AFL-CIO Sending Out Union Goons To Knock On 640,000 Doors During RNC…

The AFL-CIO will have its members out knocking on doors early this year to counter the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

The nation’s largest labor federation is planning to knock on 640,000 doors in 23 states over the weekend for a massive canvassing campaign. Labor unions have traditionally begun their political efforts on Labor Day, but are starting a week early to coincide with the GOP convention.

Joining in the canvassing effort will be MoveOn.org and Workers’ Voice, the AFL-CIO’s super-PAC. Workers’ Voice will also be sending out direct mail to 240,000 senior citizens taking direct aim at Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his vice presidential pick, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the union ground game would help Democrats and President Obama win the election this fall.

“Working families talking to their neighbors, co-workers, friends and families is kryptonite to the radical right-wing agenda,” Trumka said in a statement. “We’ll be breaking through the noise of misleading ads paid for by wealthy special interests and letting voters hear from the people they trust most on the economic issues they care about. That’s how working families will win this election and lift up the middle class.”

The direct mailer from Workers’ Voice is designed as a viewer’s guide for the GOP convention, with the warning label “viewer discretion advised.” Among many attacks, the piece asks, “Will Paul Ryan tell you about his plans to privatize Social Security and end Medicare?”

Much of the initial campaigning by the AFL-CIO will focus on six battleground states: Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The AFL-CIO has endorsed Obama for reelection. Labor, a key political ally for Democrats, will likely boost the party’s candidates at the polls this November with its voter turnout machine.

Via: The Hill

Immigration agents sue to stop Obama’s non-deportation policy

Saying they're fed up with being told they can't do their jobs, 10 immigration agents on Thursday sued the Obama administration to try to halt the president's new non-deportation policy and an earlier memo instructing them not to go after rank-and-file illegal immigrants.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Texas, adds a legal controversy to the political fight that has been brewing over President Obama's immigration policies, which have steadily narrowed the range of immigrants the government is targeting for deportation.

The 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and deportation officers said Mr. Obama's policies force them to choose between enforcing the law and being reprimanded by superiors, or listening to superiors and violating their own oaths of office and a 1996 law that requires them to put those who entered the country illegally into deportation proceedings.

Upping the ante, the agents are being represented by a high-profile lawyer, Kris W. Kobach, secretary of state in Kansas and the chief promoter of state immigration crackdowns such as Arizona's tough law.

"ICE is at a point now where agents are being told to break federal law, they're pretty much told that any illegal alien under age of 31 is going to be let go. You can imagine, these law enforcement officers are being put in a horrible position," Mr. Kobach said.

Last week, at Mr. Obama's direction, the Homeland Security Department began taking applications from those 30 years of age or younger who came to the U.S. as children and who have kept a fairly clean criminal record. They are being granted "deferred action," which is an official notice they are not to be deported, and will be allowed to obtain work permits to stay and get jobs legally in the United States.

Via: Washington Times

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BIDEN: DETROIT IS GETTING BACK UP

Another day, another Mensa Joe Biden whopping lie – and this time there were two. Speaking at a high school in Detroit, Mensa Joe blustered Whopper #1:

My dad used to say you measure a man or woman – it wasn’t whether they got knocked down, but how quickly they got up. And guess what? Detroit’s getting back up.

In the recent movie The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon plays a politician who uses theexact same story about his father, but there’s one difference. Damon realizes he doesn’t want to lie any more, so he immediately recants and acknowledges that the story was pure fiction. He becomes a hero.

Biden, on the other hand, simply lied. His first whopper was saying Detroit is faring much better. Not so fast, Mensa Joe. Between 2007, when the Democrats took over Congress, and 2011, revenues declined by more than $100 million. Over that same period, income-tax revenue dropped by 18%, utility-tax revenue by 17%, and property-tax revenue by 2.3%. Detroit is today the second-poorest major U.S. city.

