Ron Paul Refuses to Endorse Romney

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Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul pointedly refused to endorse his party’s presidential contender, Mitt Romney, arguing that neither he nor President Barack Obama would make necessary cuts to public spending that would avert a fiscal catastrophe.

“No,” the iconoclastic Libertarian bluntly told CNBC’s “Futures Now,” when asked about whether he was prepared to endorse Romney. He accused both the former Massachusetts governor and the president of being captive to similar interests.

“Both within the establishment where they need the Federal Reserve as lender of last resort to make sure that you take all the risk in the world,” Paul said. He linked the Fed — his favorite foil — and the Washington political establishment together as part of a “one party system” that refuses to make necessary but difficult choices to cut spending. (Read more: Ron Paul Vows to Continue Campaign Against Status Quo.)

“I’ve been in this business a long time and believe me there is essentially no difference from one administration to another no matter what the platforms,” said Paul, a former hopeful for the GOP nomination. “The foreign policy stays the same, the monetary policy stays the same, there’s no proposal for any real cuts and both parties support it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Media Scratching Its Collective Head Over Joe Biden’s Smile (+video)

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By Mackenzie Weinger. While members of the media disagreed over who won the vice presidential debate — or whether it was a draw — there was one subject they couldn’t stop talking about: Vice President Joe Biden’s constant amusement.

Fox News’s Brit Hume predicted that voters will pick a debate winner based on whether they liked Biden’s smirking and laughing or thought it was disrespectful to GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s remarks.

“What you saw while Paul Ryan was talking, was smirking, laughing, smiling, mugging by the vice president,” Hume said. “And my sense about it was that it was so compelling that people probably couldn’t take their eyes off of it. And so it’ll come down to whether people thought that was attractive or not. Myself, I didn’t. I thought it was unattractive, I thought it was rude and I have a feeling it will come across to an awful lot of people as rude. It looked like a cranky old man to some extent, debating a polite young man.”

NBC News’s David Gregory said supporters of Biden might be pleased with the performance, but it may have alienated other viewers.

“The smile, the laugh, I think a lot of people may view that and think that he was a little too hot, too aggressive, maybe condescending,” the “Meet the Press” host said. “I think supporters of the president and Joe Biden will say, hey this was refreshing. He was feisty, he was aggressive, he was seeking in some ways to belittle Ryan as a challenger here in the arena and that was something we didn’t see out of the president.” Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Sheriff- “Chunks of this Country Under Control of Armed Foreign Thugs”

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This video reports on the violent drug war and its impact on Americans living in border states.

One rancher complains of the near-constant flow of drug traffickers on foot and in vehicles across his land. They regularly punch holes through the US border fence, trespass on his land, and threaten violence.

A local sheriff says that the federal government has essentially ceded areas of the United States to the drug lords. Former drug czar Barry McCaffrey agrees, suggesting that the border is increasingly lawless in the southern states.

Of course, the Obama administration denies all this.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Video: Biden’s Quirky Debate Laughter

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Here’s a good video synopsis of Biden’s laughter episodes during last night’s debate.

His behavior was so outrageous that Chris Wallace called it the most-disrespectful performance he had ever seen.

Other pundits believe that Biden probably energized his base but alienated undecided voters.

Watch this clip and you decide whether Biden’s jesting helped or hurt the Obama/Biden campaign:

TSA Misses Hatchet, Grenade, Knives & Body Bags on Passenger Bound for US

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Yongda Huang Harris arrived at LAX wearing a bulletproof vest and flame-resistant pants, having checked in a suitcase full of weapons.

The 28-year-old was on a stopover on a trip from Japan en route to Boston, and had an array of suspicious items in his luggage.

They included a smoke grenade, knives, body bags, a hatchet, a collapsible baton, a biohazard suit, a gas mask, billy clubs, handcuffs, leg irons and a device to repel dogs.

The alarm was raised when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers noticed he was wearing a bulletproof vest under his trench coat, along with flame-retardant pants and knee pads.

But no such red flags had been waved when Harris boarded in Japan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats Gone Wild: Congressman & Challenger “Get Into Fight” During Debate (+video)

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By Sara Malm. A political debate turned physical in California yesterday as one of the two Democratic candidates for congress grabbed the other by the shoulder, challenging him to a fight.

Brad Sherman and Howard Berman were mid-debate when Mr Sherman suddenly grabbed his opponent and shouted: ‘You want to get into this?’

The heated moment came during a debate at a college in Woodland Hills, San Fernando Valley, as the pair stepped up their game in the competition for a Los Angeles seat.

A video of the tussle was released on Howard Berman’s YouTube account by his campaign manager, accompanied with a press release headlined ‘Has Brad Sherman lost his mind?’, which led to the opposing side accusing them of a smear campaign.

