[VIDEO] OBAMA LEAVING FOR LAS VEGAS AS STOCK MARKET CRASHES

President Obama returned from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to Washington D.C. last night, only to wake up to negative headlines about the stock market crashing, partially in reaction to financial troubles in China.

But the president won’t be in the White House to see the market close. Later this afternoon he will board Air Force One for a trip to Las Vegas where he is expected to make a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit to promote his stiff regulatory policy on power plant emissions.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 1,000 points after it opened this morning, suggesting another frightening close for markets at the end of the day.

Later this evening President Obama has scheduled a fundraiser for the Nevada State Democratic Party and Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democratic candidate hoping to replace retiring  Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

Via: Breitbart

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DNC speaks to empty College Democrat event

The conference could barely fill the first two rows of seats.

The speakers emphasized the important role Millennial voters can play in the political process by getting out the vote, engaging fellow students on campus, and supporting the objectives of the Democratic Party.

The conference began July 22 and will end this Saturday.

Emphasizing the importance of Millennial voters in upcoming elections, progressive activists spoke to a nearly empty auditorium at the College Democrats of America annual conference on Friday.

Despite offering a full day of activities, speakers like Julian Castro, and campaigning advice from top political operatives, the College Democrats of America were barely able to fill the first couple rows with young attendees.

The speakers emphasized the important role Millennial voters can play in the political process by getting out the vote, engaging fellow students on campus, and supporting the objectives of the Democratic Party. The conference began July 22 and will end this Saturday.

Donna Brazile, Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and frequent television political commentator, began an unscheduled appearance by thanking “all those who work so hard to ensure that all of our young people, all of our College Democrats, are involved, active, and engaged in the national Democratic Party.”

Brazile encouraged the members of the sparse audience to seek public office while pointing to an empty chair on stage.

“I want you to start thinking about filling this seat,” said Brazile, who said she has been active in politics since childhood and looked forward to the contributions of the next generation.

“I didn’t come here with any talking points, I don’t have a speech, I don’t have a candidate yet, but I do have an empty chair,” said Brazile.

During a panel earlier in the day, Rock the Vote president Ashley Spillane described Millennials as the “Get Sh*t Done Generation” but said that “the current political landscape isn’t that inspiring and people are frustrated with politics.”

“I believe the Millennial Generation is getting sh*t done, they just happen to be doing it outside of the political system right now and we need to be impressing the importance of participating in civics in order to get them more involved in the process,” said Spillane.

Via: Campus Reform

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Trump in Vegas, Phoenix: Illegals 'Wreaking Havoc on Our Population'

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump criticized U.S. immigration and trade policies on Saturday in speeches that veered from accusing Mexico of deliberately sending criminals across the border to professing respect for the Mexican government and love for its people.

Speaking to a gathering of Libertarians in Las Vegas before headlining an event in Phoenix, Trump repeated his charge that Mexico was sending violent offenders to the U.S. to harm Americans and that U.S. officials were being "dumb" in dealing with immigrants in the country illegally.

"These people wreak havoc on our population," he told a few thousand people attending the Libertarian gathering FreedomFest inside a Planet Hollywood ballroom on the Las Vegas Strip.

In the 4,200-capacity Phoenix convention center packed with flag-waving supporters, Trump took a different view — for a moment — and said: "I love the Mexican people. I love 'em. Many, many people from Mexico are legal. They came in the old-fashioned way. Legally."

He quickly returned to the sharp tone that has brought him scorn as well as praise. "I respect Mexico greatly as a country. But the problem we have is their leaders are much sharper than ours, and they're killing us at the border and they're killing us on trade."

His speeches in both venues were long on insults aimed at critics and short on solutions to the problems he cited. When he called for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the audience in Las Vegas groaned.

In a break from the immigration rhetoric that has garnered him condemnation and praise, Trump asserted that he would have more positive results in dealing with China and Russia if he were president and said he could be pals with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Asked by an audience member in Las Vegas about U.S.-Russia relations, Trump said the problem is that Putin doesn't respect Obama.

"I think we would get along very, very well," he said.

Trump has turned to victims of crime to bolster his argument that immigrants in the U.S. illegally have killed and raped. In Las Vegas and Phoenix, he brought on stage Jamiel Shaw Sr., a Southern California man whose 17-year-old son was shot and killed in 2008 by a man in the country illegally. Shaw vividly described how his son was shot — in the head, stomach and hands while trying to block his face — and how he heard the gunshots as he talked to his son on the phone.

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Shaw said he trusted Trump, and encouraged the crowds in both cities to do the same.

