Recently, Republican Colin Powell endorsed President Obama for a second term. After his endorsement, Mr. Powell received the usual backlash from the Republicans and the praise from Democrats.
And he received an ad from the Obama Team. Here it is, in Colin Powell’s own words when he made his endorsement.
A North Carolina resident named VR Phipps is traveling the country in a truck displaying a hanged effigy of President Barack Obama, drawing the shock of local residents and the attention of the Secret Service.
Phipps says he’s protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
“All we want is what Trayvon Martin’s family wants. Justice,” Phipps says in a video on his YouTube channel.
The truck was first spotted by Mike Opelka, a reporter for Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze, back in May while driving through Midtown Manhattan.
“After two decades of living and working in Manhattan, this average New Yorker believed he had seen everything. Today proved that to be a false assumption,” Opelka wrote.
Phipps denied racism was a motivation for the hanging in another video posted on his channel.
h/t Buzzfeed
Authorities have dropped charges against an 80-year-old Connecticut woman who tore down political signs, including one that showed President Barack Obama with an Adolf Hitler-style mustache.
Nancy Lack was driving by a post office on Main Street in Hebron, Conn., on Oct. 11 when she saw signs showing Obama with a Hitler-like mustache. She said she was so offended by the images that she took the posters down.
“I just got very angry that they would do that to Obama’s image,” Lack said. “I took the one by the road and the two by the table.”
Lack said when she removed the posters, she knew she would get in trouble. Some workers with LaRouchePAC tried stopping her, but Lack wouldn’t back down.
“A woman was following me to the car and I put the posters in the car and I said, ‘Make sure you get my license plate’,” Lack said.
Lack was arrested and charged with sixth-degree larceny and breach of peace.
h/t MSNBC
Ignore the national polls from now on. Ignore them. Even the Gallup poll that has Mitt leading by 7 points. You heard me. The only real action is in the swing states that will decide this election.
There were some very good polls for the president over the past two days, and you need to keep one thing in mind when you read them: they were mostly taken before Tuesday’s debate. The Romney Bounce, which ended last week according to this sage, has given way to the Obama Resurge, which should improve after his debate performance.
Evidence?
Virginia
Colorado
Wisconsin
Iowa
Pennsylvania
And with the president holding a lead in Ohio, he’s now ahead in enough states to claim an electoral victory. As I have said before, this will be a very close election down to November 6 and Mitt Romney will need an event or a stellar run of ads and circumstances in order to win.
The final debate on Monday is on foreign affairs, and let’s face facts; foreign affairs ain’t where it’s at this election. It won’t matter how many times Mitt mentions Benghazi or Tripoli or Bibi, fewer people will be watching, and fewer still will know a lot about what he’s talking about. Obama can pretty much stick with “Osama bin Laden is dead” for about 85 minutes, then give a closing that mentions the 47% and GM being rescued.
OK, it won’t be that easy, but I think the debate danger is past, unless Mitt decides that he wants to get aggressive, but since that didn’t work out well on Tuesday, I don’t think he’ll try it.
We’ve come to the frenetic last weeks of a campaign that’s gone on far too long, but this what political junkies like us live for, so get your comfy sneakers on and line up your binders full of women for the stretch run. And stop looking at that Gallup poll. Yes, I’m talking to you.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
The video below is sponsored by the Jewish Council on Education and Research Super PAC. It stars Samuel Jackson and his co-star, “little Suzie.” In the vocal tradition of his audio book for children, “Go the F*ck To Sleep,” Jackson begins the piece;
“In the silvery moonlight that bathed every town,
the people lie dreaming so safe and so sound.
They’re warm in their beds, snuggled up in their sheets,
But four years before, they were out in the streets.
Now, it’s as if they don’t know what’s at stake,
All except one girl, wide-eyed and awake.”
“Little Suzie is to worried to sleep,
She can’t figure out why her family is so placid.
It’s like they don’t know that Romney and his veep,
Will remake the country in ways that are drastic.
She read his platform and it scared he to death,
She’s got to do something, while there’s still time left.”
