McConnell: No More Shutdowns Over Obamacare

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear on Thursday that repealing Obamacare would never be used by Republicans again to bring the federal government to a halt.

“One of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule," the Kentucky Republican told The Hill. "The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid-1990s — and the second kick was over the last 16 days.

“There is no education in the second kick of a mule," McConnell added. "There will not be a government shutdown."

The Obamacare strategy was pushed by several young Republicans in the House and Senate backed by the tea party — including freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, who spoke against the healthcare plan for more than 21 hours on the Senate floor last month — which led to a 16-day partial shutdown of the government and jeopardized the nation's credit authority.

“I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is,” McConnell told the Hill. 

The Obamacare strategy was pushed by several young congressional Republicans backed by the tea party — including freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, who spoke against the healthcare plan for more than 21 hours on the Senate floor last month — which led to a 16-day partial shutdown of the government and jeopardized the nation's borrowing authority.

“I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is,” McConnell told the Hill. 

The federal government reopened on Thursday after a battle-scarred Congress approved a bipartisan measure to end the shutdown and avert the possibility of an economy-jarring default on U.S. obligations.

Via: Newsmax

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SENATE DEMOCRATS WANT TO INCREASE IRS FUNDING BY $276.5 MILLION

While Congress continues to investigate widespread IRS scandals, Senate Democrats are calling to increase the Internal Revenue Service's budget.

According to The Hill, Democrats are using a Financial Services subcommittee bill to push for the changes to take place next year. It would raise IRS funding to $12.07 billion, "an increase of $276.5 million."

House Republicans, on the other hand, are talking about cutting the IRS budget by 24%, and Senate Republicans are aghast that Democrats appear to be rewarding the agency after a long train of alleged harassment against private citizens and Tea Party groups.

Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) said, "Count the IRS among the winners in the bill despite the political targeting that appalled all of us and eroded the public's trust."

Subcommittee Chairman Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) countered GOP concerns by saying the bill that increases funding for the IRS "also contains language to force the IRS to improve its management."

Via: Breitbart

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Shift in proportion of white, minority vote could decide Obama-Romney race

The ethnic mix of this year’s electorate could decide the winner of the race between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

It’s a reality that gives both campaigns sleepless nights, since a shift of a percentage point or two in the turnout of any major racial group could swing the outcome on Nov. 6.

For Obama, the question is whether he can limit his losses among white voters — and whether minority turnout will remain strong enough for him to emerge victorious.

Romney’s challenge is to hold down his deficit among Hispanic voters, hope that black turnout does not match or even exceed 2008 levels, and pull out all the stops to push white turnout high enough to win.

According to exit polls from 2008, Obama lost the white vote to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by 12 percentage points (43 to 55 percent). But Obama won black voters overwhelmingly (95 to 4 percent) and Hispanic voters by more than a two-to-one margin (67 to 31 percent).

The downward pressure on Obama’s poll numbers among whites is clear. But polls, even from the same organization, disagree about its extent.

A Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll from Oct. 25 put Obama’s shortfall among whites at 23 percentage points (37 to 60 percent), a finding that sparked confidence from Republicans and inspired dread among Democrats.

The most recent iteration of the same tracking poll, however, found the margin to be 5 percentage points tighter, with Romney leading, 57 to 39 percent.

Given that whites represent about three-quarters of all voters, that 5-point shift would equate to a 3.75-point change in the overall national result — more than enough to produce a completely different winner.

Via: The Hill

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COMPLETE LIST OF WHERE U.N. POLL WATCHERS WILL BE STATIONED

COMPLETE LIST OF WHERE U.N. POLL WATCHERS WILL BE STATIONED

Oct 25, 2012 169 Comments Pat Dollard

Excerpted from THE HILL: United Nations election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.

United Nations Election Observer Deployment 2012

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

The request for foreign monitoring of election sites drew a strong rebuke from Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True the Vote, a conservative-leaning group seeking to crack down on election fraud.

Via: Pat Dollard

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Cutter: Des Moines Register endorsement not based 'in reality’

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on Sunday dismissed the Des Moines Register endorsement of GOP candidate Mitt Romney, saying it was not “based at all in reality.”

“They endorsed Mitt Romney in the primary, so this was not much of a surprise,” said Cutter on ABC’s “This Week” of the influential swing-state paper’s backing for President Obama’s challenger.

