Claim: Elizabeth Warren doesn't need Massachusetts law license

Legal Insurrection's William Jacobson questioned the legality of Elizabeth Warren's engaging in legal practice from her office at Harvard Law School without having gotten a license to practice law in that state. Now a counter-argument has been offered. Mark Thompson writes:

 most importantly, Professor Jacobson ignores Massachusetts Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5(d), which states that:

"A lawyer admitted in another United States jurisdiction, and not disbarred or suspended from practice in any jurisdiction, may provide legal services in this jurisdiction that...are services that the lawyer is authorized to provide by federal law or other law of this jurisdiction."

The Official Comments to Rule 5.5(d) further elaborate to make explicit that 5.5(d) permits such an attorney to have even a "systematic and continuous presence in [Massachusetts] for the practice of law as well as provide legal services on a temporary basis."

As the cases to which Professor Jacobson has drawn our attention are entirely cases from the federal courts, and indeed appear to be cases lying even outside the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts federal courts, and as there seems to be no allegation that Professor Warren was unauthorized to appear in those cases, the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct appear to explicitly exempt Professor Warren's actions in those cases from the prohibitions on the unauthorized practice of law.

Although it is true that Rule 5.5(d) does "not authorize communications advertising legal services to prospective clients in [Massachusetts] by lawyers who are admitted to practice in other jurisdictions," merely listing the location of one's office in an official court filing in which one is properly authorized to appear cannot possibly be construed as a "communication advertising legal services."  

Via: The American Thinker

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MEDIA POLLS: THE NEWEST NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN AD

Over the years, I've generally had little patience when partisans make the "polls are wrong" argument. I've usually found it to be the last refuge of campaigns which were clearly struggling. Sure, individual polls can be wrong, and some can occasionally produce a crazy outlier, but a collective average of polling produces a roughly accurate snapshot of the state of a race. This year, however, is different. The overwhelming majority of media polling this election employ such absurd assumptions about turnout this November that they not only misrepresent the presidential race, they are actively distorting it. I also believe it is intentional. 

In 2008, the electorate that elected Barack Obama was 39% Democrat, 32% GOP and 29% Independent. This is what we call a D+7 electorate. Obama defeated McCain by 7 points, the same margin. In 2004, the electorate was 37% Democrat, 37% Republican, and 26% Independent, in other words D/R +0. Bush defeated John Kerry by 3 points nationally. 

Yet, virtually every big media poll is based on a model in which Democrats equal or increase their share of the electorate over 2008. Beyond simple common sense, there are many reasons this won't happen. The Dem vote in '08 was the largest in decades. It came after fatigue of eight years of GOP control, two unpopular wars, a charming Democrat candidate who was the Chauncy Gardner of politics, a vessel who could hold everyone's personal dreams and hopes for a politician. It was a perfect storm for Democrats. 

None of the factors driving Democrat turnout in '08 exist today. Recent polls from AP, Politico and the daily tracking polls from Rasmussen and Gallup, all of which assume relatively lower Democrat turnout in November, show the race essentially tied. Only those polls showing an electorate with equal or greater numbers of Democrats show Obama with any sizable lead. 

Yet, it's these polls that are driving the political narrative. Every day the media launches a number of stories about Romney's "struggling" campaign. They cite anonymous GOP sources who wring their hands that the campaign is losing ground. The only real evidence of this, however, are the polls which heavily over-sample Democrat voters. Without these skewed polls, the media's narrative would be untenable. 

Via: Breitbart

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Carney gets reporters talking football, not politics, during press gaggle

The traveling press corps managed to ask only seven non-football questions, according to the 1,985-word transcript provided by the White House. The gaggle’s first quarter was devoted to the president’s assessment of a disputed call during a Sept. 24 football game between the Green Bay Backers and the Seattle Seahawks.

“I have no announcements, but I do have to say that there is a pressing matter that kind of transcends all else for most Americans,” Carney said as he began the gaggle on Air Force One as it flew back from New York toward Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

Carney’s casual introduction prompted laughs from the attending reporters, two weeks after Carney began claiming that a little-known YouTube video prompted a lethal jihad attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

“Come on. You’re not even waiting for the question, Carney,” a reporter joked with Carney.

“This morning I watched it, and it was really astounding,” continued Carney.

