Videos: Obama’s Big Bird Ad Under Attack by Sesame Street Owners, Romney

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Yesterday, the Obama campaign released an ad starring Big Bird in an attempt to suggest that Romney believes that PBS subsidies are one of our nation’s most critical problems:

The Romney campaign quickly responded. At a speech yesterday, Romney stated that, “You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird.” He continued, “I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs and saving our future”:

Fox News later reported that the owners of Sesame Street did not see the Obama ad as a laughing matter. in fact, the owners demanded that the ad be taken down:

Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads and, as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down.

Michigan, Pennsylvania Move from Obama-Safe States to Swing States

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In some of the first state level polls conducted since last Wednesday’s presidential debate, Michigan and Pennsylvania have moved from lean-Obama states to swing states. The Romney campaign had previously pulled their advertising from those states to concentrate on other states.

A Susquehanna Polling and Research poll of 725 likely Pennsylvania voters conducted Oct. 4-6 shows Obama’s lead down to only two percentage points (47 to 45 percent), which is within the plus or minus 3.7 percentage point margin of error. Four percent of those polled said they were undecided. When they were asked who they were leaning toward, they favored Romney three to one. Factoring this in, Obama’s lead is only one percentage point.

In Michigan, two new polls also show a tight race. A poll of 1,122 respondents conducted Oct. 5 by Foster McCollum White & Associates showed a 3 percentage point advantage for Obama (49 to 46 percent with a 2.93 percent margin of error. The poll did not screen for registered or likely voters.) An Oct. 5-7 poll of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted by EPIC-MRA had similar results. Obama leads by only three percentage points (48 to 45 percent), with a plus or minus four percentage point margin of error.

While Obama still shows a lead in those states and shows an advantage in the electoral college vote, the results could be important if subsequent polls show similar results. It would mean that the Obama campaign might have to spend resources which would otherwise be spent elsewhere to hold on to those states. Also, it would provide Romney a greater range of possibilities to achieve the 270 electoral college votes needed to clinch the presidency.

Early in the race the Romney campaign appeared to want to compete for Michigan and Pennsylvania. Romney campaigned and ran television ads in both states. Romney was raised in Michigan and his father, George Romney, served as governor there. After continued poor showings in the polls, though, his campaign appeared to give up on those states. The newest polls, therefore, could shift the Romney campaign strategy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Overwhelming Numbers of Conservative British Oppose Gay Marriage

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British Prime Minister David Cameron should drop his proposals to redefine marriage, according to a poll of his grassroots Conservative Party members.

The ComRes poll was commissioned by the Coalition for Marriage and found that a massive 71 percent of Conservative constituency chairmen believe Cameron should abandon his aggressive push to amend the definition of marriage of between one man and one woman.

The poll has also found that 47 percent of those polled believed that Cameron’s liberal stance on gay marriage had come at a cost to the party.

Furthermore, more than 70 percent believed that Cameron’s push for same sex marriage regardless of what others felt had damaged the prime minister’s standing in the party. Only 11 percent believed that his liberal agenda had enhanced his reputation within the party.

When it came to the considering the affect on the electorate, six in 10 of those polled believed that legalizing gay marriage would cost the Conservative Party votes. In comparison only four percent believed that a push for gay marriage would attract more voters.

Read more from this story HERE.

75% of World’s Population Now Lacks Religious Freedom

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A new study highlights the growing global trend of religious restrictions, whether by means of government action or social trends- limiting regulations are currently affecting three out of every four individuals.

The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, is titled “Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion” and showed that the percentage of the world’s population that was affected by restrictions on religion increased to 75 percent. That’s up from 70 percent the previous year.

What is equally disturbing is the rise of various countries around the globe that have enacted stricter laws governing the observances of practices of faith. The study found that the percentage of countries who adopted such measures increased from 31 percent to 37 percent.

The study lists some government restrictions which include laws against “proselytism” or “blasphemy.” It also includes laws limiting some countries citizens’ choice of religious materials, such as Uzbekistan, which only recognizes religious materials produced by the state.

