GOP leader offers advice for addressing Mitt Romney's likability problem (via The Christian Science Monitor)
House majority whip Kevin McCarthy acknowledges that Mitt Romney trails Barack Obama in voter ratings on likability. But that factor won’t matter as much as it usually does in presidential elections, he argues, because financially pinched voters care so much more about the candidates' economic policies…
Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) agreed Wednesday to comply with the reprimands a House Ethics Committee report recommended after finding she showed "a callous disregard" for both her employees and her position in chasing re-election.
According to Yahoo! News, Richardson waived a hearing looking into the matter. A statement from her office said she had agreed to pay a fine by December 1, but did not identify the amount.
The report urged House members to fine Richardson $10,000 and reprimand her for seven ethics violations, including using her staff to work on her campaign on House office time and obstructing the investigation into her conduct by altering or destroying evidence and refusing to produce documents asked of her, ABC News reported.
“Through her actions, she demonstrated a callous disregard for her staff and the resources entrusted to her by the American people,” it said. “Her disrespect for boundaries between the official and the political realms, as well as the boundaries that define the Committee's jurisdiction, deserves a public reprimand."
The ruling could damage an already tough road to re-election for Richardson, who is facing fellow Democrat Rep. Janice Hahn, a former Los Angeles city council member in the November election. Hahn boasts the endorsement of the state Democratic party. California state rules allow for two members of the same party to square off in the general election if they are the top two vote-getters in the primaries.
Richardson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, was allegedly polling worse among black voters in the city than Hahn, whose father, L.A. Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, enjoyed great support in the black community.
[Laura Richardson image via ISAF on Flickr, Creative Commons licensed]
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) recently speculated that President Barack Obama's family could have conspired to fake his citizenship by announcing his birth with a "telegram from Kenya."
During a tele-townhall event recorded last week, King was asked why he wasn't "investigating Obama's ineligibility."
"Before he was sworn in for the presidency, we went down into the Library of Congress and we found a microfiche there of two newspapers -- only two newspapers in Hawaii -- each of them had published the birth of Barack Obama," the congressman explained. "It would have been awfully hard to fraudulently file the birth notice of Barack Obama being born in Hawaii and get that into our public libraries and that microfiche they keep of all the newspapers published."
King added: "That doesn’t mean there aren’t some other explanations on how they might’ve announced that by telegram from Kenya. The list goes on."
But the Iowa Republican concluded that there was no point "drilling into that now" because "even if it turned out that Barack Obama was conclusively not born in America, I don’t think we could get that case sold between now and November."
During his 2008 run for president, Barack Obama released his certificate of live birth. After so-called birthers continued to question his citizenship, the White House made the president's long form birth certificate available in 2011.
"I have to say that over the last two and a half years I have watched with bemusement, I've been puzzled at the degree to which this thing just kept on going," the president said last year. "We've had every official in Hawaii, Democrat and Republican, every news outlet that has investigated this, confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, August 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital."
"We've posted the certification that is given by the state of Hawaii on the Internet for everybody to see. People have provided affidavits that they, in fact, have seen this birth certificate. And yet this thing just keeps on going."
Watch this video from Rep. Steve King, uploaded Aug. 1, 2012.
(h/t: Think Progress)
Sarah Palin on Tuesday disagreed with Dick Cheney's assertion that the Republican Party had made a "mistake" by putting her on the 2008 ticket and then mocked the former Vice President Dick Cheney for shooting his friend in the face in 2006.
During an interview that aired on Sunday, Cheney had told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that it was important for presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney to handle his VP pick better than Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had in 2008.
“[T]he test to get on that small list has to be, is this person capable of being president of the United States?” Cheney explained.
“I like Gov. Palin, I’ve met her, I know her, she’s an attractive candidate, but based on her background — she had only been governor for two years — I don’t think she passed that test.”
Speaking to Fox News host Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday, Palin had her chance to respond.
"Well, seeing as how Dick -- excuse me, Vice President Cheney -- never misfires," Palin said, rolling her eyes, "then evidently he’s quite convinced that what he had evidently read about me by the lamestream media, having been written, what I believe is a false narrative over the last four years, evidently Dick Cheney believed that stuff and that’s a shame."
"So he characterized me as being a mistake," she added. "Here's where the mistake would have been, Greta, had I not answered the call. I was honored to get to run for vice president. I was honored to get the nomination. And I think the mistake would have been me deciding just, 'Hey, I love my 86, 87 percent approval rating up there in Alaska as the governor, moving and shaking and watching corrupt politicians and businessmen go to prison for crony capitalism.'"
