United Nations-Affiliated Election Monitors Deploying Across US for November Election

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United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

The request for foreign monitoring of election sites drew a strong rebuke from Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True the Vote, a conservative-leaning group seeking to crack down on election fraud.

Read more from this story HERE.

Media Elite Now Blasting President: Obama’s Campaign “Snarky, Belittling”

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Winners act like winners. Losers act like losers. And according to members of the same media elite who have spent months protecting him, Barack Obama is now looking like a loser in the closing days of his reelection campaign. This morning, a few members of the elite “Gang of 500,” including Time’s Mark Halperin, The National Journal’s Ron Fournier, ABC’s Terry Moran, and Politico’s Roger Simon, publicly voiced their disapproval of a campaign they describe as “belittling,” “not confident,” “peevish” and worse.

In 1984, President Reagan ran on “Morning In America.” In 1996, President Clinton ran on a “Bridge to the 21st Century.” In the final days of successful reelection campaigns, both Reagan and Clinton offered a unifying message meant to bring the country together. Their closing arguments were uplifting, forward-looking, and optimistic.

Flash-forward to 2012 and all we’ve seen from the man who promised us hope, change, and a new kind of politics is a nakedly cynical divide and conquer crusade that’s only gotten worse in its closing days. While Romney focuses his closing argument on the future, his agenda, and the realities of governing, our president is literally going all in on Big Bird, contraception, Binder-gate, “Romnesia,” and aids flanking him at rallies holding signs that read: “Women’s Health Security.”

This smallness and naked desperation is not only apparent, it’s familiar. I don’t mean to pick at an old scab, but in the closing days of the ’08 campaign, we saw the same kind of behavior from John McCain. He knew he was losing and in a desperate bid to gain traction, his message became erratic (suspending the campaign) and small (Joe the Plumber).

Read more from this story HERE.

What Romney Must Do to Win on Monday

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Photo Credit: Cain & Todd BensonDuring Tuesday’s second presidential debate, we held a live focus group with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) on my nationally-syndicated radio program. After the debate was over, the business owners expressed disappointment in both candidates’ performance. They were disappointed that President Obama again disappointed them with his answers, and they were disappointed that Mitt Romney didn’t excite them with his.

“(Romney) missed a chance to show us he truly knows why we’re in the situation we’re in and how we can get out of it,” they told me. When I pressed them on what exactly they meant by that, I realized that these small business owners were saying Obama hasn’t just failed because of his amateurish leadership, but also because his philosophy itself is a failure no matter how capably he attempts to implement it.

This is the argument they want the Republican presidential nominee to make.

Romney’s exhaustive itemization of Obama’s failures is unfortunately correct, but the mistake he keeps making is leaving it up to the American people to then draw the right conclusion based on that information. Romney needs to go for the close, and explain exactly why Obama has failed. Better yet, Romney needs to point out that no matter how well intentioned the American people may feel Obama is, his policies can’t work—which is why they have never worked anywhere they’ve ever been tried in the real world.

Of course, a president who was a subsidized college student, then a subsidized college professor, then a community organizer looking for more subsidies, then a state legislator who became a U.S. Senator who became a president handing out even more subsidies, can’t understand this because he’s never been in the real world.

Read more from this story HERE.

How Many Times Did Obama Say “Thank you” During the 2nd Debate?

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There’s been lots of huffing and puffing about how rough and tumble the debate was Tuesday night. But what if we scored the second Presidential debate using a simple metric of civility: who said “thanks” the most?

Here’s how it would turn out:

Romney: 14

Crowley: 11

Obama: Zero

According to the official transcript of the Commission on Presidential Debates, that’s how many times the two candidates and debate moderator Candy Crowley said either “thank you” or “thanks.”

The glaring contrast between President Obama and Mr. Romney was evident with the first question. It was directed at Governor Romney and before he answered the question he took a portion of his time to thank, well, everyone:

ROMNEY: Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate your — your question, and thank you for being here this evening and to all of those from Nassau County that have come, thank you for your time. Thank you to Hofstra University and to Candy Crowley for organizing and leading this — this event.

