Boehner Only Concerned About Republican Re-elections in the House

In a comment 2 days ago, the speaker of the House Boehner says that he is not picking sides in the GOP primaries. Instead, he claims that he is working on getting his own house in order and is concentrating on getting his own house re-elected. Is that a joke or what? John Boehner is saying this because if he doesn't keep a Republican controlled House, he will also loose his own job as majority leader. He, like other Republicans under him are only interested in saving their own skins. They are not concerned about jobs; they are not concerned about the middle class; they are not concerned about bridges; they are not concerned about anything that President Obama is concerned about. So what are these hypocrites concerned about. Like Boehner says, they are only concerned about their own positions, now in which many believe that since their popularity has so diminished because of their lack of actions, they will not get re-elected. In matter of fact, with the non-popular Republican contestants in a mix, the Republican base cannot make up their minds on who they want as their next President. With this in mind, President Obama is well on his way to get re-elected, regardless on how popular he seems to be. In any case, whether you may be republican or not, the lack of a job would sway you to work with a President who wants you to have a job, not a Congress, specifically the Republicans in both the House and Senate who do not care about you, only themselves.
Someday this country will wake up and smell the roses. Hopefully it won't be too late. Re-electing President Barack Obama would be a step in the right direction. Choosing any of the Republican candidates as the next President would be a gross injustice to the middle class and poor of this country. Only the rich would benefit. Still, only time will tell before the truth of the land be told, come next November 2012.

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Is Faith an Important Factor of Republican Candidates?

This year's race for a Republican nomination leaves nothing to rest, including the candidates faith. Under high scrutiny is Mitt Romney, a self professed Morman, belonging to a Church called "The Church of Latter Day Saints". The members of this Church consider themselves Christians, as they believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Scripture in the Bible and the original supporting documents that make up the Bible. What has evolved after those days that Jesus Christ was on earth is what Mormons don't believe in. Other faiths call these people "non-Christians" because of their beliefs. Here is an example of what outsiders of the Christian faith believe in as 'non-christians'. Mormonism is one of these faiths. Because of these beliefs, many Republicans say that Mitt Romney doesn't qualify to be a Republican candidate. 

This year’s Republican primary season offers us an important opportunity to confront our scruples about the privacy of faith in public life — and to get over them. We have an unusually large number of candidates, including putative front-runners, who belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans. Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are Mormons, a faith that many conservative Christians have been taught is a “cult” and that many others think is just weird. (Huntsman says he is not “overly religious.”) Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are both affiliated with fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity — and Rick Santorum comes out of the most conservative wing of Catholicism — which has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction.

I honestly don’t care if Mitt Romney wears Mormon undergarments beneath his Gap skinny jeans, or if he believes that the stories of ancient American prophets were engraved on gold tablets and buried in upstate New York, or that Mormonism’s founding prophet practiced polygamy (which was disavowed by the church in 1890). Every faith has its baggage, and every faith holds beliefs that will seem bizarre to outsiders. I grew up believing that a priest could turn a bread wafer into the actual flesh of Christ.

But I do want to know if a candidate places fealty to the Bible, the Book of Mormon (the text, not the Broadway musical) or some other authority higher than the Constitution and laws of this country. It matters to me whether a president respects serious science and verifiable history — in short, belongs to what an official in a previous administration once scornfully described as “the reality-based community.” I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises. 

President Barack Obama belongs to a Church called "The Trinity United Church of Christ" and was associated with the Reverand Jerimiah Wright and professes to be a Muslim. His middle name is Hussein. Many reference that name to Sadaam Hussein, a war criminal and President who was caught and executed by his own people, just like the recent dictator of Libya Moammar Kadafi who ruled for 40 some years.  All of the talk about President Barack Hussain Obama was not enough to keep him from getting elected, nor was the fact that so many people believed he wasn't born in the United States which would disqualify him from becoming the President nor the fact that he was a Muslim. 

The main point here is that bringing up religious beliefs about the candidates does seem to be a total waste of time. The Republican candidates have nothing better to do than to tear down their rivals, by any means as long as they themselves get the Republican nomination. 

As far as I'm concerned, the main debate will be between the President and whomever is nominated to be the Republican candidate. This is when people will finally realize that religion is important, but should not be the main subject manner between the candidates.  Birth certificates and Religion are just the means to get people from focusing on the real issues that are centered in the race. 

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Obama concentrates his re-election campaign against Mitt Romney

President Obama is out on the campaign trail, and seems to be centering his focus on just one Republican candidate, and that would be Mitt Romney. The President feels that only the candidates that can last with needed funds to run a successful campaign would be the ones to actually work against. At the top of the list is Mitt Romney, who has more funds than any of the candidates, and unlike past campaigns, it appears to President Obama that Romney will stay the course until the Republican Presidential candidate it picked. There are over a dozen more Republican debates left, and the President had admittedly said that he does not want to focus on any of the candidates that will not make it through the debates or the ones who cannot handle the costs of such an election. Therefore, for now, he is concentrating his campaign with ads showing that Mitt Romney is a "flip-flop" candidate. Romney has been quoted more than just a couple of times changing his views on issues. The President sees no need to wait to start his campaign againt viable Republican candidates. It will be a matter of time before President Obama elects to start a campaign agains Herman Cain, but all indications are that eventually Herman Cain will also drop out of the race.