Trump's speeches were filled with tangents and insults leveled at business partners such as Univision and NBC that have dropped him in the wake of his comments that Mexican immigrants bring drugs and crime to the U.S. and are rapists. He also directed familiar barbs at other presidential contenders, including Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton ("the worst secretary of state in the history of the country"), news media figures ("lyin' Brian Williams") and President Barack Obama ("such a divisive person"). He called journalists "terrible people."

As Trump lambasted Univision for cancelling its broadcast of the Miss USA pageant, one of his many business enterprises, a group of young Latinos unfurled a banner pointed toward the stage and began chanting insults. They were quickly drowned out by the crowd, and nearby Trump supporters began to grab at them, tearing at the banner and pulling and pushing at the protesters. Security staff managed to get to the group and escorted them out as Trump resumed speaking.

"I wonder if the Mexican government sent them over here," he said. "I think so."

Arizona's tough-on-immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio introduced Trump in Phoenix after outlining the things he and the candidate have in common, including skepticism that Obama was born in the United States. He went on to criticize the federal government for what he called a revolving door for immigrants, saying many of them end up in his jails.

"He's been getting a lot of heat, but you know, there's a silent majority out here," Arpaio said, borrowing from a phrase Richard Nixon popularized during his presidency in a speech about the Vietnam War.

A single protester standing outside the room where Trump spoke in Las Vegas was more concerned about the businessman being tied to the Libertarian Party.

"I've been a Libertarian for 43 years and Trump ain't no Libertarian," said Linda Rawles, who asserted that including Trump in FreedomFest set back the party's movement.

Via: Newsmax

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How Immigrants Have Changed the Democratic Party

Hillary Clinton speaks with students about immigration during an event at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

What a difference a disastrous midterm election makes. Before the 2014 vote, conventional wisdom in the Democratic Party still counseled political caution on immigration reform. Last summer, few were surprised when President Obama delayed announcing deportation relief until after the November vote; it was the kind of reluctant leadership the modern party has shown consistently on immigration. But less than a month into her campaign, Hillary Clinton struck a markedly different tone.

Clinton met with a group of undocumented students on May 5 and described an agenda that reflects just how much has changed since 2008. Young immigrants, in particular, are done waiting for politicians to catch up to the reality of their lives, and their rightful impatience fuels a movement that’s forcing the issue for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Clinton staged her meeting at the same Las Vegas high school where Obama announced his executive actions last November. These would grant legal status to as many as 5 million people, including some parents whose children were born as US citizens. A federal judge in Texas blocked those moves pending the outcome of a challenge to the president’s authority. Clinton said she not only supports Obama’s actions but would extend relief to parents of undocumented children, too. She called for the reunification of families already split up by deportation, questioned the safety of for-profit detention centers, and made a full-throated case for understanding immigration reform as a family-values issue. She stuck to the Democratic line that the first, best answer is a comprehensive reform law, but she was bullish about the authority she’d wield in the absence of congressional action.

Via: The Nation

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Man Stuck with $407,000 Medical Bill After ObamaCare Breakdown

The busted ObamaCare websites cost a lot of people a lot of time. But for one Nevada man, problems with the state insurance exchange reportedly cost him $407,000.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Larry Basich, a 62-year-old Vegas resident, has been stuck with the massive medical bill despite signing up for an insurance plan via the state exchange last fall. 

Basich, according to the article, selected a UnitedHealthcare plan in November, and even paid his first premium. But he never received confirmation that he was enrolled, despite being assured that he was by Nevada Health Link.

Amid the confusion, Basich suffered a heart attack at the end of December, and had to undergo a triple bypass. Now, according to the Review-Journal, no insurer will claim his bills -- and he's caught in a financially frightening battle as he appeals to the exchange and its contractor, Xerox, for help.

"All I wanted to do when I moved here was buy a house, get a dog and go to some spring training games for the Dodgers," Basich, who moved from Hawaii, told the newspaper.

Xerox reportedly tried to assign Basich's bills to another insurance plan, but that plan is refusing to accept them. Basich's insurance broker also complained that Xerox is spending a lot of time lawyering up and documenting all of Basich's communications. 

Via: Fox News

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Report: Unions Pressuring Non-Citizens To Vote In Nevada…

Voter registration fraud is not a groundless conspiracy. It is not a hypothetical threat to election integrity.

In Nevada, a battleground state that could decide the presidency and control of the U.S. Senate, it is real.

Last week, I met with two immigrant noncitizens who are not eligible to vote, but who nonetheless are active registered voters for Tuesday's election. They said they were signed up by Culinary Local 226.

They speak and understand enough English to get by. But they don't read English especially well. They say the Culinary official who registered them to vote didn't tell them what they were signing and didn't ask whether they were citizens. The immigrants said they trusted that the union official's request was routine, thought nothing of it and went about their work.

