tagged w/ Presidential Election
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday the United States was ready to give blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng a visa "right away" and warned Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney would be weak on the international stage.
In a wide-ranging interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Biden also signaled he was open to legalizing gay marriage and said Secretary of State and former first lady Hillary Clinton has not decided whether to seek the presidency again in 2016.
"I think we may run as a team," he joked in the interview, stoking expectations that Clinton may be contemplating another run at the White House. "I don't know whether I'm going to run. And Hillary doesn't know whether she's going to run," he said.
The vice president, who has been a main point of contact with China for the Obama administration, said the United States expected China to stick to its commitment to let Chen go abroad and take up a fellowship at New York University.
"I think his future is in America," Biden said. "He has an opportunity to go to NYU ... and we're prepared to give (him) a visa right away. He's going to be able to take his family."
Biden argued the United States' relationship with foreign powers including China, Russia and other countries have improved under President Barack Obama's leadership and said there could be some backsliding if Romney were elected.
Romney issued a warning about the risks of appeasing the United States' "No. 1 geopolitical foe" Russia after Obama was overheard telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Seoul that he would have "more flexibility" to deal with contentious issues after the November 6 election.
"If that's his prism through which he views our national security interest, I would say it would not be as strong," Biden said when asked whether the country would be less safe if Romney were president.
Pressed on social policy, Biden declined to specify whether the Obama administration would legalize gay marriage in a second White House term but said he personally was open to the change.
"The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties," Biden said.
Obama has said his views on gay marriage were "evolving" but has also said individual states should set policy related to it.
The Democrat is not expected to advance legislation that could alienate independent voters ahead of November's election, and has not said whether legalizing gay marriage would be among his second-term priorities.
On Sunday, Biden also debunked rumors that Hillary Clinton may take his place as vice president on the 2012 Democratic ticket, saying: "there's no way out. I mean, they've already printed Obama-Biden."
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This article is about our VP & his thoughts on dissident Chen Guangcheng, and gay marriage. I'm not saying gay marriage isn't an important issue. What I AM saying is why is the legalization of marijuana a non-issue? Are there more gay people than there are marijuana smokers? Are gay people being locked up? Is the Federal, State and Local governments spending billions of tax dollars to track down & prosecute gay people? This is a travesty. Why is our issue not being heard? Why is discussion of this issue always tainted with incorrect information, prejudice, hostility, baseless fears and dire unfounded predictions while totally ignoring the findings of current research and the desires of millions of Americans who merely want to be left alone? I can't state it strongly enough. This is the pitts.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday the United States was... more
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Excerpt:
That’s not to say Romney completely ignores Bush, either. On the March day when he was endorsed by Jeb Bush, Romney credited the former president with averting another Depression in 2008. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, endorsed Romney little more than a week later.
“I keep hearing the president say that he’s responsible for keeping America from going into a Great Depression,” Romney said of Obama. “No, no, no. That was President George W. Bush and (Treasury Secretary) Hank Paulson that stepped in and kept that from happening.”
(click on the link for the full article)Excerpt:
That’s not to say Romney completely ignores Bush, either. On the... more
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I have become very disenchanted with President Barack Obama even though I voted for him in 2008.
1. He did not even propose the public option healthcare system: he had campaigned on that system, promising to propose it. (Wikipedia: "President Barack Obama promoted the idea of the public option while running for election.[3] After becoming President, Obama downplayed the need for a public health insurance option including calling it a "sliver" of health care reform,[4] but had not given up pursuing the idea before the health care reform was passed.[5] The preceding statement is disputed by evidence that the Obama administration had agreed to drop the public option from the final plan in the summer of 2009[6] in a back room deal with representatives of the for-profit hospital lobby[7]")
2. He has appointed countless Wall Streeters to his top economic team, failing to appoint labor voices like Robert Reich.
3. He has bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street: remember TARP? And then the banks dispensed $6 billion in bonuses in that year to its executives.
4. He failed to attack the mortgage crisis, leaving an elephant still in our “room”, with one-third of home mortgages now underwater.
5. He failed to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, doing away with habeous corpus, allowing the government to arrest and detain indefinitely without a trial or hearing.
6. He agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and on top of that, he agreed to an egregious reduction of the estate taxes on the rich, exempting as much as $10 million from any estate taxes and lowering the estate tax rate down to a ridiculous rate of 35%, when our country has a $15 trillion debt. That alone saved the Walton heirs $17 billion in taxes.
7. He has failed to indict and imprison any of those banksters involved in all of that fraud on Wall Street from the subprime mortgage, including robo-signing, and selling shit-backed mortgage securities known to be worthless.
