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Latest Articles: politics and politicians
Democrats Hold Early-Voting Advantage Over Republicans
Post Date: 2012-10-30 11:34:14 by Brian S
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In two of the most competitive states in the U.S. presidential race -- Iowa and Nevada -- Democrats are building a significant advantage in early voting. Who has the edge is more muddled in the bigger swing states of Ohio and Florida, while Republicans have a narrow lead in Colorado. Early, in-person voting started in Florida over the weekend, and dozens of Democrats in Tallahassee marched five blocks from a church to an early-voting site yesterday, chanting “Vote early.” Almost 15 million people have already cast ballots nationwide, according to the United States Elections Project at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Both parties are spinning their versions of what ...
Rand Paul, Confident of Romney’s Prospects, Still Leaves Door Open for Own White House Bid As Early As 2016
Post Date: 2012-10-29 18:41:12 by Brian S
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is dispensing with conventional wisdom and predicting an Electoral College landslide for GOP nominee Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential contest. But he’s leaving the door open for his own White House run as early as 2016. “I think all of the polling is underestimating where we’re going to be. My prediction — and of course I could be wrong — but my prediction is that this is going to be 1980,” Paul said. "This is going to be an election that was projected to be very close, we have all these battleground states, but in the end, Romney’s going to pull away and he’s going to win by a bigger percentage than anyone ...
Romney ‘Rented’ Mormon Church’s Exemption To Defer Taxes For 15 Years
Post Date: 2012-10-29 15:22:26 by Brian S
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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney used a loophole to “rent” the Mormon church’s tax exemption status and defer paying taxes for 15 years, according to a new report. Tax returns obtained by Bloomberg News through a Freedom of Information Act request indicated that Romney set up a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) in June 1996 just before Congress cracked down on the loophole in 1997. “In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years,” Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker explained. “At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably ...
"I Pledge to Serve Barack Obama" (Urgent 2012 Election Update)
Post Date: 2012-10-29 14:41:11 by Hondo68
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Did Ashton, Diddy, Jason, et al keep their promises? In a widely viewed 2009 YouTube video, America’s best and brightest celebrities bravely pledged to serve the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama. "I pledge to be a servant to Barack Obama - and to all mankind," announced Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, the video's producers," and dozens of stars joined them in a chant to "become the change that we seek." On the eve of the 2012 election, Reason TV decided to see how those pledges are working out for performers such as Ashton Kutcher, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Kevin Zegers, Red Hot Chili Peppers' frontman Anthony Kiedis, and Jason Bateman ...
As Romney Edges Toward Moderation, Ryan Takes A Lower Profile
Post Date: 2012-10-28 23:14:28 by Brian S
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NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Paul D. Ryan stood onstage in his red North Face jacket, talking about his running mate, when the applause suddenly started to crescendo. Behind Ryan came Mitt Romney, his graying hair and black jacket looking suddenly presidential. The crowd wanted the man at the top of the ticket, and as Romney began to speak, Ryan moved to the back of the stage, clapping on cue, looking a bit like the nice neighbor from down the street. Moments like this, which took place Friday night on a high school football field, are in keeping with Ryan's recent lower profile, which contrasts sharply with his first days on the campaign trail. Then, the young Wisconsin congressman was ...
Romney-Ryan Reportedly Using Campaign Bus to Aid Hurricane Sandy Relief
Post Date: 2012-10-28 20:33:40 by Hondo68
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(Photo: Twitter/@CurtCashour) The Romney campaign is reportedly using at least one of its campaign buses to provide supplies and relief for those who are likely to be hit by Hurricane Sandy in the coming days. Having canceled campaign events in the area, Romney spokespeople are saying the bus will be used to transport donations of basic supplies to those in need. “Bring donations to VA Victory offices. Romney bus will deliver them to those affected by #Sandy. #RomneyRyan2012,” Curt Cashour, Romney’s Virginia communications director, tweeted. ABC’s Emily Friedman added: “Romney campaign will load storm relief supplies into Romney bus in Arlington Va today an will ...