"It would have been a mistake to have just hunkered down, just lived that luxurious -- if you will -- comfortable lifestyle in Alaska. Instead, we like so many other people across this country decided we will do all that we can to defend our republic, put America on the right track. And I believe I did the right thing."
Susteren noted that Cheney had also criticized Condoleeza Rice in his book, "In My Time."
"He's not afraid to say things about the women," the Fox News host observed. "But I don't know what that means."
"Everybody misfires once in a while," Palin shrugged. "In the GOP establishment, you know what I've found, Greta? Sometimes you're the Louisville Slugger, sometimes you're the ball. And evidently in these last months -- per many, many comments from those within the GOP establishment -- I'm the ball."
In fact, during a 2006 weekend quail hunt in Texas, Cheney had "misfired" and accidentally "peppered" his friend, 78-year-old Harry Whittington, in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.
Watch this video from Fox News' On the Record, broadcast July 31, 2012.
(h/t: Mediaite)
Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says GOP hopeful Mitt Romney was right to suggest that Israelis were superior to Palestinians because of their culture.
Palestinian officials on Monday had accused Romney of racism after he seemed to tell wealthy donors — including billionaire Sheldon Adelson — that Israelis were more economically successful because of their culture and intervention by God.
On Tuesday, however, the presumptive Republican nominee tried to walk back those remarks, telling Fox News that he "did not speak about the Palestinian culture."
And then later that day, Romney said he stood by his initial remarks.
"During my recent trip to Israel, I had suggested that the choices a society makes about its culture play a role in creating prosperity, and that the significant disparity between Israeli and Palestinian living standards was powerfully influenced by it," the former Massachusetts governor wrote in the National Review. "But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture?"
During an interview that was aired on Wednesday, CNN host Soledad O'Brien asked Gingrich if Romney had been correct about the differences between Israeli and Palestinian culture.
"I don't think he made a mistake in Israel," Gingrich explained. "I think the comments about culture were right, and I wish the elites of this country had the courage to look at the United Nations refugee camps [in the West Bank] and realize what an anti-human disaster those refugee camps are, how much they have been breeders of terrorism, how fundamentally wrong their design is and how much we have done a disservice to the people of Palestine and Palestinians by allowing them to be subjected to that kind of government run, totally inappropriate structure."
"So, there, I hope that Gov. Romney will stick to his guns," the former House Speaker added. "Let's have the argument."
According to the CIA, Israelis had a 2011 per capital income of $31,400, while Palestinians had a per capita income of just $2,900.
Activists have long said that Israel’s restrictions on trade and strict border blockade are responsible for crippling the Palestinian economy.
“Mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages have left four in five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid,” Amnesty International estimated in 2010. “As a form of collective punishment, Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law.”
Watch this video from the CNN's Starting Point, broadcast Aug. 1, 2012.
WASHINGTON — Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney will head out on a bus tour across battleground states in mid-August in the run up to the party convention in Tampa, Florida, his campaign said Tuesday.
Details were still being worked out, but an official in the campaign told AFP that the bus tour -- Romney's second since clinching his party's nomination in April -- will carry him through swing states widely seen as crucial to the outcome of the November election.
The roll out is expected on or shortly after August 10, some two and a half weeks before the Republican convention, when Romney is expected to be officially crowned the nominee.
The timing is leading to speculation that Romney, fresh off a heavily criticized trip to Britain, Israel and Poland that concluded Tuesday, may announce his running mate at that time and then head out on the road with him -- or her.
Sources familiar with the plans described to CNN a four-day bus tour through Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, and said prominent Republicans and campaign surrogates would join Romney at each of the stops.
"Sounds like VP week," CNN quoted a Republican familiar with the schedule but who did not want to be identified discussing campaign plans.
"Hitting the big markets in the big states. It just makes sense."
Romney is locked in a neck-and-neck race for the White House against President Barack Obama. Both campaigns have acknowledged the importance of about 10 swing states where the outcomes will likely decide the election.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a division of New York University's School of Law has published a report discussing the huge numbers of votes that aren't counted in each election because of mistakes by voters, most of which are caused by bad ballot design. The report outlines a set of directives that Secretaries of State all over the United States can adopt to ensure fairer, more accurate vote counts in elections.
It is estimated that some 400,000 votes were lost or miscounted in the 2008 and 2010 national elections because of voter errors, particularly in absentee and provisional ballots. Absentee and provisional voting are on the rise in the U.S., making clarity and ease of voting a priority in making certain that every person who has the right to vote is able to do so.
