2012 Election

[American Patriot]

Man, these people are OUT OF TOUCH!

(LOL) I don't think I've ever paid less than about 22% myself and I am no millionaire. LOL

Then again, wonder what Obama pays? Where's his birth... er... tax return. HAHAHA

Romney: I’ve paid at least 13 percent tax rate in each of past 10 years

Video: VIDEO | Speaking to reporters in South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he paid at least 13 percent in taxes for each of last 10 years.




By Philip Rucker and Rosalind S. Helderman, Updated: Thursday, August 16, 1:00 PM

GREER, S.C. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that he has paid a tax rate of at least 13 percent on his income in each of the last 10 years, offering his fullest explanation to date of his tax status.
“I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year,” he told reporters Thursday.

Chris Cillizza 10:10 AM ET
THE FIX | Joe Biden’s Virginia trip has, in many ways, just affirmed — or reaffirmed — what we already know about him.

Democrats have hit Romney repeatedly on the tax issue, using it as an illustration for their argument that the Republican presidential candidate’s tax policies would favor the wealthy, like himself, over the middle class.


They have said he pays a lower effective tax rate than many middle class families. And they’ve said his refusal to publicly release more than two years of records shows he has something to hide about his personal finances.


In response to pressure from his rivals during the Republican primaries, Romney released his 2010 tax return in January, showing he paid 13.9 percent on his $21.7 million in 2010 income. His campaign said that in his comments to reporters Thursday, he meant to indicate he’d paid 13.9 percent--not 13.6 percent---in his most recent tax year.


He has said he will also release his 2011 return but has no plans to make public additional information.
Romney’s campaign has been pushing back against accusations from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who has claimed that he was told by an investor at Bain Capital, where Romney once worked, that the Republican candidate had paid nothing in taxes for at least 10 years, due to his ability to take advantage of tax breaks.


But Romney said Thursday that Reid’s charge is “totally false” and that he has, in fact, paid taxes every year. He complained the tax issue has been a distraction during a time when the country faces tough challenges.


“I just have to say, given the challenges that America faces – 23 million people out of work, Iran about to become nuclear, one out of six Americans in poverty – the fascination with taxes I’ve paid I find to be very small-minded compared to the broad issues that we face,” he said.


“I’m sure waiting for Harry to put up who it was that told him what he says they told him. I don’t believe it for a minute, by the way,” he said.


A spokesman for Reid said Romney could prove his statements true by making his records public.


“We’ll believe it when we see it,” said Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson. “Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he’s hiding.”


Romney’s answer on taxes--which came at the end of a news conference devoted to other issues--appeared to be a follow-up to a response he gave ABC’s David Muir in an interview last month.
Muir asked whether Romney had ever paid less than the 13.9 percent he paid last year.


“I haven’t calculated that,” Romney said then. “I’m happy to go back and look, but my view is I’ve paid all the taxes required by law.”


Democrats have said Romney’s own tax records are an illustration of the ways the wealthy can use looholes and tax shelters to lower their payments to the government. Romney’s tax rate is lowered by the fact that most of his annual income comes from investments, which are taxed at 15 percent, far below what he would pay on ordinary income.


If earned as regular wages, Romney’s income would otherwise put him in the nation’s highest tax bracket and he would pay a marginal rate of 35 percent.


According to a report from the Congresional Budget Office released last month, Americans paid an average ta x rate of 17.4 percent in 2009. That represented the lowest average tax rate paid since 1979 and was a drop from 19.9 percent paid in 2007.


Democrats have pushed him to follow the model of his father, George Romney, who released 12 years worth of tax records while running for president in 1968.


In an interview with NBC’s “Rock Center” this week, the candidate’s wife Ann Romney insisted the couple planned to make no additional tax information public, insisting Democrats wants the records for “ammunition” with which to attack her husband.
She said they have been “very transparent to what’s legally required of us.”


“Mitt is honest. His integrity is just golden,” she said.


Asked at his daily briefing about Romney’s remarks, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said: “I don’t have a reaction. My statement to that would be that this president believes the tradition for presidential candidates putting forward multiple years of tax returns is a useful and valuable one. It’s not always a comfortable one but it’s one he abided by and one the American people believe is right and expect their candidates to abide by.”


President Obama’s 2011 tax return showed that he paid an effective rate of 20.5 percent.


Sen. Jim DeMint said Democrats’ focus on the tax issue was a sign they’re “looking for any issue other than the economy” to discuss.


