Cities pay a price for campaign swings: $100,000 for recent Obama visit

President Obama Continues to leave a Trail of Debt at a time when the Cities Can Least Afford it.

President Obama's motorcade pulls onto Hunts Point Road last month on the way to a private fundraiser at the home of former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal.

Local law-enforcement agencies spent nearly $100,000 in overtime to protect President Obama during a fundraising trip to the Seattle area last month, according to records released by the groups involved in the effort.

The roughly $98,500 tab, which won't be reimbursed, could have been much higher — the largest security force in the presidential motorcade, the Washington State Patrol, adjusted its schedules, shifting troopers from regular duties to avoid what would have been an additional $60,000 in overtime.

The single largest overtime tab came from the Bellevue Police Department, which paid $28,817 extra to some 60 officers involved in securing the Hilton Bellevue Hotel, where the president spent the night.

In all, dozens of employees from nine local agencies were involved in security for the July 24-25 visit, Obama's sixth to the state as president. Although the Secret Service coordinated the protection effort, local agencies also had to spend hours helping to craft a 72-page incident plan, officials said.

The costs are not unique to Obama; all presidential visits require intense security, and President Bush's trips to the state cost about the same, officials said. Security is also required for Republican Mitt Romney, although his status as only a candidate means the costs are lower.

The local expenses are in addition to costs handled by the federal government, including the operation of Air Force One, which is estimated at about $180,000 per hour. The Obama campaign is required to cover part of the federal expenses, but not local ones.

Those local costs for Obama's July visit represented only a small fraction of the budgets of the law-enforcement agencies.

Still, some people wondered why taxpayers must pay for security for a strictly political visit that did not include any public events.

The president attended a $35,800-per-person round-table with business leaders and a $5,000-per-ticket dinner at which he spoke for 13 minutes before reporters were escorted out. He raised about $1.75 million from the events, both at the Hunts Point home of Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal.

Via: The Seattle Times

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More than 2,200 Hospitals Face Penalties Under ObamaCare Rules

A provision of ObamaCare is set to punish roughly two-thirds of U.S. hospitals evaluated by Medicare starting this fall over high readmission rates, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News.

Starting in October, Medicare will reduce reimbursements to hospitals with high 30-day readmission rates -- which refers to patients who return within a month -- by as much as 1 percent. The maximum penalty increases to 2 percent the following year and 3 percent in 2014. 

Doctors are concerned the penalty is unfair, since sometimes they have to accept patients more than once in a brief period of time but could be penalized for doing so -- even for accepting seniors who are sick. 

"Among patients with heart failure, hospitals that have higher readmission rates actually have lower mortality rates," said Sunil Kripalani, MD, a professor with Vanderbilt University Medical Center who studies hospital readmissions. "So, which would we rather have -- a hospital readmission or a death?"

But according to federal government figures, nearly one in five Medicare patients is readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of release, costing taxpayers an estimated $17.5 billion.

"Readmissions has been a low-hanging fruit for Medicare," said Jordan Rau, a staff writer with KHN, an editorially independent program of the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "They've been very unhappy that about 2 million Medicare beneficiaries are being readmitted every year between 30 days of discharge."

Medicare evaluated readmission rates at 3,367 of the nation's hospitals and will impose penalties on 2,211 starting in October, according to KHN. The analysis shows 278 hospitals will receive this year's maximum penalty of 1 percent. On the other side of the spectrum, 50 hospitals will receive the minimum penalty of 0.01 percent, KHN reports.

Via: Fox News

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Selling Charlotte: DNC convention business requires millions from taxpayers

The Democratic National Convention will be Charlotte’s most prestigious event, bringing tens of thousands of visitors and worldwide exposure. It’s the crowning achievement of the city’s two-decade quest to become a world-class convention destination.

What’s less known are the tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money spent to compete in the convention business and the wildly inflated projections of economic impact used to justify the Convention Center’s construction and expansions.

In fact, the city of Charlotte and the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority have not scrutinized how the Convention Center has performed. Elected officials who oversee it do not understand it.

Yet they have continued to pour money into the convention business, even in the face of a national glut of meeting space and Charlotte’s inability to fill its building.

The Charlotte Convention Center has cost taxpayers as much as $30 million annually for construction debt, operating losses and incentives worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars to win business. The promised payback from the investment hasn’t materialized.

Meanwhile, Charlotte residents pick up much of the tab: Most Convention Center funding comes from a countywide 1 percent tax on restaurant and bar bills – a majority of which is paid by Mecklenburg County residents who dine out.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/20/162854/selling-charlotte-dnc-convention.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news#storylink=cpy

CLICK: Top Union Leaders’ Salaries...