2011 Mitt Romney: Federal Disaster Relief For Tornado And Flood Victims Is ‘Immoral,’ ‘Makes No Sense At All’
Post Date: 2012-10-28 19:46:12 by Brian S
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Asked about federal disaster relief for recent tornado and flood victims at last night’s GOP debate, candidate Mitt Romney called the spending “immoral” and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be privatized. With greenhouse pollution on the rise, the United States has been struck by a “punishing series of billion-dollar disasters.” Embracing a radical anti-government ideology from the most extreme elements of the Tea Party, Romney said that the victims in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and other communities hit by tornadoes and flooding should not receive governmental assistance. He argued it is “simply immoral” for ...
Detroit Free Press Endorsement: Top Reasons To Re-Elect Obama
Post Date: 2012-10-28 16:24:23 by Brian S
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What’s the best case Barack Obama can make for re-election? Let’s start with the stunning record of accomplishments he has compiled over the last four years: • General Motors and Chrysler are thriving — a long, long way from the edge of insolvency, which is where Obama found them on his first day in office. Bridge loans and managed bankruptcies turned them around, and stable growth followed soon after. Is there anything more important to people here in Michigan? • The economy has grown jobs for the past 30 months, after hemorrhaging 4.9 million in 2009. The bleeding began to stop when Obama convinced Congress to authorize $831 billion in federal stimulus funds, and ...
Advantage Obama In Hunt For 270 Electoral Votes
Post Date: 2012-10-28 16:10:55 by Brian S
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AMES, Iowa (AP) -- President Barack Obama is poised to eke out a victory in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win re-election, having beaten back Republican Mitt Romney's attempts to convert momentum from the debates into support in all-important Ohio, according to an Associated Press analysis a week before Election Day. While the Democratic incumbent has the upper hand in the electoral vote hunt, Romney has pulled even, or is slightly ahead, in polling in a few pivotal states, including Florida and Virginia. The Republican challenger also appears to have the advantage in North Carolina, the most conservative of the hotly contested nine states that will determine the ...
Free to Be a Communist
Post Date: 2012-10-27 12:59:41 by Abcdefg
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I was reading one of the angrier conservative bloggers the other day when I came to a sentence where he referred to President Obama as a"communist." It stopped my eye. I am no fan of Obama, and I have a high tolerance for vituperation. (I like the late Auberon Waugh's definition of opinion journalism as"the vituperative arts.") Still,"communist"? Sure, Obama is a public-sector guy who in his autobiography described his one brief spell of private-sector work as making him feel like"a spy behind enemy lines." And yes, his mother was an America-hating ethnomasochist college lefty. And before he entered respectable politics in his late thirties, ...
Romney Campaign On Mourdock’s Rape Comments: We ‘Still Support Him’
Post Date: 2012-10-24 19:09:58 by Brian S
30 Comments
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign said on Wednesday that they disagreed with Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s statement that pregnancy from rape “is something that God intended to happen,” but the former Massachusetts governor still supports him. Mourdock said during a debate Tuesday night that he did not support abortion in cases of rape or incest. “I believe life begins at conception,” he explained. “The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible ...
Donald 'Bombshell' Fails to Blow Up
Post Date: 2012-10-24 19:04:38 by Brian S
3 Comments
Donald Trump today pledged $5 million to a charity of President Obama's choice, provided the president makes public his college applications and transcripts and releases his passport history, a far cry from the October-surprise bombshell Trump had promised. Calling the offer a "major announcement," Trump released a video via Twitter at noon to much ballyhoo, and his online followers grew by the hundreds in the moments before the video was released. "I have a deal for the president," Trump said. "If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and passport application and records, I will give to a charity of his choice, a check ...
IBD/TIPP Poll: Obama Expands His Lead Over Mitt Romney To 3 Points
Post Date: 2012-10-24 14:37:04 by Brian S
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President Barack Obama gained another point in the Investors Business Daily/TIPP tracking poll, and he now leads Republican nominee Mitt Romney by 3 points. Obama now sits at 47.3 percent ( up 0.8 percent from yesterday), while Romney is at 44.3 percent ( down 0.2 percent), giving the president a full 3-point advantage. In other tracking poll news, there was stagnation in the morning Rasmussen poll, while Obama gained in the daily Gallup tracking poll this afternoon.