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Student Loans Can't Wait

James --

President Obama just took two serious steps to make life a lot easier for folks with student loans -- and there's a good chance you or someone you know will benefit from these changes very soon.

Here's how:

    -- Effective this January, if you're someone who has different kinds of loans -- guaranteed and direct -- you'll be able to roll them both into one direct loan and bring down your interest rate. You'll only have to write one check a month, and you'll see a discount. This switch adds no cost to taxpayers across the board.

    -- You might remember that, as part of last year's student loan reform, borrowers' loan payments could be no higher than 10 percent of their disposable income. This is a big deal -- but it wasn't going to help anyone enrolling before 2014. Today, the President announced that he's speeding up this program so it will affect students next year -- helping over 1 million students. This will have huge consequences for people struggling to make their student loan payments.

Sometimes, it can be hard to see how policy changes will actually affect your day-to-day life.

Not the case with this one. These changes will make a real difference in helping millions of Americans get by month to month.

We put together a video explaining how these changes will help Americans. Watch it to learn a little more about what today's steps would do, and then make sure everyone you know who should hear about it does.

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Rachel Maddow talks about FOX News

People may not know, but if you want to hear the conservative view in politics, just tune into Fox News. If you want to listen to a liberal view in politics, just tune into MSNBC news. If you want to learn what the real difference is, view this claim by Rachel Maddow that Fox News really should not be considered a news channel.

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President Obama Previously talks about Health Care Reform

In the following video, President Obama talks to Conservative talk show host Michael Smirconish from Philadelphia on his program back on August 20, 2009, that explains the President's actions about health care. The president wasn't afraid to talk to this Conservative commentator. The president extends the conversation about health care reform. He talks about premiums going up. He talks about pre-existing conditions and talks about the components of health care. He talks about the public options which is totally non-profit that will provide affordable health insurance.
He talks about intervention of the banks, the auto industry,  and the perception that he is responsible for these interventions, but for that matter was intervened originally by the prior Republican administration of George W. Bush.

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Ten Letters - The Stories Americans Tell Their President

Have you ever wondered if the President ever reads his mail that he receives every day. The answer is yes. With his busy schedule, it is impossible to read every letter that he receives, nor the email that is sent to him. On such one occasion witnessed by the video below, President Obama received and email from someone, and then President Obama answers his concern. As far as letters are concerned, the mail room within the White House receives literally thousands and thousands of letters each day, and 10 are chosen by the mail room to deliver to the President's desk. Some of the senders have gone that extra step, as they install their letter in a bright colored envelope, hoping that their letter gets chosen. What most people don't know is that President Obama takes time out every single day and stops for a while and actually reads these letters and responds accordingly. In the one demonstrated below, President Obama responded in a hand written letter.

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Predicting the 2012 Presidential Election

As the editor of this blog, I feel that it already is time to make a prediction for the 2012 Presidential election. As a writer who supports President Obama and what he stands for, you may automatically think that I would choose the President over any Republican candidate. That is far from the case. I have watched or shall I say 'witnessed' the Republican debates for the last month or so, and I must say that I'm not impressed. It's not just the right wing philosopy that I don't agree with, but with the outright character assissinations that are going on during the debates are nothing short of embarrassing. In defense, you may say that it has happened during Democratic debates, and for that I say you are very accurate. But what I am witnessing now so far during the debates are character assassinations accross the board, especially between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Who seems to be benefiting from it? None other than Herman Cain, a man who supports the 9-9-9 flat tax that hasn't a hope of getting passed in a Congress today that truly doesn't know how to work together between Democrats and Republicans to get anything done. How ignorant all the candidates must be to even think that the whole mess this country is in today is because of Barack Obama. What's even more rediculas to think is why that any of these candidates think they have the answer. Just yesterday, Mitt Romney came out with his flat tax proposal, and this flat tax stuff seems to be the only thing the candidates seem to want to talk about, and truthfully may be the only real thing on their agenda. Why should there be anything else? The tax proposals by Cain and Romney clearly protect the rich.
The bottom line here is that if any of the candidates really and truly would have a chance of defeating President Obama in the election, then they need to start sweeping the board with issues, not just about the flat tax. Every time a debate takes place, I would imagine that President Obama is laughing himself to the bank, because he has been provided with so much ammunician to use against the candidates. No matter whom that candidate may be, whether it be Romney, Cain, or Perry, to finally get to debate the President one on one once the Republcian candidate is announced will be very enlightening to say the least. President Obama will have the answers, and he will anticipate everything. He knows what the candidates are about, and he knows their strengths and weeknesses.
Unfortunately for the Republcans, the only good debater in the bunch would be Newt Gingrich. But he most likely not be chosen to represent the Republicans.
With this said, I fully believe without reservation that President Obama will win his second term. The people who support a Republican candidate still have yet to make up their minds on whom their candidate should be. It appears that the Republicans have sealed their own fate with their actions, especially the candidates running for president. Likewise, the congressional members that have voted against putting people back to work, and only support their special interests will be short lived in Congress also. With the way things are going, I fully suspect that the Congress will again be Democratically controlled in both the House and Senate, and then this country can get going again.
Another prediction that I will make is that the Republcian party as we know it today will be disolved or maybe the 'tea party' may be the first to go. Thanks to the tea party, the Republican supporters have been divided.
The one candidate that I believe that could have a chance if the Republicans would support him would be Ron Paul. But his ideas are very radical, and for the most part, are outside of the scope of Republican beliefs. As an example, all Republican debaters support keeping troops in Iraq. Ron Paul does not and has openly stated as such. He recognizes the costs that this country must face to keep such a large force of service personell in Iraq, not to mention all of the other soldiers that are stationed in other countries throughout the world. He recognizes that the job of the United States is not to create wars like George W. Bush did, but to keep them from happening.
Long before President Obama ran for President of the United States, he openly stated that he believed that 'war' was stupid. Then just 6 months later, President George W. Bush started a war in Iraq.  In hindsite if you try to distinguish if the war in Iraq was good or not, you must agree that it wasn't. So many soldiers lost their lives, fighting in countries that have supported terrorism in the past.
So now the President makes the announcement that all troops will be leaving Iraq and will be home for the holidays. The President will continue to push his jobs bill that will benefit Americans by taxing the rich. He will continue to be on the attack on the campaign trail, reminding his audience of all the things the Congress has not done, and the things he will do.
The President will win the election in 2012, and if he doesn't I have repeatedly said in the past and I will again now state that when he is no longer President, I will have written my last article on this blog.