“ Harry Reid has not shown us his taxes, Obama has not shown us his college records – I mean, there are a lot of things we could all ask about...We need to talk about the economy.”




David Nakamura contributed to this story.

[American Patriot]

God, can't these people coin their own mistakes any more? LOL (Kerry, for the x-billion before he was against it remarks)

Paul Ryan: For Medicare cuts before he was against them?

Posted by Ezra Klein on August 16, 2012 at 1:11 pm

Here’s what Paul Ryan used to say if you asked him why his budget keeps the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts:

Well our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.

Here’s what he says if you ask him now:

First of all, those are in the baseline, he put those cuts in. Second of all, we voted to repeal Obamacare repeatedly, including those cuts. I voted that way before the budget, I voted that way after the budget. So when you repeal all of Obamacare what you end up doing is that repeals that as well. In our budget we’ve restored a lot of that. It gets a little wonky but it was already in the baseline. We would never have done it in the first place. We voted to repeal the whole bill. I just don’t think the president’s going to be able to get out of the fact that he took $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare.”

I understand why you choose Ryan as your running mate if you want to run as the ticket that is willing to make the tough decisions, like cutting Medicare. I really don’t understand why you choose Ryan to be your running mate if you intend to run as the ticket that doesn’t want to cut Medicare.

[American Patriot]

Wow...

Nation’s first elected black gov, Virginia’s Wilder, blasts Biden for his ‘in chains’ comment

By Associated Press, Published: August 15

RICHMOND, Va. — The nation’s first elected black governor, Virginia’s L. Douglas Wilder, lambasted Vice President Joe Biden on national television Wednesday for his remark to a largely black crowd about banks keeping people “in chains.”


Wilder, a Democrat and a grandson of slaves, echoed indignant denunciations from Republicans, including presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, that Biden’s comment at a Tuesday rally in Danville, Va., injected race into the presidential contest.

THE FIX | Joe Biden’s Virginia trip has, in many ways, just affirmed — or reaffirmed — what we already know about him.







In warning that the Republican ticket would roll back President Barack Obama’s regulations reining in banks and investment firms after the 2008 stock market meltdown, Biden said Romney intended to “unchain Wall Street.”


Then, Biden added, “they’re going to put y’all back in chains.”


Romney fired back Wednesday, saying Obama’s re-election campaign “is all about division and attack and hatred.” Obama’s campaign called Romney’s response “unhinged.”


Wilder, known within his own party for an independent streak that sometimes borders on contrarian, was interviewed separately by Fox News and later CNN.


“Without question they were appeals to race,” Wilder told CNN. “And if you don’t argue with that, then you understand that, then the next question is why? Why do you feel you need to do that? But the more important thing that I got out of this was Biden separated himself from what he accused the people of doing. As a matter of fact what he said is, they are going to do something to y’all, not to me, not us. So he was still involved with that separate America. And I’m sick and tired of being considered something other than an American.”


Wilder also said he doesn’t believe Obama would associate himself with, nor make, the remarks that Biden made.


“The president doesn’t need this now,’ Wilder said. “The president needs to be a part of bringing people together."


Wilder, also a former Richmond mayor, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have made a better Obama running mate and called on Biden to “cool it, back up” and admit that he was wrong.


“If Hilary were on that ticket today, based on the job she’s done as secretary of state, I think there would be a clearer advantage the president would be seeing,” said Wilder, who was elected Virginia’s governor in 1989 and briefly ran for president in late 1991. “It’s not going to happen. It’s too late. I think she’ll be getting herself together for 2016.”


“What the president needs to do is to disassociate himself from trying to show anybody that division is what this administration is about,” Wilder told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.


In an interview later with The Associated Press, Wilder said Biden’s comment gratuitously preyed on emotionally freighted and painful imagery from the South’s slaveholding past. Danville, once a booming textile and tobacco city on the North Carolina border, was the final seat of a collapsing Confederate government on the run, forced to flee Richmond as it fell to Union troops in 1865.


“Why did he feel the need to do that?” Wilder told the AP. “Did he feel that these people were so dumb that he had to appeal to them with something like that? You can forgive people for gaffes, but there comes a time when you realize you’re forgiving the same guy for making the same mistakes.”


Obama defended Biden in an interview with People magazine on Wednesday, saying the vice president’s remarks meant consumers would be worse off if Republicans succeeded in doing away with new restraints on financial institutions.
“In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that,” Obama said.