Social restrictions, on the other hand are not controlled by the state and can include ostracism, mob action, or other community-based action in response to the exercise of faith. These specific social occurrences are often able to manifest due to the inaction of local authorities.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russian Orthodox Demand that Apple Remove “Offensive” Logo, Replace with Cross

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Christians from Russia’s Orthodox community are demanding that the country’s Apple division remove the famous half-bitten apple logo from its products and replace it with a cross, because they find the apple image offensive to their beliefs.

In popular culture, an apple is often used to represent the fruit that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge when tempted by the devil, as found in Genesis 3 in the Bible – although the exact type of fruit is not mentioned in Scripture.

Still, conservative Christians in Russia have insisted that the logo should be removed and replaced with a cross, Xbitlabs.com reported from a translated article from Interfax news agency.

The Russian conservatives may get their way and force Apple to change its logo because of new laws being proposed in the country’s parliament on blasphemy and insults targeting religious, spiritual, or national values. It is expected that President Vladimir Putin will back the laws, especially since the Russian Orthodox Church heavily supported him during his election campaign in 2012. Besides replacing the logo, conservatives may even stop Apple product sales in Russia if they manage to convict the company of committing anti-religious deeds.

Apple’s iconic symbol has been in use in one form or another for over 35 years. The first bitten apple silhouette was introduced in 1976, and has undergone a number of design changes to reach its current glass-themed logo, which was introduced in 2003.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Left’s New Horror: Natural Limits to Sexual Freedom

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In the second century, the Roman physician Galen named a common ailment whose symptoms included a burning sensation in the urinary tract and (forgive me) the release of pus. He combined the Greek word for “seed,” gonos, and “flow,” rhoia.

That’s how the word “gonorrhea” entered the Western lexicon. And now you know.

For eighteen centuries, the disease was a constant reminder of the dangers of promiscuity. The 18-century British writer James Boswell, Samuel Johnson’s biographer, called it a “memorandum of vice” before dying himself from what are believed to be complications of the illness. At the turn of the 20th century, the New York City medical examiner estimated that 80 percent of the men in the city had contracted the illness at least once in their lives.

But then came antibiotics, and we thought we could put Boswell’s memorandum in our ‘deleted’ file.

But not so fast. A recent article in the New Yorker magazine describes a new strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to the only class of drugs that can “reliably treat” the disease.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pastor Calls Out Coward Churches for Avoiding “Hot Button” Issues

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Pastor Shane Idleman is all too aware of the moral decline he sees in the United States and he’s speaking out about it. But what irritates him is the cowardice he finds in many churches when it comes to tackling “hot button” issues.

“I’m sick and tired of the passive, lukewarm, coward church doing nothing and saying nothing because it offends people. Yeah, it’s a hot button, absolutely. But if the truth doesn’t come from here (church), where does it come from?” he posed during his Sunday sermon at Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, Calif.

Idleman wasn’t afraid to be blunt as he joined hundreds of other pastors throughout the country in preaching on politics just ahead of the November presidential election as part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

“If I were to be honest, there’s cowards in our pulpits in our nation,” he stated. “I’m going to come up here and preach about being nice to your neighbor … as limbs are being pulled from uteruses? Vacuumed out because you don’t want it (the baby)? Let’s support that, let’s fund that. It’s ridiculous!”

During his hour-long sermon, Idleman didn’t specifically speak about the presidential candidates – President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney – and their positions, other than to say that one calls himself a Christian when he’s “clearly not” and the other is not a Christian “because he’s in a cult.” Obama is a self-professed Christian while Romney is a Mormon.

Read more from this story HERE.

A View from the Left: Did Obama Just Throw the Entire Election Away?

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The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51 – 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 – 45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in almost all of them. Obama’s performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.

Romney’s favorables are above Obama’s now. Yes, you read that right. Romney’s favorables are higher than Obama’s right now. That gender gap that was Obama’s firewall? Over in one night:

Currently, women are evenly divided (47% Obama, 47% Romney). Last month, Obama led Romney by 18 points (56% to 38%) among women likely voters.

