100% of Newly Elected GOP Senators Campaigned on Repealing Obamacare, but GOP Leadership says "NO"

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Photo Credit: AP / Chris Schneider

Photo Credit: AP / Chris Schneider

By Ali Meyer.

Every new GOP senator who won in last night’s election campaigned on repealing Obamacare.

Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) all ran on a platform of repealing Obamacare.

Gardner touted patient-centered care and a full repeal and replacement of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.

“Small businesses and the American people cannot afford President Obama’s countless new regulations and tax increases. There is a right way and a wrong to improve our country’s healthcare system, and the President’s healthcare law just isn’t working. We need patient-centered care and lower costs. It is not too late to start over with a full repeal and replacement of the President’s healthcare law,” Gardner said in a statement.

Daines echoed those statements, also calling to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

House GOP Leader on Repealing Obamacare: Not Now

By Craig Millward.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he planned to focus first on getting the economy moving and would not press for a congressional vote on repealing Obamacare until “we have the ability to replace it” with some other health care policy “at the same time.”

On Fox News on Wednesday, when electoral returns seemed to show Republicans winning the Senate, in addition to the House, host Megyn Kelly repeatedly asked McCarthy, the second most powerful member of the House, whether he would press for a vote to repeal the unpopular Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

“Congressman, we have seen repeated votes, over 40 votes in the House of Representatives to repeal Obamacare, never to be seen in the U.S. Senate, will you pursue that?” said Kelly.

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Prominent Scientist Says ‘Religion Will Go Away in a Generation’ If Atheists Use This Tactic to Teach Children (+video)

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Photo Credit: @LKrauss1

Photo Credit: @LKrauss1

Cosmologist and theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss believes that religion could be eradicated — or at least largely removed from society — in just one generation.

Krauss, who made this claim while delivering a speech to the Victorian Skeptics Cafe in Australia in late August, spoke, among other subjects, about how children should be taught about faith in schools, claiming that religious systems shouldn’t be treated “as if they’re all sacred.”

Instead, he argued for changes in how children learn about religion and critical thinking — proposals that are just beginning to gain traction this week.

“What we need to do is present comparative religion as a bunch of interesting historical anecdotes and show the silly reasons why they each did what they did,” he said. “Instead of shying away from it, we have to explicitly educate people to confront their own misconceptions.”

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Congressman: Military Paid Ransom for Bergdahl's Release, Money Stolen

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A member of the House Armed Services Committee is charging the U.S. military unsuccessfully attempted to secure the release of a captured American soldier by making a cash payment earlier this year.

In a letter to the Pentagon released Wednesday, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.) said a payment was made to an Afghan intermediary early this year to help secure the May 31 release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held for nearly five years by the Haqqani Network in Pakistan, which is classified as a terrorist organization.

Pentagon officials have denied paying cash to secure the release of Sgt. Bergdahl, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2009. A senior defense official reiterated that denial when asked about Mr. Hunter’s letter.

Sgt. Bergdahl was freed in a deal mediated by the government of Qatar, after the Obama administration released five Taliban prisoners from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Defiant, Vows to Bypass New GOP Majority with Executive Actions

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obama-glareThe day after a massive midterm defeat that gave the GOP control over both houses of Congress, President Obama struck a conciliatory tone, but the content of his news conference remarks was defiant as he promised to move ahead on his goals with, or without, the consent of Congress. . .

The president did not agree that the election served notice that he should change his policies and vowed to pursue his goals.

When asked if voters had repudiated his policies, which he had declared were on the ballot, Obama insisted he would not “try to read tea leaves” when it came to interpreting election results and would instead do what he thinks is best for the country.

He appeared to justify his intention to move forward with his agenda by noting, “I’m the guy who’s elected by everybody. They want me to push hard to close some of these divisions, break through the gridlock, and get stuff done. So the most important thing that I can do is just get stuff done” . . .

A prime example was illustrated in his responses to reporters’ questions on immigration and potentially extending amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, where he again vowed to act without Congress if he felt it necessary, proclaiming, “What I will not do is just wait.”

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Alaska's Election Nightmare

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Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP

Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP

[Thousands of voters have used] Alaska’s first-in-the-nation internet voting system. And according to internet security experts, including the former top cybersecurity official for the Department of Homeland Security, that system is a security nightmare that threatens to put control of the U.S. Congress in the hands of foreign or domestic hackers.

Any registered Alaska voter can obtain an electronic ballot, mark it on their computers using a web-based interface, save the ballot as a PDF, and return it to their county elections department through what the state calls “a dedicated secure data center behind a layer of redundant firewalls under constant physical and application monitoring to ensure the security of the system, voter privacy, and election integrity.”

That sounds great, but even the state acknowledges in an online disclaimer that things could go awry, warning that “when returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.”

That disclaimer is a pre-emptive admission of failure, says Bruce McConnell, who served until 2013 as the top cybersecurity officer for DHS. “They admit that they are not taking responsibility for the validity of the system,” McConnell told The Intercept. “They’re saying, ‘Your vote may be counted correctly, incorrectly, or may not be counted at all, and we are not taking any responsibility for that.’ That kind of disclaimer would be unacceptable if you saw it on the wall of a polling place.”

