Indicting Rick Perry seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, he’s a Republican who might run for president in 2016!
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Photo Credit: AFP / Zoom Dosso
Four residents were injured in the clashes that flared in Monrovia’s West Point slum which has been contained as part of new security measures aimed at containing the deadly virus.
The crackdown in Liberia comes as authorities around the world scramble to stem the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola, which has killed more than 1,200 people across west Africa this year.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf quarantined West Point and Dolo Town, to the east of the capital, and imposed a night-time curfew as part of new drastic measures to fight the disease.
Residents of West Point, where club-wielding youths stormed an Ebola medical facility on Saturday, reacted with fury to the crackdown, hurling stones and shouting at the security forces.
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The Census Bureau has not yet reported how many were on welfare in 2013 or the first two quarters of 2014.
But the 109,631,000 living in households taking federal welfare benefits as of the end of 2012, according to the Census Bureau, equaled 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the United States at that time.
When those receiving benefits from non-means-tested federal programs — such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and veterans benefits — were added to those taking welfare benefits, it turned out that 153,323,000 people were getting federal benefits of some type at the end of 2012.
Subtract the 3,297,000 who were receiving veterans’ benefits from the total, and that leaves 150,026,000 people receiving non-veterans’ benefits.
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Photo Credit: Rob Shenk
Published Wednesday, the New Hampshire-based almanac predicts a “super-cold” winter in the eastern two-thirds of the country. The west will remain a little bit warmer than normal.
“Colder is just almost too familiar a term,” Editor Janice Stillman said. “Think of it as a refriger-nation.”
More bad news for those who can’t stand snow: Most of the Northeast is expected to get more snowfall than normal, though it will be below normal in New England.
Before unpacking the parka, however, remember that “colder than average” is still only about 2 to 5 degrees difference.
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Photo Credit: thefederalist.com
How do we know the end is near-ish? Well, so many Americans are “benefiting from the law,” theorizes Heidi Przybyla, that political ads are simply not doing the job anymore. This news is somewhat unexpected – and unpersuasive – when you consider a Kaiser Family Foundation poll recently found that only 15 percent of Americans believe Obamacare has directly helped them, while 28 percent say it has directly hurt them. (Fifty-six percent say it has had no effect on their lives.)
Somewhat more convincingly, Przybyla offers this bit of evidence: “Those seeking to unseat the U.S. Senate incumbent in North Carolina,” she writes, “have cut in half the portion of their top issue ads citing Obamacare, a sign that the party’s favorite attack against Democrats is losing its punch.” Then again, that’s quite an extrapolation, as well – especially when you consider that in her very own story Przybyla tells us that GOP groups have plans to re-focus on ACA as soon as premium increases for 2015 are announced. Like any issue, the political impact of Obamacare is hitched to events surrounding the law. An ebb is not a capitulation. And there will be more Obamacare events.
But even if there weren’t, consider that a quarter of all political ads running in North Carolina attack Obamacare specifically. This seems to suggest that it’s still a comparatively “major issue.” Or, let’s put it this way: Is there any other law in the United States that eats up more political space?
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Photo Credit: Travis County Sheriff’s Office
Perry smiled during his mugshot and removed his new signature glasses.
“The actions that I took were lawful, they were legal and they were proper,” said Perry to supporters.
Dozens of people cheered on the Republican governor when he reported to the Travis County Courthouse on Tuesday.
“I’m very pleased that he’s standing strong and not going to back down on this,” said Perry supporter Edeanne Howes.
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In an appearance on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown after another night of rioting and confrontations, Johnson told host Craig Melvin that “we have a lot of media that have not done a great job” and made the situation worse–and tougher for police. He said that on Monday evening, when small crowds started to swell in size, “that criminal element, that got out here with masks on, that wanted to agitate and build up the crowd, would stop in front of the media.”
“The media would swarm around them, give them a platform and glamorize their activity,” Johnson said…
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Photo Credit: AP / Chris Tilley
The crowd chanted, “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!” They applauded loudest when the 2012 Republican standard-bearer took center stage, eclipsing the three Republican candidates who actually will be on West Virginia ballots in November.
Outside the event, union activists demonstrated. They denounced Mr. Romney as a “fat cat” and the “king of exporting jobs.”
Mr. Romney endured the same kinds of attacks during his run as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
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By Duane Patterson.
Rick Perry thought her to be a disgrace, and wanted her to resign. She didn’t. So he took the next step and threatened to veto funding for her office. In response, a grand jury handed down an abuse of power indictment for coercive use of a veto late this afternoon. So the woman who was belligerent and intoxicated stays, Rick Perry is the bad guy and needs to go. Right. Got it.
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Photo Credit: AP / Tony Gutierrez
By Paul J. Weber and Will Weissert.
A grand jury indicted Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday for allegedly abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption – making the possible 2016 presidential hopeful his state’s first indicted governor in nearly a century.
A special prosecutor spent months calling witnesses and presenting evidence that Perry broke the law when he promised publicly to nix $7.5 million over two years for the public integrity unit run by the office of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. Lehmberg, a Democrat, was convicted of drunken driving, but refused Perry’s calls to resign.
Though the Republican governor now faces two felony indictments, politics dominates the case. Lehmberg is based in Austin, which is heavily Democratic, in contrast to most of the rest of fiercely conservative Texas. The grand jury was comprised of Austin-area residents.
The unit Lehmberg oversees investigates statewide allegations of corruption and political wrongdoing. It led the investigation against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican who in 2010 was convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering for taking part in a scheme to influence elections in his home state – convictions later vacated by an appeals court.
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By Colin Cambell.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) isn’t backing down after being indicted by a grand jury.
Not long after news of the indictment broke Friday evening, Perry’s office released a statement maintaining his innocence and declaring he “will ultimately prevail.”
“The veto in question was made in accordance with the veto authority afforded to every governor under the Texas Constitution,” said Mary Anne Wiley, Perry’s general counsel. “We will continue to aggressively defend the governor’s lawful and constitutional action, and believe we will ultimately prevail.”
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Gowdy also discussed Obama’s role as President of the United States, describing the way he has managed the duties and powers entrusted to him.
His speech is nothing short of thought-provoking.
“I want us to talk as colleagues, because our foundational document gave us as the House unique powers and responsibilities. We run every two years because they intended for us to be closest to the people. The President was given different duties and powers. The President was given the duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, so my question, Mr. Speaker, is what does that mean to you?”
“We know the President can veto a bill for any reason or for no reason,” he continued. “We know the President can refuse to defend the constitutionality of a statute – even one that he signs into law. We know the President can issue pardons for violations of the very laws that we pass, and we know that the President has prosecutorial discretion as evidenced and used through his U.S. attorneys.
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