Former Gov. Barbour/RNC Chair: Hurricane Sandy Broke Romney’s Momentum

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photo credit: Leading AuthoritiesFormer Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) said Sunday that Hurricane Sandy stopped Mitt Romney’s momentum in the presidential race after the candidates temporarily left the trail and the media focused on the superstorm.

“The hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum,” Barbour said on CNN’s “State of the Union.

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” he added. “Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficit and debt, ‘ObamaCare’ and energy, is a good day for Barack Obama.”

Other Republican lawmakers and pundits were less forceful in their assessments of Sandy’s impact on the presidential race, but several said it likely would have some impact.

President Obama has received a favorable reception from the public for his response to Sandy. Obama also received high praise from Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), a prominent Romney surrogate, for his handling of the storm, and the two toured the New Jersey coastline together on Wednesday.

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Democrats’ Drive to Retake House Falters

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Nancy Pelosi has spent much of the past two years proclaiming that Democrats had a great shot at reclaiming the House and returning the speaker’s gavel to her hands.

But her drive to regain the majority for Democrats is on the verge of a complete collapse. Democrats are expected to pick up five seats at best — a fraction of the 25 they need. On the eve of the election, some party officials are privately worried that Democrats might even lose ground and drop one or two seats to the Republican majority.

It would mark an epic failure for a party that has a legitimate shot at keeping the presidency and the Senate on Tuesday. The inability of House Democrats to pick off a good number of seats from one of the most unpopular House majorities in modern history will cause a lot of soul-searching in the party come Wednesday.

So Democrats are already doing their postmortems on a House election cycle gone awry. What they’ll find in the political autopsy is Republican dominance in redistricting that created a GOP friendly map, a Medicare argument that didn’t totally pan out and an incumbent president who just wasn’t as popular as when he ran four years ago. They’ll also have to come to terms with the fact that they still can’t overcome the Republican advantage in campaign spending.

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Conservatives’ Opening Salvo: Senator Vitter Vows to Block Potential Romney EPA Chief

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photo credit: RETECH Conference and ExhibitionIf Mitt Romney wins the election on Tuesday, he can expect another battle to begin almost immediately: The fight to block his moderate allies from key administration positions.

Conservatives are quietly making preparations to begin lobbying for these posts to be filled by reliable conservatives. Of course, this may also entail opposing some of Romney’s first choices — a fight whose opening salvo has already begun.

Sen. David Vitter is already sending signals he would attempt to block James Connaughton – Romney’s likely choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (This is significant; Vitter is in line to become ranking member in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.)

According to The Hill, Vitter cited “emissions limits, potential restriction of offshore drilling and green energy funding — reflect an increasingly uniform GOP energy platform that Romney also has embraced,” as concerns about Connaughton.

Vitter also said “he could not support Connaughton’s previous backing for cap-and-trade rules for various types of emissions.”

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Obama Demonizes Tea Party in Final Days of Campaign

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After failing to mention the Tea Party by name on the stump in 2012, President Barack Obama mentioned the movement during at least five stump speeches on Thursday and Friday.

Running against the Tea Party movement that successfully stymied his grassroots agenda and energized conservatives and independents to give Republicans in the House a majority, Obama said Mitt Romney would “rubber-stamp the Tea Party agenda in Congress.”

Jenny Beth Martin, National Coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, said Obama was continuing to divide Americans by badmouthing “millions of grassroots” Tea Party activists across the nation.

“In a single speech today, our current President demonized Americans who have achieved the American Dream and badmouthed millions of grassroots Tea Party activists in every state in the nation,” Martin said on Thursday. “If he spent as much time uniting Americans as he does dividing Americans and attacking them, his presidency might have been a success.”

Politico reviewed a transcript of all of Obama’s speeches and found Obama had only mentioned “tea party” once — in a campaign appearance in Virginia in October — on the stump in 2012 before this week.

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Washington Post: October’s Higher Unemployment Shows ‘Job Growth’

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Just before Election Day, the Washington Post is super excited about Friday’s unemployment numbers showing “job growth” for October, despite unemployment increasing from 7.8% in September to 7.9%. The paper describes this change as the unemployment rate staying “flat.”

The Post tries to give Obama cover even as it ultimately notes that there really wasn’t much improvement in jobless figures for October. In fact, the Post almost admits that its report is intended to help Obama right in its first paragraph.

The U.S. jobs market in October sustained its slow trudge toward better times, the government reported on Friday, in the last major report card on the economy before the presidential election.

Despite all the happy talk sprinkled through the article, the Post is forced to note that much of this “good news” is closer to treading water as opposed to any “slow trudge toward better times.”

Absurdly, the Post tried hard to spin the actual increase in unemployment as a good thing.

The unemployment rate in October did rise to 7.9 percent, up from 7.8 percent, but the reason behind the uptick suggested an improved job market: More Americans decided to look for work, though not all of them found jobs.

