secretary of defense not only refused to admit it, he banned the use of the word insurgency.

Fourth, those who profited most were Iran and al Qaeda. For years, Iran's aggression in the region was held in check by the Baghdad government. Since the U.S. invasion, Iran has gained greater influence throughout the area, undermining the U.S. and its allies.

Because we were busy in Iraq, U.S. military and intelligence assets were not available to end quickly the al Qaeda and Taliban presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thus, the people who actually attacked us on Sept. 11 were free for years to regain their strength.

Fifth, the invasion and occupation of Iraq added between one trillion and two trillion dollars to our long-term debt, depending upon what costs are considered (replacing equipment, caring for veterans).

Defense contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater made huge profits. Those expenses were initiated at the same time as the Bush administration began a tax cut. The financial difficulties our government and economy face today are in large part driven by those twin decisions.

It is appropriate that we thank our veteran soldiers and civilians for their service in Iraq, for they did what was asked of them. It is, however, inappropriate that we thank for their service the senior officials who concocted this debacle.

We may have as a nation implicitly decided that we would be better off without trials or even without a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but we should not forget what those officials did to us as a nation, to our soldiers, to our finances, to our moral standing in the world. For to do that, to welcome them back as elder statesmen, would be to offend our fallen and our wounded, and to reward duplicity by those who swore a public trust.

One of America's great strengths is that it looks to the future, not the past. It may also be one of our greatest weaknesses. We often pay a price for our collective amnesia or ignorance of our own history. Instead, we must remember, we must teach the history, not cover it up, and never forget it.

Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism coordinator at the National Security Council from 1993 to 2001, is chairman of Good Harbor Consulting and the author of "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."

First published in the Orlando Sentinel.

 FOLLOW POLITICS Like 221k   Get Alerts #ad_bottom_article_text {margin-bottom: 15px} War WireIraq Read more from Huffington Post bloggers: Robert Scheer Robert Scheer: Time Heals All Hubris Jon Soltz Jon Soltz: Iraq Veterans' thoughts on today's anniversary

Robert Scheer: Time Heals All Hubris

How is it that there is no palpable sense of soul searching associated with the 10th anniversary of a war based on officially concocted lies and a policy of torture? It is because the presumption of a unique American claim to an original and enduring innocence perseveres, no matter the death and destruction.

Jon Soltz: Iraq Veterans' thoughts on today's anniversary

This week marks ten years since the launch of the war in Iraq. I was a young Captain at the time, and part of the...
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My latest article on the Iraq invasion

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of our newest badge: Community Curator. View AllFavorites Recency |  Popularity Jay HaneyMy nuclear family imploded when I was 18. I've bee979 Fans 24 minutes ago (12:04 PM)Mr. Clarke, I've always admired you, sir, for being the only visible member of government to do something the entire W administration refused to do: take responsibility for the failures on 9/11. Watching the tragedies that have followed since that grand abdication of what should have been theirs has been a nightmare.

You once asked for forgiveness for your and others' part in failing to stop 9/11. By virtue of your actions then and now (now, of course, encompassing this article), you are forgiven. The others...there can be none without them owning what was theirs all along.Jay_Haney: Mr. Clarke, I've always admired you, sir, for being thehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Jay_Haney/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238215199.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… MetaMD84 Fans 27 minutes ago (12:01 PM)We need a Truth Commission with Bush and Cheney testifying under oath. Simple. Let's get to the truth for our country"s sake, the sooner the better. Just look at the damage.MetaMD: We need a Truth Commission with Bush and Cheney testifyinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/MetaMD/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238214255.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… HUFFPOST SUPER USERyatahayaz248 Fans 36 minutes ago (11:52 AM)Thank you Mr. Clarke for being one of the few in our government who has the guts to call it like it is. Too bad the neo-conservatives could not view reality through their lens of ideology. Tragic for the lives this experiment has cost, and the treasure it has robbed from the next generation. What swine inhabited the White House for 8 years!yatahayaz: Thank you Mr. Clarke for being one of the fewhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/yatahayaz/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238211873.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… beaver72160 Fans   46 minutes ago (11:42 AM)Sad to see a couple of lies still being presented. The Congressional Authorization for War in Iraq listed 23 reasons for the war (in the introductory "Whereas..." paragraphs). Two of those listed WMD leaving 21 other reasons for the war. And as to the Iraqi lost of life one wonders why the death rate dropped from over 8 per 1000 per year to 5 per 1000 per year almost immediately (equal to 75,000 lives saved per year) and the population boomed from 22 million to 31 million during the war.beaver7216: Sad to see a couple of lies still being presented.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/beaver7216/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238209097.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… leopoldbloom1629 Fans   53 minutes ago (11:35 AM)It would be a lot easier to stomach if we made any effort whatsoever to hold anyone accountable. But Obama decided he didn't want that distraction.leopoldbloom16: It would be a lot easier to stomach if wehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/leopoldbloom16/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238207239.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… love4lifeNunya599 Fans 2 hours ago (10:42 AM)I'm not lying this time. Honest.