“It was a little surprising to read that editorial, because it didn't seem to be based at all in reality, not just in the president's record, but in Mitt Romney's record,” Cutter added. “It says that he'd reach across the aisle, which he'd do the exact opposite. It's the exact opposite of what he did in Massachusetts.”

Romney on late Saturday received the endorsement of the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest newspaper. 

The paper which had backed Obama in 2008 and not endorsed a Republican nominee in 40 years said Romney would be better at building bipartisan compromises in Washington. 

Via: The Hill

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BIDEN AND OBAMA AREN’T PART OF THE WHITE HOUSE, WHICH IS NOT PART OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Not Part of Administration

Courtesy of The Hill, a stunning admission from the White House:

The White House on Friday said Vice President Biden was speaking for himself and President Obama when he said the administration was unaware of additional requests for security in Libya.

“He was speaking directly for himself and for the president,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said at his daily briefing.

The explanation came after Biden made waves during his debate with GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan by indicating the administration was unaware of requests by State Department officials for additional security in Libya.

Oh, so the Obama White House isn’t part of the Obama Administration?  And “The White House” is an organization distinct from B. Hussein Obama and J. Biden?  They’re just a couple of guys the “White House” occasionally meets for drinks after work?  You learn the most amazing things listening to Jay Carney.

The staggering incompetence of the Obama Administration has rocked even some of their media supporters.  The best thing they can do at this point is try to downplay the significance of what Obama, Biden, and their spokespeople are saying.  They report the news as quickly as possible, in the softest whisper they can manage, and hope readers don’t absorb the import of what they’re saying.

Some reporters are doing nice work on the Benghazi debacle, but Big Media, as a whole, is not building a “narrative” that ties it all together, they way they most certainly would for a Republican administration.  If Vice President Sarah Palin had tried to excuse patently false statements made during a debate, concerning a debacle that claimed the lives of four Americans, by claiming that she and President John McCain really weren’t part of the McCain Administration, you’d be seeing 24/7 “America in Crisis” news coverage of it all weekend.

Leaving the Administration’s deceits unconnected by a narrative thread allows ridiculous falsehoods to be taken as serious responses.  Obama’s people keep insisting that they’ve been calmly and rationally “investigating” the Benghazi attack, and releasing the best information they have at each given moment.  That’s nonsense – they haven’t “released” anything since the “spontaneous video protest” fantasy.  All the valid information Americans have about the Benghazi attack has come from investigative reporting and Congressional oversight.  The Administration hasn’t given us the truth; we’ve taken it from them.

Via: Human Events

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Issa Calls For Classified Briefing On Libya Intel

Fresh off his hearing on security deficiencies at the U.S. mission in Libya, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday called for a classified briefing on what the Obama administration knew — and when — about the causes of Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi.

“Right now, what we've agreed to, [ranking member Elijah] Cummings [(D-Md.)] and I, is formally asking for a classified briefing so that a lot of what wasn't discussed here, the committee would have knowledge of,” Issa told reporters. “And of course that's not an open hearing.”

He said it would be modeled on Tuesday's hearing for the Republican chairmen of committees of jurisdiction over intelligence and foreign affairs, and should include Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the FBI. Asked if he would invite the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, Issa said “not necessarily.”

Republicans on Issa's committee have been chomping at the bit to go after Rice, who told five Sunday shows five days after the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans that initial intelligence suggested an anti-Islam video posted to YouTube had caused the violence. The administration later said the attack was an act of terrorism.

Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) all told The Hill they think the committee’s next move should be to request Rice to testify before the panel.

“President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice have a lot of questions to answer,” said Chaffetz, the chairman of the committee's panel on national security. Chaffetz said it was up to Issa to decide whether to request her for another hearing, but that he’d “love to hear from her sooner rather than later because she’s got a lot to explain.”

Issa himself told The Hill that “someone in Congress will cover some of these ambiguities.”

Via: The Hill

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Team Obama downplays expectations, predicts ‘close’ race after Charlotte

President Obama's campaign on Saturday downplayed expectations ahead of the Democratic National Convention next week, saying they expected to be locked in a close race against GOP nominee Mitt Romney until election day. 

"It's been a pretty steady race to date and we expect it will be in a pretty similar place following our convention," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a press gaggle on Air Force One, en route to the president’s campaign rallies in Iowa. "We think it’s going to be close 'til the end. That's why we have such an active schedule. That's why the president is out there campaigning." 

Psaki’s comments about a packed campaign schedule between now and election day come after Obama reportedly complained last week about too much downtime. 

"Why am I having a short day?" he told adviser Valerie Jarrett on Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. "There should be no short days." 