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Study: 83% of Retirees Believe They’ll Lose Their Social Security

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photo credit: 401(K) 2012A recent survey by BMO Retirement Institute found 83 percent of retirees were influenced to start their benefits because they were concerned about the viability of the program.

But for Americans nearing retirement age, knowing when to pull the trigger on government retirement benefits is more complicated—or should be.

“People believe that Social Security is something they get when they turn 65. They think there’s only one calculation: I’ll apply when I stop working,” said Rebecca Hall, a private wealth adviser with Ameriprise Financial in Reston, Va., in a recent interview.

How and when you take your benefits, however, can make a difference of thousands of dollars in how much money you draw from the system over the course of your retirement.

And for many Americans, that difference can be crucial. Some 60 percent of Americans 65 and older depend on Social Security for the majority of income, according to an Economic Policy Institute study published last year.

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Senator Inhofe Says Obama Won’t Release Regulatory Agenda Because of ‘Terrible’ Impact on Jobs

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President Obama will not comply with a federal law requiring him to release his regulatory agenda because he doesn’t want Americans voters to know the “terrible cost” it would have on the economy should he win re-election — include the loss of an estimated 887,000 jobs annually, says Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Inhofe cites the Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires federal agencies to assess the impact of their regulations on small businesses. He says Obama failed to comply with the law twice over the past year – specifically the April and October deadlines.

“President Obama is refusing to comply with the law that requires him to publish forthcoming regulations because he doesn’t want the American public to know the terrible cost of the regulatory barrage he plans to unleash in a second term,” Inhofe said. “So instead of being honest with the American people about what’s in store if he wins, he’s been trying to hide the fact that he intends to move forward with a slew of rules that will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and dramatically raise the cost of energy on American families.”

The Oklahoma senator sent a letter to the president Sunday asking him to publish the administration’s agenda before Oct. 31.“Businesses and communities need to understand the future regulatory landscape,” he wrote.

The projected loss of 887,000 jobs annually is from a National Economic Research Associates report last month. The international economic firm in its 129-page report states the coal industry would be hit hard and the job losses would continue through 2034.

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Union Members Caught with Truckload of Stolen Romney Signs in Ohio

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Four men caught in a Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) truck full of Romney/Ryan signs were issued summons for receiving stolen property early Friday morning in Perrysburg, OH.

Local police responded after residents reported seeing men stealing Romney signs in the middle of the night.

A Perrysburg Police Division incident report published by the Ohio Liberty Coalition listed four adult males in connection with the incident: Corey Beaubien, Christopher Monaghan, Sean Bresler, and John Russell. The police report indicated the vehicle in question was registered to SMWIA Local 33 of Parma.

John Russell and Chris Monaghan are listed as Business Agents for the union’s Toledo district on the SMWIA Local 33 website.

Additionally, Facebook accounts appearing to belong to Beaubien, Monaghan, and Russell identify the three as employees of SMWIA Local 33.

Read more from this story HERE.

Veteran California Poll Worker Fired Over Protest Against United Nations Observers (+video)

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photo credit: zhenxing88SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A poll worker is out of a job, and she says it’s all because of an email she sent her supervisor.

The woman says she was concerned about poll inspectors coming to Sacramento for Tuesday’s election.

Shannon Lewis has been a poll worker in Sacramento for 15 years. She said she sent that email and was fired 10 minutes later.

“I just tapped out a really fast email,” said Lewis.

But that quick email ended Lewis’ 15 year job as a Sacramento County pollster. “I just wanted to get my feelings known and get an answer to the question before polling day,” said Lewis.

Lewis’ email inquired about something she saw on the internet, United Nations observers coming to local polling stations. Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Vitter Labels Justice Dept. ‘Campaign Arm’ for Obama, Demands Deportation of Illegals Who Vote

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photo credit: nflravensIllegal aliens and noncitizens who vote in U.S. elections would be put on an accelerated path toward deportation under new legislation introduced by Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter.

While this is a “seemingly common sense proposition” there is currently no law on the books that would make voter fraud a deportable offense for foreign nationals, Vitter told the Daily Caller in an interview.

“While this may sound bizarre to a lot of folks in Washington D.C., illegal aliens and noncitizens have no constitutional right to vote in American elections,” he added in an emailed statement. “And they certainly shouldn’t influence the outcomes.”

“My bill injects some of that common sense and puts teeth into voter laws so we can uphold the integrity of American elections. Of course we want immigrants to become voters once they become citizens, but our election system and our right to vote are being taken advantage of because of weak enforcement.”

Alleging that President Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) refuses to enforce a key provision of federal law that directs state officials to purge dead and ineligible voters from their rolls, Vitter says he sees a strong potential for voter fraud to occur in states that could help decide both the presidential election, and control of the U.S Senate.

Read more from this story HERE.