Thank you, Mr. President, also for being part of this — this debate.

President Obama, on the other hand, never once uttered a “thank you” to anyone. Check for yourself here.

Read more from this story HERE.

So Who Else is Running for President?

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Mainstream media coverage of the presidential election has focused almost entirely on President Obama and Mitt Romney, the only two candidates who polls suggest have a legitimate chance of victory in November. But among the 415 people who have filed statements of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission are a handful of lesser-known candidates who are fighting hard to make their case to the American people.

Four of those candidates will face off next Tuesday in a Larry King-moderated debate hosted by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, which describes itself as dedicated to creating “a climate where all voices are heard regardless of political party or persuasion.”

Below is an introduction to those four candidates: Libertarian Party candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Justice Party candidate and former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, and Constitution Party candidate and former Congressman Virgil Goode.

Gary Johnson. Johnson, who served two terms as the Republican governor of New Mexico, wants to cut government spending across the board by 43 percent in order to balance the budget, including a 43 percent cut to the military budget. He would make massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and either raise the Social Security retirement age or institute means testing. Johnson would not raise taxes, though he would replace the tax code with the national sales tax known as the “FairTax.” [Read more HERE about his pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and pro-drug legalization views].

Virgil Goode. Goode, a Democrat-turned-Republican former six-term Congressman from Virginia who says he would like to personally see Mr. Obama’s original birth certificate, is known primarily as an immigration hardliner: He argues for a fence along the Southern border, says “we must end the anchor baby situation,” and argues that “[w]e need to utilize troops, fences, and other measures to stop the invasion from Mexico.” He says he would put a near-moratorium on green cards until the unemployment rate drops below 5 percent, wants English as the official language of the United States, and calls the Arizona immigration law a model for the nation. [Read more HERE about his anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and anti-gun control views].

Read more about the other candidates HERE.

Obama: The Best Thing That Ever Happened to the US Gun Industry

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President Obama has presided over a heyday for the gun industry despite predictions by the powerful U.S. gun lobby four years ago that he would be the “most anti-gun president in American history.” Gun buyers fear that Mr. Obama wants to restrict their purchases, especially if he were re-elected.

An analysis by The Associated Press of data tracking the health of the gun industry shows that sales are on the rise, so much that some gun manufacturers cannot make enough guns fast enough. Major gun company stock prices are up. The number of federally licensed, retail gun dealers is increasing for the first time in nearly 20 years.

The lobby, the National Rifle Association, a gun advocacy group, is bursting with cash and political clout. And Washington has expressed little interest in passing new gun laws, despite renewed calls to do so after recent deadly shootings in the states of Colorado and Wisconsin.

Mr. Obama has made no promises to impose new gun control legislation and does not have the support in Congress or among voters even if he did. During this week’s presidential debate, Mr. Obama suggested renewing a U.S. ban on assault weapons and coming up with an overall strategy to reduce violence, but both Mr. Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said the government needs to enforce gun laws already on the books.

“The driver is President Obama. He is the best thing that ever happened to the firearm industry,” said Jim Barrett, an industry analyst at C.L. King & Associates Inc. in New York.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Obama Ally Gloria Allred Preparing Damaging “Romney Revelation”?

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Republicans are bracing themselves for Gloria Allred to make a potentially damaging revelation about Mitt Romney, just weeks before the election.

The pro-President Obama lawyer is rumoured to be preparing for her so-called ‘October surprise’ in which she will strike the Republican presidential hopeful’s chances by unearthing some sort of secret or scandal.

Ms Allred has refused to comment on the rumours, which first surfaced in a tweet by the Drudge Report’s Matt Drudge on Thursday.