[American Patriot]

If I were an Obama support (which I am not) I can tell you this, I would NOT be voting for him now with Biden as his VP.

Ever.

I'm a white guy, over 50. I grew up in Detroit. I've seen racism from both sides, black and white. Racism is evil and will always be evil. Those who were oppressed and now use that past oppression as an avenue for their hatred are no better than those who oppressed them.

What is worse is people like Wilder, who is an elderly man now is the GRANDSON of slaves.

That means NO ONE LIVING TODAY has the RIGHT to use past slavery as an excuse.

No one, especially not Joe Biden, has the right to threaten his own people (Democrats) with "They will put y'all back in chains" implying that the RIGHT are the evil ones.

NO DEMOCRAT has that right.

The LEFT, the DEMOCRATS - they were the slave holders. They were on the side of the South. THEY are the people who fought against the Civil Rights Movement.

Wake the hell up, America!


WAKE UP!

[American Patriot]

Romney is leading (in polls) in Fl, Va and Oh!

[American Patriot]

WH blows off first black governor’s rebuke of Joe Biden

August 16, 2012 | 12:25 pm

• Byron York on WMAL
  
  
  

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed a rebuke of Joe Biden offered by former Gov. Doug Wilder, D-Va., in response to Biden’s “chains” comment.


Wilder, the first black governor elected in the country, faulted Biden for saying “they’re going to put y’all back in chains” during a recent campaign stop. “Slavery is nothing to joke about!” Wilder said yesterday.


Carney does not think that should be taken seriously. “He doesn’t have a point,” Carney said of Wilder’s remarks. “The vice president was talking about Wall Street reform.” He added that, when speaking in public, “there is always the possibility that something you say and the way you say it can be misunderstood or taken out of context and made a big deal of,” Carney said.
Asked again about Wilder taking offense to the “chains” remark, Carney said that was one man’s “opinion.”

There's audio at this site: http://washingtonexaminer.com/wh-blo...5#.UC1VI6MtXTo

[American Patriot]

Posted at 09:30 AM ET, 08/16/2012 Biden reveals the nasty truth about Obama’s strategy

By Jennifer Rubin

A VP candidate enters the race. And just days later the top of the ticket is doing cleanup, trying to convince the media his No. 2 did nothing wrong. But of course, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has been nearly pitch-perfect; it was President Obama who had to venture out to the media (okay, it was People magazine and Entertainment Tonight, but still) to explain Joe Biden’s obnoxious comments to a Virginia audience that Republicans wanted to put “y’all back in chains.” The president seemed to have concluded that this was a serious enough issue to require expenditure of his own political capital.
The Associated Press reports:

In an interview with People magazine on Wednesday, Obama said Biden’s remarks meant consumers would be worse off if Republicans succeeded in doing away with new restraints on financial institutions.

“In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that,” Obama said.

Biden made the comments Tuesday in Danville, Va., while saying that Republicans want to deregulate financial institutions - or, as Biden put it, to “`unchain Wall Street.”

Hundreds of black people were in the audience when Biden added, “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” . . .

“The truth is that during the course of these campaigns, folks like to get obsessed with how something was phrased even if everybody personally understands that’s not how it was meant,” Obama told the magazine. “That’s sort of the nature of modern campaigns and modern coverage of campaigns. But I tell you, when I’m traveling around Iowa, that’s not what’s on people’s minds.”

Now that is rich for a campaign that has played the gotcha game from day one. But the press doesn’t quite manage the same level of faux outrage as when Mitt Romney said he didn’t worry about the poor as much as the middle class because the poor has a safety net, which, he added, may need to be fixed.

Two prominent African American politicians nevertheless let Biden have it. Former Democratic congressman and now Republican Artur Davis blasted Biden. (“It’s a divisive tactic that’s insulting to African Americans.”) Former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder (D) did as well. The Post reports:

“Without question they were appeals to race,” Wilder told CNN. “And if you don’t argue with that, then you understand that, then the next question is why? Why do you feel you need to do that? But the more important thing that I got out of this was Biden separated himself from what he accused the people of doing. As a matter of fact what he said is, they are going to do something to y’all, not to me, not us. So he was still involved with that separate America. And I’m sick and tired of being considered something other than an American.” . . .

