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Karl Rove ‘offended’ by Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler ad

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Rachel Weiner - Feb. 07 (News Report) - A Chrysler ad aired during the Super Bowl Sunday night has inspired ire among some Republicans and admiration among some Democrats — with both sides seeing a political message that boosts President Obama.

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Obama: Recess appointment is his "obligation"

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

USA Today - By Aamer Madhani - Jan. 04 (News Report) - In a speech in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Obama made it official that he would install the former Ohio general as the head of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through recess appointment and hammered Republicans for blocking Cordray's appointment.

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Wary Hispanic voters favor Obama over GOP rivals

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Peter Wallsten - Dec. 28 (News Report) - President Obama holds a wide lead among Hispanic voters when matched against potential Republican challengers, even as Hispanics grow wary of his administration’s stepped-up deportation policies and less supportive of his overall job performance, according to a new poll.

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Obama Strikes Populist Chord With Speech on GOP Turf

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By A. G. Sulzberger - Dec. 07 (News Report) - Laying out a populist argument for his re-election next year, President Obama ventured into the conservative heartland on Tuesday to deliver his most pointed appeal yet for a strong governmental role through tax and regulation to level the economic playing field.

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Panel Fails to Reach Deal on Plan for Deficit Reduction

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jennifer Steinhauer, Robert Pear, Helene Cooper - Nov. 22 (News Report) - After one last bout of fitful but futile talks, Congressional negotiators conceded the obvious: that the joint Congressional committee charged with drafting a deficit reduction package would miss its deadline this week. But they did not quite give up the ghost of a chance that a solution might be found later.

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Senate Democrats offer $3 trillion debt deal

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lori Montgomery - Oct. 26 (News Report) - Senate Democrats are urging the debt-reduction supercommittee to pursue a far-reaching agreement to slice $3 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade through significant cuts to federal health programs, including Medicare, and as much as $1.3 trillion in new taxes.

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Obama's jobs bill needs changes, says Harry Reid

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Scott Wong - Oct. 05 (News Report) - Pressured to take up President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that the Senate could move forward this week on a modified version that changes the funding for the $447 billion package. The Nevada Democrat has proposed replacing the legislation’s current “pay-fors” with a 5 percent surtax on those who earn more than $1 million a year. The tax increase, backed by the White House, would raise about $445 billion over 10 years, nearly the entire cost of the package.

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Fact checking the GOP debate in Orlando

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Glenn Kessler - Sep. 23 (Fact Check) - Another lengthy presidential debate, and more bogus claims and counterclaims to check. Let’s see what the candidates got wrong this time at last night’s debate in Orlando, Fla., hosted by Fox News, Google and the Republican Party of Florida.

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Obama, taxes and the ‘Buffett Rule’

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Glenn Kessler - Sep. 21 (Fact Check) - We have to admit we had overlooked this part of President Obama’s Rose Garden speech until we read David Brooks’s column in The New York Times Tuesday accusing the president of being misleading on the issue of taxes. “He repeated the old half-truth about millionaires not paying as much in taxes as their secretaries,” Brooks wrote. We’re not going to get into an argument between Brooks and Obama. We understood Obama’s comments to be specific to the situation that investor Warren Buffett outlined in his famous opinion article in The New York Times, in which he noted that he paid a lower tax rate than other people in his office. But, looking at Obama’s words again, we can see why Brooks thought Obama was saying that in general middle-class families were paying more in taxes than millionaires. (For the record, the White House says that was not Obama’s intent.)

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Obama turns fire on Republicans

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dan Balz - Sep. 19 (News Report) - The deficit-reduction speech President Obama delivered from the Rose Garden on Monday underscores the sharp strategic pivot he and his administration have made in the wake of the debt ceiling negotiations. Call it lessons learned the hard way, or the necessary readjustment by a politician, but the Obama who spoke on Monday was in a far different place politically and stylistically from the president who tried to pull off a grand bargain with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in July and August.

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Medicare cost-cutting board is under fire - The Washington Post

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By N. C. Aizenman - Aug. 12 (Investigative Report) - Known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, it has been touted by President Obama as an essential tool for curbing Medicare spending over the long term. Comprising 15 health-care experts to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, the IPAB will have unparalleled authority to make cuts to the health insurance program for the elderly if yearly spending exceeds the law’s targets by as soon as 2015. Congress could overrule the panel, but only if it musters a super-majority in the Senate or comes up with an alternate plan that saves the same amount.

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Debt 'Super Committee' Nearly Complete, At 9 Members

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - Aug. 10 (News Report) - BILL CHAPPELL The new "Debt Supercommittee" created by the recent deficit ceiling deal now has 9 of its 12 members, as House Speaker John Boehner says Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas will co-chair the new committee, according to the AP. The panel's task will be to create a bipartisan plan for cutting the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion. That money could come from a combination of spending cuts and raising revenue. If the panel fails to reach an agreement, automatic cuts would be made — and the automated cuts were crafted to be unpalatable to both of the major political parties.