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Muammar Gaddafi Gone, 40,000 Soldiers Coming Home, No Jobs Waiting

President Obama announced today that the remaining soldiers stationed in Iraq will be coming home by the end of the year. How many? About 40,000 soldiers will be coming home. How many will be staying in Iraq? ZERO, NONE, NADA..... and yesterday was another big day for the United states. Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebel forces in his home town after a U.S. drone found his convoy and destroyed it. Muammar Gaddafi tried to run and hide, but like another murderous dictator leader, Sadaam Hussain, he was found in a a pipe or drainage ditch and then eventually shot by the rebel forces. Before his death, in celebration, the rebels displayed a bloodied dictator on the hood of one of their vehicles. Then shortly later, he was killed. Everyone in the free world seems to agree that the world in now a better place without the dictator. But just about 24 hours later, President Obama announced that the war in Iraq will end, in the dismay of the Republicans, who believe an occupation in Iraq should never end. For the last year, the American soldiers in Iraq did not attack, but only played the role of teaching the present Iraqi government how to protect themselves and what it will take to govern themselves.
Resolving issues like these two mentioned sometimes creates other issues, such as something called the 'unknown'. What kind of government in Iraq will evolve in, now that the United States will no longer be arround to train Iraqi security forces. That's in Iraq. But now what about what is going to happen to the soldiers once they get home. The lack of jobs will definitely affect those soldiers that will now be re-entering civilian life.
What is the cause of this lack of jobs? The Republicans can blame the President for the lack of jobs, but can they, really? They turned down President Obama's jobs bill that was created by President Obama which would create jobs. The jobs bill will help fund the repair and replacement of old bridges. The jobs bill will create jobs for teachers. The jobs bill would help convince the American employers that it would be benificial to hire more workers in the United States. They would receive a tax credit for the people that they hired, and jobs that are kept from going over-seas.
But the Republicans want no part of it. By filabustering the jobs bill in the Senate, these congressmen told the American public they they are not interested in creating jobs, like construction jobs that would help put together our roads again. They are not interested in creating more positions for teachers. They don't seem to care that there is a way to keep jobs from going over-seas, There are so many benefits for the bill, it is almost unemaginable that the bill did not pass.
The main reason why it did not pass is because of selfish political interests in Congress today. Every Republican plus a total of 2 Democratic Senators voted against his bill. The Congress doesn't seem to be able to pass any bill that is worth while to the American people.
Then there are the demonstration movements throughout the country, people that are absolutely fed up with our political leaders.

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Texas on way to World Series Two Years in a Row with a Win Against Detroit 15-5

This is one of those moments that you just have to take a step back and go out of text by writing an article that has nothing to do with the theme of your blog. Being an avid baseball and football fan, I had to take just one of those moments here.