~Richard Clarkelove4life: I'm not lying this time. Honest. ~Richard Clarkehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/love4life/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238193784.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share it This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program ufopp3493 Fans 31 minutes ago (11:57 AM)We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

~Richard Cheneyufopp: We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. ~Richard Cheneyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/ufopp/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238213220.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments…This comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… AuntFaintly22 Fans 2 hours ago (10:07 AM)"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."
Rudyard KiplingAuntFaintly: "If any question why we died, Tell them, because ourhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/AuntFaintly/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238185674.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share it Jay HaneyMy nuclear family imploded when I was 18. I've bee979 Fans 23 minutes ago (12:05 PM)One of my favorite Kipling quotes, written in response to another fiasco called the Great War then, World War I now.Jay_Haney: One of my favorite Kipling quotes, written in response tohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Jay_Haney/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238215546.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments…This comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… SunnyDaySamTo Err is Human, to Forgive is Canine1721 Fans 3 hours ago ( 9:02 AM)Excellent article. Thank you Mr. Clarke.SunnyDaySam: Excellent article. Thank you Mr. Clarke.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/SunnyDaySam/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238172800.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… PayingAttentionconsider this77 Fans 4 hours ago ( 8:34 AM)It is hard to fathom how far our nation's esteem in the eyes of the world fell from the Clinton years to the Bush years. Clinton went to our old enemy, Vietnam, and was treated like a rock star. Bush went to our supposed ally, Iraq, and shoes were thrown at him.
For those on the right, the successes of the Clinton governing policies were leading to an intolerable situation, people may come to view government as a helpful presence in their lives and want more of it. This would lead to a national acceptance of higher taxes to pay for it and also a government that might put limits on the Ayn Rand types whose main goal is to swell their wealth and power.
The right came to power not with the idea that they could govern better, but to discredit government in the eyes of the voter so they would want far less of it. The underlying motivation for the tax cuts and the Iraq war was not fiscal stimulus or protecting the country, but was to under mine the peoples confidence in government. They also knew that with the proper song and dance they could convince a significant portion of the population that all this was a good thing.
For that tiny sliver of the population that controls the lion's share of our national wealth, a well run national government that functions for the benefit of all is an enemy that must be destroyed.PayingAttention: It is hard to fathom how far our nation's esteemhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/PayingAttention/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238168119.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… HUFFPOST SUPER USERKatherine GuidryReal Estate Appraiser & Environmental150 Fans 4 hours ago ( 8:22 AM)We can never hope to recover our strong sense of judgement that Americans see as part of our identity until this war is dealt with in a true court of law...hoping the state of Vermont invites Bush and Cheney to their lovely state to begin this processKatherine_Guidry: We can never hope to recover our strong sense ofhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Katherine_Guidry/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238166221.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… VTpat571 Fans 4 hours ago ( 8:16 AM)A shameful chapter in our history. We must do all we can never to repeat it.VTpat: A shameful chapter in our history. We must do allhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/VTpat/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238165348.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… Countess1949 Fans 4 hours ago ( 8:07 AM)I agree that the invasion of Iraq was a breach of trust but it will certainly not be the last as we are well on the way to another one as the same neocons in both parties have deliberately made war with Iran almost inevitable and the sheepish public doesn't seem to mind.Countess: I agree that the invasion of Iraq was a breachhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Countess/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238164131.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… Trydecency250 Fans 5 hours ago ( 7:52 AM)Good summary of the Iraq debacle, but what else is new? Iraq is being swept into the National Memory Hole alongside the massive U.S. war crime of the Vietnam War -- which also was based on lies and distortions -- Panama, Grenada and other unnecessary, politically motivated murder-fests. This keeps happening because the nation's knee-jerk conservative school districts refuse to teach accurate history classes, instead summarizing recent wars with the comfortable myths spread by the media. (The Iraq invasion was a response to the "unprovoked" 9-11 attacks, Saddam was responsible or connected to Al Qaeda, etc.) These myths continue now -- that the Afghanistan war is necessary because otherwise AQ would be able to attack America again, and other such nonsense. Any teacher who taught the simple, documented truth about these issues would be fired in most districts, probably for presenting "material not in the curriculum." And so it goes.

