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Video: Is Bill Clinton Dissing Obama Again?

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Just last week Bill Clinton told a crowd that Obama “didn’t fix” the economy as he promised. And just a few days ago, it was reported that Bill Clinton was pushing Hillary to release damning Benghazi documents that would ensure Obama’s defeat.

Now, at a campaign event on Friday, Clinton hit Obama again, but not in an overt way.

Clinton first noted that he hears “all these people say, ‘Oh I was so enthusiastic four years ago. I had so much hope for change, and I’m so disappointed, this, that and the other thing.'”

Apparently because of Obama’s widespread lack of support, Clinton concluded that he “may be the only person in America, but I am far more enthusiastic about President Obama this time than I was four years ago”:

Mark Steyn: A Vote For Obama-Biden Is A Vote For National Collapse

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photo credit: nmhschoolIn political terms, Hurricane Sandy and the Benghazi consulate debacle exemplify at home and abroad the fundamental unseriousness of the United States in the Obama era.

In the days after Sandy hit, Barack Obama was generally agreed to have performed well. He had himself photographed in the White House Situation Room nodding thoughtfully to bureaucrats (“John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the Vice President; David Agnew, Director for Intergovernmental Affairs”) and Tweeted it to his 3.2 million followers.

He appeared in New Jersey wearing a bomber jacket rather than a suit to demonstrate that when the going gets tough the tough get out a monogrammed Air Force One bomber jacket.

He announced that he’d instructed his officials to answer all calls within 15 minutes because in America “we leave nobody behind.”

By doing all this, the president “shows” he “cares” — which is true in the sense that in Benghazi he was willing to leave the entire consulate staff behind, and nobody had their calls answered within seven hours, because presumably he didn’t care. So Brennan, the counterterrorism guy, and Blinken, the national security honcho, briefed the president on the stiff breeze, but on Sept. 11, 2012, when a little counterterrorism was called for, nobody bothered calling the Counterterrorism Security Group, the senior U.S. counterterrorism bureaucracy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Red Cross Runs Campaign-Like Ad Featuring Obama (+video)

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photo credit: rclaburnOn Friday night, swing-voters across the nation saw a one-minute advertisement paid for by the Red Cross featuring President Barack Obama.

The ad comes on the weekend before the election, and while the Red Cross does unquestionable good for millions of Americans, the choice to run this ad comes noticeably close to a campaign endorsement for President Obama.

The ad sounds harmless, but giving the President free, positive airtime this close to the election can and will affect this race—especially when the President snuck in some campaign language.

Here’s the transcript from the ad:

When a natural disaster strikes, it can leave tens of thousands of families in need of help, and it can also bring out the best in the American people. In this country, we look out for one another. We have each other’s backs, because despite our differences, we are Americans first—and that’s what Americans do. These efforts are often led by the American Red Cross and other members of the national voluntary organizations active in disasters. These groups are on the ground at the very beginning of a crisis until long after the TV cameras are gone, providing food, shelter, and other services to those in need. They do incredible work, and they can’t do it alone. They need your support. We can’t always predict when the next natural disaster will happen, but if we do our part, each of us, then together we can make a difference. Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Politics and Parallels: State Senate has Obstructed Progress

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Photo credit: Christie 13In this upcoming election where we will be voting for officials on both the national and state levels, it’s important to discern the parallels between them. Barack Obama has pushed for government to play an extreme role in our society. His push for higher taxes coupled with increased government spending has decimated the national economy. His administration’s anti-development approach to our natural resources has cost us an untold number of jobs; especially in Alaska. Obamacare is a combination of huge taxation and government regulation like we’ve never seen before. Many companies have already started cutting back their labor force to accommodate it.

The U.S. Senate, controlled by the Democrats, hasn’t passed a budget in over three years. They just keep increasing spending, while complaining about how they’re being stopped from raising taxes so that they can spend more. The House has done their duty and passed a number of budgets, all rejected by the Senate because they didn’t increase spending enough. The House has passed a number of bills to allow resource development, repeal Obamacare and bring us closer to energy independence; again all rejected by the Senate.