“And by ‘it,’ I mean the end of the Packers-Seahawks game,” he announced, 13 days after Cabinet Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was found in violation of the Hatch Act.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Biden Accuses Republicans Of “Buying Into Extremism”…

 Makes Middle Class Appeal In GOP-Voting Virginia Suburb

CHESTERFIELD, Va. — Vice President Joe Biden made a raw appeal to Virginia's middle class on Tuesday, blasting the GOP presidential ticket for pushing what he says is a blueprint for boosting middle-income taxes while giving trillions in tax breaks to the rich.

Biden said Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan represent a radical and obstructionist brand of conservatism that would sacrifice education and Medicare to help the wealthy.

"Look, folks, this is not your father's Republican Party," Biden said, portraying Romney as out of touch with ordinary people and Ryan as willing to wreck the nation's finances to protect the wealthy from tax increases.

Virginia Republicans countered that it's Obama's policies that will hurt economic growth and kill jobs.

"The president's proposed tax increases will not make the next four years any better than the last. They will only stifle growth and eliminate nearly 20,000 jobs in Virginia alone," said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican Party in Virginia. Short argued that Romney's approach would lower tax rates for all and create 340,000 jobs in the state.

Appealing directly to the moderates who decide elections in Virginia, particularly in middle-class suburbs like Chesterfield, Biden evoked his former Senate colleague from the state.

"I would be dumbfounded if former Republican Sen. John Warner said anything like that," Biden told his audience of more than 500 people in a cramped tractor barn at a county fairground. "I would be dumbfounded. I worked with him for 30 years." Warner retired in 2009 after serving five terms. He was succeeded in office by Democrat Mark R. Warner.

Via:  The Huffington Post

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Obama Advisor: ‘If He Met With One World Leader, He Would Have To Meet With 10’

The reason why President Obama is not meeting with any foreign leaders during this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York is, as one aide to the president explained, because "If he met with one leader, he would have to meet with 10."

The reasoning was explained that way to the New York Times.

"Mr. Obama was scheduled to attend a reception for world leaders at the United Nations on Monday night. But a campaign adviser acknowledged privately that in this election year, campaigning trumped meetings with world leaders. 'Look, if he met with one leader, he would have to meet with 10,' the aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity," the Times reports today. 

Former deputy national security advisor Elliott Abrams

 cannot recall an occasion when a president went to speak at the General Assembly and simply refused to meet anyone. Perhaps this is the product of Mr. Obama’s fight with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, for having refused a meeting with him Mr. Obama must now pretend (for obvious political reasons) that it isn’t personal and he simply has no time for these unimportant personal meetings. So dozens of foreign leaders–presidents, prime ministers, sheiks, kings–are in New York, have serious things to say to us, want to hear about our policies, and will not be able to see the president. This is a serious failure by Mr. Obama and limits the effectiveness of American diplomacy. One can only hope that if he is re-elected, Mr. Obama will somehow recognize the costs this failure have imposed. Or perhaps in her exit interview secretary Clinton can explain it to him. Someone should.

Meanwhile, President Obama sat down with the ladies of The View yesterday for a chat.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Former Navy SEAL’s To Obama: We Are Not ‘Bumps In The Road’

Former Navy SEALs are speaking out after President Barack Obama referred to recent events in the Middle East, including the deaths of two former Navy SEALs, as "bumps in the road."

Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty were providing security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya when it was attacked on 9/11. They were both hailed in the aftermath of the attacks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both had gone into private security after retiring from the Navy after distinguished careers.

Former SEAL and current Montana State Senator Ryan Zinke issued the following statement:

The President refuses to admit that his policy of appeasement and apology has failed.  The murder of our Ambassador and two former Navy SEALs is more than a "bump in the road," it is a global catastrophe where America is seen as being weak and vulnerable by our enemies. This President has failed to establish a red line for Iran's nuclear ambitions and has failed to recognize the scale and implications of the attacks against us. Reagan had it right: don't negotiate with terrorists and recognize the clear and present danger of not being willing to act or lead from the front.

Zinke has been a frequent critic of President Obama's foreign policy, and started a super PAC, Special Operations for America, that has released ads to that effect, including an adhighlighting Obama's bows to foreign monarchs.

Beyond the political debate, however, Navy SEALs are also a close-knit brotherhood, and do not take kindly to disrespect when lives are lost. President Obama's "bumps in the road" comment is particularly chafing because of the credit he has taken for the success of the SEALs in the raid against Osama bin Laden. 

They are heroes when they return, and heroes when they fall--not just when it is politically convenient for those in power.