Biden spoke to roughly 1,100 students packed into a narrow hallway. Why a narrow hallway? Probably because the Obama campaign, protesting that they preferred smaller crowds, had to make it look like the crowd was SRO.  No gymnasiums here.

Still, Mensa Joe found enough room to spoon-feed the gullible teenagers more of his tasty prevarications. Here was Whopper #2:

Folks, I can tell you I’ve known eight presidents, three of them intimately. I have never, never once, in all the time I’ve been with this president … I’ve never once in the difficult decisions he’s had to make heard him ask me or anyone else, ‘What are the politics in this for me?’ Not one single time.

Via: Breitbart

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The Lost Decade of the Middle Class

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW

As the 2012 presidential candidates prepare their closing arguments to America’s middle class, they are courting a group that has endured a lost decade for economic well-being. Since 2000, the middle class has shrunk in size, fallen backward in income and wealth, and shed some—but by no means all—of its characteristic faith in the future.

These stark assessments are based on findings from a new nationally representative Pew Research Center survey that includes 1,287 adults who describe themselves as middle class, supplemented by the Center’s analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Fully 85% of self-described middle-class adults say it is more difficult now than it was a decade ago for middle-class people to maintain their standard of living. Of those who feel this way, 62% say “a lot” of the blame lies with Congress, while 54% say the same about banks and financial institutions, 47% about large corporations, 44% about the Bush administration, 39% about foreign competition and 34% about the Obama administration. Just 8% blame the middle class itself a lot.

Their downbeat take on their economic situation comes at the end of a decade in which, for the first time since the end of World War II, mean family incomes declined for Americans in all income tiers. But the middle-income tier—defined in this Pew Research analysis as all adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national

Via: Pew Research Center

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Illegal immigrants could reap more than $7B in tax credits this year, senator says

• March 20, 2012: Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)

Illegal immigrants could receive more than $7 billion this year in federal tax credits, according to one estimate, thanks to a loophole in the law that allows people not authorized to work to reap the government payments with no questions asked. 

Sen. Jeff Sessions' office calculated that, based on recent trends, illegal immigrants could receive roughly $7.4 billion through a provision known as the Additional Child Tax Credit. That's more than quadruple what the payout was four years ago, but the payments have been steadily increasing over the past decade

. 

Though illegal immigrants are prohibited from receiving similar tax credits, a quirk in the law allows them to qualify for the child tax credit. And it's a "refundable" credit, meaning recipients can reap the money -- with average checks totaling about $1,800 -- even if they've paid no taxes.   

An aide to Sessions, R-Ala., the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said the issue is a "serious matter that deserves attention" and another sign of how "Washington is disconnected from reality." 

Illegal immigrants can qualify because even people not authorized to work in the U.S. are supposed to file returns with the IRS. If they don't have a Social Security number, they are provided what's known as an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number in order to file returns. 

And those filers are not excluded from claiming the Additional Child Tax Credit, which is offered to some families with children under 17 years old. 

A report last year by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found the claims added up to $4.2 billion in 2010. Sessions' office calculated the $7.4 billion figure based on the IG report numbers and White House budget numbers. 

The IG report last year recommended that Congress pass legislation to "clarify" whether the tax credits should actually be paid to those not authorized to work in the U.S. 

Sessions co-sponsored a bill earlier this year to bar illegal immigrants from receiving the credit, but the bill was blocked from reaching the floor by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 

Reid at the time said the bill targeted the children of low-income Hispanic families. 

Recent expansions to the credit under the stimulus law are set to expire at the end of the year.

Via: Fox News

NYT’s Maureen Dowd Compares Paul Ryan To The Taliban…

Assaults Paul Ryan in NYTimes as 'Fresh Face on a Taliban Creed'

For the third time in three columns, the New York Times's Maureen Dowd brutally assaults Paul Ryan, this time calling him "a fresh face on a Taliban creed" of He-Man Woman-Hating.

Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.

Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed -- the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.

Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal couldn't have been happier, posting to his Facebook subscribers:

OK, I'm not entirely neutral here, because she is a colleague and a friend, but I thiink you should Maureen Dowd's fantastic column on Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and Republican attitudes toward women in general. It's disturbing, but spot on.

Via: Newsbusters

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RUSH: 'MANIACAL' DEMOCRATS 'SET TO IMPLODE'

PALM BEACH, Fla. – With Election Day less than 11 weeks away, top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh says Democrats are “set to implode,” becoming more “maniacal” and going to war against each other.

“Obama isn’t looking happy. Nobody on the Democrat side is looking happy,” Limbaugh said this afternoon. “These people are at war with each other and they’re getting, even if it’s possible, more maniacal in their TV appearances.”

Two national polls out today by Gallup and Rasmussen have Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama by two percentage points, while an Associated Press/Gfk poll has Obama leading by one point.

While analyzing the surveys, Limbaugh explained, “You can detect trends, and in swing states, Romney and Ryan are gaining ground. And in some places, it’s small but it’s perceptible. There’s something happening out there. And I frankly have been of the opinion that – and I’ve been very careful saying this – but you’ve heard me say it. If the election were held today, I think we’re looking at landslide. I thought that a week ago. I don’t want to say this too often because political situations are too volatile as the [Todd] Akin thing illustrates.”

Akin is the six-term Republican congressman from Missouri whom some Republicans are urging to quit his race for the U.S. Senate after suggesting a woman’s body can shut down a pregnancy after a “legitimate rape.” Akin has apologized for the remark and said he will not withdraw from the race.

Limbaugh said Democrats are “saying some of the craziest, wackiest things, and the Akin thing is unfortunate, but I think the Democrats are – I don’t want to say this too loud either ’cause I don’t want to affect what their inclinations are – but I think they’re set to implode over this. They have these hot-button, boilerplate issues that cause them to go to Page Two of their playbook that’s 30 years old.

Via: WND

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The Warren Report

Harvard professor, Democratic Senate candidate touts Center for American Progress as PPP Poll shows her down by 5

On the same day a poll was released showing Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.) holding a 26-point edge among independent voters in Massachusetts, his Democratic opponent, Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, appeared at a press conference for a far-left organization racked by scandal.

On Tuesday, the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling released a new poll showing Brown leading Elizabeth Warren by five points, 49 to 44 percent. Brown leads Warren 58 to 32 percent among independents. He has also won over 20 percent of Democrats. 54 percent of those polled said Brown is “about right” ideologically, while only 27 percent said the same of the Republican Party.

Independents comprise 48 percent of Massachusetts voters.

“Scott Brown’s been able to hold up his image as a moderate and that has him in a good position right now,” Public Policy Polling president Dean Debnam said in a statement.

Warren’s unfavorability rating in the poll has increased 10 points in the last five months, during which time the controversy surrounding her heritage and academic career badly damaged her campaign while exposing voters to her left-wing policy positions.

Via: Washington Free Beacon

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Report: 174 ACORN Groups Still Active Under New Names…

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN famously came under fire a few years ago because its political affiliates engaged in electioneering and lobbying. There was also an embezzlement scandal, allegations of facilitating voter fraud and a notorious video sting by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe. The organization officially announced the closure of its offices in 2010 after losing government funding due to the controversies.

But that doesn’t mean it vanished from the landscape altogether. The nonprofit watchdog group Cause of Action published a list today of “still-active ACORN entities, ACORN allies, and rebranded ACORN organizations.”

The connections between these groups and the old ACORN groups include: having the same physical location, sharing leadership or staff or having the same tax ID number. “For some of these groups, all they did was legally change their name. Nothing else changed. The corporate structure, leadership and staff are the same,” said Karen Groen Olea, Cause of Action’s chief counsel.

At least two of the groups, Affordable Housing Centers of America and Mutual Housing Association of New York, have received federal dollars, Cause of Action said.