“If Hilary were on that ticket today, based on the job she’s done as secretary of state, I think there would be a clearer advantage the president would be seeing,” said Wilder, who was elected Virginia’s governor in 1989 and briefly ran for president in late 1991. “It’s not going to happen. It’s too late. I think she’ll be getting herself together for 2016.”

“What the president needs to do is to disassociate himself from trying to show anybody that division is what this administration is about,” Wilder told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Ouch. Biden is the ham-handed bearer of the Obama message. When advisers say the president needs to “turn out the base,” Biden thinks he’s helping to do just that. He is unfortunately without any internal censor or tact.


The incident is noteworthy not because Biden is a racist. He’s not. However, it does suggest the acute double standard in assessing the parties’ VP picks.


And, yes, Obama chose Biden and Romney picked Ryan, so it says something about the judgment of the two presidential combatants. That Obama felt the need to do damage control suggests the Obama team is rattled by Romney’s skewering of the president’s in-the-gutter tactics.


Most important, however, is that Biden has laid bare the ugly divide-and-conquer strategy that is at the heart of the Obama campaign. He didn’t mask it as well as the president usually does, but the Obama campaign is out to pump, by any means necessary, its base. If that means unilaterally changing immigration law or using fiery rhetoric or calling Romney a felon, so be it. Biden reminds us in what low regard his boss holds the voters (disdain, some might call it) and how antithetical that approach is to the ultimate goal of a presidential contender, which is (in case it got lost in the mud) governing in a diverse and polarized society.



By Jennifer Rubin | 09:30 AM ET, 08/16/2012

[American Patriot]

Carney On Black Fmr. Dem Gov: "He Doesn't Have A Point" On Biden

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/16/carney_to_black_fmr_dem_gov_he_doesnt_have_a_point _on_biden.html
Video at the site above.

Reporter: Former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, he basically called them inappropriate, the comments. He said you can't defend it. Do you think that the first African American Governor since reconstruction, as you put it, trying to make something out of nothing and distract from policy debates or does he have a point?

Jay Carney: He doesn't have a point, the vice president was talking about Wall Street reform.

[American Patriot]

John Sununu: President Is ‘Moving His Campaign Into The Gutter’

Video
by Alex Alvarez | 7:51 am, August 16th, 2012
» 66 comments

The Summer of Sununu continues as the former New Hampshire governor stopped by Fox & Friends early on Thursday, talking to host Gretchen Carlson about Medicare and Vice President Joe Biden‘s recent remark about “chains.” Y’all.


“I have to give credit to two gentlemen,” said Sununu. “One is former Democratic governor Doug Wilder — who yesterday made it clear that even though he’s still going to vote for President Obama — that as a warrior in these kinds of issues over the years, he recognizes that what the vice President said both in language and in tone, was playing the race card and former democratic congressman Artur Davis who is supporting Mitt Romney yesterday spoke out and today in an op-ed spoke out and made it clear that the, too, who is involved in this all of his life recognize that as a despicable effort to bring the race card into the presidential race.”


Sununu continued, saying the President is “moving his campaign into the gutter and it is despicable.”


The President’s campaign has “sunk to new lows,” he added, “and every day they surprise us by going lower.”


Later, Carlson asked whether it makes it better that Biden said he had actually meant “shackled” and not “chained,” Sununu responded that “I am not sure Joe knows the difference.”

[American Patriot]

Wow.

Biden was sent home.... (I guess he has a house in Delaware?)

And all of his campaign speeches and travel has been canceled at least for the next few days.

/snicker

[American Patriot]

NewsNation | Aired on August 17, 2012
Obama camp to Romney: Show us your returns and we’ll leave you alone

Mitt Romney continues to refuse to release more tax returns, and Paul Ryan doubles back on his earlier denial about asking for stimulus money. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, NBC’s Peter Alexander, and the Super PAC American Crossroads’ Jonathan Collegio discuss.

[American Patriot]

Mitt Romney nixes Obama bid for 5-year tax disclosure

Originally published: August 17, 2012 12:42 PM
Updated: August 17, 2012 2:53 PM
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo credit: Getty Images | Mitt Romney stands in front of his campaign bus en route to a campaign event at the Ross County Court House in Chillicothe, Ohio. (Aug. 14, 2012)


BOSTON - President Barack Obama's re-election campaign kept up pressure against Republican rival Mitt Romney on two fronts Friday, launching a new ad defending Obama's record on Medicare while challenging Romney to release at least five years of tax returns.