Our own state Senate, controlled by the Democrat-run coalition, has also spent most of its time rejecting good legislation. A coastal zone management bill was originally passed by the House with a true bipartisan vote of 40-0. It was then sent over to the Senate, where the radical environmentalists who lead the coalition rewrote it as a massive anti-development bill, which in the end the voters had to kill at the polls. While some of the Interior senators in the coalition originally voted for the gas line bill a few years back, this last year they voted down moving it forward, delaying a gas line to Fairbanks one more year. Another good example is oil tax reform: The House passed HB 110 and then the Senate held only a few minutes of committee hearings on it, and never brought in industry or experts to testify on it. The Senate wasted the entire session coming up with a different bill, at that point finally allowing some testimony, and then ended up with a result that it was not able to get consensus on within its own coalition, and so it failed in the Senate. The meat of that bill was then tacked on as an amendment to the ‘middle earth’ oil exploration tax credits bill that the House had sent over to the Senate. This was in the final days of the session, and the House, with no time left to evaluate it, had to put the tax credits in another bill, and remove the non-meaningful oil tax changes.

The real highlight here of how the coalition has operated is that they refuse to deal with the House and come up with compromises. They have just obstructed, stopping any bill that would have moved this state forward. The coalition also hasn’t been a big help for Fairbanks, with all the major leadership roles taken by senators from the south of the state. They killed the storage tax credits that Fairbanks needed to get natural gas here, and those were only saved by hard work in the House by Rep. Steve Thompson, who at the last minute attached it to a bill the leadership of the coalition desperately wanted to pass (same bill they had to put the exploration credits into). Those storage tax credits already have Fairbanks Natural Gas building a large storage tank, and will be probably be used by Golden Valley Electric Association if it moves ahead with a project.

We have a great opportunity this year to stop the progressive agenda that has dominated our state for the past four years and has been strangling the dreams and economy of the Interior. We can choose principled conservatives at the polls who understand the need for resource development, jobs, energy and most importantly, the need for a united Interior delegation. Please vote on Tuesday and send the clear message to the rest of the state that the Interior is united and pro-business.

Bishop Orders Priests to Read anti-Obama Letter at Sunday Sermons

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CHICAGO — Joining the chorus of Roman Catholic clergy in Illinois criticizing President Barack Obama before next week’s election, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky ordered priests to read a letter to parishioners on Sunday before the presidential election, explaining that politicians who support abortion rights also reject Jesus.

“By virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass,” Jenky wrote in a letter circulated to clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria.

In the letter, Jenky cautions parishioners that Obama and a majority of U.S. senators will not reconsider the mandate that would require employers, including religious groups, to provide free birth control coverage in their health care plans. “This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system,” Jenky wrote.

“Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord,” Jenky added. “They are objectively guilty of grave sin.”

Earlier this year, Jenky delivered a controversial homily criticizing the contraception mandate. The bishop included Obama’s policies in a list of historic challenges the Catholic Church has overcome in previous centuries, including Hitler and Stalin’s campaigns.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Medal of Freedom Awardee: “All White People Are Going to Hell”

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A civil rights icon who gave the benediction at President Obama’s inauguration said that he believed ‘all white people were going to hell’.

The Reverend Joseph Lowery, 91, was speaking at a rally in Georgia.

According to an account in the Monroe County Reporter: ‘Lowery said that when he was a young militant, he used to say all white folks were going to hell.

‘Then he mellowed and just said most of them were. Now, he said, he is back to where he was.’

He was also quoted as telling an audience at the St James Baptist Church in Forsyth, Georgia: ‘I don’t know what kind of a n***er wouldn’t vote with a black man running he also told according to the paper.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin Ignores Law, Deadline to Disclose Second-Term Regulation Plans

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For the second time this year, the White House failed to follow federal law requiring a report outlining the economic impact of its regulatory plans for the next four years.

Every administration is legally required to publish a report each April and October in the Federal Register to inform Congress and the public of the administration’s regulatory agenda and its potential economic impact. The requirement is part of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980.

Other administrations have been late, but have never failed to issue the legally required report and Pres. Clinton even issued an Executive Order on compliance.

After the administration failed to produce its April 2012 report, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) wrote to Pres. Obama asking for compliance with the October deadline – to no avail. . .

The last time the Obama administration complied with this law was when it published its fall 2011 report (due in October).