It didn't take long for the magical team known as the Texas Rangers. They are now on there way back to the World Series, for only the second time in their franchise, and for the second time in 2 years the will make World Series history. During last years performance with the San Francisco Giants in a 4 and 1 series, the Texas Rangers with just one win literally just ran out of gas when the big game finally showed up in 2010. This year seems to be different. They are amongst the best in stats amongst all of the teams this year. They have depth as far as pitching. There closers are fantastic. Everything is going well for them.
In the magical game just yesterday against the Detroit Tigers in their 51st season, they proved once again why they deserve to be in the big game. They literally destroyed the Detroit Tigers in a score of 15-5. They are now the American League champions in a six game series of 4 wins and 2 losses. Many people will tell you that they purposly lost their last game to the Detroit Tigers, so so they could come back and with the most important game of the season right at home just for their fans. It was a magical series, especially since guys like Nelson Cruz had yet another big blast, number 3 in the series with the Tigers to help seal their fate for the world series.
Nelson Cruz became the ACLS MVP of the Series with 6 home runs. But with all of the cheers and gears of the season, the target of receiving that special World Series trophy with all of the flags on it seems to be evading the team.
Their challengers in the World Series will be one of two teams from the National League, either the Saint Louis Cardinals with a 3-2 record against there defenders in the series, the Milwaulkee Brewers with a 2-3 record. The Cardinals can clinch the series with the Brewers by a win tonight.
So I'm puting my money on the matchup in the series between The Texas Rangers against Saint Louis Cardinals.
When comparing the two 2011 MLB teams in general, here are some basic facts. People often consider defense, record, offense and pitching. When we compared the two 2011 MLB teams, we found that the Texas Rangers was the overall winner for record, offense and pitching although the St. Louis Cardinals was preferred for defense. Finally, remember that while the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals are fairly similar, the best 2011 MLB team for you is ultimately based on who you are and what you're going to do with it. So the facts are that if the series gets down to Texas and St.Louis it should be one heck of a world series, especially for Texas as they have big hitters like Nelson Cruz. The Texas line up came together in the last game of the series with Detroit and literally destroyed them with their offense.
The one goal in the game is to score the most points, and in that regard, not too many teams could touch the Texas Rangers. That's the reason why they made it again to the World Series. Now the only question is, can some other team from the National League do better than them. I'm putting my money on the Texas Rangers, how about you?

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Obama drops long-term health care program

From Scott Spoerry, CNN Senior Producer
Updated 9:01 PM EST, Fri October 14, 2011


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Citing cost concerns, the Obama administration said Friday it has halted a long-term care insurance program that was part of the massive health care law passed in 2010.
Called the CLASS Act (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports), the program was canceled by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius after a 19-month effort to find a way to make it financially viable.
In a letter to Congress, Sebelius wrote, "Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time."
The CLASS program was similar to long-term care plans available in the private sector in which workers sign up and pay a monthly premium. It was voluntary and was to be paid for entirely by the premiums from those who signed up. In return, subscribers would get a daily benefit.
But a senior administration official told CNN that there were big questions whether CLASS could be self-sustaining even when the health care reform law was being considered by Congress. And as a result, lawmakers specified that the HHS secretary had to determine that the program would be sustainable for 75 years before certifying it.
The legislation had been championed by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts.
In a blog entry on Healthcare.gov, Sebelius cited warnings that not enough young healthy people would sign up.
"This could have led to a vicious cycle where premiums would have to be set higher and higher to cover the likely costs of benefits, leading fewer and fewer healthier people to sign up for the program," she wrote.Sebelius said she wasn't giving up.
"So even as we suspend work on implementing CLASS, we are recommitting ourselves to the ultimate goal of making sure Americans can get the long-term care they need, whether it's a working-age mom with disabilities who needs daily support right now or a young man at his first job who wants to protect himself and his family against the possibility of huge long-term care costs in the future," Sebelius wrote.
Congressional Republicans had long targeted the program as part of their effort to repeal President Barack Obama's health care reform law.
Responding to the Sebelius decision, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement, "The Obama administration today acknowledged what they refused to admit when they passed their partisan health bill: the CLASS Act was a budget gimmick that might enhance the numbers on a Washington bureaucrat's spreadsheet but was destined to fail in the real world."
McConnell said the CLASS Act "is only one of the unwise, unsustainable components of an unwise, unsustainable law."
"We should repeal the CLASS Act and the rest of the health spending law and replace it with the type of common-sense reforms that lower costs and Americans support," McConnell said.

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Ron Paul believes President Obama should be Impeached for Killing Anwar al-Awlaki

As the editor of this blog and avid interest in politics and the Democratic process, sometimes I find myself swaying away from Obama articles and center the stories around the story of the day that may not in any way be associated with politics, such as the story surrounding Amanda Knox, an American exchange student, who was falsely accused of murdering Meredith Kercher. She was initially sentenced to 26 years in prison, but then her conviction was overturned in an Italian courtroom after serving 4 years of her sentence. Likewise, another prior story written was about a convicted murder Troy Anthony Davis servicing time in Atlanta Georgia, who has been executed by lethal injection to spite all of the doubt and reversed stories of witnesses that were responsible for putting him in jail originally with the death sentence and the lack of evidence such as the murder weapon.

This time, I would like to center this story around someone from the Republican party that has sparked my interest for a very long time, and that would be the one and only Congressman Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a very smart man, a physician by trade and now a Congressman, but in a recent statement concerning President Obama, I'm not too sure what is reasoning was. His response was centered around President Obama who ordered a mssion that was carried out successfully to kill an American born al Qaeda official named Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. This very well known terrorist was actually born in the State of New Mexico in the United States, and Ron Paul believes that this man should have had the right to be tried in a U.S. courtroom instead of being killed by a drone strike in Yemen last week in a joint mission between the U.S. and Yemeni governments. 

With all the respect I have for Ron Paul, he now says that the U.S. Courts should pursue a possible impeachable offense against President Obama for carrying out such a mission. Regarding how badly he has been doing against the other candidates running for President, I've supported him, and recognized his views, although I don't agree with most of them. Unfortunately, now I believe that Ron Paul has stepped way out of line with this accusation against President Obama. 

