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Tonight’s Foreign Policy Debate: Obama Likely to Play bin Laden Card Because That’s All He Has

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The final presidential debate will focus on foreign policy – a traditional Republican strength that should be an advantage for Obama this time around because of the demise of Osama bin laden last May and the end of the Iraq war.

Indeed, Obama has served notice that he will play the bin Laden card to full advantage, saying in his speech at the Al Smith dinner in New York last week: ‘Spoiler alert: We got bin Laden.’

At the vice-presidential debate in Kentucky, it took Vice President Joe Biden one minute and seven seconds into the first answer of the debate – to a question about Libya – to bring up bin Laden.

Libya, however, presents Obama with some problems.

Although Romney got tangled up in the weeds of whether Obama had referred to the Benghazi attack as a ‘terrorist act,’ the death of the first U.S. ambassador to be murdered in the line of duty since 1979 and the intelligence and security failures that led to it make the president very vulnerable.

In addition, it has become clear that the White House’s initial insistence that the attack was a result of protests about an anti-Islam video made in California were flat wrong – and possibly part of an official cover-up.

Read more from this story HERE.

Iran’s News Agencies Say Obama Acknowledged its Nuclear Rights, Didn’t Want to Impose Sanctions & Warns of Romney Vote Fraud

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In a curious article in Iran’s semi-official news agency FARS today, Iran is claiming that Obama not only acknowledged Iran’s right to pursue nuclear technology, but also did not want to impose sanctions on Iran explaining he had to because of congressional action:

Swiss Ambassador to Tehran Livia Leu Agosti attended a meeting with senior Iranian foreign ministry officials a few days ago to submit a letter from the US president to Tehran leaders.

Vice-Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Ebrahimi told FNA that during the meeting, Agosti had told the Iranian officials that President Barack Obama recognizes Iran’s right of access and use of the nuclear technology.

“There are a couple of points with regard to this (US) message (to Iran),” Ebrahimi said and added, “Firstly, during the session to submit the message, the Swiss ambassador to Tehran quoted the US president as saying that ‘we (the US) recognize your nuclear rights’.”

As regards the second issue, the lawmaker said that the Swiss diplomat had also quoted Obama as saying that “I didn’t want to impose sanctions on your central bank but I had no options but to approve it since a Congress majority had approved the decision.”

Although FARS is by no means a reliable news source, the above statements become a bit more interesting in view of Iran’s statement this weekend in defense of Obama, suggesting that Romney is getting ready to steal the election from him:

Iran’s government mouthpiece Press TV is panicking over the prospect of a defeat for President Barack Obama and warns that Mitt Romney will steal the election through “black-box” voting machines that “manufacture election outcomes.”

It also charged that the polls – virtually all of which now show Romney in the lead or at least in a dead heat – are fraudulent.

Electoral College Tie Could Result in President Romney & Vice President Biden

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Though far-fetched, technically it could happen that votes by the House and Senate to break an Electoral College tie would pair the Republican presidential nominee with the Democratic vice president.

For the first time in 135 years, the presidential race might depend upon Congress. With three weeks to go before the election, a 269-269 Electoral College tie is unlikely but possible, experts said. It could result, for example, if Romney wins all the swing states except Ohio, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

In four U.S. elections, including 2000, the person who finished second in the popular vote won the presidency. The House decided two elections, including one with an Electoral College tie, and a bipartisan commission of House, Senate and Supreme Court members decided a third, according to the House historian.

“In a rather archaic tradition,” says Kyle Kondik, a tie throws the presidential decision to the House — which has a current GOP majority. Each of the 50 state delegations casts a single vote and the candidate who wins the most votes wins the White House, said Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.

“Republicans appear to be heading to comfortably holding their majority” in the 113th Congress, said Jeff Brauer, a Keystone College political scientist, “which means the advantage would go to Mitt Romney.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-President Bush Says He’s Skeptical of Romney’s Chances of Winning

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Former president George W. Bush is keeping up with the presidential race, and isn’t crazy about what he sees from Republican candidate Mitt Romney, says a new report.

In a long profile of brother Jeb Bush, New York magazine reports that George W. “gets a regular drip feed of political news from (former aide) Karl Rove and others — he’s been critical of Romney’s campaign and skeptical of his chances.”

There is no elaboration.

The former president — who is an issue in the campaign; President Obama often cites the bad economy and two wars he inherited from Bush — is also “living as invisibly as possible,” reports Joe Hagan in New York magazine.

In addition to golf and Texas Rangers baseball games, Bush also has a new hobby, the article says: Painting, “making portraits of dogs and arid Texas landscapes. ‘I find it stunning that he has the patience to sit and take instruction and paint,’ says a former aide.”

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.

Biden is wrong: The Romney/Ryan ticket is Kennedy-esque

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During last week’s vice-presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently raised an interesting question when he dismissed comparisons between Paul Ryan and John F. Kennedy: Which presidential ticket is demonstrating more political courage?

Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy’s 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, honored eight U.S. senators who risked their political careers by putting principle above politics. Kennedy wrote in Profiles that courage is “the most admirable of human virtues.” His brother Robert added in a forward to a later edition that President Kennedy was “fond of quoting Dante, who wrote, ‘the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.’”

The Obama-Biden ticket is maintaining its neutrality in the face of a great moral crisis that will have a profoundly negative impact on Americans for decades to come if not faced squarely and very soon. President Obama and his vice president continue to act as if the federal government has not run trillion-dollar-plus deficits the past four years. “We just need to get the wealthy to pay their fair share and along with war savings everything will be okay.”

Supposed war savings can be dismissed out of hand as a means of ending the massive deficits of the last four years. The war in Iraq is over (and has been), and the nation still had a $1.1 trillion deficit in FY 2012. The war in Afghanistan is winding down, but it costs a relatively modest $120 billion per year.

Paul Ryan rightly pointed out during the vice-presidential debate that there are not enough rich people and small businesses to pay for the current $3.8 trillion federal spending level (up $700 billion since Bush left office) much less Obama’s proposed “investments.” Romney noted at this week’s debate that the top five percent of taxpayers already contribute nearly 60 percent of all federal income tax revenue (and the top 10 percent of taxpayers pay higher taxes than their peers in most other industrialized nations). So Obama’s fair-share argument does not hold water. Raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to levels the president has proposed (from 35% to 39.6%) may raise an additional $50 billion and the new Obamacare taxes on investment income may raise a few billion more, but not if raising taxes on job creators — and the businesses they own and invest in — causes the overall economy to slow even more.

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.

Video: NBC News Now Using Halloween Mask Sales to Predict Obama Win

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Now that all of the polling nationwide is showing Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney in the lead, NBC has turned to the scientific “Halloween mask sales” statistic to predict a President Barrack Obama reelection. Seriously.

The only problem is, the NBC Today Show relied on statistics that are at least three weeks old.

Hear the NBC discussion on this “scientific” approach to predicting November’s victor:

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.

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.