Via: Breitbart

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Israeli Government Tweets Article Critical Of Obama…

An official Israeli government Twitter account linked to an article critical of President Obama in a Tuesday tweet, in another sign on ongoing differences between the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

"Israeli official: Obama doesn’t give us same sense Clinton did that he’ll be there if things go bad - Times of #Israel," the government press office's official Twitter account wrote.

The Times of Israel article it links quotes an anonymous government official attacking Obama's policies towards the region, while simultaneously praising former President Bill Clinton.

“Clinton made us feel like he had our back," the official told the newspaper about the 1990s Camp David accords. "When we made concessions that were greater than anything an Israeli government had ever offered, we felt he’d be there if things went bad. Would he have been there? I don’t know. But it felt that way, and it put us in a different frame of mind. President Obama doesn’t give us the same sense that he’d be there.”

In a statement, the Israeli embassy in Washington said that the tweet did not constitute an endorsement — something that the Twitter account makes clear with a disclaimer that "tweet/RT does not constitute endorsement of view."

"The GPO distributes links to various articles to members of the press community and does not represent the government policy," the embassy told POLITICO. "The quote in this article doesn't reflect the position of the government of Israel. Israel deeply appreciates President Obama's commitment to its security and the superb defense cooperation between our two countries."

Still, the anonymous Israeli official's take on the current security situation contradicts the official line of the Netanyahu government. On the record, the Netanyahu government has said that Obama has given the Jewish state every security assurance on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"President Obama has said that he’s determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and I appreciate that and I respect that.  I think implicit in that is that if you’re determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it means you’ll act before they get nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said recently on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Ryan Compares Obama to an NFL Replacement Ref

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Tuesday in Ohio that NFL replacement referees reminded him of President Obama on the economy, "if you can't get it right, get out."

NFL replacement referees are under fire for repeatedly blowing calls and mismanaging games this season… a controversial call made at the end of the Packers-Seahawks game last night actually cost Green Bay the game. 

Ryan also joked that the NFL refs worked part-time in the Obama administration's budget office, "they see the national debt clock starring them in the face, they see a debt crisis and they just ignore and pretend it didn’t even happen. They are trying to pick the winners and losers and they don’t even do that very well.”

PAUL RYAN: "I gotta start off on something that was really troubling that occured last night, did you guys watch that Packer game last night? Give me a break! It's time to get the real refs!

You know, it reminds me of President Obama and the economy! If you can't get it right, it's time to get out!

I have think that these refs work part time for President Obama in the budget office!

They see the national debt clock starring them in the face, they see a debt crisis and they just ignore and pretend it didn’t even happen. They are trying to pick the winners and losers and they don’t even do that very well.”

 Via: Fox News

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U.S. President Speaks to U.N. About YouTube Video Posted in June by Southern Californian

(CNSNews.com) - In an address to the United Nations General Assembly today, President Barack Obama dedicated several long passages to discussing and condemning what the New York Times has described as a 14-minute "amateurish video" that a 55-year-old Southern California man posted on YouTube in June.

Obama also told the United Nations that with modern technology efforts to control the flow of information have become “obsolete.”

The Obama administration had originally suggested that the video in question—which the New York Times said was a trailer for a movie entitled “The Innocence of Muslims”—may have been responsible for inspiring a mob to attack the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11 and to kill U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

However, the Libyan prime minister said last week that the attack on the U.S. consulate was pre-planned. Also, the chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said on Sunday that not only was the attack planned but also that there was reason to believe it had been carried out by al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-affiliated group and that he had seen no evidence that there had even been a demonstration outside the consulate before the attack.\

Via: CNS News

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U.S. Government Celebrates Terrorist Who Craved to Nuke the U.S.

 Last week the Environmental Protection Agency kicked-off its celebration of “Hispanic Heritage Month” with an e-mail message featuring Che Guevara along with his famous slogan, “Hasta la Victoria Siempre.”

Let’s hope these U.S. civil servants were innocently unaware of some of Che Guevara’s other slogans:

• “The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind!”
• “Against those hyenas [Americans] there is no option but extermination!”
*” We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies’ very home, to his places of work and recreation. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him! (the U.S.)
• “We must keep our hatred [against the U.S.] alive and fan it to paroxysm! “
• “If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!”