In 2012, Alaska became the first state to permit internet balloting for all voters, and no problems were reported during the system’s first deployment. But there weren’t any high-profile races then, and Alaska wasn’t an electoral factor in the presidential race.

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Sharyl Attkisson Just Released a Creepy Video of Her Computer That Will Likely Send Chills Down Your Spine

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Photo Credit: CBS News via YouTube

Photo Credit: CBS News via YouTube

Former CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson — who claims the government hacked her computer, TV and phone while she reported on the Benghazi terror attack — has released a new video showing what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer.

“That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone,” Attkisson writes in her book.

In the book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, Attkisson explains the difficulties she faced while trying to get at the truth of exactly what happened on the night of September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, where four American diplomats died, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

Read more from this story HERE.

Beware a Wounded Obama

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Photo Credit: AP / Alex Brandon

Photo Credit: AP / Alex Brandon

No matter what the exact outcome of Tuesday’s elections, there is little doubt that President Obama will come out of it wounded.

Whether or not Republicans take over the Senate, they will certainly gain seats. Even if Democrats manage to eke out a victory that maintains narrow control of the chamber, it will only be because their candidates in close races did everything they could to distance themselves from Obama.

Either way, Obama will be a lame duck president. Voters will have rebuked him and his policies. He won’t have the ability to pass major legislation, and the focus of the political world will quickly turn to candidates vying to replace him.

But being a lame duck president isn’t the same as being without power. On issues including healthcare, environmental policy, immigration, and national security, Obama has already displayed a willingness to bypass Congress to pursue his goals.

If there were anything holding him back up to this point, it was either that he was facing re-election or he was somewhat hesitant to weaken Democratic chances in an election year that would determine the composition of Congress during his last two years in office.

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Murkowski Highlights Climate Change In Alaska

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Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren / AP

Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren / AP

On election night in a hotel ballroom in Anchorage, Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski picked up a chair and waved it over her head.

“I am the chairmaaaaaaaaaaan!” she shouted.

The Republican takeover Tuesday night puts Murkowski in charge of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. That’s great news for Alaska, which is always eager for the feds to allow more oil drilling up here. But what does her chairmanship mean for the other side of that coin — global warming?

At that same election-night party, Murkowski said she takes climate change seriously.

“I come from a state where we see a warming. We’re seeing it with increased water temperatures; we’re seeing it with ice that is thinner; we’re seeing it with migratory patterns that are changing,” she said. “So I look at this and I say this is something that we must address.”

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Monster Storm to Hit Alaska: May Be Biggest in Recorded History

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Photo Credit: Satellite / NASA

Photo Credit: Satellite / NASA

A powerful storm is slated to move over the Bering Sea this weekend, possibly becoming one of the most intense storms to ever impact the region.

The former Super Typhoon Nuri is forecast to track northward into the Bering Sea, located in between Alaska and Russia, on Friday, losing its tropical characteristics as it does so.

At this point, the system will undergo rapid intensification, producing howling winds as the central pressure plummets to near record levels.

Due to the massive size of the storm, impacts can be felt hundreds of miles away from the storm’s center through much of the weekend.

Large waves and hurricane-force winds are expected to be the highest impacts with waves in some areas topping 45 feet Friday night and into Saturday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Obama Aide: 'We're in For a 'S**t Storm If We Lose the Senate

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Wynton Hall.

A top Obama aide says if pollsters’ projections of a GOP Senate takeover hold up on Election Day Tuesday, President Barack Obama and his administration are in for a world of hurt.

“We know we’re in for a s**t storm if we lose the Senate. You have to gird yourself mentally ’cause you are going to come out on the other end,” a “top Obama aide”told Politico Magazine.

The aide added, “But, you hit bottom, and then you have the Obama comeback story.”

Politico says such a comeback, however, is unlikely.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

Holder sends poll watchers to 18 states

By Ben Kamisar.

The Department of Justice plans to send federal monitors to 18 states to watch for discrimination against voters.

Monitors will head to Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

“One of the Justice Department’s most sacred responsibilities is ensuring access to the ballot box for every eligible American,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message on the department’s website.

“I want the American people to know that the Justice Department will stand vigilant — working in a fair and nonpartisan manner to ensure that every voter can cast his or her ballot free of intimidation, discrimination or obstruction,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Math is forbidding for Democrats in struggle for Senate

By David A. Fahrenthold, Katie Zezima and Paul Kane.

On the last day of the 2014 campaign, Democrats knew they were in trouble.

Long ago, the party had given up hope of winning back the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections. By Monday, it had skipped ahead to winning the post-election blame game. “House Democrats have succeeded on every measure within our control,” the party’s House campaign committee announced preemptively in the early afternoon.

And at the end of a bitter and massively expensive campaign, it appeared the Senate might be slipping from Democrats’ grasp as well.

In all, there are 13 states where Senate seats might change from one party to the other. Republicans need to win nine of them to attain a 51-seat majority in the Senate for the first time since 2007. On Monday, Republicans seem to be leading, by a lot or by a little, in eight of those races.

If the GOP wins all those eight, they will need just one more win — one of the toss-up races in Alaska and Kansas, or perhaps the runoff race that’s expected in Louisiana.

Read more from this story HERE.