I believe that President Obama did totally consider all options to carry out such a mission against a man that was born in the United States. What President Obama realized was that this man that was killed did actively participate in activities that harm and kill U.S. soldiers, and his death is a big win for democracy. I doubt if President Obama has lost one ounce of sleep by killing this man, in the same fashion as he didn't loose any sleep by killing Osama bin Laden. 

What is alarming to me is that if Ron Paul ever became President, that he would consider not killing a terrorist responsible for killing Americans on foreign soil. He believes that this man sincerely has a right to a U.S. court and he should have the same rights as I have. It has been confirmed many times over that Anwar al-Awlaki is a terrorist is responsible for killing many Americans. Every candidate at one time or another has made statements that were just totally false or not accurate, but unfortunately now Ron Paul now joins the group promoting his twisted thoughts against Barack Obama. He seems to have 

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A Million Little Pieces: Obama's Jobs Bill Is on Hold in the Senate

OCT 13 2011, 10:04 AM ET 6

Is it dead? Will some of it pass? What will the parcels look like? Some indications on the future of the president's plan.


President Obama's jobs bill failed in the Senate this week, and now Democratic leaders will break it into pieces that, they hope, will win enough Republican support to pass.
"Tonight's vote is by no means the end of this fight," President Obama said in a statement released Tuesday night. "We will now work with Senator Reid to make sure that the individual proposals in this jobs bill get a vote as soon as possible."
What's the timeline on this? Will most of Obama's proposals pass? What can we expect the political outcome to be?
Timeline: Senate Democratic leaders will start crafting the pieces in November, according to a senior Democratic aide. They'll have to cut bargains with Republicans not just on policy, but on how to offset the new spending -- not an easy task. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a news conference Wednesday that the piece-drafting process has not yet begun. Realistically, it's doubtful the Senate will be able to move any part of Obama's bill before mid- to late- November.
What will the pieces look like? No one seems to know. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has floated the idea of coupling Obama's proposed national infrastructure bank with a GOP-proposed "repatriation" tax break for U.S. companies bringing their earnings back to American soil. While it sounds good on paper, Schumer's proposal could be a long shot, as Democrats have had problems with that tax proposal before.
Will Democrats stick with their proposal to tax millionaires? Most likely, but it will continue to be a tough sell with Republicans. Reid included this proposal as an alternative to Obama's suggestion to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000 and on oil companies, which could not have gathered unanimous Democratic support. Democrats can still use the millionaire tax to pay for smaller chunks of the plan, if they adjust the rate increase on millionaires, tailoring the tax hike to offset different amounts of spending.
Will most of Obama's plan pass the Senate? Probably not. While Democrats could have an easier time cutting deals with the GOP on individual pieces, Senate Republicans do not see eye to eye with Democrats on deficit-reduction mechanisms to pay for those pieces. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he opposes raising taxes on anyone -- and tax hikes are the cornerstone of Democratic "pay-fors." It's possible that Congress's deficit-reduction "supercommittee" will get roped into solving the deficit-offset issue, as Obama suggested when he first laid out the $447 billion plan. The committee must approve its deficit-reduction plan by Nov. 23, so the timelines sync up more or less.
Who will win the political fight? Obama has made the bill a high priority, knowing fully that Senate Republicans could and likely would block it. After Tuesday night's failure, Obama indicated that he would press for the individual pieces of his bill to pass. By all indications, Obama intended to hammer Republicans for opposing his package and his popular plan of taxing rich people to pay for it, but as Democrats and Republicans cut deals in the Senate, Obama will be dragged back into the ideological middle if he stumps for compromises that involve significant concessions from his own party.
Image credit: Jason Reed/Reuters

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Iran caught trying to Assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States

President Barack Obama doesn't seem to be putting up with much reckless behavior these days. Starting from a 'do-nothing-congress' to the alleged Iranian plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States, President Obama recognizes the action of both guilty parties as patterns of "dangerous and reckless behavior" that he will not tolerate. President Obama "will not accept no as the answer" to his jobs bill, nor will he accept the Iranians to deploy a plot against a foreign diplomat to the United States. He says that diplomats to the United States are protected and anyone charged with attempting to harm or advertently harms a diplomat will pay a price.
With this said, President Obama called the alleged plot a sign of how Iran has "been outside of accepted norms of international behavior for far too long."
The plot to assassinate the ambassador to the United States from Saudio Arabia was stopped, but what is also known is that an individual of Iranian-American descent was involved in a plot to assassinate the ambassador had direct links, and was paid by and directed by individuals in the Iranian government. These facts are available for all to see. Stern sanctions agains Iran are expected.

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982,967

James --

Remember that deadline we kept emailing you about a couple weeks ago?