The Brennan Center is a "non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on the fundamental issues of democracy and justice," meaning a group of lawyers and lawyers in training who work together to ensure fairness in elections, in courtrooms and in the pursuit and prosecution of the fight against global terrorism. The new report explains how poor design and layout of ballots costs thousands of citizens their vote in each election, and "outlines simple measures election officials can take before November to cure design defects and ensure every voter can cast a ballot that counts."
Votes are lost every election because of common design flaws that make ballots difficult to follow. Some communities, particularly the elderly, the disabled and racial and ethnic minorities, are more prone to the errors that come about as a result of poor ballot design. One need only point to the mess in Florida in 2000 and the confusion among elderly and minority voters about the notorious "butterfly ballot" to understand why this is such a concern for voters and for election officials.
The Brennan Center finds, fortunately, that these issues are solvable. The report suggests that districts who are concerned with these issues make extensive use of the data available about lost votes in previous elections and create a checklist of best design practices. Then, the report advises extensive ballot testing, to make certain that people are able to vote for the officials they want, and that the ballot layout is intelligible. And finally, the report suggests that officials make voters aware ahead of time of any potential problems with their ballots.
You can read the full report, embedded below, via The Brennan Center:
Better Design Better Elections Slideshow
(image via Shutterstock)
Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) is trying to walk back remarks he made yesterday in Israel, according to Talking Points Memo. In an interview with Fox News's Carl Cameron, Romney insisted that his remarks were misunderstood, that he "did not speak about the Palestinian culture or about the decisions made in their economy" and that any negative judgments against the Palestinians people were being fabricated by his listeners.
On an international tour that has been plagued by missteps and dogged by an increasingly restive press contingent, Romney made remarks yesterday to a group of donors at a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser regarding the disparity between the "economic vitality" of Israel and Palestine. Disregarding the crippling effects that heavy embargos and economic sanctions have had on the Palestinian economy, Romney blithely attributed the fact that Israelis generally make several times the average annual wages of Palestinians to the "power of culture and a few other things," including "the hand of Providence."
Those pronouncements kicked off a firestorm around the world. In his interview with Cameron, Romney tried to spin away the controversy, insisting that he never meant to criticize the Palestinian people.
The White House has asked for clarification from Romney on further remarks he made deeming Jerusalem the capital of Israel, a political hot-button issue in the region's ongoing peace negotiations. Tel Aviv is officially the capital of Israel, but conservative Jews and Zionists believe that the holy city of Jerusalem is the rightful capital.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat spoke for many when he asked, "What is this man doing here?" In an interview with the Associated Press, he said, "Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn’t this racism?”
In today's Fox News interview, Romney demurred when asked to explain his cultural and economic theories about the Middle East in more detail, preferring to offhandedly invoke a more standard "personal responsibility" Republican narrative.
“That is an interesting topic that perhaps can deserve scholarly analysis but I actually didn’t address that,” Romney said. “I certainly don’t intend to address that during my campaign. Instead I will point out that the choices a society makes have a profound impact on the economy and the vitality of that society.”
Watch video of Romney's interview with Cameron, embedded via YouTube, below:
A Tennessee man was recently arrested after he allegedly assaulted his live-in girlfriend because he became suspicious that she was planning an affair with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Lowell Turpin, 40, confronted his girlfriend earlier this month when he saw a photo of a man who he did not recognize on her Facebook page, according to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun.
"Mr. Turpin saw a picture of an unknown (to him) male on Ms. [Crystal] Gray's Facebook page, and angrily demanded to know who the male was," Anderson County Sheriff Deputy Bradley Prewitt wrote.
Gray explained that the picture was of Romney, but Turpin became angrier and started "smashing the laptop against the wall" when he suspected that she was trying to communicate with her friends through Facebook.
At that point, Turpin struck Gray "about the right side of her face, near her mouth, with a closed fist," the report said.
Gray also told Prewitt that she had been repeatedly abused by Turpin, with the most recent incident occurring about a week and a half earlier. She had even fled to a battered women's shelter while the couple was living in South Carolina.
Turpin was arrested on domestic assault charges in connection with incident on July 22. He remained in the Anderson County Jail as of Monday.
Photo: Anderson County Sheriff's Office.
(h/t: Gawker)
Televangelist Pat Robertson on Tuesday warned that same sex marriage would eventually destroy the Democratic Party.
On Monday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) confirmed that a fifteen-member panel had unanimously voted to add marriage equality to the Democratic Party platform ahead of the Democratic National Convention in September.
"About 2 percent of the population are homosexual, 1 percent of the population is lesbian," Robertson said during the Tuesday broadcast of CBN's The 700 Club. "That’s a tiny group and every time this initiative has been brought to the ballot where the people have a chance to vote they vote overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage."