Mitt Romney is shaking things up again, and I do mean the etch-a-sketch. Romney spent a major part of his campaign criticizing President for “raising taxes” on the middle class. But with the debates looming and the realization that he will meet with the President face to face, Mitt Romney is now trying to erase some of the lies.
Now Romney is saying that President Obama did not raise taxes.
Mitt Romney veered off message Tuesday when he told a crowd of supporters in Ohio that President Barack Obama “did not” raise taxes in his first four years in office, undercutting his own line of attack on the president.
“His idea now, he’s got one new, he’s got a new idea,” Romney said during a rally with running mate Paul Ryan. “I admit this, he has one thing he did not do in his first four years, he’s said he’s going to do in his next four years, which is to raise taxes.”
The statement strayed from the Romney campaign’s usual criticism of the president. While Obama’s efforts to let the Bush-era tax cuts on families with an annual income above $250,000 expire have faltered under Republican opposition, Romney’s campaign has repeatedly argued that the president has raised taxes in other ways.
In an effort to change the topic, Fox News and the Romney campaign are trying to highlight a small snippet of a 1998 speech by Barack Obama. The part of the speech they are focusing on shows Mr. Obama saying,”I actually believe in redistribution.” But like any propaganda machine, Fox News and the Romney campaign refused to show the full context of Mr. Obama’s speech.
The part of the clip these Republicans conveniently left out shows Mr. Obama doing something they claim they agree with – praising competition, the free market and making government more efficient. In a calculated move, Republicans knew that showing the full context of what Mr. Obama said in 1998 would soften the effect they’re trying to portray to their audience – that President Obama is trying to take from the rich and give to the poor – so that context was intentionally left out.
NBC however, is bringing the full context to light and here it is.
I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot. How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities.
NBC reports. The video circulated by Republicans, which has used as fodder for an attack on Obama, includes a longer reflection by Obama about talking about how government action can be effective. But the clip has been cut short after the word “shot;” Obama’s words about competition, the marketplace and innovation are omitted from the clip.
Romney has nonetheless seized upon this clip as his campaign looks to regain its footing after the release of a surreptitiously-recorded video of the GOP presidential nominee speaking at a private fundraiser in May. Romney’s campaign has been bogged down in criticism from conservatives and Democrats alike since the release of the clip, in which Romney talks about how he couldn’t count on the support of 47 percent of Americans, since they pay no taxes, and are “dependent” on government.
Liz Cheney repeated the falsehood that President Obama has apologized to our enemies and abandoned Czechoslovakia, which hasn’t existed since 1992.
During a panel on ABC’s This Week, host Jake Tapper asked the daughter of the former vice president if she agreed with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that [President] Obama was “sympathizing” with the people who attacked the U.S. embassy in Libya and killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans.
“I think he did get it right,” Cheney insisted. “We’ve now had three and a half years of Obama policy and it looks an awful lot like — whether you’re talking about the Mexico City speech in 2009, the Cairo Speech in 2009, the extent to which he’s been apologizing for America, he’s abandoned some of our key allies like Israel, Poland, Czechoslovakia. He’s attempted to appease our enemies, the Iranians, for example, the Russians. … The president himself has got a terrible record on national security, and it’s clearly something that Gov. Romney ought rightly to be pushing.”
“Terrible record on national security?” Not quite.
President Obama used his Weekly Address to speak about the tragedy that happened in Libya where four Americans were killed. The President reassured Americans that as long as he’s Commander-In-Chief, he will do all he can to bring justice to the families of the four fallen heroes.
As we mourn their loss, we must also send a clear and resolute message to the world: those who attack our people will find no escape from justice. We will not waver in their pursuit. And we will never allow anyone to shake the resolve of the United States of America.
This tragic attack takes place at a time of turmoil and protest in many different countries. I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths. We stand for religious freedom. And we reject the denigration of any religion – including Islam.
Yet there is never any justification for violence. There is no religion that condones the targeting of innocent men and women. There is no excuse for attacks on our Embassies and Consulates. And so long as I am Commander-in-Chief, the United States will never tolerate efforts to harm our fellow Americans.