Here's what you should know about what we'll report to the FEC tomorrow:

    -- In the third fundraising quarter of this year, 606,027 people donated to this campaign -- even more than gave in the record-breaking previous quarter.
    -- Those people gave more than 766,000 total donations -- 98 percent of them $250 or less, at an average amount of $56. That's more than twice as many donations than we had at this point in the historic 2008 campaign.
    -- We are focused on building infrastructure that will help us win in 2012. And each quarter we set a combined goal for the campaign and our allies at the Democratic National Committee. We far exceeded our goal of $55 million this quarter between the two organizations.
    -- Together, Obama for America and the DNC raised more than $70 million. And it all happened during a summer when the President was focused on doing the job he was elected to do -- a summer when we had to cancel a series of fundraising events and ask everyone to dig a little deeper.

If I could sum up this last quarter in a few words: Supporters like you came through.

Here's even bigger news: Right now, 982,967 people have donated to this campaign. We're within striking distance of 1 million donors.

It's not too late for you to be part of that first million. And get this -- someone who has already given to the campaign is willing to give again, matching whatever donation you make today.

Double your impact and be part of the first million people to own this campaign -- make a donation now.

Part of the reason we send you all these emails is that we don't accept any money from special-interest groups or Washington lobbyists.

So getting to a million grassroots donors isn't just a huge accomplishment this early in the campaign. It's our answer to our opponents, the press, and anyone who wants to know whether the President's supporters have his back.

The reality is that on top of the hundreds of thousands of supporters from 2008 who decided to make another donation, 257,635 people made their first donation ever to the Obama organization -- continuing the record pace we set in the previous quarter.

That support translates directly to what we can do on the ground. In the past three months we've grown our organizing staff by 50 percent, and opened up three new field offices every week. Thousands of volunteers and organizers made 3 million phone calls and in-person visits to voters.

That's all because nearly 1 million people decided to take ownership.

And the continued pace of that growth is up to you -- we will open more offices, train more organizers, and knock on more doors at the pace you make possible.

When Republicans think it helps their political fortunes to block the progress that the President is advocating for, we have to speak up and mobilize.

You know why it's important to engage right now. We're up against a Republican Party and special interest-funded groups that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars spreading any message that they believe will defeat the President and roll back our efforts to build a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility, not large corporations.

But we've also got to build for the long term. That's what all the fundraising and deadlines are about: building the organization now that will put us in a position to win in 2012.

Thanks for all you did to get us here. I'm excited for what's ahead, and I hope you'll take part in the push to 1 million grassroots donors today.

Match someone's pledge, double your impact, and become part of the first million today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Million-Match

Thanks,

Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

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President Obama: "I will not take no for an answer"

James --

Last night, the American Jobs Act was filibustered by Senate Republicans. There was no vote on the actual bill.

But it would have succeeded: the American Jobs Act has at least 51 votes -- a clear majority -- to pass the Senate. And a new poll shows that 63 percent of Americans support it, too.

Today the President recorded a message he wants you to see, laying out where we go from here in the fight for jobs.

Watch President Obama's video -- and pass it on to anyone you think should see it.

The Republicans who voted yesterday to block this bill weren't thinking about middle-class families. In fact, at last night's GOP debate, one of their leading candidates actually refused to say he'd extend a payroll tax cut that puts more than $1,000 in the pockets of everyday working Americans.

They might believe it's in their political interest to oppose whatever the President proposes for the next 13 months, but we know that when it comes to jobs and restoring economic security, Americans can't afford to wait.

The American Jobs Act would get to work now, providing incentives for businesses to hire unemployed veterans, helping hire tens of thousands of teachers, cops, and firefighters, and rebuilding and modernizing our schools, railways, bridges, and airports. Even though it's fully paid for and made up of proposals both parties have supported, Republicans yesterday said no.

Now the President wants you to hear directly from him about what's next.

Watch the video -- and make sure your friends do, too:

http://my.barackobama.com/President-on-Jobs

Thanks,

Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

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"The Do Nothing Congress" Lives Up to Their Name, Effectively Killing Obama's Jobs Bill

There was little doubt even before the vote that it most likely would not pass in the Senate. The President's job bill failed to pass. In a vote, 50 members of the chamber supported the measure, while 49 cast ballots against it. A minimum of 60 votes were needed for the Senate to proceed.
Even though the bill did not pass as it stood, President Obama now vowes to divide the one single bill into several smaller bills.
The Republicans have accused the President of deliberatly posing a bill to a Congress that would not vote on such a measure, just because he wanted to use it politically. President Obama has stated that if the Senate passed the bill and eventually passed in the House, then he wouldn't have much to run against.
Last week President Obama was asked if he was laying out the groundwork for a "do-nothing" Congress, and the Republicans went into this vote tonight knowing full well that President Obama was aiming to use their failed methods of passing bills against them. President Obama now officially has something to run on. He will be running against a party whose belief is to kill any bill that taxes the people, especially the rich. The President's plan recently was modified to tax people who made in excess of 1 million dollars.
So what was in the President's jobs plan that the Congressmen in the Senate voted against?
They voted against an extension and expansion of the current payroll tax cut, an extension of jobless benefits to help the unemployed, new tax credits for businesses that hire the long-term unemployed, and additional money to help save and create jobs for teachers and first responders such as firefighters. That was just the beginning. How about the highway infrastructure? The Republicans obviously think that fixing those old dilapidated bridges found across the country really don't need fixed. Those sound like excellent things to help people get on their feet and become employed again. But what killed it was the notion that the rich will not pay more taxes, regardless of who else may be hurt by the bill not passing., because the bill would demand that the rich pay for it.
The bill was designed to help small businesses, but the Republicans insist that the measure would be devastating to small companies. "Raising taxes in the middle of an economic slowdown is a bad idea"claimed the Senate minority leader, Republican McConnell.
How ignorant is that? Who created these problems. Obviously the Republicans Congress that is truly now living up to the name "do-nothing Congress". So again, President Obama can now officially run against a "do-nothing Congress". Why? It seems for just political selfishness, these Congressmen who make lots of money, truly do not care about their constituents, and not about people who are out of work, skilled middle class laborers who would love to become part of the solution to get the economy back on track again. The Republican "do-nothing Congress" is the main reason why now the country if feeling the pain of an economic slowdown.