U.S. taxpayers pay U.S. government employees to celebrate the author of the charming sentiments above. Fine. As usual only a few Americans of Cuban heritage have complained about the EPA’s “gaffe.” As usual, most of the people Che Guevara craved to incinerate view this EPA “gaffe” as silly obsession by hyper-sensitive and loudmouthed Cuban-Americans.

But Che Guevara’s hate-obsession was actually the U.S. Most of the defenseless Cubans he murdered in cold blood, he murdered because he thought they were affiliated with the U.S. (“U.S.-Backed” Batista, the CIA, etc.) In fact probably 90 per cent of the men (and boys, and some women) his regime murdered had no affiliation with Batista whatsoever and most had fought the Batista regime‚Äîbut alas, as non-communists

Via: Canada Free Press

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Chevy Volt Battery Plant Struggling Despite $151M From Obama Admin

Another in a long list of Obama-touted and tax-supported "green energy" companies is on the verge of going out of business, this time in Michigan.

Two years ago, President Obama visited the LG Chem battery plant in Holland, Michigan. He then hailed the plant, saying, "You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America."

But today, those LG Chem jobs Obama claimed were "coming back" are seeing intermittent layoffs instead of growth.

In 2010, the plant, which supplies batteries for the Chevy Volt, received $151 million in tax money from the U.S. Department of Energy, but it has been good money after bad.

Today, $133 million of that $151 million has been spent, but since April, the company's 200 workers have been on "rolling furloughs" because the electric vehicle market has failed to blossom as promised by many.

In 2010, the plant was projected to create 443 new jobs within five years. Those projections have been shelved as the company says it can't predict when the furloughs will stop for its current employees.

A second Chevy Volt battery plant in Michigan has also been forced to implement layoffs due to the failure of the electric car market in the U.S.

Lithium-ion battery manufacturer A123 Systems was awarded $249 million in federal government tax dollars but ended up laying off employees despite the government's cash infusion. The plant might have closed entirely if China hadn't invested an additional $465 million in the plant. Even still, its future is murky.

Via: Breitbart

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ROMNEY CAMPAIGN TO SHIFT STRATEGY: WHAT WILL NEXT FOUR YEARS LOOK LIKE?

According to Mitt Romney adviser Ed Gillespie, the campaign willrefocus its message this week to hone in on President Obama’s vulnerabilities in the Rust Belt, particularly in Ohio. “We are talking not only on the president’s performance over the past four years, but the cost of his policies going forward,” said Gillespie this morning. Romney would center his argument on “how four more years of the last four years is not going to be good for the American people.”

This is a strategy Romney should have embraced long ago. President Obama has failed entirely to say what he would do with a second term, other than “finish” what he started – which could mean anything from full-scale social engineering to implementing Obamacare to raising taxes. Romney should have been pointing out all along that the only indicator of what Obama will do for the next four years is what he has done the last four years – Romney has been far more specific about what he would do in a first term than Obama has been about what he would do in a second.

Gillespie also said that Romney would hit Obama on trade policy, particularly with regard to China. Ohioans are generally less pro-free trade than other states around the country, since they have a heavy manufacturing base consistently undercut by foreign nations who use cheap labor and environmentally unfriendly working conditions, and who don’t tolerate private unions. “I think it’s clear that the message on China has resonated not only with the voters,” said Gillespie, “but you can tell with the response from the Obama campaign.”

It’s about time Romney embraced a campaign that has both strategy – broad overall messaging – and tactics. Targeting specific group will be necessary for him to swing particular states, especially battleground states that rely on small numbers of independents to swing for or against a candidate.

Via: Breitbart

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Complaints Mount Against Michelle Obama’s New Lunch Menu

In Wisconsin, high school athletes are complaining about not getting enough to eat each day, due to the skimpy new school lunch menu mandated by the United States Department of Agriculture and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The story we published earlier this week on that subject is unfortunately not unique. Students across the country are complaining about the new school lunch regulations.

Perhaps the real motive is to starve students into slimming down. Just ask students in Pierre, South Dakota who, too, are in an all-out revolt.

"I know a lot of my friends who are just drinking a jug of milk for their lunch. And they are not getting a proper meal," middle school student Samantha Gortmaker told Keloland.com.

Despite the fact that the new regulations have increased the cost of a lunch 20 to 25 cents per plate, it’s not pleasing students.

Some are throwing away their vegetables while others are adapting to the rules by becoming industrious. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, students have created a black market - for chocolate syrup. The kiddie capitalists are smuggling in bottles of it and selling it by the squeeze, according toSouthCoastToday.com.