The TV advertisement, accusing Romney and running mate Paul Ryan of undermining the health care program critical to millions of seniors, came as Romney continued raise money in non-battleground states. That remains a top priority, even with the election less than 12 weeks away and Obama making extended visits to toss-up states such as Iowa and Ohio.


Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said the president's camp would seek no further disclosures if Romney would release five years of his individual tax returns. The Romney campaign, which often says there will be no end to Democrats' demands for tax records, rejected the offer.

"It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Gov. Romney's tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters," said Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades.


Romney released his 2010 tax return and has pledged to release his 2011 returns, but no others. Obama, like most other modern-day presidential nominees, has released several years of returns.


Separately, a Democratic super PAC supporting Obama released a new ad Friday arguing that Romney would only pay 1 percent in taxes under a budget plan proposed by his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. The ad's tag line says: "Romney and Ryan. If they win, the middle class loses." It was airing in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Virginia.


On a lower profile campaign day for Obama and Romney, Ryan worked for votes in Virginia, telling a cheering crowd that he is fond of hunting and fishing in the state. Both campaigns see Virginia as a bellwether; Obama won the state in 2008, the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson to gain victory in Virginia.


"This is a state that has it all, and this is a state that will determine it all," Ryan said in Glen Allen, outside Richmond.
He made no mention of Medicare, the issue that has dominated debate much of the week, driven in part by Ryan's blueprint for overhauling the program.


Obama's campaign has questioned whether there are years when Romney paid no taxes. Romney defended his record Thursday, saying he has paid at least 13 percent of his income in federal taxes every year for the past decade.


On average, middle-income families, those making from $50,000 to $75,000 a year, pay 12.8 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. In 2010 and 2011, Romney made about $21 million a year.


Romney is able to keep his tax rate low because most of his income is from investments, which are generally taxed at a lower rate than wages. That type of legal tax figuring is something Obama has proposed changing, although his campaign notably said nothing about Romney's self-described tax rate itself.


In the new Medicare ad, Obama's campaign pointed to the AARP, an organization that represents senior citizens and had said in a letter to lawmakers earlier this year that Ryan's plan to transform Medicare into a voucher-like system would lead to higher costs for seniors.


The AARP said Obama's approach would strengthen the program. Romney has criticized Obama for taking more than $700 billion in Medicare funds to help pay for the president's health care law.


Obama's campaign is running the ad in eight states: New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.


The Romney campaign on Friday disputed the new ad, and repeated its claim that Obama's plans would siphon spending from Medicare without safeguarding the program's long-term stability.


This comes while Romney is campaigning in Alabama, South Carolina, Massachusetts and New York. He plans visits next week to Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. None of these states is being seriously contested in the presidential race.
To be sure, Obama attends numerous fundraisers of his own. And Romney has spent significant time at public campaign events in swing states, and he will do so many times again before the Nov. 6 election.


But the amount of time Romney is devoting to private fundraisers in noncompetitive states is notable. Even when he is in swing states, he sometimes attends only a fundraiser, without mingling with non-donors or appearing before local TV cameras, as he did Wednesday in Charlotte, N.C.


Romney is pouring time into fundraisers even though he has outdistanced Obama on that front for months. The former Massachusetts governor reported raising more than $101 million along with the Republican National Committee in July. Obama's campaign and Democratic National Committee raised $75 million for the month.


Romney's money advantage is expanded by technically independent groups flooding airwaves with ads criticizing Obama. Two pro-GOP super PACS — Restore Our Future and American Crossroads — have raised more than $122 million since the beginning of last year. Democratic-leaning groups Priorities USA Action and American Bridge 21st Century have raised about $30 million in that time.


The candidate with the most money and TV ads doesn't necessarily win elections, and most polls suggest Obama holds a slight lead among voters. For now, at least, Romney's team has decided that pouring much of his time into fundraising is more valuable than another quick visit to Colorado, Florida or the other eight or 10 competitive states.


Romney, who made millions of dollars heading the private equity firm Bain Capital, is skilled at extracting money from supporters.


His Wednesday midday event in Charlotte drew more than 100 people who paid between $2,500 and $50,000 each, netting his campaign about $1.5 million. That night, a somewhat larger crowd at a swank club overlooking Birmingham, Ala., generated more than $2 million, campaign aides said.


A midday event Thursday in Greenville produced $1.7 million, and Romney held other fundraisers Thursday night in Boston. He has similar events scheduled this weekend and for much of next week.