Psaki also said that the just completed Republican National Convention was more important for Romney than the Democratic meet would be for Obama.

“The American people know more about this president than they know about Mitt Romney so in some ways the stakes for Romney were a bit higher,” she said. “They spoke openly about the importance of him personalizing who he was and presenting to the American people what he would do for them moving forward. The president is just going to be further solidifying and bringing into focus that choice next week.”

Via: The Hill

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Obama: GOP will be more compromising if he gets second term

Obama's Biggest Mistake Was Not Telling His “Story To The American People Better”…

President Obama said he is hopeful that Republicans in Congress will be more willing to compromise if he is reelected.

“I do think that should I be fortunate enough to have another four years, the American people will have made a decision,” Obama said in an interview with Timemagazine released Thursday. “And hopefully, that will impact how Republicans think about these problems. I believe that in a second term, where [Sen.] Mitch McConnell's [R-Ky.] imperative of making me a one-term president is no longer relevant, they recognize what the American people are looking for is for us to get things done.”

Lawmakers on both sides have made similar arguments, conceding that gridlock in Washington was unlikely to dissipate during an election year and that it would be time to reassess once voters have their say in the fall.

Obama also took aim at Republican vice presidential hopeful Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) Medicare proposal, which has surprisingly dominated discourse on the campaign trail in recent weeks.

The budget Ryan authored would allow Medicare beneficiaries to choose between traditional Medicare and federal subsidies with which to buy private insurance. Republicans call the reform a “premium support” system, while Democrats have labeled it a “voucher program” that will leave seniors taking out-of-pocket costs for top-line medical care.

Obama said Ryan’s proposal is something “that I won’t do.”

“I'm prepared to look at reforms in Medicaid,” he said. “I'm prepared to look at smart reforms on Medicare. But there are things that I won't do, and this is part of the debate we're having in this election. I do not think it is a good idea to set up Medicare as a voucher system in which seniors are spending up to $6,000 more out of pocket. That was the original proposal Congressman Ryan put forward. And there is still a strong impulse, I think, among some Republicans for that kind of approach.”

Via: The Hill

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Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund planning revenge on Mitt Romney

Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund plans to spend more than $3 million in Ohio and Virginia against Mitt Romney in the wake of his pledge to “get rid” of the women’s health advocacy group.

The group is one of several liberal-leaning women’s organizations planning to spend millions of dollars in crucial election states to swing undecided female voters toward President Obama.

Joining them are NARAL Pro-Choice America and EMILY’s List, two abortion-rights groups who are also planning aggressive campaigns.

Their message is in line with Obama’s increased courtship of female voters.

Several women will address the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. And the campaign announced on Friday a “Romney/Ryan: Wrong For Women” tour for next week that will feature prominent female supporters traveling to swing states to promote the president’s record on women issues.

The support from women’s groups can boost those efforts. Their advertising offensive comes months after Romney pledged to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood.

"Of course you get rid of ‘ObamaCare,’ that's the easy one, but there are others," he said in March. "Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that."

Planned Parenthood Action Fund — which is the political arm of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America — will spend $3.2 million on television ads in Ohio and Virginia beginning in mid-September.

Via: The Hill

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Team Romney calls out Obama for misspelling 'Ohio' at campaign stop

Smartest President In The History Of The World Can’t Spell ‘Ohio’…

President Obama needed a do-over to spell “Ohio” correctly on the campus of Ohio State University this week. 

Although Obama and several students at a campaign stop Tuesday morning at Sloopy’s Diner on the campus of OSU tweeted out photos of the president correctly posing as the “I” in Ohio, another student supplied a photo of a spelling mishap to Mitt Romney’s campaign.

The photo, tweeted by Romney’s Ohio communications director, Christopher Maloney, shows Obama and three students all a little confused about how to spell the state’s name, with Obama holding his hands up in what seems to be an “H” and as the third letter. 

“A word of advice to @BarackObama: It's ‘O-H-I-O’ that has 18 electoral votes, not 'O-I-H-O,’ ” Maloney tweeted.

Christopher Maloney@CHRISMAL0NEY

A word of advice to @BarackObama: it's "O-H-I-O" that has 18 electoral votes, not "O-I-H-O" pic.twitter.com/babXzAtp

22 Aug 12

The Washington Post incorrectly reported the photo was doctored, but Maloney told The Hill it is authentic. He said the photo was passed along to him directly by a student. There were several photos being taken by students at the diner.

Via: The Hill

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