Video: Gingrich-Obamacare Will Resemble Obama’s Sandy Response

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The Obama administration’s response to Hurricane Sandy is an example of how President Obama’s healthcare law would work, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said in a Tuesday morning interview with MSNBC.

“I think as people watch the continuing devastation, it reminds [them] that Homeland Security as a department has once again failed, as it failed in Katrina,” Gingrich said. “And remember: This is the government that Obama wanted to have deliver your healthcare. So as you watch the long lines, you watch the failures, you watch the excuses, do you really want that to be the source of your healthcare?”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has lavished praise on the administration’s Sandy response, and on Obama specifically. Read more from this story HERE.

“Extraordinary Measures” Necessary Before End of 2012 as Debt Limit is Reached Again

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The U.S. Treasury quietly warned at the end of a statement issued last Wednesday that it expects the federal government to hit its legal debt limit before the end of this year–which means before the new Congress is seated–and that “extraordinary measures” will be needed before then to keep the government fully funded into the early part of 2013.

On Aug. 2, 2011, President Obama signed a deal he had negotiated with congressional leaders to increase the debt limit of the federal government by $2.4 trillion. But, now, after only 15 months, almost all of that additional borrowing authority has been exhausted.

Although Treasury revealed in its statement on Wednesday that it was likely to hit the debt limit by the end of the year, Treasury Secretary Geithner failed to respond to a letter that Senate Finance Ranking Member Orrin Hatch and Senate Budget Ranking Member Jeff Sessions sent to him on Oct. 15 demanding that he notify them by Nov. 1 what he believes to be the exact date Treasury will hit the debt limit and the date he expects to begin using “extraordinary measures” to avoid it.

“Treasury continues to expect the debt limit to be reached near the end of 2012,” says the tenth paragraph of the “Quarterly Refunding Statement” put out by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets Matthew Rutherford.

“However, Treasury has the authority to take certain extraordinary measures to give Congress more time to act to ensure we are able to meet the legal obligations of the United States of America,” said the statement. “We continue to expect that these extraordinary measures would provide sufficient ‘headroom’ under the debt limit to allow the government to continue to meet its obligations until early in 2013.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Yesterday’s Vote: Both Sides Lost

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Though Obama failed to win a majority in the popular vote–and may even have lost the popular vote outright–he won enough votes in the Electoral College to claim victory. The same constitutional peculiarity that brought George W. Bush into office in 2000 may have returned Obama to the White House.

The voters also re-affirmed the results of the historic Tea Party election of 2010, returning Republicans to power in the House of Representatives. And yet the voters also retained Democrats in control of the Senate, preserving the results of the anti-war wave election of 2006.

The U.S. Congress is now divided between two parties whose members were elected on platforms of protest, each determined to stop the other from pursuing its policies.

In the days that follow, great efforts will be spent on explaining the results as consequences of many factors, big and small.

Perhaps Obama would have lost if not for Hurricane Sandy. Perhaps Romney would have won if he had fought harder over Benghazi or pushed back against personal attacks. Perhaps the GOP is out of touch with the country’s changing mores and demographics. Perhaps Democrats have not yet reckoned with fiscal reality.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gay Marriage Approved by Voters, First Time in US History

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Americans for the first time approved gay marriage at the ballot box on Tuesday, pointing to changing attitudes on the divisive issue.

In Maine and Maryland, voters approved ballot initiatives to begin allowing same-sex unions. Those wins mark a first for a cause that had previously been rejected by voters in more than 30 states, including as recently as 2009 in Maine.

And in Minnesota, where gay marriage is already not allowed, voters declined to back an initiative that would enshrine in the state’s constitution a definition of marriage permitting only a union between a man and woman.

In Washington state, where voters also weighed an initiative to legalize gay marriage, the vote count was expected to stretch on for days. With half of the vote counted as of 3 a.m. Eastern time, nearly 52% supported the idea.

In Maine, campaigners for same-sex marriage said the win marked a turning point for their cause. “We made history here tonight and showed that voters can change their minds,” said Matt McTighe, the campaign director of Mainers United for Marriage. “That will serve as something of a signal to other states who have lost marriage fights before at ballot boxes. You can change those minds.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Huckabee and O’Reilly: “GOP Has a Problem Reaching Voters Who Are Not White Men and Want Stuff”

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Republicans have not done a good job reaching minorities as the country has started to shift from a majority white society, which may have cost them the presidential election.

Mike Huckabee and Bill O’Reilly in separate interviews on Fox News said the GOP has a problem reaching voters who are not white men and want stuff – which is why, they said, President Barack Obama won reelection.

“The white establishment is now the minority,” O’Reilly said before the election was called for Obama. “And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama.

Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?”

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Wins Big in Governor Races, The Most Since the 1920’s

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North Carolina voters elected their first Republican governor in two decades Tuesday, fanning the GOP’s hope of broadening their party’s hold on governor’s mansions across the country.