The strategy is keeping him away from public events in competitive states for five straight days, barring a change in plans this weekend. He made a major speech in Ohio on Tuesday before diving into a long string of fundraisers in various states.


Romney managed to stay in the news this week by taking reporters' questions Thursday in South Carolina, where he was pressed about his personal tax returns. Like Obama, he often grants interviews, by satellite, to local TV stations in swing states.


Next stop? A fundraiser Friday at the Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y.

[Phil Fiord]

So, yesterday I was in DC with a cousin who lives in Richmond, but was up here seeing his parents. His dad works in the Pentagon and they live in Alexandria. It was an easy 10 minute trip into DC from there and we went to the International Spy Museum, had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and cruised around the national sites. What struck me is I recall years ago parking on the ellipse out front of the White House and though I was aware it has been blocked off on Pennsylvania Ave, it was still interesting to see how far away one had to be from the WH nowadays. It is a very long distance and only viewable through some trees at one point between the WH and the Washington Monument.

Observations:
Spy museum, A very fun and informative visit well worth the $20 a head price. Note some of the displays denoted what happens to spies against the US and upon entry one is encouraged to pick a fake identity form a wall of people. Memorize the bits of info for the bio and later one may be asked to play the role. Ages of the fake id's was 14 for Billy Hays up to much older. I chose John Campbell, a 34 year old Clothing Salesman from the US travelling for 14 days in Bulgaria and having been born in Jamaica.

Streets:
In a few areas homeless are prevalent. I was asked for cash many times and declined each time. I really dont carry cash much anymore. As congress is in recess, it was fairly quiet in town.

White House:
It is indeed guarded visibly and obviously much more than that. The base of more upscale tourist areas do surround the general area of the WH and no homeless are seen. Get east off E street and by the Tax Courts and it is almost a tent city.

I actually enjoyed the trip in though. With the recent FRC shooting I was a tad reluctant to go, but used a parking structure and paid all day rate of $20.

[Ryan Ruck]

I'd post the article but there's some stuff that won't easily format.

Swing State Poll: After Picking Ryan, Romney Now Leads In Ohio, Virginia — And Florida

[American Patriot]

So???

What the hell. People have a couple of drinks on a junket....

So WHAT?

LOL

Posted at 03:52 PM ET, 08/20/2012 Skinny-dipping in Israel: GOP lawmakers reprimanded for drinking, swimming report says

By Ed O'Keefe


Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) took off his clothes and jumped into the Sea of Galilee last summer, reports say. (Eli Reichman for The Washington Post)
Updated Monday, 3:52 p.m. ET
House Republican leaders reprimanded 30 lawmakers last August for antics including drinking and skinny-dipping during a fact-finding trip to Israel, according to published reports.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) scolded the lawmakers — many of them freshmen — and senior GOP staffers for a late-night swim in the Sea of Galilee. At least one of the lawmakers swam nude, according to a report published Sunday night by Politico. The FBI later inquired about the incident to determine whether there was any impropriety, the report said.
According to the report, Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) took off his clothes and jumped into the sea, joining a number of partially-clothed members, some spouses and family members and the staffers, “more than a dozen sources, including eyewitnesses” told Politico.
Senior Republican aides, not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, confirmed the general outlines of the report but denied that the FBI inquired specifically about any potential impropriety.
In an e-mail, FBI spokesman Bill Carter would not confirm or deny any investigation, “nor do we confirm that interviews may have taken place with regards to that trip.”
But a law enforcement source said that the FBI may have conducted interviews that pertain to campaign finance allegations made against Rep. Michael G. Grimm (R-N.Y.), who went on the trip to Israel – and then traveled to Cyprus.
Grimm’s office has not been contacted or notified of any investigation regarding his travels to Israel or Cyprus, according to spokeswoman Carol Danko.
Top aides to Yoder did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement to Politico, Yoder said that he and his wife joined colleagues for dinner at the Sea of Galilee. “After dinner I followed some Members of Congress in a spontaneous and very brief dive into the sea and regrettably I jumped into the water without a swimsuit,” Yoder said in the statement. “It is my greatest honor to represent the people of Kansas in Congress and [for] any embarrassment I have caused for my colleagues and constituents, I apologize.”
Yoder, elected in 2010, represents the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas, which encompasses an area west of Kansas City.
The report said that other lawmakers involved in the late-night swim included Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) and his daughter; Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and his wife; and Reps. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Denham (R-Calif.).
In an e-mail, Reed spokesman Tim Kolpien said that the lawmaker and his wife swam with the group “appropriately clothed” and that “there was no impropriety, and he is unaware of any investigation.” Spokesmen for the other members did not return requests for comment.
In addition to Grimm, who faces a difficult reelection, the incident could prove most politically harmful for Quayle, who faces a competitive primary next week against Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.).
Chris Baker, a campaign spokesman for Schweikert, said Monday that the congressman is “disappointed, but not surprised, given Congressman Quayle’s history.” Baker said Schweikert was referring to Quayle’s admission two years ago that he once used a pseudonym while writing for an adult-themed Web site.
Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Monday that reports of the incident look “more like a scene out of ‘Animal House’ than a delegation of Members of Congress representing America in Israel – one of our most important security partners.” In a statement, Ferguson also asked whether House GOP leaders were withholding any information of other investigations.
In Florida, David Bergstein, spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party, called news of Southerland’s involvement “an embarrassment to all Floridians.”
The trip, funded by American Israel Educational Foundation, ran from Aug. 13 to Aug. 21, 2011, and included lectures, tours of religious sites and meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and other political figures, according to an itinerary provided Monday by AIEF.
Staff writer Sari Horwitz contributed to this report.