Via: Washington Examiner

Budget analysts project $1.1T federal deficit

 Fourth Straight Year Exceeding $1 Trillion…

Prepare for another year of $1 trillion-plus deficits. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected Wednesday that the deficit for 2012 will run $1.1 trillion, the fourth year in a row the shortfall will exceed $1 trillion. 

The projection is down a bit from an earlier estimate pegging the deficit this year at $1.2 trillion. 

The report also warned that a new recession is likely if an ongoing stalemate over tax and spending cuts continues between Democrats and Republicans. 

In its annual summertime report, the budget office said Wednesday that letting decade-old tax Bush tax rates expire and sweeping spending cuts occur in January -- which will happen without congressional action -- "would lead to economic conditions in 2013 that will probably be considered a recession."

If that happened, the economy would contract by 0.5 percent -- a gloomier projection than the budget office made earlier this year when it envisioned slight growth under that scenario. Unemployment would rise to around 9 percent by late next year if the standoff persists, the analysts said. 

The budget office's latest warning came amid a presidential and congressional election year in which neither President Obama nor congressional Republicans have shown any signs of giving ground in their protracted battle over taxes, spending and the budget. The lethargic economy and massive federal deficits are top-flight issues in this year's campaigns. 

Via: Fox News

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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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California poised to grant driver's licenses to young illegal immigrants

California is on the verge of allowing hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants to receive driver's licenses for the first time in nearly two decades.

The key question is how to do it.

The issue of granting driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants has raged in the Legislature for much of the past decade, without resolution, but fighting is largely moot now due to a new federal policy.

President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals gives a select group of undocumented immigrants the right to live and work in the United States for two years without fear of deportation.

California is laying the groundwork for extending the privilege to driving, too, for an estimated 400,000 immigrants.

"It appears that young people who receive federal deferrals will be eligible for California driver's licenses," the Department of Motor Vehicles said in a written statement Tuesday.

"But it remains uncertain whether clarifying legislation or regulations will be necessary," the DMV statement said.

Gil Duran, spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown, said the DMV statement reflects the governor's position but that he could not elaborate.

The glitch is that state regulations allow only certain types of federal immigration documents to support the issuance of a driver's license.

If President Obama's Deferred Action program provides participants with "new or different immigration documents," then legislation or regulatory clarification may be needed, the DMV said.

Via: Sacramento Bee

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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/22/4746634/california-poised-to-grant-drivers.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

In 1991 Harvard Law School yearbook, Obama called for ‘mutual respect and tolerance’

A copy of Harvard Law School’s yearbook from 1991 — the year Barack Obama graduated — is for sale on eBay, and it provides an as-yet-unseen look into the future president’s views on the kind of “mean-spirited” campaign discourse that some Republicans say has characterized his own re-election campaign.

The seller, who first listed the item for sale July 17, provided scanned images of pages where Obama appeared, including his self-written “Student Profile.” In the essay, Obama mentioned “diversity” twice, including one mention of “faculty diversity,” a concept for which future first lady Michelle Obama — then Michelle Robinson — argued strongly in a 1988 Harvard Black Law Students Association (BLSA) essay.(RELATED: In Harvard essay, young Michelle Obama argued for race-based faculty hiring)

A note next to Barack Obama’s official yearbook photo also identifies him as a member of the BLSA.

His central message in 1991 concerned his desire for greater civility.

“After three years, I continue to be struck by the tremendous talent and energy among HLS students and faculty,” Obama wrote. “The diversity of campus life challenges all of us to question our assumptions, listen to other viewpoints, and articulate our values in a spirit of mutual respect and tolerance.”

By contrast, Republicans both inside and outside of GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney’s campaign have complained in recent weeks that the tone of Obama’s re-election effort has grown in coarseness and aggression.

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter accused Romney on July 12 of being either a liar or a felon, following the Boston Globe’s disclosure that Romney maintained legal title to Bain Capital well after his departure in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

Via: Daily Caller

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