Not exactly the 99%: Top union leaders’ salaries

Advocating for the working man doesn’t pay too poorly, it seems. Here’s a list of the annual salaries and benefits earned by the nation’s top labor officials, according to the Labor Department. This data is based on 2011 filings:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – $293,750.

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel – $460,060

Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry – $290,334.

American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee – $512,489.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa , Jr. – $372,489.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten – $493,859.

International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger – $323,811.

American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage – $198,690. (Gage retired this month)

United Food and Commercial Workers President Joseph Hansen – $361,124

That’s still not in the the league of most top corporate executives, but it’s not bad. Interesting to note too that Trumka, who leads the largest coalition of unions, is on the lower end of the scale.

Via: Washington Times

Opinion: Why We Are On The brink Of The Greatest Depression Of All Time

Why We Are On The Brink Of The Greatest Depression Of All Time

Everywhere from FoxNews.com to CNBC.com, I suddenly see commentators warning of pending doom, economic collapse, and a new Great Depression. Welcome to my club. Perhaps America's politicians and economists should have paid attention to an entrepreneur and small businessman that has been warning of economic collapse and a new Great Depression publicly for over two years.

More importantly, none of the current commentaries mention the "why's" of this slow motion economic collapse...beyond the obvious -- mountains of deficit and debt. None of them mention the dysfunctional structure of the current U.S. economy and the massive changes in the work ethic and mindset of the average American.

I am a successful small businessman and a patriot who loves America and always sees its greatness. I am also an optimistic, positive thinker who always sees the glass half full.

But not this time.

This time we are in such deep trouble, the only solution is a radical restructuring of the politicians, the economy, and the way we view personal responsibility versus government handouts. If those changes don't come then we are facing a long decline and the eventual end of America.

This time the results are going to be dramatically worse than 1929. This time we are facing The Greatest Depression ever.

Via: Fox News 

Labor Secretary Cheers Youth Unemployment Rate of 17.1 Percent

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis oversaw the signing Monday of agreements with Honduras, Peru, Ecuador and the Philippines to protect the rights of migrant workers in the U.S. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) – Labor Secretary Hilda Solis cheered a slight decline in the youth (16-24) unemployment rate, saying that it was a sign that the job market was improving for America’s young people.

“As young Americans all across the country prepare to head into a new school year, I'm excited to say that many more will take with them lessons learned through summer jobs,” Solis said Wednesday in apress release.

“It's no secret that the effects of the 2007 recession had a significant impact on job prospects for youth, but today's report showed positive signs that job prospects for young people picked up pace in 2012,” she said.

Solis’ statement marked the release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual youth unemployment report. Solis said that the report showed positive signs for young job seekers, noting that the youth unemployment rate had fallen to 17.1 percent over the past two years.

Obama Botches Rank Of Top Navy SEAL...

It's ADMIRAL McRaven, Mr President! Obama botches rank of top Navy SEAL

Barack Obama: ‘I'd advise that you talk to General McRaven, who's in charge of our Special Ops. I think he has a point of view in terms of how deeply I care about what these folks do each and every day to protect our freedom.’

The difficulty with this is that William McRaven is and admiral not a general. As a SEAL, he is member of the US Navy, not US Army or US Marines.

For servicemen, ranks are important – they have worked hard and, in many cases, risked their lives, to earn them. And it’s one thing to omit a rank and another to botch the rank of the highest-ranking Special Forces operator in the country.

Barack Obama has always been known for his silken words, soaring rhetoric and ability to use language to his advantage.

Lately, however, the president seems to be losing command of the details. In a speech at a fundraiser in New York on Wednesday night, he took aim at Todd Akin, the political punch bag du jour on both sides of the political aisle.

‘Recently, some of you have been paying attention to the commentary of the Senator of Missouri, Mr Akin, who - the interesting thing here is that this is an individual who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology, but somehow missed science class.

‘It's representative of a desire to go backwards instead of forwards, and to fight fights that we thought were settled twenty, thirty years ago.’

The problem is, Akin is a congressman who is running for a US Senate seat in Missouri. Senator Claire McCaskill, Obama’s favourite Senator until a few months ago when she started to distance herself from him in an effort to win re-election, might not particularly appreciate the President having conceded her seat already.

Via: Daily Mail

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Liberal activist group wants to destroy Republican Party, send it ‘the way of the Whigs’

A new liberal super PAC is openly calling for the destruction of the Republican Party because, as the group’s founder argues, the GOP is “no longer a viable political party interested in debate and exchange of positive ideas.”

Cesar Ruiz, the founder of new political action group Haphak America, said his organization’s “mission” is to “expose that the sole national purpose of the Republican Party is not to act in the interests of American citizens, or even of its party members, but to defeat a sitting, duly elected president.”