[American Patriot]

(I think that's the best they can do after the various scandals with the White House, Democrats, various agencies spending a crap load of money....)

[American Patriot]

Democrats won’t disclose donors to convention until after the event

By T.W. Farnam, Updated: Tuesday, August 21, 7:24 AM

Democratic Party officials say they will not release the names of donors to next month’s political convention before the event, despite an earlier pledge that they would regularly disclose the contributors.


In its marketing materials, the party promises that the “people’s convention,” set to begin Sept. 3 in Charlotte, N.C., will be the “most open and accessible ever.” But the names of donors, some of whom are giving up to $100,000, will remain secret until federal disclosure documents are filed Oct. 15, six weeks after the parties have ended and public attention has shifted to Election Day.

Obama and Romney: Rallying support and rounding up dollars: President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney hit the campaign trail.


Aaron Blake AUG 20







Democrats have made transparency a central theme of the campaign, pushing for legislation requiring groups to disclose donors. In a recent e-mail to supporters, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina asked for signatures on a petition calling for conservative interest groups to reveal the names of contributors.


“They have a vested interest in being able to spend millions anonymously to influence our elections,” Messina wrote.


The Obama campaign and its supporters also have called on Romney to release more tax returns, suggesting that he may be hiding information about his personal finances.


Four years ago, both parties voluntarily listed convention donors online and made regular updates to the information.
Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsible Politics, said the decision not to disclose donors until October “just seems to run counter to the message that this is the people’s convention. You’d think transparency would be something celebrated, not reduced.”


Democrats have had trouble raising money for the gathering largely because of a decision to ban corporate money.

Corporations traditionally have provided much of the financing for both party conventions. But in a sign of their tight budget, Democratic organizers shortened the official convention schedule from four days to three.


The host committee for the convention, known as Charlotte in 2012, had published on its Web site its policy that donors would be disclosed online “on an ongoing basis.” And the contract city officials signed with Democratic Party officials specified that “all contributions, monetary or in-kind, shall be disclosed publicly . . . within an agreed upon regular timeframe on the host committee’s website.”


The committee removed that language from its Web site last week following an inquiry from The Washington Post.
Host committee spokeswoman Suzi Emmerling said in an e-mailed statement that the site “has not been updated for some time and is not consistent with our current policies. Our current policy is that we will file a report and make information available compliant with FEC guidelines.”


Emmerling said that the host committee and Democrats decided that the “regular timeframe” to disclose was by the date it was required by federal law.


Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt declined to comment.


Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, declined to comment about the disclosure of donors. She said in an e-mailed statement that “the DNCC has instituted the strongest and farthest-reaching rules ever established governing fundraising and special interest access at a convention.”


The host committee for the Republican convention in Tampa did not pledge to disclose donors and doesn’t mention its individual contributors, but it does display on its Web site logos from 26 corporate sponsors, including Google and Wal-Mart.


“We display our sponsors because they’ve been supportive of our Tampa Bay community,” said Ken Jones, the head of the Tampa Bay Host Committee. “We’re proud to have them.”


The Charlotte host committee, in an agreement with the Democratic Party, banned direct corporate donations but accepts corporate donations of goods and services. City officials also have created a separate entity that accepts corporate money to fund events around the convention, including a welcoming party for journalists paid for by Time Warner Cable.


