Word: clouts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...flurry of proposals dramatizes the renewed clout of organized labor in the corridors of Congress. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, is more receptive when labor buzzes in his ear than was his predecessor, Republican Robert Dole of Kansas. Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy, an avid defender of workers, has replaced the decidedly less sympathetic Utah Republican Orrin Hatch as chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. Democrats who are friendly to or received campaign money from the labor movement are in positions to help along the bulk of the business-related legislation. Boasts...
...would be a "major challenge to fill Volcker's shoes." By law, the activities of the Fed are insulated from White House or congressional interference, but Volcker's imposing presence (he is 6 ft. 7 in.) and his supremely assertive stance have over the years added more substance and clout to the Fed's famed independence. Indeed, in many foreign capitals, Volcker has been viewed as virtually the sole guarantee of sound American monetary policies, immune to political pressure. One commentator went so far last week as to describe him as a "financial demigod...
...legitimized NATO's reliance on nuclear weapons, which in turn has allowed the alliance to hold down its spending on nonnuclear forces. Now, however, with NATO's nuclear inventory likely to shrink, fears are surfacing that decades of nuclear dependence may have left the alliance with insufficient conventional clout to keep the peace...
...gangster-as-tragic- hero stuff. In Robert De Niro's grandly scaled performance he is demonically expansive, our first thug celebrity. And a man who in his secret life, the life his romanticizing fans did not want to hear about, illustrates a lecture on teamwork by taking a Ruthian clout at a traitorous underling's skull with a baseball bat. What he evokes, finally, is pure horror (and maybe some black humor) but -- and the film is rigorous on this point -- no sympathy...
...rule that would eliminate or restrict smoking in virtually all indoor work sites. While the Government is not expected to take any immediate action, the pressure is sure to grow. Smokers, after all, make up a shrinking minority. Nonsmokers, like any other large majority, know the numbers -- and the clout -- are increasingly on their side...