WASHINGTON — A presidential race that has been neck-and-neck for months suddenly isn’t.
In the week after the political conventions ended, President Obama has opened the most significant, sustained lead in the daily Gallup Poll since Mitt Romney emerged as the Republican nominee last spring. Disappointing unemployment statistics released last Friday haven’t stemmed Obama’s rise, and Romney’s sharp criticism of the president in recent days during the unfolding crisis in Libya has opened a new line of partisan attack against the challenger.
With 53 days and three presidential debates to go, strategists in both parties say there’s time for Romney to recover lost ground, especially with an electorate deeply dissatisfied with the direction of the country and the state of the economy. But even some Republican political analysts warn that the former Massachusetts governor faces a political landscape that has become steeper as the campaign heads into the home stretch.
The Gallup Poll showed Obama leading Romney 50%-44% Thursday among registered voters. A Fox News poll Wednesday also had Obama ahead, 48%-43%, among likely voters.
The two candidates had been locked within 2 percentage points of each other in the daily Gallup survey since July. Neither had held a lead of as much as 5 points since June.
Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the United States, is the only president in the history of this nation forced to prove his citizenship. A group called the Birthers (a group the Republican presidential candidate ascribes to) questioned Mr. Obama’s citizenship based on no evidence to suggest otherwise, except for a phrase they continuously used, “he’s not one of us.”
To calm their nerves, the President did something unprecedented. He provided the only proof legally allowed – his “short form” and “long form” birth certificates but of course, the Birthers want more. Unfortunately for them, the President’s birth was not televised and the placenta is already discarded. So what’s a Birther to do? Try to keep the democratically elected President of the United States off the ballot.
Here’s what’s happening in Kansas;
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an informal advisor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said on Thursday he and his fellow members of a state board were considering removing President Barack Obama from the Kansas ballot this November.
Kobach is part of the State Objections Board along with Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, all Republicans. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that on Thursday the board agreed to consider whether to take Obama off the ballot because they said they lacked sufficient evidence about his birth certificate.
“I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” Kobach said, according to the Capital-Journal. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.”
The board is looking at a complaint filed by Joe Montgomery, of Manhattan, Kan., who claimed the Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen and so is ineligible to be president. The man appears to be part of a group of conspiracy theorists known as “birthers,” who deny Obama’s birth certificate is real.
Late Thursday, Kobach told TPM in an email conversation that he made his “frivolous objection” comment at the end of the meeting and was responding to a specific question.
“A ‘frivolous’ argument, in legal terms, is one that cannot reasonably be made under any circumstances,” Kobach wrote. “The objection passed that very low threshold, which is not saying much.”
The board will send records requests to Hawaii, Arizona and Mississippi for more documentation of Obama’s birth. They plan to meet again on Monday to discuss the matter. Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett questioned Obama’s birth certificate earlier this year and also briefly considered removing him from the ballot.
Hold on to your chairs folks, we are not responsible for anyone falling over from laughter. Get this… In an interview that aired today, Mitt Romney, the most dishonest politician I’ve ever seen accused President Obama of lying.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says the upcoming debates will be tough because President Barack Obama has a tendency to “say things that aren’t true.”
“I think he’s going to say a lot of things that aren’t accurate,” Romney told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired on Friday. “I’m tempted to go back to that wonderful line by Ronald Reagan — ‘There you go again’ — but you can’t use something that’s [already been used].”
“Bill Clinton used that about you the other day during the Democratic Convention,” Stephanopoulos noted.
“I didn’t happen to see that, but doubt we’re going to pull out something from Ronald Reagan, he’s one of a kind,” the former Massachusetts governor explained. “But the challenge I’ll have is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, say things that aren’t true in attacking his opponents.”
“I’ve looked at prior debates and in that kind of case, it’s difficult to say, well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren’t quite accurate or am I going spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about? And that’s the challenge.”
But President Obama may also have his hands full when it comes to fact checking the Republican nominee.
MSNBC’s Steve Benen spent months chronicling Romney’s “mendacity” and claimed to have found 533 falsehoods in 30 weeks, according to a tally by blogger Fred Clark.