Then the election drew closer. Then the Culinary canvassers started seeking them out and ordering them to go vote.

One of the immigrants was visited at home by a Culinary representative and said the operative made threats of deportation if no ballot was cast.

They didn't understand how, as noncitizens, they could be registered to vote if it's illegal for them to vote in a U.S. election. They didn't understand that, upon being signed up, not only is their registration public record, but the record of whether they've voted is public as well.

After a few days of early voting, the union knew the immigrants still hadn't voted. So union canvassers kept visiting.

One day, when a Culinary representative was told the immigrant wasn't a citizen and wouldn't vote, things got testy. The immigrant was "in so much trouble," the Culinary operative said, according to Brenda Moraine, a local immigrant advocate who was there.

The immigrants spoke with me on the condition that I provide no identifying information about them beyond their membership in the Culinary. They're afraid of reprisals from the union, they're afraid of losing their jobs, and they're concerned that their signatures are on a government document that says, in part, "I swear or affirm I am a U.S. citizen. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct."

Via: Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Goon Squad: AFL-CIO Chief Trumka Promises More Than 2,000 Union “Poll Monitors” In Battleground States…

(CNSNews.com) - Setting the scene for possible post-election legal challenges, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said his unions plan to deploy 2,000 “poll monitors” who will be linked with lawyers around the country as a way to prevent
"voter suppression" in states such as Ohio.

During a media conference call on Thursday, Trumka recalled being at an early voting site in Las Vegas where he saw “challengers inside.”

“We’re going to have over 2,000 people that are going to be available as poll monitors that’ll be connected to a number of lawyers around the country. So that if they [the opposition] attempt to deny them the right to vote, or hassle them we’ll be able to have a rapid response team that will respond immediately to that and protect them,” Trumka said.

“That will be up in the core states like Ohio, where we think there could be problems and so we’ll challenge those everywhere we can and protect the votes,” he said.

Via: CNS News

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Dingy Reid: “Karl Rove And 17 Angry Old White Men Are Trying To Buy The Election”…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a former boxer, isn't one to let a few bruised ribs take the fight out of him.

Still feeling the after-effects of a recent car accident, Reid sat down with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review Journal and explained that one of his biggest worries about the upcoming election was the power of the moneyed interests supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"My concern is that Karl Rove and 17 angry old white men are trying to buy the election. And that's the truth," Reid told the Review Journal. "You have [Las Vegas Sands casino billionaire Sheldon] Adelson, the Koch brothers [billionaires David and Charles]. You have [billionaire Harold] Simmons of Texas. They are literally trying to buy the election. Think about this. The day after the election, Karl Rove sits down and talks to …the 17 angry old white guys and says, 'Hey, listen guys, we just bought America. And we're still rich.' That's the concern that we all have."

The men Reid listed are all top contributors to super PACs that support Romney's campaign.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, individuals, corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on attempts to influence elections. And spend they have, to the tune of more than $650 million this cycle.

Pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future announced earlier this month that it raised $20 million in the first half of October, half of it from Adelson alone.

Reid has been a tireless Romney detractor throughout the general election. Earlier this month, Reid described himself as a "one-man wrecking crew" set on getting Romney to release additional years of tax documents. Romney, Reid charged, was a “plastic man" who "changes his position every chance he gets."

Via: Huffington Post

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Obama Campaign Asks People To Man Phone Bank During Hurricane Sandy…

You really cannot make this stuff up.

Last night, the Obama campaign was sending email requests into Annapolis, Maryland, for help with phone-banking. The time? 5:30 pm, right when Sandy is supposed to be at its worst there.

Hey, what's your petty little insignificant life compared to helping Obama win a second term? 

Just by way of comparison, the Romney campaign has cancelled all its campaign events for Monday/Tuesday.  Of course, the President has cancelled his, too, so he can "focus" on the hurricane.  Wish he had shown that same focus on 9/12, when he jetted off to Las Vegas for a fundraiser . . 

Via: TownHall

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Obama Makes 10th Las Vegas Trip Since Telling Bankers Not To Visit The City “On The Taxpayers Dime”…

(CNSNews.com) - Less than three weeks into his presidency Barack Obama warned executives of banks that had received federal bailout money that they better not take business trips to Las Vegas. Since then, Obama himself has made 9 trips to Vegas—and is making a tenth today.

“You can't get corporate jets,” Obama said at a Feb. 9, 2009 townhall meeting in Elkhart, Ind. “You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas, or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime.”

