Lowering Debate Expectations: “I’ve Barely Prepared for This Debate. Gonna Wing It!” – Mitt Romney

/1 Comment/in , /by

“While Mitt Romney has done 20 debates in the last year, [Obama] has not done one in four years, so there’s a challenge in that regard.”—Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki, Sept. 17

“President Obama is the most gifted speaker in modern political history, so it is hard to imagine anyone outscoring him in debate points.”—Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul, Sept. 20

“Mitt Romney I think has an advantage, because he’s been through 20 of these debates in the primaries over the last year. He even bragged that he was declared the winner in 16 of those debates.”—Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs, Sept. 23

“The president is obviously a very eloquent, gifted speaker—he’ll do just fine. I’ve, you know, I’ve never been in a presidential debate like this and it will be a new experience.”—Mitt Romney, Sept. 25

“Mitt Romney, in his experience in business, is extremely well-prepared for the process of fielding ideas on the fly and, you know, responding to them off the cuff. Whereas the President has, for the last four years, he’s been—you know, sometimes the only voice in the room, and I don’t know that he’s faced an adversary as strong as Romney during daily briefings.”—Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki, Oct. 1, 6:45 p.m.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Cruel War on Energy and the Poor, Will be Exposed in a Public Debate on Election Eve

/0 Comments/in , /by

Beneath the campaign rhetoric emanating from the Obama White house is a stark policy reality that is harming America.

When President Obama began his term as President, the average price for a gallon of gasoline was about $1.80, today it is $4.20. Many folks don’t remember this and the Obama administration wants you to forget it.

Caged in a government report that said consumer spending was up, administration officials would want you to think it is a sign of an improving economy. But the details reveal the real reason: People are spending more on expensive gasoline.

President Obama’s energy Secretary, Steven Chu, has been quoted, he wants to see US gasoline prices equal to European levels….Interesting coming from a man who does not own a car.

In spite of the administrations crowing about oil production being up, it really is in spite of his policies. Oil companies are exploiting resources found on private and state land. While massive amounts of federal land, loaded with energy resources, are blocked from exploration by the Obama administration.

This administration has blocked efforts to bring oil in from Canada through the Keystone pipeline. As a result China is buying the oil meant to come to our country.

The coal industry, Americas main source of electrical generation, is reeling from attack after attack by this administrations “legislation through regulation.” Due to the EPA, coal operations are laying off workers and declaring bankruptcy, in a time when every domestic job is precious.

President Obama previously vowed he would bankrupt any coal fired power plant that attempted to be built in our country. He also said this would necessarily make our utility rates skyrocket. Yes he said that.

Folks with a lot of money can afford to pay more to fuel up their cars with expensive gas, or pay hundreds of dollars a month to pay their utility bills to heat and light up their homes. But the poor and middle class are already on the edge and every penny increase in the cost of energy to them, might mean a decision as to whether to put food on their table or put gas in their car.

The suffering caused to Americans is barely getting any attention in the main stream media as we approach the November elections. Higher energy costs affect everything we rely on to live: Food, shelter and clothing.

The driving force behind the Obama administrations war on fossil energy, is that the use of it is causing “climate change,” and poisoning the earth….it must be stopped. The environmental industry, which puts mankind’s needs very low on the totem pole of priorities, has the Presidents ear and donates millions of dollars to his re-election effort. So no one expects any changes in the Whitehouse policy if he gets a 2nd term.

But most of the high profile environmentalists and the politicians they support, don’t mind having one way conversations regarding their views and promoting their science in their quest to destroy our fossil fuel industries. But most shy away from a real debate…Have you ever heard Al Gore actually debate a knowledgeable expert and have to defend his “earth has a fever”views? I haven’t. I also haven’t heard any of the other high profile environmentalists defend their positions in a public debate setting, where they actually have to answer tough questions….But that is about to change

In late July, environmentalist icon Bill McKibben–a man who has been instrumental in crippling the coal industry and stopping the Keystone XL pipeline–announced his intention to create a movement to demonize and dismantle the fossil fuel industry. The industry, he declared, is “Public Enemy Number One.”

But Alex Epstein, the founder of Center for Industrial Progress and pioneer of the powerful environmental case for fossil fuels, challenged McKibben to a public debate: “Are fossil fuels a risk to the planet or do fossil fuels improve the planet?”

