Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has released a new television ad outlining steps Romney would take on the first day of his presidency.

It’s the campaign’s first TV ad since the former Massachusetts governor became the presumptive Republican nominee. The ad released Friday is titled “Day One.”

It says Romney would approve the Keystone oil pipeline, introduce tax cuts and tax reform, and move to replace President Barack Obama’s health care plan with what the ad calls “common sense health care reform.”

The campaign also released a Spanish language version.

Read More at OfficialWire. By Associated Press.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore Creative Commons

Ed Klein says Wright was “very quiet, very polite, very measured” during their interview
Of the Obamas, Wright said, ”Church is not their thing. It was never their thing.”
Wright claims Clinton campaign may have been paying black pastors to disparage him
He says his words have been “misused and taken out of context”
Reverend alleges that Obama changed dramatically once he became president

Edward Klein’s new book, “The Amateur,” an unauthorized biography of President Barack Obama, makes some startling and intriguing claims. From former President Bill Clinton calling Obama an “amateur” to Rev. Jeremiah Wright alleging that he was offered hush money, the book is full of political surprises. Earlier this week, Klein gave Fox News’ Sean Hannity the three-hour recording of his discussion with Wright. The Blaze also obtained some copies of the recordings. We are currently working to obtain the raw, three-hour interview audio.

The audio clips appear to showcase a man — despite his intense rhetoric — who seems genuinely saddened by his deteriorated relationship with Obama. Wright, contrary to past videos and speeches, seems calm and collected as he recounts his personal experiences over the past few years.

“It wasn’t what I expected to tell you the truth because the guy who I met did not look like the guy on the videotapes,” Klein told Hannity of his time with Wright. “He was very quiet, very polite, very measured, and talked about his academic credentials, very proud of the fact that he had a Ph.D., and answered all my questions…there was no sense that this guy could go off the deep end.”

Read More at The Blaze. By Billy Hallowell.

The interest rate on federal Stafford Loans is a phony political issue. The 6.8 percent interest rate was slashed — at taxpayer expense — to 3.4 percent last year. Now Obama and Democrats in Congress are acting as if the rate returning to its usual level is an economic catastrophe for students. It isn’t. We’re talking about a difference of $6 per month on new loans. Existing loans are unaffected. The student debt problem is real, but the Stafford Loan interest rate issue is not.

Yet the legislation proposed in Congress to address this non-issue is still hugely consequential because the Republican version would end a particularly destructive big government spending program, and the Democratic alternative would raise taxes on small businesses. It’s a fight that epitomizes the choice voters will face when they head to the polls this fall.

The House has already passed legislation, H R 4628, that extends the current Stafford Loan interest rate for another year, averting that $6 per month disaster that Obama has been focusing on out on the stump. The bill also does something much more significant; it repeals the so-called Prevention Fund, a multi-billion-dollar slush fund created by Obama’s stimulus bill and then expanded and funded even more lavishly — and automatically, without annual appropriations—by the president’s health care law.

The Prevention Fund is the most egregious type of federal spending because it uses our federal tax dollars to raise our taxes and limit our freedoms at the state and local levels. Specifically, it provides taxpayer-funded grants for television advertising, lobbying campaigns, and other activities aimed at raising taxes on soft drinks; imposing zoning restrictions on fast food restaurants; imposing smoking bans; and other such nanny-state favorites.

In Philadelphia, the city spent millions of federal taxpayer dollars on advertising to promote a tax hike on soft drinks. The tax was defeated by a remarkable coalition of tea party and union activists, but Mayor Nutter has vowed to continue to pursue it. And why not, with federal taxpayers picking up the tab?

Read More at Western Journalism. By Phil Kerpen.

 

Recent weeks have seen ombudsmen at both the New York Times and the Washington Post defend their respective newspapers from charges of journalistic bias and a deep-seated, enduring slant to the political left. Defined as “trusted [intermediaries] between…an organization and some…external constituency,” it is the job of  New York Times ombudsman Arthur Brisbane and the Post’s Patrick Pexton to represent “the broad scope of constituent interests” by seeking to present readers with facts and straightforward, impartial reporting.

Of course, anyone with a sense of humor—or any sense at all—will get a real kick out of claims of straightforward and impartial reporting by the Times or the Post. But that is exactly what these embattled colleagues have done in their attempts to defend recent articles responsible for more than the usual show of outrage from the reading public.

On May 10th, the Post printed a story of Mitt Romney’s 1965 involvement in forcibly cutting the hair of fellow Cranbrook student John Lauber. According to the very lengthy article, Romney and a number of friends threw Lauber to the ground and submitted him to a cruel and “vicious hack job.” Of course, Lauber also turned out to be gay. A remarkable coincidence of timing considering Obama’s sudden act of “coming out” in support of gay marriage. As the Post tells it though, these things “… just happened to coincide…”

However, as PJ Media points out, “…the story directly quoted a dead man; it claimed things about him that, being dead, he is in no position to affirm or refute; it mischaracterized the opinion of one of its core witnesses; and the family of the dead man (Lauber) says the story is factually inaccurate.”

The Post’s Pexton responds to such criticism from conservative web sites and large numbers of readers with: “The Mitt Romney bullying story holds up to scrutiny,” even as he defends as quite innocent timing clearly designed to assist the President.

Read More st Western Journalism. By Jim Kouri.

 

Nebraska state Sen. Deb Fischer wrested the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Attorney General Jon Bruning Tuesday night, riding a burst of late momentum to pull off an unexpected victory.

Her stunning come-from-behind performance amounts to a warning flare about the volatility of the primary season and the unintended impact of outside groups.

Fischer, a rancher and little-known state lawmaker, maintained a positive, above-the-fray tone while Bruning and state Treasurer Don Stenberg consistently traded blistering barbs. But she also benefited from a flurry of outside spending against Bruning, the front-running establishment favorite for more than a year who watched his polling lead evaporate during the final week of the campaign.

The victory sends Fischer to the general election as a favorite over former Sen. Bob Kerrey, who easily disposed of four lesser-known opponents for a shot at the open seat being left vacant by retiring Sen. Ben Nelson. Nebraska is a must-win for Republicans if they are to acquire the four pickups necessary to flip control of the Senate this fall.

Democrats argued that Fischer’s surprising win provides with them a better chance at holding the seat, mainly because she’s largely untested and undefined. But public polling taken ahead of the primary has shown Fischer defeating Kerrey by double digits. Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 170,000 and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney is expected to rout President Barack Obama in the state.

Read More at Politico. By David Catanese.