Because he thinks the GOP only stands for defeating President Barack Obama and nothing else – what he says is a “self-serving purpose” – Ruiz thinks the Republican Party “should [be] disqualif[ied] … as a viable representation of the people it purports to serve.”

The PAC leader says he thinks the “Republican Party needs to go the way of the Whigs and make way for the emergence of another political party intent on working on the behalf of the American people.” The demise of the Whig Party before the Civil War made way for the creation of the Republican Party.

Ruiz said his group plans to use media and grassroots organizers to achieve its goal – and he said the organization will use “the very ruling that Republicans created through the Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and use all legal resources at its disposal to create a positive and significant political change in all 50 states by 2016.”

“Complete reversals of previously long held positions of the Republican Party have made this goal of winning the presidency at all cost obvious,” Ruiz added. “The party has abandoned long held values and implemented obstructionist policies that have assisted in the crippling of the economy, resulting in millions of jobs lost.”

Ruiz said, too, that the GOP has “become a subversive element by manipulating voter ID laws and rulings through their systematic strategy to disenfranchise 5 million voters, evident most recently in 3 key battle ground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, using these tactics to regain power.”

Via: The Daily Caller

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Mitt Romney: “I have a vision for an America that is an energy superpower”

Team Romney has released their official and detailed energy platform in a new position paper, and Mitt is talking it up on the campaign trail today in New Mexico. It’s all great stuff, in my humble opinion: fewer federal regulations; more state self-determination; more drilling, both offshore and terrestrial; less government “investment” in politically preferred pet green energy projects; a quicker green-lighting procedure for major energy projects and North American cooperation; and etcetera.

A crucial component of Mitt Romney’s Plan for a Stronger Middle Class is to dramatically increase domestic energy production and partner closely with Canada and Mexico to achieve North American energy independence by 2020. While President Obama has described his own energy policy as a “hodgepodge,” sent billions of taxpayer dollars to green energy projects run by political cronies, rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline as not in “the national interest,” and sought repeatedly to stall development of America’s domestic resources, Romney’s path forward would establish America as an energy superpower in the 21st century.

“An affordable, reliable supply of energy is crucial to America’s economic future. I have a vision for an America that is an energy superpower, rapidly increasing our own production and partnering with our allies Canada and Mexico to achieve energy independence on this continent. If I am elected president, that vision will become a reality by the end of my second term.” -Mitt Romney

THE ROMNEY AGENDA:

• Empower states to control onshore energy development;
• Open offshore areas for energy development;
• Pursue a North American Energy Partnership;
• Ensure accurate assessment of energy resources;
• Restore transparency and fairness to permitting and regulation; and
• Facilitate private-sector-led development of new energy technologies.

Amen to that! It’s often said that, under Obama anyways, America is a energy-rich nation acting like an energy-poor nation. There is a huge and booming global market for energy resources, which we have in spades, yet we continually and quixotically take ourselves out of the game and refuse to get in on a market share that would bring in major economic growth and revenue. A national agenda like this would help put Americans back to work and invigorate our limping economy without adding more costly, sluggish bureaucracy to the mix.

Via: Hot Air

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OBAMA CAMPAIGN CAUGHT PULLING ANOTHER FAST ONE

 Willie Geist, MSNBC: What would you say to that same person that said, 'Well, that hasn't worked for four years. I haven't had the job over time, it's time for a change.'

 

Stephanie Cutter, Obama deputy campaign manager: Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what's happened over the past four years in terms of the president coming in and seeing 800,000 jobs lost on the day that the president was being sworn in, and seeing the president moving pretty quickly to stem the losses, to turn the economy around, and over the past, you know, 27 months we've created 4.5 million private sector jobs. That's more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery, there's obviously more we need to do, and as I said to Mika at the at beginning of the program, I think that unemployed worker probably sees one person in this race trying to move the country forward and that's the president.

 

(h/t) RCP

 

==========

 

The Obama campaign is cherry-picking the numbers…

Job Growth

·         Obama: Cutter counts the job gains from the low point of Obama’s term forward. The low point was February 2010 when U.S. nonfarm payrolls measured 129,244,00. In July, they measured 133,245,000 for a gain of 4.0 million jobs in 27 months

·         Reagan: If you measure the Reagan recovery the same way, he created 8.0 million new jobs in 27 months.

·         Bush: And if you measure the Bush recovery the same way, the low point was in August 2003 when U.S. employment stood at 129,820,00. But 27 months later, the figure was 134,654,000 in November 2005 — a gain of 4.8 million jobs.

In this recovery, we’re still down over 3 million private sector jobs. By any number of measures, according to the AP, this recovery has been the weakest since WWII.

Via: Fox News

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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