"For the Democrats to go out on that limb, it just seems like to me that they are further alienating themselves from the mainstream of America."
He added: "If that’s what they want to do, fine, but it will mean the death knell of their party, it seems like to me, and of course that’s what they’re doing but maybe they have a death wish."
Earlier this year, the TV preacher called President Barack Obama a "shameless panderer" for his support of equal marriage rights for same sex couples.
“The bottom line is a male is equipped in a particular fashion and a female is equipped in a particular fashion,” Robertson explained in May. “The union of two men doesn’t bring forth anything except disease, apparently, and suffering. And the same thing of the union of two women.”
“It’s a holy union ordained of God and for these politicians to make it a political football, it makes you sick,” the televangelist continued. “Obama is a shameless panderer to special interests, and this campaign is enough to make you sick at your stomach.”
Watch this video from CBN's The 700 Club via Right Wing Watch, broadcast July 31, 2012.
Desperate to be the first to learn of White House hopeful Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick? There's an app for that.
Continuing their strategy of teasing out the Republican's process for choosing his running mate, the Romney campaign Tuesday rolled out a smartphone application they say will serve as the first official distribution channel for the news.
"The historic announcement is getting closer," said Beth Myers, the Romney campaign senior adviser whom he tasked to head the secretive vice presidential search operation. Romney faces President Barack Obama in November's election.
"With this new app, users can be the first to know the second member of America's Comeback Team."
The free app, called "Mitt's VP," is available on the iPhone and Android platforms.
Tradition dictates that the challenger unveils his running mate either in the immediate run-up to his party's national convention, or during the event itself, as Republican nominee John McCain did in 2008.
This year's Republican convention takes place August 27-30, but observers began chattering heatedly in recent weeks about how team Romney might make an early announcement in order to deflect the punishing criticism of his business record and his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns.
Myers fueled the speculation last Friday, when she recommended 13 Republican politicians or former administration officials that people should follow on Twitter. Almost all of them are considered potential VP candidates.
The consensus among experts and national media is that Romney is focusing on two front-runners for the job: Minnesota's former governor Tim Pawlenty and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.
Pawlenty has a personable working-man connection with voters that Romney, a multimillionaire former businessman and investor, lacks, while Portman has extensive Washington experience and could help Romney win the crucial battleground state of Ohio.
Both are considered safe choices who wouldn't rock the boat or stir controversy -- something that Romney may be eager to avoid after McCain's choice of Alaska's then-governor Sarah Palin proved to be a debacle.
Other potential Romney picks include Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez.
A Romney aide frustrated by questions about a series of gaffes the former Massachusetts governor made while Britain, Israel and Poland exploded on Monday and told reporters to "shove it."
During a visit to a memorial to Pope John Paul II in Poland, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney ignored questions from reporters about his overseas gaffes and his suggestion that Israelis were culturally superior to Palestinians, but traveling press secretary Rick Gorka responded with rage.
"This is a holy site for the Polish people," Gorka said. "Show some respect."
"We haven't had another chance to ask some questions," the reporter explained.
"Kiss my ass; this is a holy site for the Polish people," Gorka shot back, adding, "Shove it."
The aide later called two of the reporters to apologize, according to Politico.
"It was inappropriate," Gorka admitted.
Watch this video from ABC News, broadcast July 31, 2012.
WASHINGTON — The White House called Monday on Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to explain recent remarks including his apparent endorsement of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a position that counters US policy.
Romney, in the midst of a three-nation tour, gave a speech Sunday in Jerusalem where he hailed the city as "the capital of Israel," in apparent support of a position held by the Jewish state but never accepted by the global community.
The comment was swiftly rejected by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat as "unacceptable" and "harmful to American interests in our region."
But after Romney made fresh controversial statements Monday to donors in Jerusalem including suggesting Israeli "culture" helped explain the country's economic success -- a position Erakat denounced as "racist" -- President Barack Obama's office urged Romney to clarify his comments.
"One of the challenges of being an actor on the international stage, particularly when you're traveling to such a sensitive part of the world, is that your comments are very closely scrutinized for meaning, for nuance, for motivation," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said about the Monday remarks.
The comments have left some people "scratching their heads a little bit," Earnest told reporters at the daily White House briefing. "But I would leave it to governor Romney to further explain what he meant and what he intended when he said that."
Earnest said Romney's position on Jerusalem, the eastern half of which Palestinians claim as the capital of a promised future state, runs counter to longstanding US policy.
"It's the view of this administration that the capital is something that should be determined in final status negotiations between the parties," Earnest said.
"If Mr. Romney disagrees with that position, he's also disagreeing with the position that was taken by presidents like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan."
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