By the way, when are we going to stop hand-wringing about our unnecessary wars and actually change our government to provide accountability and more responsiveness to the people's wishes?
Sadly, the answer to that is -- Never. All the hand-wringing is just part of the National Memory Hole sweep-up process and clears the way for the next unnecessary war. That's the American Way.Trydecency: Good summary of the Iraq debacle, but what else ishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Trydecency/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238162256.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share it beaver72160 Fans   32 minutes ago (11:57 AM)Don't leave out the Afghanistan war. I have no idea why were are there, why we escalated, what we have gained from the escalation. It is one thing to remove the Taliban but why all these extra human and financial costs? If it was to find bin Laden, he was in Pakistan.

All US wars have been based on lies, either entirely or in part. We still don't know why we had the War of 1812-was it a British invasion or an attempt to take over the "Northwest Territories and the Indian lands there? Lincoln talked about saving the Union to some, and, later, freeing slaves to others. The Mexican War was based on a fight that may or may not have happened in what may or may not have been the US. (See Spot Resolution). We still don't know about the USS Maine. Wilson lied about captured communications between Mexico and Germany in WW1 and wanted to do a pre-emptive strike against Germany. Pearl Harbor made sense but Roosevelt really wanted war with Germany and used that as an excuse. Korean War was a result of Truman's flip-flop, first declaring Korea was out of the zone of security and outside of US protections. And then there is the Gulf of Tonkin.

One of the lies out of Iraq was that "For the first time, the US went to a pre-emptive war, a war based on lies."beaver7216: Don't leave out the Afghanistan war. I have no ideahttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/beaver7216/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238213126.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments…This comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… HUFFPOST SUPER USERgreytunesAll shall be punish'ed622 Fans 5 hours ago ( 7:38 AM)Excellent post and critique of our actions in Iraq.greytunes: Excellent post and critique of our actions in Iraq.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/greytunes/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238160691.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… ShakeMyHeadInDisbelief0 Fans 5 hours ago ( 7:21 AM)Yes absolutely true. Now the push is for an attack on Iran, again much pushed for by different lobbies, interests, the press, again with fabricated and exaggerated reasons, this time by a democratic administration. I wonder if China is going spare us another trillion or two?ShakeMyHeadInDisbelief: Yes absolutely true. Now the push is for an attackhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/ShakeMyHeadInDisbelief/iraq-war-anniversary_b_2904285_238159009.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments…    new comment(s) on this entry — Click to refreshLoading comments… Most Popular Elizabeth Warren Talks $22-An-Hour Minimum Wage PRINTABLE NCAA Tournament Bracket History Channel's Satan Looks A Lot Like Obama... Elisabeth Hasselbeck's Days At 'The View' Are Reportedly Numbered CNN, Fox News Air Name Of Underage Rape Victim Indian Officials Suggest Swiss Tourist, Husband Partially To Blame For Gang Rape Britney Spears Reunites With Ex-Husband Ohio Rape Trial Verdict Announced Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals Devastating Miscarriage Hillary Clinton Comes Out For Gay Marriage MSNBC Almost Entirely Dominated By Opinion, New Study Says PICTURES: Nailed It! PHOTOS: Kate Middleton Almost Trips On Her Heels At St Patrick's Day Parade Marine Draws Gun, Stops Brutal Crime BEYONCE'S BACK Banned For Life Karl Rove Mocks Sarah Palin Tenure As Governor Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart's Fame Is 'Tragic,' Says 'Twilight' Author Fox News Contributor Makes Shocking Judd Joke Soccer Player Celebrates Goal With Nazi Salute Follow HuffPost Email Facebook Twitter Google Plus RSS Mobile HuffPost Daily Brief Politics Get top stories and blogs posts emailed to you each day.

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