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Congress sits idle while economy falters

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- You have to pass this bill, and you have to pass it now.

That was President Obama's message to Congress on Sept. 8 when he unveiled an economic stimulus package called the American Jobs Act.

A month has passed. And the bill is all but dead.

The House will not hold a vote on the bill. In the Senate, it appears that there are not enough Democratic votes to muscle the measure through in its current form.

That hasn't stopped Obama from pressing his message. He did so again on Thursday at a high-profilepress conference and endorsed a tax on millionaires -- a measure Republicans will never accept -- to pay for the stimulus.

"I don't know if the bill was ever alive," said Craig Jennings, the director of federal fiscal policy at OMB Watch, a progressive group.

Yes, unemployment stands at 9.1%. Yes, economic growth is barely above stall speed. And yes, the housing market remains tied in knots.

On Friday, economists expect yet another dismal jobs report -- somewhere in the neighborhood of 65,000 new jobs added to the economy. That's not nearly enough.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has practically begged lawmakers to take action.

"Fostering healthy growth and job creation is a shared responsibility of all economic policymakers," Bernanke said on Tuesday.

Message to lawmakers: Do your part.

Washington's gridlock tax in full effect

But Congress remains stuck in neutral. A combination of partisan gamesmanship, political maneuvering and genuine policy disagreements have rendered re-election focused lawmakers impotent at a crucial time.

"It's just a bunch of flatlanders up on the Hill," said Isabel Sawhill, a former Office of Management and Budget official who now works at the Brookings Institution. "They are ignoring all sound economic advice."

Sawhill said what the economy needs is not a mystery: Stimulus measures designed to increase demand paired with long-term fiscal discipline.

But reaching any consensus on economics is extremely difficult in Washington.

"There is just a fundamental disagreement on how to grow jobs and the economy," Jennings said. "It's not like lawmakers are fighting over whether or not to do it, it's how to do it."

Democrats say the best way to stimulate growth is to raise taxes on the rich, and then use the money to pay for investments in infrastructure, teacher salaries and help for the long-term unemployed.

Republicans disagree. They want less government regulation, lower taxes and reduced government spending.

Not a lot of common ground there. But there are a few things both parties might be able to agree on, like extensions of the payroll tax holiday and long-term unemployment benefits set to expire at the end of the year.

One problem: Since those measures are already on the books, extending them won't give the economy a boost.

"What they are doing is holding harmless workers and the economy," Jennings said. "If you were to let them expire it would be a tax increase and have negative effects on growth."

One additional policy change -- the adoption of a few free trade agreements -- could provide a small boost.

Long delayed, the agreements are on the move again. Obama sent deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama to Congress for their approval on Monday.

But on almost every other issue, lawmakers are miles apart.

Some analysts have suggested that if economic conditions were to deteriorate further, Congress would be forced to compromise. Of course, it has shown no sign of that so far. 

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Presidential News Conference - About Jobs and the Economy

President Obama could not have stated any better today on how people are very skeptical about congress and their failure to act. President Obama has stated his case, and has challenged the Republican led congress to come out with a jobs bill that will be accepted by the American people, if they cannot accept his. He has stated that the Republicans have not been responsive to him or to the American people. He stated that the American people most definitely favor his choice in the bill to tax the very rich to help pay for the bill, that would boost the economy and lower the unemployemnt rate by at least 2%. The Republican led Congress now are behind a rock and a hard place, as the conservative belief is to lower taxes on all people, including the rich. But if they cannot find a way to get people back to work, and to help the economy besides taxing the rich, then they will be continually accused of being a do-nothing Congress. If they go along with President Obama and tax the rich, they will be going against the basis of the conservative belief. Now it seems that no matter what decision they make, it most likely may mean the loss of their jobs.
The President again has stated his case why the Congress needs to pass his jobs bill, and bring it to a vote now. Even though the President may not have Republican support or a total support by the Democrats, he continues to believe that the Congress needs to either vote on his bill now, or come up with an alternative. He wants Congress to either vote for his bill, or explain why they will not support it, even though every aspect of the bill has been supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the past. Obama wants action now. Regardless whether the Congress agrees and passes his jobs bill or not, he wants action. He wants Congress to commit and move forward to do what it takes to get the economy going, get people back to work, and to get the infrastrucure of this country built up again.
The President belives that his jobs bill will boost economic growth. People are out of work and this is one reason why the Congress needs to act and pass a jobs bill. The President claims that he would like nothing more than to stop hounding the "do-nothing" Congress on the campaign trail as he has for the last several weeks now if they would just do their jobs and 'act'.