Some corporate help to the Democratic convention is known, but only because of the companies themselves. Officials from several of the corporations funding the Republican event have said the companies also would provide services to the Democrats. AT&T announced that it was the official “wireless and mobility provider” to the Democratic convention, bringing in temporary cell towers and other services. And Coca-Cola, the “official recycler” of the GOP convention, said it would also help the Democratic convention.

[Ryan Ruck]

"Issues" or America?

August 21, 2012
By Thomas Sowell

There are some very serious issues at stake in this year's election -- so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it.

The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration, during the process of dealing with particular issues.

For example, the merits or demerits of President Obama's recent executive order, suspending legal liability for young people who are here illegally, presumably as a result of being brought here as children by their parents, can be debated pro and con. But such a debate overlooks the much more fundamental undermining of the whole American system of Constitutional government.

The separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches of government is at the heart of the Constitution of the United States -- and the Constitution is at the heart of freedom for Americans.

No President of the United States is authorized to repeal parts of legislation passed by Congress. He may veto the whole legislation, but then Congress can override his veto if they have enough votes. Nevertheless, every President takes an oath to faithfully execute the laws that have been passed and sustained -- not just the ones he happens to agree with.

If laws passed by the elected representatives of the people can be simply over-ruled unilaterally by whoever is in the White House, then we are no longer a free people, choosing what laws we want to live under.

When a President can ignore the plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, then we no longer have "a government of laws, and not of men" but a President ruling by decree, like the dictator in some banana republic.

When we confine our debates to the merits or demerits of particular executive orders, we are tacitly accepting arbitrary rule. The Constitution of the United States cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution. But, if we allow ourselves to get bogged down in the details of particular policies imposed by executive orders, and vote solely on that basis, then we have failed to protect the Constitution -- and ourselves.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the No Child Left Behind Act, it is the law until Congress either repeals it or amends it. But for Barack Obama to unilaterally waive whatever provisions he doesn't like in that law undermines the fundamental nature of American government.

President Obama has likewise unilaterally repealed the legal requirement that welfare recipients must work, by simply redefining "work" to include other things like going to classes on weight control. If we think the bipartisan welfare reform legislation from the Clinton administration should be repealed or amended, that is something for the legislative branch of government to consider.

There have been many wise warnings that freedom is seldom lost all at once. It is usually eroded away, bit by bit, until it is all gone. You may not notice a gradual erosion while it is going on, but you may eventually be shocked to discover one day that it is all gone, that we have been reduced from citizens to subjects, and the Constitution has become just a meaningless bunch of paper.

ObamaCare imposes huge costs on some institutions, while the President's arbitrary waivers exempt other institutions from having to pay those same costs. That is hardly the "equal protection of the laws," promised by the 14th Amendment.

John Stuart Mill explained the dangers in that kind of government long ago: "A government with all this mass of favours to give or to withhold, however free in name, wields a power of bribery scarcely surpassed by an avowed autocracy, rendering it master of the elections in almost any circumstances but those of rare and extraordinary public excitement."

If Obama gets reelected, he knows that he need no longer worry about what the voters think about anything he does. Never having to face them again, he can take his arbitrary rule by decree as far as he wants. He may be challenged in the courts but, if he gets just one more Supreme Court appointment, he can pick someone who will rubber stamp anything he does and give him a 5 to 4 majority.

[Ryan Ruck]

Poll Shocker: Romney Up Double-Digits In Florida

August 21, 2012

In the most shocking survey this election cycle, a poll released today finds Mitt Romney leading President Barack Obama by 14 percentage points among likely Florida voters.

Foster McCollum White & Associates, Baydoun Consulting and Douglas Fulmer & Associates, of Dearborn, Mich., questioned 1,503 likely Florida voters Friday and found Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, leading Obama 54%-40%. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.53%.

Although recent Florida polls have been trending slightly in Romney’s direction (+2% and +1% in the most recent surveys), the jaw-dropping 14-point gap is a shocker. Future polls will determine if this result is ahead of the curve or merely an outlier.

In the U.S. Senate race in Florida, the poll found Rep. Connie Mack IV, R-Fort Myers, leading incumbent Bill Nelson 51%-43%.

[American Patriot]

Boy, all I have to say is that the only "Issue" that has been in MY mind is America. The rest of it? All obfuscating bullshit.

I'm voting to save America.