Seriously: has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever? And we are told that when Obama left the stage that night, he was feeling good. That’s terrifying. On every single issue, Obama has instantly plummeted into near-oblivion. He still has some personal advantages over Romney – even though they are all much diminished. Obama still has an edge on Medicare, scores much higher on relating to ordinary people, is ahead on foreign policy, and on being moderate, consistent and honest (only 14 percent of swing voters believe Romney is honest). But on the core issues of the economy and the deficit, Romney is now kicking the president’s a**:

By a 37% to 24% margin, more swing voters say Romney would improve the job situation. Swing voters favor Romney on the deficit by a two-to-one (41% vs. 20%) margin…. Romney has gained ground on several of these measures since earlier in the campaign. Most notably, Obama and Romney now run even (44% each) in terms of which candidate is the stronger leader. Obama held a 13-point advantage on this a month ago. And Obama’s 14-point edge as the more honest and truthful candidate has narrowed to just five points. In June, Obama held a 17-point lead as the candidate voters thought was more willing to work with leaders from the other party. Today, the candidates run about even on this (45% say Obama, 42% Romney).

Read more from this story HERE.

Recession Wiping Out Black Middle Class

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For months, the presidential candidates have been trying to court the middle class, extending offers of tax cuts, lower gas prices and better schools. The message: America does well when the middle class does well. The corollary: We feel your pain.

But much less attention has been given to the black middle class, which since the recession and slow recovery has suffered massive decreases in wealth and high rates of home foreclosures. Blacks overall are experiencing a 13.4 percent unemployment rate, according to figures released Friday, much higher than the national rate of 7.8 percent.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project recently released a report projecting that 68 percent of African-Americans reared in the middle of the wealth ladder will not do as well as the previous generation.

In August, the National Urban League’s State of Black America 2012 report found that nearly all the economic gains that the black middle class made during the last 30 years have been wiped out by the economic downturn.

“This is a very dire situation,” said Valerie Rawlston Wilson, an economist with the National Urban League Policy Institute. “Even for blacks who have college degrees, we’ve seen a doubling of their unemployment (rate) between 2007 and 2010.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Gallup: Romney’s Win Over Obama in Last Week’s Debate Was Unprecedented, Now Leading in Polls

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Gallup: Romney’s Win Over Obama in Last Week’s Debate Was Unprecedented

By Jeffrey M. Jones. An Oct. 4-5 Gallup poll finds roughly two in three Americans reporting that they watched the Oct. 3 debate, similar to what Gallup measured for each of the three 2008 presidential debates. Those who viewed the debate overwhelmingly believe Romney did a better job than Obama, 72% to 20%. Republicans were nearly unanimous in judging Romney the winner. But even Democrats rated Romney as doing a better job than Obama, 49% to 39%.

These assessments are based on interviewing conducted Thursday and Friday after the Wednesday night debate, and may reflect the impact of news stories and media commentary — which mostly declared Romney as the debate winner — as well as personal reactions to the debates as they unfolded.

Gallup has assessed opinion on who did better in most past presidential debates; some of these polls were conducted the night of the debate with pre-recruited samples of debate watchers immediately after it concluded, and some were conducted with more general samples of Americans in the days that followed the debate. Across all of the various debate-reaction polls Gallup has conducted, Romney’s 52-point win is the largest Gallup has measured. The prior largest margin was 42 points for Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush in the 1992 town hall debate.

Romney’s debate performance is also notable from the standpoint that U.S. debate watchers judged Obama the winner of all three 2008 debates with John McCain. Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Now Leads Obama by Four Points in National Polling

By Steven Ertelt. A new CNN poll conducted by the Pew Research Center finds Mitt Romney now enjoys a four percentage point lead among likely voters, topping pro-abortion President Barack Obama 49-45 percent.

The debate played a huge roll in providing the bounce for Romney in the Pew poll, where he trailed during the month of September.

“Mitt Romney no longer trails Barack Obama in the Pew Research Center’s presidential election polling. By about three-to-one, voters say Romney did a better job than Obama in the Oct. 3 debate, and the Republican is now better regarded on most personal dimensions and on most issues than he was in September. Romney is seen as the candidate who has new ideas and is viewed as better able than Obama to improve the jobs situation and reduce the budget deficit,” Pew reported. Read more from this story HERE.