This debate will be held November 5 at Duke University. It is in a public setting and will have major attention from all corners of the world. A showdown between the environmental industry and the very energy industry it has been trying to destroy. There will be no place to run and no place to hide.

Here is the website that will give you the details and an accompanying video: Debate McKibben vs. Epstein.

___________________________________________________________

Ed Farnan’s articles are also carried in:

Irish Central
Energy independence-Politics & More
Carrollstandard.com
Tea Party Cheer
Tea Party Patriots
AMAC

Pennsylvania Judge Approves New Voter ID Law – but Blocks it From Going Into Effect Until After Election (+video)

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Angela Couloumbis. Pennsylvania voters who go to the polls without photo identification will be able to vote in next month’s presidential election after all.

They won’t even have to fill out provisional ballots.

So ruled a Commonwealth Court judge Tuesday in the closely-watched legal battle over Pennsylvania’s controversial voter ID law. Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. upheld the law – but blocked it from taking full effect until after the Nov. 6 election.

In essence, the rules remain as they were during the law’s so-called “soft roll-out” in the April primary: voters will be asked for the photo ID required by the new law, but if they don’t have it, they can still vote.

Whether Simpson’s ruling is the last word was not yet clear. Corbett administration officials said Tuesday through spokesmen that they had not yet decided whether to mount an appeal. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s a short clip of the Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Mike Turzai saying that the Voter ID law was going to allow Romney to win his state (he was roundly criticized for this comment):

Video: House to Hold Hearings on Benghazi Attack, Hillary Clinton Notified this a.m.

/0 Comments/in , /by

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is holding hearings on the Benghazi attack next week.

The following video contains that announcement as well as never-before-seen photos of the aftermath of bloody attacks that occurred just a block from the U.S. consulate this past summer.

Just yesterday, whistleblowers revealed that the consulate had suffered 13 attacks prior to 9/11 and had repeatedly requested additional security:

GOP likely to keep control of U.S. House in November

/0 Comments/in , /by

Democrats need to gain 25 seats this year to regain control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans. The prospects are dim.

Even a strong showing by President Barack Obama would be unlikely to swing the House to the Democrats and return the majority they lost two years ago. Redistricting, in effect in most places for the first time since the 2010 census, is helping Republicans. So are problems faced by Democratic moderates in conservative and Southern states.

Then there’s history. The last time a previously elected president seeking re-election saw his party pick up more than 25 seats was in 1892, according to research from the Rothenberg Political Report – and that president, Benjamin Harrison, lost.

“It’s possible, but not likely” Democrats will get a majority, said Nathan Gonzales, a political analyst at nonpartisan Rothenberg.

Republicans now control 240 House seats. The Democrats hold 190. Five seats are vacant. Rothenberg projects anywhere from a nine-seat Democratic gain next month to a one-seat Republican pickup. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report projects Democrats could pick up as many as eight, or Republicans could score a net gain of two.

Read more from this story HERE.

Leaked Emails: US Allowed Sinaloa Cartel to “Smuggle Tons of Drugs into Chicago”

/24 Comments/in , /by

Leaked emails from the private U.S. security firm Stratfor cite a Mexican diplomat who says the U.S. government works with Mexican cartels to traffic drugs into the United States and has sided with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico.

Many people have doubted the quality of Stratfor’s intelligence, but the information from MX1—a Mexican foreign service officer who doubled as a confidential source for Stratfor—seems to corroborate recent claims about U.S. involvement in the drug war in Mexico.

Most notably, the reports from MX1 line up with assertions by a Sinaloa cartel insider that cartel boss Joaquin Guzman is a U.S. informant, the Sinaloa cartel was “given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago,” and Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the Sinaloa cartel in exchange for information used to take down rival cartels.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Consulate in Libya Bombed Twice in Run-Up to 9/11 Attack, Ambassador Known Target (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: B.R.Q.In the five months leading up to this year’s 9/11 anniversary, there were two bombings on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and increasing threats to and attacks on the Libyan nationals hired to provide security at the U.S. missions in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Details on these alleged incidents stem in part from the testimony of a handful of whistleblowers who approached the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the days and weeks following the attack on the Benghazi consulate. The incidents are disclosed in a letter to be sent Tuesday to Hillary Clinton from Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the oversight committee’s subcommittee that deals with national security.

The State Department did not offer comment on the record last night.