Poster Comment:Oops! {{{chuckle}}}
Gallup: Obama Surges, Gets Within 3 Points Of Romney - Approval Up To 53%
Post Date: 2012-10-24 13:36:30 by Brian S
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President Barack Obama has closed to within 3 points of Republican rival Mitt Romney in Gallup's daily tracking poll of likely voters, a swing of 2 points from Tuesday. Obama also took the lead among registered voters. Since Romney led by a campaign-high of 7 points on Sunday, Obama has cut the deficit to just 3 points with likely voters, suggesting some kind of bounce following the second debate. Romney now leads the president, 50-47, among likely voters. With registered voters, Obama has taken a 48-47 lead, a reversal of Tuesday's numbers. On Tuesday, Romney had maintained a big 5-point edge among likely voters over the president. Romney also led by a point among registered ...
Top 6 Lies Romney Has Told Women in an Election Season Full of Whoppers
Post Date: 2012-10-24 11:54:07 by Brian S
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Women -- along with a handful of undecided voters -- are pretty much going to decide this thing come November 6. The gender gap is at historic highs, and if solely women were voting, there’s no question as to who would be occupying the White House for the next four years.In the last weeks before the election, Romney has shown himself ready to get down on bended knee to woo the female vote. Which would be cute, if he didn’t have a record of denying women their basic human rights. Unbeknownst to Mitt, women, in addition to making handy office workers, are also fully capable of seeing through all the manipulations, mansplaining and malarkey that have been spread around this campaign ...
GOP Splits Over Richard Mourdock Rape Comment
Post Date: 2012-10-24 11:45:20 by Brian S
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The NRSC is standing by its candidate in Indiana, Richard Mourdock, after the Senate hopeful said that pregnancies resulting from rape are “something God intended to happen,” while Mitt Romney and other Republicans are distancing themselves from the Hoosier. “Richard and I, along with millions of Americans — including even Joe Donnelly — believe that life is a gift from God,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement Wednesday. “To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous. In fact, rather than condemning him for his position, as ...
Romney’s Air Force Comparison Misses U.S. Edge in Jets
Post Date: 2012-10-24 10:42:01 by Brian S
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Mitt Romney, who has been criticizing President Barack Obama for letting the U.S. Navy shrink, is making a similar case about the Air Force. “Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947,” the Republican presidential nominee said in his final debate with Obama on Oct. 22. Obama countered that what matters is capabilities, and military analyst Lance Janda said he agrees that the Republican challenger’s tally overlooked the Pentagon’s long-standing emphasis on qualitative superiority over adversaries. “In absolute numbers the Air Force is smaller” than it was at the end of World War II, Janda, a professor of U.S. military ...
Economic Rebound, Auto Bailout Lift Obama, Democrats In Midwest Battleground Races
Post Date: 2012-10-23 17:22:51 by Brian S
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By DONNA CASSATA | Associated Press | 25 minutes ago in Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker spent months and millions of dollars on ads in the divisive recall election telling Wisconsin voters that the state is on the economic upswing _ a strong dose of good news that even Mitt Romney backers acknowledge helps the incumbent, President Barack Obama. Article continues below Nearly $59 million of pro-Walker advertising leading up to June's recall vote hardened the right-track perception in this Midwest state, where the unemployment rate ticked down last month to 7.3 percent, well below the national average of 7.8. Two weeks before Election Day, Romney faces the task of convincing voters ...
MSNBC Host Shuts Down Romney Surrogate: ‘I Fact Checked The Apology Tour… It Didn’t Happen’
Post Date: 2012-10-23 16:53:26 by Brian S
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Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO), an adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, was forced to modify his talking points on Tuesday after MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell said she had fact checked the claim that President Barack Obama went on an “apology tour” and determined “it just didn’t happen.” Mitchell pointed out that during an earlier segment, The New York Times‘ Elisabeth Bumiller had documented at least five issues where Romney had changed his position on foreign policy during Monday night’s final presidential debate. “I think the opposite is true,” Talent argued. “Let’s just be fair for a second. I think the president is ...