Nancy Carvalho, director of food services for New Bedford Public Schools, was quoted as saying that hummus and black bean salads have been tough sells in elementary cafeterias. That means even smaller children are going through the day fighting hunger pains, which can never be considered a good thing.

One government official tried to put the blame on the students.

"One thing I think we need to keep in mind as kids say they're still hungry is that many children aren't used to eating fruits and vegetables at home, much less at school. So it's a change in what they are eating. If they are still hungry, it's that they are not eating all the food that's being offered," USDA Deputy Undersecretary Janey Thornton was quoted as saying.

Ms. Thornton just put her finger on the problem. The government is trying to impose a new diet that children are not accustomed to. It’s not reasonable to expect them to either eat what the government deems healthy or go hungry.

Many will opt to go hungry, and that’s the government’s fault.

Via: Townhall

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'60 Minutes’ Interview Causes Headache For White House

AP

’60 Minutes’ interview causes headache for White House

President Obama, in agreeing to a lengthy interview with "60 Minutes," may have created his own "bump in the road."

The president was facing heavy criticism from Republicans Monday for, in the course of that interview, referring to Middle East unrest as "bumps in the road," conceding "mistakes" in campaign ads and appearing to dismiss concern about Iran's nuclear program as "noise."

Romney's campaign seized on all three of those comments, and by Monday afternoon was hammering the president for the Middle East remark -- perhaps in a bid to return the favor after Democrats kept Romney against the wall last week defending his hidden-camera remarks on the "47 percent" of Americans who don't pay taxes. In the CBS interview, Obama said supporting the Arab Spring was the "right thing" to do but acknowledged there would be "bumps in the road" in the process.

"These are no bumps in the road. These are human lives," Romney retorted at a campaign stop in Colorado. On ABC News, Romney also said: "I can't imagine saying something like the assassination of ambassadors is a bump in the road."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was hit with a string of questions at Monday's briefing about the "60 Minutes" interview. The most aggressive accusation by the Romney campaign merited the most aggressive response from Carney.

The accusation about Obama's Middle East comments, Carney said Monday, is "both desperate and offensive."

He rejected the idea that the president was minimizing the recent violence -- in which four Americans were killed in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and others have been killed in the course of raging protests across a number of countries.

"The president was referring to the transformations in the region," Carney said. "There is a certain rather desperate attempt to grasp at words and phrases here to find political advantage and, in this case, that's profoundly offensive."

That wasn't the only line Carney had to carefully explain Monday.

Romney's campaign had also criticized the president for his comments on Israel.

Via: Fox News

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CBC Chairman: ‘We Cannot Even Find an Instance of Voter Fraud’

(CNSNews.com) - Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emmanuel Cleaver said Thursday “we cannot even find an instance of voter fraud,” but a Justice Department fact sheet tells a different story.

“We’ve had 176 restrictive bills regarding voting laws that have been proposed in 41 states. Now understand that we cannot even find an instance of voter fraud. In the last 20-something years, the Justice Department has investigated like two,” Cleaver said during a panel discussion on voter ID laws.

However, according to a Justice Department fact sheet dated July 2, 2008, over 140 individuals have been charged with election fraud offenses and over 100 people have been convicted of voter fraud since the Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative was launched in 2002.

Cleaver claimed that the voting public has been under attack since 2011.

“We never would have predicted in the 1970s or in the 1980s that in the year 2011 that we would be fighting an attempt to suppress or discourage minority voting power,” he said.

Via: CNS News

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Polls Show Romney Crushing Obama Among Veterans In Key Battleground States…

Veterans retreating from Barack Obama

President Barack Obama is trying hard to win veterans, but it looks like they’d prefer a new commander in chief.

The Obama campaign had been hoping that veterans and their families — especially among the post-Sept. 11 generation that served in Iraq and Afghanistan — would be part of their path to victory: They’re a high turn-out demographic and concentrated in battleground states, with nearly 1 million each in North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, and 1.6 million in Florida.

But recent polls make clear that the president’s campaign is losing the battle. Even as Obama leads in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia, Mitt Romney is up by double digits among veterans in those states. Nationwide, he’s got a commanding 20-percentage-point lead over Obama and has even overtaken the president with younger veterans.

(Also on POLITICO: Mitt's transition efforts intensifying)

“It’s no contest,” said Maurice Tamman, a Reuters data news editor who has polled on veterans and the presidential campaign.