The victory by former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory came two years after Republicans snatched six governors’ offices in the midterm elections, giving the party 29 governorships to 20 for Democrats and one independent entering Tuesday’s elections, in which 11 gubernatorial races were to be decided.

When all the ballots are counted, Republicans could have as many as 33 governorships — the most since the 1920s and one more than they had in the 1990s.

Mr. McCrory defeated Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton to become the state’s first GOP chief executive since Jim Martin left office in early 1993. Mr. McCrory had lost his gubernatorial bid in 2008 to Democrat Beverly Perdue, who opted not to run for re-election this year.

Democratic governors are leaving office in North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire and Washington, raising Republican hopes that at least some of those offices can be flipped to the GOP. But New Hampshire’s governor’s mansion remained in Democratic hands Tuesday, as did those in Vermont and Delaware.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ron Paul Republicans Win Closely Contested House Races

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Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul will retire from Congress next year after serving for 12 terms, but several Republicans influenced by the iconic libertarian-leaning lawmaker will be arriving to take his place.

Thomas Massie won the race to replace retiring Kentucky Republican Rep. Geoff Davis, beating Democrat Bill Adkins by 20 percentage points. Massie, an ally of Paul’s son, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, raised nearly 10 times as much money as Adkins, according to the Lexington-Herald Leader.

Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash, who was already vying to be the House’s next “Dr. No” in his first term, was re-elected with 58 percent of the vote. Democrat Steve Pestka had hoped to win the votes of independents and moderate Republicans who might regard Amash as too extreme, but failed to gain traction against the 31-year-old congressman.

In a neighboring Michigan district, Ron Paul Republican Kerry Bentivolio was elected to the House seat formerly held by GOP Rep. Thaddeus McCotter. McCotter, who had failed to gather enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot, resigned from the House amid a petition scandal. Bentivolio beat Democrat Syed Taj.

Bentivolio spent four decades in the U.S. Army, but was painted by opponents as an eccentric. He raised reindeer and was an occasional Santa Claus. He was elected to Congress by a 7-point margin.

Read more from this story HERE.

Laura Ingraham: No Surprise if Chris Christie Becomes a Democrat

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Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who came out long ago in favor of his party’s nominee Mitt Romney’s candidacy for president, apparently upset a lot of people on the conservative side for his embrace of Romney’s opponent, President Barack Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. And according to conservative talker Laura Ingraham, it was taken to the point of “embarrassing himself.”

On her Tuesday radio program, Ingraham, the author of “Of Thee I Zing: America’s Cultural Decline,” criticized the New Jersey governor for his latest comment expressing his excitement in hearing from Obama supporter and rock star Bruce Springsteen.

“Speaking of embarrassing himself, Chris Christie … was out there and he was very excited, not because he’s voting for Romney,” Ingraham said. “He’s excited because he got a phone call: not just from the president of these United States, but he got a phone call from Bruce Springsteen.”

Ingraham went on to point out that Christie shares a character trait with Obama in that he often talks about things in context of himself.

“You know what, I’ve just got to say this: He has a lot more in common with Obama than we thought,” she said. “It’s all about Chris Christie. ‘My Jersey Shore,’ ‘my roller coasters underwater,’ ‘my hero Bruce Springsteen,’ ‘I have to pinch myself to go on Air Force One as the son of an Italian immigrant,’ or whatever he said.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore Wins Again as Alabama’s Chief Justice

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Judge Roy Moore, who made headlines when state officials removed him from his position as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2003, has been re-elected to that very post.

In a race that was called some hours after polls closed tonight, Moore was declared winner of the race over Bob Vance, a Jefferson County circuit judge. The victory margin was 52-48 percent.

After the race was called, Moore told WND that he’ll be concentrating on assessing the case load, the budget and other administrative tasks as soon as he takes office early in the new year.

“It was a wonderful victory,” he said.

In a recent editorial asking for votes from his state’s residents, he explained that the controversy that resulted in his removal nearly 10 years ago was not primarily about a Ten Commandments monument he had had installed in the court building.

“I will … lead the judicial system of Alabama to uphold constitutional principles and moral values contained in our law and will resist all efforts to disparage or destroy our beloved constitution,” he wrote then.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia’s Putin Happy With Obama Reelection

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama’s re-election and said he hoped it would have a positive impact on relations with the United States.

Despite Obama’s call for a “reset” in ties with Russia, relations have been strained by differences over issues ranging from missile defense to human rights and the conflict in Syria. But Moscow had been wary of Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign remark that Russia was the United States’ top geopolitical foe.

“Overall the Kremlin welcomes the news of Barack Obama’s victory in the elections,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Interfax news agency.

“We express hope that the positive beginnings in bilateral relations and in international cooperation between Russian and the United States, in the interest of international security, will develop

and improve.”

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was Russia’s president for much of Obama’s current term, made clear he was glad that he had defeated Romney.

Read more from this story HERE.