What the video does not show is that moments earlier, during a dispute on an immigration-related bill, Mr Berman, 71, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, had called Mr Sherman ‘delusional’ and ‘liar’. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s a video of the candidates’ embarrassing scuffle:

Video: Chris Wallace- Biden Was the “Most Disrespectful” VP Debater I’ve Ever Seen

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In this video, Chris Wallace states that Biden’s behavior was exceptionally disrespectful and, in fact, was the worst he’s ever seen in presidential or vice presidential debate:

I have to say I think I have watched almost every presidential and vice presidential debate since the first four Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, and thinking back over the last few minutes I don’t believe I have ever seen a debate in which one participant was as openly disrespectful of the other as Biden was to Paul Ryan tonight.

And that’s what it was. You can talk about the smirks, the smiles, the head-shaking, the mugging. He was openly contemptuous and disrespectful.

Here the video of his comments:

Liberal Blog Goes After Obama’s Mysterious Muslim Mega-Donor

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There are only a few dozen Americans who have given at least $1 million to super PACs this election cycle, and Kareem Ahmed is one of them. If you manage to talk to him, he’ll tell you a lot. He’ll tell you all about a class of pharmaceuticals, called compound drugs, which he is in the business of promoting, and which have been the subject of a contentious debate in California, where he lives and works. He’ll tell you to read ProPublica’s reporting about Big Pharma. He’ll tell you House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is his best friend. He’ll tell you about his dream to someday take the proceeds of his business and build the largest non-profit children’s hospital in the world in Southern California’s Inland Empire. He’ll tell you how he fixed Democratic political strategist Paul Begala’s leg. He’ll tell you how much he loves President Barack Obama, whom he has met on a number of occasions.

He told me several times that he thought I’d been hired by Republicans, insurance companies, or his competition to destroy him.

“I really want to educate you, Eric, I really do,” Ahmed said in an interview over the phone in late August. “Because, you know what, because I’m prepared. My law firms are ready to go, and I’ve got PR firms retained already. They’re waiting for your article.”

Why?

“Because the message I got from you, Eric, was, you have been hired by either the Republicans or by the competition, or somebody, just out to destroy me, without even knowing the facts,” he said. “So what would you do if you were in my shoes? So I’ve got the White House on notice. I’ve got everybody on notice. That all right, I can’t wait until this thing comes out, and we’re going to go after your publication, you, and whatever, and if there’s anything that’s defamatory, that’s not factual, oh yeah, I’m ready. We’re waiting. My employees are watching. My law firms are watching. I mean, they are watching you. Like, every move.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Constitutional Expert: Obama has “Profound Disdain for the Constitution”

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President Barack Obama is running roughshod over the Constitution, legal scholars say, by disregarding it, changing laws outside the legislative process, and extending federal power in unprecedented ways.

The president has “profound disdain for the Constitution,” said David Rivkin, a lawyer at the BakerHostetler law firm in Washington, DC.

“Across a whole host of policy areas, President Obama and other high officials in his administration have pushed the envelope of anything attempted before,” said Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional expert at the Cato Institute.

Under the president’s judicial philosophy, legislation ideally “streamlines government action” so it can “grow and experiment,” all while overcoming barriers like the checks and balances built into the Constitution, said Charles Kesler, a professor of government and constitutional scholar at Claremont McKenna College.

A pending lawsuit against the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act exemplifies several aspects of the complaints legal scholars have against the president’s treatment of the Constitution.

Read more from this story HERE.

World’s Richest Man Gets Richer Supplying Obamaphones to Poor

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A Mexican telecom mogul who holds the title of world’s richest man, and one of President Obama’s top donors are both getting even richer from the U.S. government program that supplies so-called “Obamaphones” to the poor.

Carlos Slim, who has an estimated net worth of $70 billion, owns a controlling stake in TracFone, which makes $10 per phone for each device it provides to poor Americans. The company, whose president and CEO is Frederick “F.J.” Pollak, also makes money from extra minutes and data plans it sells to subscribers who get phones and service through the government’s Lifeline program. The program, which began in the mid-1980s, has exploded in the past four years after being expanded from supplying landlines to the poor to providing cellular phones.

The phones came into the national spotlight after a viral video surfaced on YouTube in which a Cleveland, Ohio, woman praised the president, saying he needed to be re-elected because he gives out free phones.

“Everybody in Cleveland, every minority, got an Obama phone. Keep Obama as president. He gave us a phone. He gonna do more,” the woman said in the video.

Slim’s Movil America owns TracFone and recently snapped up service provider Simple Mobile for $100 million. TracFones and Simple Mobile service are huge players in the Lifeline program through the company’s “SafeLink Wireless” brand. TracFone had 3.8 million subscribers through the federal program as of late 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.