Obama’s campaign has been trying to improve on a historical Democratic disadvantage on national security and among veterans by touting the killing of Osama bin Laden, ending Iraq combat operations and winding down the war in Afghanistan. They’ve also been talking up the administration’s attention to veterans’ benefits and efforts spearheaded by first lady Michelle Obama, hoping to appeal not just to the troops but to the spouses and other military family members who have coped with long separations and multiple deployments.

(Also on POLITICO: Dan Senor: U.S. 'looks impotent')

Instead, even as Obama has been gaining in the overall polls, several NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls conducted from Sept. 9-11 had Romney well ahead of Obama among veterans in Florida, Ohio and Virginia. And in Colorado, a poll released Sept. 16 by SurveyUSA and the Denver Post found both veterans and military families supporting Romney over Obama 53 percent to 39 percent in a survey that included third-party candidates.

Via: Politico

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Carry on campaigning: Romney sweeps critics aside

Republican battles to revive his fortunes in Ohio as allies turn their anger on candidate

Even as he prepared to answer calls from within his own party to sharpen his message and ramp up his schedule of public rallies, beginning with a three-day bus tour through Ohio, Mitt Romney managed to insist that he was running a "very effective" campaign for President last night , adding that it was "doing a very good job".

One week after voters glimpsed the Republican challenger telling a private gathering of rich donors that 47 per cent of Americans are welfare-dependent "victims" he can't worry about, Mr Romney now finds himself under brutal pressure to return to the offensive against President Barack Obama and reverse a recent slide in public opinion polls, especially in battleground states including Ohio.

Yet, the candidate may have startled even his closest loyalists by professing in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes last night that all remains well with his campaign. That has hardly been the verdict of some pundits even in the Republican camp like Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, who clarified at the weekend what she had said earlier last week about the 47 per cent debacle. "The Romney campaign has to get turned around. This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant 'rolling calamity'," she wrote.

But Mr Romney appeared to view things very differently. "I've got a very effective campaign. It's doing a very good job … It doesn't need a turnaround," he boldly told CBS. Referring to some recent national polls that show him and President Obama in a dead heat, he went on: "We've got a campaign which is tied with an incumbent President."

Via: The Independent

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Blamer-In-Chief: I Bear “Full Responsibility For Everything”…

(CNN) – President Barack Obama discussed his frustration with gridlock in Washington, saying his "biggest disappointment" in his nearly four years in office has been the failure to oversee change in the nation's political climate.

"My biggest disappointment is that we haven't changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked," Obama said in a CBS News interview that aired Sunday.

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Asked if he bears any blame for the stalemate, Obama said the buck stops at his desk.

"I think that, you know, as president I bear responsibility for everything, to some degree," he said on CBS' "60 Minutes."

Throughout the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney's campaign and Obama’s critics have dogged the president for failing to get certain legislation passed in recent years, while Team Obama responds by faulting congressional Republicans for not compromising.

The tension has especially heightened as Congress faces a looming, end-of-the-year deadline to avoid the "fiscal cliff," a massive amount of tax hikes and spending cuts set to take place at the beginning of 2013 if Congress fails to act. Lawmakers on both sides have already showed signs of firm partisan division on the issue.

Obama's comments aired days after the president drew criticism from Romney over separate remarks about change in Washington, comments that suggested a slight tweak in Obama's 2008 ideals of "hope" and "change."

Via: CNN

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Chart of the Week: 70% of Spending Goes to Dependence Programs

Federal spending concentrated on the 47 dependence-creating government programs that include housing, farm subsidies, and entitlements now comprises more than 70.5 percent of total federal expenditures as of 2010, according to Heritage’s Index of Dependence on Government.

This represents the fourth year in a row that the Index of Dependence on Government has risen, increasing by nearly a third — 31.73 percent — in that time span.

As Heritage’s Alison Acosta Fraser, director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, noted this week:

The 2012 Heritage Index of Dependence on Government found that 63.7 million Americans received either Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Social Security, or support for higher education—an 8 percent increase over the previous year. These same people were very likely to receive other federal benefits, such as Medicare or food stamps. Separately, The Wall Street Journal found that in 2011, 49 percent of Americans lived in a household where at least one member of the family received a government benefit.

Then there are the 78 million baby boomers who have begun to head into retirement. Further whittling the taxpayer rolls, many  are projected to be substantially if not entirely dependent on Social Security and Medicare, further exacerbating the federal spending crisis that currently exists.

Via: The Foundry

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