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: Two-Thirds of New Jobs Created Under Obama Presidency Go To Immigrants

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Photo credit: Russ EvansTwo-thirds of those who have found employment under President Obama are immigrants, both legal and illegal, according to an analysis that suggests immigration has soaked up a large portion of what little job growth there has been over the past three years.

The Center for Immigration Studies is releasing the study Thursday morning, a day ahead of the final Labor Department unemployment report of the campaign season, which is expected to show a sluggish job market more than three years into the economic recovery.

That slow market, combined with the immigration numbers, could explain why Mr. Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney have struggled to find a winning jobs message in some of the country’s hardest-hit postindustrial regions.

“It’s extraordinary that most of the employment growth in the last four years has gone to the foreign-born, but what’s even more extraordinary is the issue has not even come up during a presidential election that is so focused on jobs,” said Steven A. Camarota, the center’s research director, who wrote the report along with demographer Karen Zeigler.

His numbers are stark: Since the first quarter of 2009, the number of immigrants of working age (16 to 65) who are employed has risen 2 million, from 21.2 million to 23.2 million. During the same time, native-born employment has risen just 1 million, to reach 119.9 million.

Read more from this story HERE.

7 Questions That Will Determine the Outcome of the 2012 Election

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Photo credit: DonkeyHoteyThe debates are over, and although most of my fellow pundits were quick to tell us before they started that historically they don’t impact the eventual outcome, this time they certainly have.

This race hasn’t been the same since the first debate. Mitt Romney’s rout of a beleaguered and bored-looking Barack Obama dramatically altered the trajectory of the race from leaning strongly to the president to a toss-up/leaning Romney. The president bounced back somewhat in the second debate, and was much stronger in the final debate Monday night, but he’s still not been able to regain the momentum he lost in the first debate in Denver.

If Romney goes on to win this election that first presidential debate will go down as the biggest debate game changer in modern American political history.

So with the debates concluded, the campaign has now entered its final phase. The popular vote is trending Romney, but the Electoral College remains razor close and the president still has more routes to 270 than Romney does—although Romney’s path is much easier than it was at the beginning of October.

Heading down the stretch, the answers to these seven questions could determine the eventual outcome:

1) Will there be an October surprise? For example, the president clearly has a foreign policy edge over Romney, so could there be an unforeseen circumstance on the global stage that gives Obama one last chance to appear as a strong leader? Something like a rogue nation such as Iran doing something to insert itself into the election if it thinks it can handle an Obama second term more easily than a President Romney? Another potential October surprise could be the final two economic forecasts before the election, which will be on the rate of growth and unemployment. Will there be much more robust or negative numbers there when par for the course is expected? Or could it be something totally unforeseen, like George W. Bush’s revealed long-ago DUI on the eve of the 2000 election, which nearly cost him enough votes to give Al Gore the presidency?

2) Will the automobile industry bailout be the marriage amendment of 2012? In 2004, an instate fight for an amendment protecting marriage on the ballot in Ohio helped George W. Bush massively turn out the evangelical vote in that state, catapulting him to the win there and thus re-election. This time the Democrats are hoping an important but under-the-radar issue like the automobile industry bailout can do the same for Obama. The bailout wasn’t popular for Republicans, which is why Romney opposed it during the primaries, but it remains popular in Ohio. The Buckeye State is Obama’s firewall. With Ohio he stands a decent chance of denying Romney’s path to 270 Electoral College votes, and no Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio. On the other hand, if Romney wins Ohio it’s probably game, set, and match for the Obama Regime. This issue gives Obama his best chance of accomplishing that task, because he has no other record of economic achievement to run on.

3. Which base is more energized come Election Day? For much of this election cycle Democrats have been more energized than Republicans, who have been disappointed in the lack of leadership they’ve seen from many of the folks they just voted for in the Tea Party uprising of 2010. However, Romney’s rout in the first debate energized Republicans more than Democrats for the first time in 2012. Democrats have been trying to reignite that spark. Will Obama’s win in the final debate do it? Will something happen in the final two weeks that will do it? With so few undecided voters in this election, an energized base is even more vital. Obama is going to dominate traditional Democrat groups like blacks and Latinos, and Romney will dominate traditional Republican groups like evangelicals. Neither candidate has much cross-over appeal to the other’s base, which Obama was able to peel off some from John McCain in 2008. Without that cross-over appeal base turnout is even more important. Therefore, it won’t be the percentage each candidate gets of that group that matters as much as it will be the actual turnout of those groups.