By May 27, 2009, Obama was in Las Vegas to tour a “solar photovoltaic array” at Nellis Air Force Base with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

According to an archive of the president’s official schedule maintained by the Chicago Sun Times, Obama has frequently returned to Vegas for purposes ranging from pushing his jobs bill, to campaigning with Reid, to attending fundraisers.

Via: CNS News

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Opinion: It's Always the Economy, Stupid

Stupid," in the famous quotation from 1992's Clinton vs. Bush campaign—"It's the economy, stupid"—is whoever thinks a U.S. presidential election is about something else. All presidential elections are about the economy. Yes, there are other issues, but it's also true that a whale has pilot fish. Still, most politicians would rather talk about anything but the economy, which they see in one of two ways—as a personal piggy bank or a mystery. Neither is discussable in public. This is the sixth presidential election since "stupid" was first identified, and nothing has changed.

Barack Obama has reduced the whole economic record of his first term to one word: Bush. He's talking about the next U.S. economy, in which, he says, some people will be making windmills. Or capturing the rays of the sun.

His rebooted challenger, Mitt Romney, led an audience in Nevada last week through his plan to revive the economy. Mentioned first, and so presumably most important, he'd pursue "energy independence." Second most important: Crack down on trade "cheaters." That would be China, which is a long way from Vegas.

Next Wednesday night, these two will be hauled onto a stage in Denver for their first debate on "domestic issues," a euphemism for the economy. Nothing—and that includes Jim Lehrer—can make these two talk about the economy as it's understood by the average American voter. But the odds are Mitt Romney will talk about it and Barack Obama won't

Via: Wall Street Journal

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OBAMA-ROMNEY: THE BIG FIGHT IN VEGAS

President Barack Obama’s fundraising trip to Las Vegas on Wednesday--shameful though it may have been, in the midst of a deadly foreign policy crisis--was a sign of how important Nevada remains to his re-election prospects. 

Mitt Romney was in the state the day before, giving a foreign policy address to the National Guard in Reno, though keeping his pledge not to attack his opponent on the anniversary of 9/11.

Obama drew a smaller crowd at the Cashman Center this year than in 2008--just 8,000 attendees inside the 10,000-seat arena, as opposed to the 11,000 he drew last time at the outdoor Cashman Field. 

The rest of the Democratic ticket in the state is also looking weaker than it has in recent years. Harry Reid may have survived Sharron Angle’s bid in 2010, but Rep. Shelley Berkley is struggling in her campaign against Sen. Dean Heller.

Both parties are bombarding the state’s weary television viewers with advertisements. The Democrats are targeting women in particular with commercials claiming that their opponents “opposed funding for Planned Parenthood,” leaving out the crucial word “federal,” creating the impression that Romney and the Republicans would wipe out the organization entirely. Other ads misrepresent Romney’s position on abortion entirely.

Social issues are all the Democrats have to run on in a state where unemployment is sky-high and the physical evidence of the bust are evident even on the Las Vegas Strip. Beyond the shiny Fashion Show complex and the glittering Trump International hotel lies the unfinished Echelon, which even Reid could not save. The many unfinished projects in the region have even inspired their own macabre art exhibitions.

Via: Breitbart

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Baltimore MD., City school credit, procurement cards show culture of spending

Nearly $500,000 in charges include expensive dinners, extensive travel, and student lunch at Hooter's

Jerome Oberlton, the head of the Information Technology Department, will have to personally reimburse the system $5,000 for charges school officials deemed inappropriate. (Barbara Haddock Taylor, Baltimore Sun / April 26, 2012)

Despite tightening school budgets and a perpetual rallying cry for more funding, Baltimore school administrators spent roughly $500,000 during the past year and a half on expenses such as a $7,300 office retreat at a downtown hotel, $300-per-night stays at hotels, and a $1,000 dinner at an exclusive members-only club, credit card statements show.

City school officials defend the majority of the credit card expenditures — outlined in statements and receipts obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a Maryland Public Information Act request — as "the cost of doing business," saying only a handful of "outliers" show questionable judgment or disregard for taxpayer money.

"We are working around the clock to engage our partners and move our agenda forward," said Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the school system. "Every transaction has a business purpose in mind."

Among those transactions were a $450-per-person office retreat at the downtown Hilton, during which the 16 employees of the Information Technology Department were also treated to a $500 dinner at Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao; and a $264 lunch for students at Hooter's.

A review of credit card transactions and receipts by The Sun found that the bulk of the expenditures — about $300,000, generated by 16 central office employees — were made under a new procurement-card program that has operated with virtually no controls or oversight since it began in January 2011.

Card statements show that many of the expenditures violated the school system's own protocols and restrictions for use of the cards, such as a prohibition on using them for travel or to buy gifts for employees.

Via: The Baltimore Sun

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