Obama Reelection Odds Increase In Prediction Markets Following Foreign Policy Debate
Post Date: 2012-10-23 16:49:53 by Brian S
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NEW YORK -- The consensus after Monday night's third and final presidential debate is that Barack Obama was the winner. But the president's victory begs an important question -- does success in Boca Raton, Fla., mean he's more likely to win the election? Will voters care about foreign affairs at a time when things are so rough at home? According to online prediction markets, which pool conventional wisdom about the probability of future events, voters do care. Numbers compiled by PredictWise, which averages Obama's reelection odds on political betting websites like Intrade, showed that Obama received a bump during Monday night's debate in the likelihood of winning on ...
After Libya Misfire, Pressure On Romney In Foreign Policy Debate
Post Date: 2012-10-22 18:33:35 by Brian S
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(Reuters) - When President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face off on Monday in their third and final debate, it will be the Republican challenger's last best chance to recover from his botched "Libya moment" and exploit vulnerabilities in his opponent's foreign policy record. But Romney has an uphill struggle to make his case against Obama, who will be buoyed by the advantages of incumbency as well as polls showing him with an edge - though a shrinking one - on the question of who is more trusted in global affairs. This week's debate in Boca Raton, Florida, coming just 15 days before the election and devoted entirely to foreign policy, could be the riskiest of the ...
Lyin' Ryan Has No Plan to Cut the Deficit - and if He Did, Romney Would Oppose It
Post Date: 2012-10-22 12:33:58 by Brian S
2 Comments
My favorite scene from The West Wing is the episode in which the President’s press secretary is recovering from a root canal and Josh Lyman decides to handle a press briefing. Lyman is a young whiz kid who believes he is the smartest guy in the room, but the briefing goes disastrously. Lyman has to explain to the President that he has, sarcastically, told the press that the President has “a secret plan to fight inflation.” The press, fed up with Lyman’s arrogance, has decided to report Lyman’s statement about the secret plan without noting the sarcasm. Worse is still to come, for upon questioning Lyman about the incident, the President asks ...
Marco Rubio Helps Demonstrate that the GOP Simply Opposes Paying Women Fairly
Post Date: 2012-10-22 11:04:07 by Brian S
4 Comments
Last week, I wrote a post arguing that the angry misogyny with which conservatives use in a (futile) effort to silence questions about equal pay suggests that, protests aside, they really just don’t think women should make as much money as men. Marco Rubio up and volunteered to prove my point this weekend, saying this about equal pay: I think anyone who is working out there any making a living – if you’re the most qualified person for the job, you should be able to get paid, you should get paid as much as your male counterpart. Everyone agrees with that principle. But just because they call a piece of legislation an equal pay bill doesn’t make it so. In fact, much ...
Forget The Polls, Obama Is Still Winning: Predictwise
Post Date: 2012-10-21 22:33:04 by Brian S
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Economist and Microsoft researcher David Rothschild of PredictWise.com says the polls are misleading and that President Obama is not now, nor has he ever been, behind Mitt Romney in the race for the White House. Rothschild’s forecasting model, which incorporates prediction markets like Intrade, gives Obama a better than 65% chance of re-election in November. (October 19, 2012)
The One-Party State
Post Date: 2012-10-21 20:56:38 by Abcdefg
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The One-Party State In modern Anglo democracies, no more than one national election in ten offers a choice between fundamentally contrasting policies. I have never been eligible to cast a vote in such an election. The last US presidential election offered, as I complained at the time, a choice between "the moralistic imperialism of John McCain [and] the welfare-state-to-the world sentimentalism of Barack Obama." In the event, Obama turned out not to want to give away as much of our national substance to foreigners as I feared. Moralistic imperialism-wise, he's given the neocons a run for their money—I mean, you know, our money. I voted for McCain anyway in 2008 as the ...
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