4. What kind of coat-tails will each candidate have? For example, could a strong Romney win in Missouri ironically carry the embattled Todd Akin across the finish line there? Republican Linda McMahon has run a good campaign in Connecticut, but could she get swept up in Obama’s win in that state? Currently, Real Clear Politics is forecasting 10 U.S. Senate seats as toss-ups. Four of those are in states that Romney will likely win, two of them are in states Obama will likely win, and the rest are in true battleground states that could go either way. To get to 51 in the U.S. Senate, and thus repeal Obamacare, the Republicans need to win 8 of those 10 toss-up Senate seats. That is a tall order, and more than likely not possible without Akin’s seat in Missouri, which the party establishment still refuses to assist with.

5. No one else wants to say it, but since I’ve made a career out of saying stuff others don’t want to openly talk about I will. Between ACORN, the Secretary of State project, lack of Voter I.D. laws and lack of enforcement of voter fraud laws already on the books, and recent elections featuring districts and towns with more registered voters than the census says lives there, there is widespread anticipation from conservatives the Democrats are prepared to cheat if necessary. The progressive mantra seems to be “if you’re not cheating you’re not trying.” We know a multitude of attorneys were poised to invade Wisconsin for the Scott Walker recall, but he won “outside the margin of cheating” so it was a moot point. If we’re right to be paranoid about this, then Romney will need to win a state like Ohio by more than 2 points, or outside the margin of cheating. If it’s closer than that zany high jinks are sure to ensue.

6. Obama clearly won the third and final debate, albeit not in the same dominant fashion that Romney won the first one. The third debate also had the fewest viewers, and many polls showed folks’ minds weren’t changed by the debate either way. After the debate, I talked to Republicans I know around the country whose job it is to get Republicans elected. Two schools of thought emerged:

Optimism—The race is trending Romney’s direction, therefore he was wise to play it safe and say nothing that risked changing the subject from a referendum on Obama, which it has been since the first debate. Foreign policy debates always favor the incumbent, so all the challenger has to do is come across as a credible commander-in-chief. All the polls show that Romney did that.

Pessimism—Romney is playing prevent defense with the game still in doubt, and he may have peaked too soon in the polls. Remember in the primaries when a candidate surged as the “flavor of the month” only to be dropped by the voters later? The same thing could happen to Romney if he keeps playing it safe and let’s Obama off the hook on issues like Libya.

We won’t know which one of these schools of thought is correct until a winner is declared on November 6th.

7. Will any of the three wildcards play spoiler in the election?

Wildcard #1—Battleground states Nevada and Iowa each have strong libertarian/Ron Paul factions that aren’t enamored with Romney. Could Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson siphon enough votes from Romney to alter the outcome there?

Wildcard #2—The battleground state of Virginia features a rare third party candidate that has actually won multiple major elections there. Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode has been elected as a U.S. Congressman in Virginia as a Democrat, Republican, and an Independent. Goode received more than 157,000 votes in his last Congressional campaign in 2008. Obama won the state by 6 points four years ago, which was about 236,000 votes. Thus, you can see how much of an impact Goode can have on a razor close race there.

Wildcard #3—More than 30 states began early voting before the first presidential debate. How many of those voters were independents that couldn’t be swayed by that debate because they had already voted? We won’t know until Election Day.

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You can friend “Steve Deace” on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow. To learn more about his nationally-syndicated radio show, go to www.stevedeace.com.

Republicans Have Won Every November 6th Election

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Here’s one more historical curiosity to observe this election cycle. Since election day was standardized in 1845 there have been 6 presidential elections held on November 6th and Republicans have won all six. That means next Tuesday, the 7th Presidential election held on this date, will either break or uphold a streak that began in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Starting in 1792, states had a range of dates on which to conduct presidential elections, but in 1845 Congress standardized the date so it would always be the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Since then presidential elections have been held on dates ranging from November 2nd to November 8th with each date coming up about six times in a fairly regular pattern. The date November 6th has always been a good one for Republicans.

Read more from this story HERE.