8. He appointed Jeffrey Immelt to head his Jobs Council when GE has been saying “China, China, China,” and shipping all jobs overseas while closing plants here in the US.
9. President Obama is now considering and proposing to lower the corporate tax rate to 26%, when corporations are not only at a low-time rate of paying taxes but getting billions in tax subsidies from our government and opening up offices on the 19th floor of one building on the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes altogether.
10. President Obama spoke in favor of PIPA and SOPA, when the internet is the last vestige of free speech and the availability of free information to the general public.
11. There were no indictments by President Obama of all the contractor fraud reported on by Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul in a Congressional Report released over a year ago. Whenever the rich and big corporations are caught in fraud, Eric Holder adopts a policy of “looking forward”, instead of holding them accountable.
12. President Obama agreed to the “grand bargain” (thank, God, Boehner did not accept it) to cut over $2 trillion in spending, including social security, medicare, medicaid, and other social safety-net programs merely in return for hypothetical “revenue increases” of $800 billion relying on “dynamic scoring”.
13. President Obama has done nothing to level the trade treaties, where corporations are shipping labor to Cambodia (22.5 cents per hour), China, Philippines, etc., where labor is paid 25 cents per hour. This is exporting slavery to other countries. Where is the level playing field for Americans?
14. President Obama in 2009 only proposed $140 billion in infrastructure spending when Paul Krugman and other economists said that $1.5 trillion was needed to recover our economy. And last year only proposed a paltry $108 billion in infrastructure spending.
15. President Obama praised the recent JOBS Act, which allows corporations to go public and raise capital without audited financial information in their public presentations for the first five years, allowing them to present fictitious numbers and defraud investors?
16. President Obama has failed to propose the return of Glass-Steagall, separating commercial and investment banking, which will soon plunge us back into another mega-bailout of Wall Street.
17. President Obama has failed to propose the break up of the big banks and corporations. What ever happened to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
18. President Obama touted a $25 billion robo-signing settlement when a trillion dollars of our pension and retirement funds were stolen.
19. While campaigning, President Obama promised to put on his walking shoes for labor, but failed to even show up in Wisconsin and walk the picket line against Governor Walker.
20. President Obama has not declared war on the Supreme Court, as President Roosevelt did, to oppose the corporate/rich posture of Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Why not take them on?
21. President Obama has arrested and raided more marijuana users in less than four years than George Bush did in eight years. Why is President Obama proposing cuts to social security, medicare, and medicaid while spending more on marijuana arrests and raids, especially when a majority of Americans are for legalization of pot and for the open sale of marijuana for medical use?
Time and time again President Obama did not fight the good fight for working Americans, who are losing their jobs, health insurance, homes, dignity, etc.
I am tired of the lame excuse of how we must vote for Obama because of the Supreme Court. How can anyone believe that Obama would not disappoint progressives on that issue after he failed to undertake a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a position to which she was more entitled to direct than any other American?
These are my 21 reasons for my disappointment with President Obama. I feel that after 2012--unless somehow Democrats, liberals, and Progressives can lead President Obama more to the left, which I fear will not occur given these first three years--that he will continue to propose policies that are not in the best interests of the 99%.
If I had been given the opportunity of a majority in Congress, I would have acted differently. Perhaps I would not have succeeded at all; but I would have at least fought the good fight. I fault President Obama for not fighting vigorously John Boehner, Eric Kantor, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, et al. These individuals were not people of compromise. They are corporate employees. And President Obama knew that.
Barefoot AccountantI have become very disenchanted with President Barack Obama even though I voted for... more
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New name for an old-fashioned political disorder!
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Over the weekend, Republicans in the 37th Legislative District gathered to choose delegates to the state GOP convention.
The caucus started out Saturday morning inside Dimmitt Middle School. But it didn’t end inside the building.
After supporters of Texas Congressman Ron Paul elected one of their own to chair of the meeting, the gathering was booted to an outside basketball court by King County Republican Party Chairman Lori Sotelo.
The move came after attendees irritated Sotelo by rejecting her choice to run the caucus - King County Councilman David Irons.
Instead, the group voted for Tamara Smilanich, a Paul supporter.
That prompted Sotelo to declare the meeting was no longer a Republican Party event. Even though the GOP had reserved the room until 2 p.m., the meeting was pushed outside to the basketball court at about 12:30 p.m. The caucus finished its business outside in the sun, and elected 11 Ron Paul supporters to the state convention, which begins May 31 in Tacoma.Over the weekend, Republicans in the 37th Legislative District gathered to choose... more
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But, like all conventional wisdom, it’s only true until it changes. And, on Monday, a new poll came out that provided at least a hint that the CW might be in for a shift.
In Gallup’s first tracking poll of the general election, Romney took 47 percent to Obama’s 45 percent nationally.