‘Here she comes. Hearing Gloria Allred out there again, about to make a move. After all, it’s her time of the campaign. Team O at the ready!!’ Mr Drudge wrote on Twitter.

According to RadarOnline.com, Ms Allred launched a last minute strike on GOP Meg Whitman’s campaign for governor of California by representing a disgruntled former housekeeper.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Economy in Shambles: 40% of Americans Have Less Than $500 in Savings

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A survey of about 1,100 Americans finds that more than 4-in-10 respondents admit they don’t have more than $500 in readily accessible savings.

The survey is a kind of departure for CreditDonkey.com, a website that compares credit card deals. Not respondents all were poor. Some had big houses, big mortgages or 401(k)s, but still no more than five Benjamins to rub together right now.

Jill Michal, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, reacts to the lack of liquid assets.

“It doesn’t shock me, but it does scare me. You know, we often say that the reason so many people fall off the edge in a tough economy is that they’re standing way too close to it, and I think this is a perfect demonstration of that.”

Michal says there’s a lack of training in personal finances.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Investigating Obama’s $8.3 Billion Slush Fund Created to Hide Impacts of Obamacare on Medicare Prior to Election

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President Obama had a big political problem: Obamacare destroys the popular Medicare Advantage program, which offers private insurance plans to supplement Medicare. Something like a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries use this program. (It’s funny how free-market competition is both popular and effective when it’s actually tried, isn’t it?)

Obamacare sucks over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage, something that would have been very noticeable through price increases and benefit reductions during open enrollment… which began in October, right before the election.

If you’re Barack Obama, you solve a problem like that by throwing huge amounts of other peoples’ money at it. So it was that a little “demonstration project” to reward the most effective Medicare Advantage plans was suddenly inflated into a titanic $8.3 billion slush fund – bigger than the 85 previous demonstration projects combined – in order to delay the pain of Medicare Advantage cuts until after the election. The standards for receiving payouts from this “incentive” program were lowered so much that even mediocre plans could receive a “reward.” It wouldn’t do to have seniors opening envelopes that say their premiums have skyrocketed or some of their favorite benefits have been dropped, right before the election!

The House Oversight Committee began investigating this jumbo Slurpee of slush in May, and ran into a Health and Human Services stonewall so obvious that it’s comical. A request for documents on May 23 was ignored by HHS. It was repeated on August 1, and ignored again. House Oversight fired off emails to a couple of HHS staffers, and didn’t get a response for weeks… at which point the HHS Deputy Director for Oversight and Investigation said, “I’m checking on the status and will get back to you,” but never got back to anybody.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jobs Report Corrected: Unemployment Claims Explode

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Obama and his defenders championed the supposed reduction in unemployment to 7.8% this week. Romney attacked the number as not reflecting reality. Some suggested that the Department of Labor was playing games with the unemployment numbers.

Well, not exactly. According to Human Events, there was data left out from the jobs report – because it wasn’t received in time – that just about every media outlet ignored:

Nothing was mischievously “suppressed” in the last report. It was a paperwork glitch, not a dirty trick. Information simply was not received on time. It’s happened before. The strange thing about this particular report was how BLS undersold its incomplete nature, and how virtually every major media outlet simply failed to note that a big fat asterisk belong[ed] next to the number. Instead, it was uncritically presented as proof that after all these years, Obamanomics was finally starting to pump out some jobs.

Well, a new week is upon us, all of the data was evidently received on time, and what do you know? Initial jobless claims are up by 46,000, to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. That would technically make it the biggest one-week percentage increase in jobless claims over the last five years. Of course, a great deal of the percentage increase is due to adjustments correcting last week’s inaccurate numbers.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, even with those adjustments factored in, this week’s claims are well above analyst expectations of 365,000 claims. That’s impossible to square with the utterly delusional September jobs report, and its ostensible reduction of the headline unemployment rate to 7.8 percent. A boatload of people got hired in September, but now they’re all filing for unemployment benefits? There is no “Obama recovery.”