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Barack Obama Biography

U.S. President

Barack Obama photos ( see all 152 )

Name at birth: Barack Hussein Obama II
Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States and the first African-American president in American history. Barack Obama has spoken often of his multicultural background: his father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, and they met at the University of Hawaii. After his parents divorced and his father returned to Africa, Obama stayed with his mother and was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. He earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1983 and a law degree from Harvard in 1991. He then joined the Chicago law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which specialized in civil rights legislation. He also taught constitutional law for 12 years at the University of Chicago. Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, and then to the U.S. Senate in 2004, beating Republican candidate Alan Keyes.
Barack Obama shot to national fame after delivering a stirring keynote speech in support of John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic national convention. Obama ran for president in 2008, defeating a Democratic primary field that included New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady. He named Delaware senator Joe Biden to be his running mate at the Democratic Convention that August, and they defeated Republican nominees John McCain and Sarah Palin in the November general election. They took office on 20 January 2009. Barack Obama published the personal memoir Dreams from My Father in 1995, and published a second book, The Audacity of Hope, in 2006. The title of the latter book was also the title of his 2004 keynote speech, and both books won Grammys for best spoken word album. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." In 2011 he began his campaign for reelection in 2012, with a message on his official website reading "This campaign is just kicking off."
Extra credit: Barack Obama married the former Michelle Robinson in 1992. They have two daughters: Malia (b. 1998) and Sasha (b. 2001)... Barack Obama's father, also named Barack Obama, was black; his mother, Ann Dunham, was white. Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham (nicknamed "Toot"), died the day before Obama was elected in 2008... Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles before completing his undergraduate degree at Columbia... Obama's Senate website described him as "the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review" and "the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate." The previous African-American senators elected by popular vote were Edward Brooke (1967-79, from Massachusetts) and Carol Moseley-Braun (1993-99, from Illinois). Two other African-Americans were chosen by state senates to become U.S. Senators: Hiram Revels (1870-71, from Mississippi) and Blanche Bruce (1875-81, also from Mississippi)... His 2008 Grammy for The Audacity of Hope beat books by two former presidents: Bill Clinton's Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World and Jimmy Carter's Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bringing Peace to a Changing World.
Barack Obama joins Revolutionary War hero Crispus Attucks and singer Marian Anderson in our loop on Black History... He appears in our loops on Presidential Candidates 2012 and Presidential Candidates 2008.

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Apple’s iPhone Letdown

A few articles back, I had reported that Apple was to come out with a new IPhone, known as IPhone 5. Needless to say after today, there is no IPhone 5. It was just hipe. The phone sports a faster processor, a better camera and a few more updates. But that is all that it is, a modest update to the present IPhone 4.

Before today’s big event at Apple was even over, the company’s stock had plunged 10 bucks—which tells you all you need to know about how people are responding to what Apple introduced.

In short: there is no new iPhone.

There is, instead, a refreshed version of the iPhone 4, called the iPhone 4S, which looks exactly like the iPhone 4 but has new and improved guts, including a speedier processor, a better camera, and a new voice-navigation system called Siri that lets you do loads of things with voice commands.

That last part, Siri, is pretty amazing—but overall, today’s event has to be a disappointment to hard-core Apple fans who have spun themselves into a frenzy lately with speculation that the company was about to introduce an entirely redesigned device, which people have been referring to as the iPhone 5.

The main reason everyone was expecting more was that it has been 15 months since Apple introduced the iPhone 4, and that’s a long time in the world of Apple. In the past Apple has rolled out a new phone once a year, in the summer.

This time, when summer came and went, Apple fans started thinking it must be because the company had something super-special up its sleeve.

Apple’s strategy seems to be to push older iPhones down in price and try to go for market share rather than be on the bleeding edge of design.

Instead, it appears that Apple is content to keep selling what it has. And why not? The iPhone 4 is the best-selling smartphone on the planet, and sales have continued to accelerate despite its relatively long lifespan. Last quarter Apple sold 20 million of them.

Apple’s strategy seems to be to push older iPhones down in price and try to go for market share rather than be on the bleeding edge of design.

As the new iPhone 4S rolls out, with three models priced at $199 (for 16 gigabytes of storage), $299 (32GB) and $399 (64GB), Apple has slashed prices on its older models.

That last bit of news means Apple can push even further into developing markets. In some ways it may be as significant as the fact that there’s a new, souped-up iPhone 4.

Four years after the first iPhone shipped at a cost of $600, you can get one free. And that’s pretty amazing.

The problem for Apple is that one week from today Google and Samsung are going to introduce the new flagship Android phone, which will have a totally new design and probably include some features that put it ahead of the iPhone 4S.

That may have as much to do with Apple’s stock-price drop as anything else.

Four years ago, when Apple introduced the first iPhone, it had the market to itself. Now the company is facing fierce competition. The fear seems to be that Apple has become complacent at a time when it can ill afford to slow down. Apple seems to be betting that its loyal customers won’t stray to the Android camp. Whether that’s really the case remains to be seen.

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