The new information disclosed in the letter obtained by The Daily Beast strongly suggests the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the late Ambassador Chris Stevens were known by U.S. security personnel to be targets for terrorists. Indeed, the terrorists made their threats openly on Facebook.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hey Joe Biden! The GM Volt is Dead and Al Qaeda is Alive

/5 Comments/in , /by

Joe Biden’s premature victory cry of “GM is alive and Bin Laden is dead,” rings pretty hollow these days. If that’s all he and President Obama have to hang their hat on after 4 years of “hope and change,” it is a pitiful campaign slogan.

A similar, premature proclamation hung around George Bush’s neck when he declared “victory” in Iraq, when in reality there were still bloody years ahead.

Heralded by the 2009 Obama apology tour speech in Cairo, this week was a shock to Joe and his boss Barack Obama, as their naive “re-set” of foreign policy shattered in violence. Our Ambassador in Libya was killed and our embassies all over the Islamic world were under siege by angry mobs.

The knee jerk reaction from the shocked Obama administration was to blame the violence on spontaneous reaction to a cheesy video on the internet that poked fun of the Islamic religion. But facts lead to the conclusion that at least the Libyan embassy attack was pre-planned and under the influence of Al Qaeda … Ominously for the Obama/Biden narrative, killing Osama Bin Laden, didn’t mean the end of Al Qaeda and the huge wave of anti American violence showed the last 4 years of Obama diplomacy hadn’t changed hearts and minds in the Islamic world.

But buried under the blizzard of foreign policy failure, another tassled shoe was about to drop. It was learned the heavily govt. subsidized Chevy Volt, built by the heavily govt. subsidized General Motors has had disastrous sales. In spite of huge tax credits and the Obama administration trying to artificially inflate sales by forcing the defense Dept to buy Volts…few in the general public are buying them. Forbes Magazine said there are enough scams here to satisfy a Chicago politician.

The Volt was the poster child of the Obama administration, an example of “how to” in leading the way for billions of govt dollars doled out to “renewable energy” schemes. Almost all of these green energy schemes, including subsidizing, solar companies and electric car manufacturing, have proven to be an utter failure.

Last week General Motors stated they wanted the Obama administration to sell its share of stock it owns in their company, the image of being known as Government Motors is hurting business.

___________________________________________________________

Ed Farnan’s articles are also carried in:

Irish Central
Energy independence-Politics & More
Carrollstandard.com
Tea Party Cheer
Tea Party Patriots
AMAC

Inexplicable: Obama Waives Sanctions on Countries that Use Child Soldiers

/4 Comments/in /by

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a new executive order last week to fight human trafficking, touting his administration’s handling of the issue.

“When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed — that’s slavery,” Obama said in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative. “It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world. Now, as a nation, we’ve long rejected such cruelty.”

But for the third year in a row, Obama has waived almost all U.S. sanctions that would punish certain countries that use child soldiers, upsetting many in the human rights community.

Late Friday afternoon, Obama issued a presidential memorandum waiving penalties under the Child Soldiers Protection Act of 2008 for Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen, penalties that Congress put in place to prevent U.S. arms sales to countries determined by the State Department to be the worst abusers of child soldiers in their militaries. The president also partially waived sanctions against the Democratic Republic of the Congo to allow some military training and arms sales to that country.

Human rights advocates saw the waivers as harmful to the goal of using U.S. influence to urge countries that receive military assistance to move away from using child soldiers and contradictory to the rhetoric Obama used in his speech.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s DoD at Work: Military Absentee Ballot Requests Drop by Over 90% in Some States

/3 Comments/in , /by

Requests from military voters for absentee ballots have dropped significantly since 2008, according to newly released statistics, prompting claims that the Department of Defense is dragging its feet in enacting a law meant to boost military voting.

The drop in the battleground states of Virginia and Ohio is among the most pronounced. According to statistics released Monday by The Military Voter Protection Project, the number of absentee ballot requests by both military members and other overseas voters in the two states has dropped 70 percent since 2008.

Virginia had nearly 42,000 total requests in 2008, compared with a little more than 12,000 this year, according to the MVP Project. Ohio had more than 32,000 in 2008, compared with 9,700 this year. The number of military voters specifically — as opposed to military and overseas voters — was not broken down in the latest set of statistics, but military-only numbers released by the MVP Project in August documented a similar drop-off in applications.

At the time, military ballot requests in Virginia were down 92 percent. Several other states showed a precipitous drop since 2008, including Alabama, North Carolina and Florida.

Read more from this story HERE.