Both men won 90 percent of their self-identified partisans, with Romney’s overall margin coming from his six-point edge among independent voters.
Before we go any further, it’s worth making note of a few caveats.
1. On Monday, CNN released data that showed a much different picture: Obama with a nine-point edge over Romney.
2. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed the former Massachusetts governor with a 35 percent favorable rating and a 47 percent unfavorable rating — not exactly stellar numbers.
3. All polls amount to a snapshot in time, making it difficult to draw broad conclusions from any single one.
Even taking into account those three caveats, however, there’s reason to suspect that the race is heading toward a closer result — both in the near and long term — than most people currently think.But, like all conventional wisdom, it’s only true until it changes. And, on... more
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We want to do what's best for America by re-electing President Barack Obama.
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By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, March 29, 2012 16:21 EDT
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Thursday that corporations could be elected president according to the rationale of the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
“I remain troubled today that the Supreme Court extended to corporations the same First Amendment rights in the political process that are guaranteed by the Constitution to individual Americans,” he said at a hearing on the DISCLOSE Act of 2012. “Corporations are not the same as individual Americans. Corporations do not have the same rights, the same morals or the same interests. Corporations cannot vote in our democracy.”
According to the Supreme Court’s logic, we should elect corporations to public office, Leahy said.
“This country has elected General Eisenhower as president, shouldn’t we elected General Electric as president? We know we like to elect a lot of yahoos as vice president, why not elect Yahoo as a corporation as vice president. ”
“Vermonters and Americans across the country have long understood that corporations are not people in this political process,” he continued. “Unfortunately, a very narrow majority on the Supreme Court apparently did not.”
The controversial Citizens United ruling struck down key provisions of the federal McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law and gave rise to super PACS, which have caused campaign spending by outside groups to skyrocket. Super PACs have also exploited a loophole that allows them to postpone the disclosure of their donors until after the elections they participate in.
The DISCLOSE Act of 2012 would require any organization that spends 10,000 or more during an election cycle to file a report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours. It would also require the head of any organization that puts out a political ad on TV or radio to state that he or she approves the message, similar to what candidates must do now.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/29/sen-leahy-supreme-court-thinks-corporations-can-be-president/
The DISCLOSE Act of 2010 was blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube on March 29th...
"Right On Senator Leahy, my Hero of the Day!!!!" =)By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, March 29, 2012 16:21 EDT
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said... more
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KB723
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Sen. Sanders discusses the initiatives in 60 Vermont towns to overturn the Citizens United decision.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101715197
"Another reason I would like to live in Vermont, Right On Bernie Sanders!!!" =)Sen. Sanders discusses the initiatives in 60 Vermont towns to overturn the Citizens... more
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KB723
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3 months ago
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Who in this country in their right mind would vote for anyone else but RON PAUL? They must be out there unless the voting is rigged. Just wait, we are eventually going down and it won't be pretty. We'll be just as poor and hungry as the rest of the 3rd world countries. VOTE RON PAUL! http://youtu.be/leItwom7T0UWho in this country in their right mind would vote for anyone else but RON PAUL? They... more
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Campaign '92. Remember Paul Tsongas?
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If you care about your country, your daughters, wives and the women in this country, please SHARE this.
Just perhaps Rick Santorum should be raped a few times, have a basketball inserted rectally & then made to pass it... You know, just so he can talk from experience vs where the basketball would be coming from. It seems that there is a point that being so pro-religion can push you across the line into being pro-devil.
Click through to see the frightening interview.If you care about your country, your daughters, wives and the women in this country,... more
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A panel discussion on the issues and candidates for the 1952 election.
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2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney carries some heavy baggage. From the millions stashed in the Cayman Islands, Swiss bank accounts and elsewhere...2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney carries some heavy baggage. From... more
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Grassroots-Made Video: Ron Paul’s 2002 Predictions All Come True http://ronpaulflix.com/?p=4048
What, are you afraid of real change?Grassroots-Made Video: Ron Paul’s 2002 Predictions All Come True... more
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CSPAN Callers After Ron Paul Speech
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James Williams of Matagorda County, Texas recounts a touching true story. Living in a still prejudice Texas In 1972, his wife had a complication with her pregnancy. No doctors would care for her or deliver their bi-racial child. In fact one of the hospital nurses called the police on James.
Dr. Ron Paul was notified and took her in, delivering their stillborn baby. Because of the compassion of Dr. Ron Paul, the Williams’ never received a hospital bill for the delivery.
Ron Paul views every human being as an unique individual, afforded the rights endowed by our creator and codified in the Bill of Rights.James Williams of Matagorda County, Texas recounts a touching true story. Living in a... more
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