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CNN Poll: Time to clean house in Congress?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - Aug. 09 (Poll) - Need more evidence that Americans are extremely angry at Congress? Well, here you go: According to a new national survey, for the first time ever most Americans don't believe their own member of Congress deserves re-election.

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S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Charles Riley - Aug. 05 (Breaking News) - Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the credit rating of the United States, stripping the world's largest economy of its prized AAA status. In July, S&P placed the United States' rating on "CreditWatch with negative implications" as the debt ceiling debate devolved into partisan bickering.

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Dems suggest compromise on debt

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Carrie Budoff Brown - Jul. 29 (Breaking News) - Politico - The president would be able to lift the debt ceiling unless two-thirds of both chambers override his veto.

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How the Deficit Got This Big

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Teresa Tritch - Jul. 25 (News Analysis) - A look at how the economy went from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era to the current deficit. With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions. Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non- defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.

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Unfavorable Ratings for Both Major Parties Near Record Highs

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nate Silver - Jul. 23 (News Report) - A new CNN poll finds that 55 percent of voters have a negative view of the Republican Party, tied for their second-highest unfavorable score since CNN began asking this question in 1992. The Republicans also achieved a 55 percent unfavorable rating in a poll conducted in April 2009, although the party’s all-time high, 57 percent, was recorded as the House of Representatives was in the process of impeaching Bill Clinton in December, 1998. The news for Democrats is not any better. Some 49 percent of voters now hold a negative view of the party, according to the poll. Although this figure is slightly better than for Republicans, it matches the Democrats’ record high unfavorable rating of September 2010 and is part of an upward trajectory that has persisted for the past three years. The combined unfavorable score for both parties — 104 percent — is also a record, and represents the first time that the figure has been above 100.

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No Grand Bargain: Boehner Walks Away From Big Deficit Deal

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Jay Newton Small - Jul. 10 (News Report) - After days of hype in Washington, House Speaker John Boehner threw cold water on the prospect of a grand bargain on deficit reduction Saturday night, effectively scaling back negotiations on a deal tied to the effort to raise the debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. “Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes,” Boehner said in a statement. “I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.” The decision to seek a smaller, $2 trillion deal (door No. 2, as it turns out) came after an afternoon call between Boehner and Obama. Boehner suggested dealing with most revenue issues in a sweeping tax reform bill later in the year, a GOP leadership source said, but Democrats demanded that significant revenue increases be part of the debt ceiling deal — something Boehner felt couldn’t pass the House. Talks also broke down, the GOP source said, over cuts to entitlements — a measure House Democratic leaders have long said their members can’t swallow.

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Iowa Democrats: Party is trying to stay in the game

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Jul. 09 (News) -

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In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lori Montgomery - Jul. 07 (News Report) - President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.

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Tensions rise on Capitol Hill as America runs out of money

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Dominic Rushe - Jul. 03 (News Report) - Not so long ago, the Onion , America's satirical "newspaper", ran a story about what had happened to the real Barack Obama. You know, the one who was all about change and "the audacity of hope". Apparently, he had been kidnapped by an imposter bent on destroying the president by turning him into a "wishy-washy loser". But with another election looming, and a new financial crisis brewing across the Atlantic, the old Obama seems to be back. By 2 August the US must raise the legal limit on its $14.3 trillion debt or face dire consequences, and Republicans and Democrats have been locked in battle on Capitol Hill. With the crunch deadline approaching, Obama hit out at Republicans last week, saying they favoured corporate jet owners over children and the elderly. Those high-flying fat cats got six mentions in a speech that set out the president's combative stance. "Before we ask ...

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Deficit battle shaping up as GOP victory

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Lisa Mascaro, Christi Parsons - Jul. 02 (News Report) - Even as the political battle mounts over federal spending, the end result for federal policy is already visible — and clearly favors Republican goals of deep spending cuts and drastically fewer government services. President Obama entered the fray last week to insist that federal deficits can't be reduced through spending reductions alone. Federal tax revenue also must rise as part of whatever deficit reduction package Congress approves this summer, he said. Obama has been pushing to end a series of what he calls tax loopholes and tax breaks for the rich.

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General Reveals that Obama Ignored Military's Advice on Afghanistan

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Weekly Standard - By Stephen Hayes - Jun. 29 (News) - Lieutenant General John Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Afghanistan decision President Obama announced last week was not among the range of options the military provided to the commander in chief. Allen’s testimony directly contradicts claims from senior Obama administration officials from a background briefing before the president’s announcement.

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Inside Nancy Pelosi’s drive to win the House majority back for Democrats

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Karen Tumulty, Paul Kane - Jun. 27 (News Report) - Nancy Pelosi no longer has a balcony with the grandest view in Washington. The size of her staff has been cut by a third. And it took months, she said, to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke from the second-floor suite she received in her swap with now-House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

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With Weiner's exit, is his House seat safe for Democrats?

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:49:20 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Ron Scherer, Patrick Wall - Jun. 17 (News Analysis) - The House seat that disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner (D) of New York gave up on Thursday has long been considered bona fide Democratic territory, bolstered by a 3-to-1 party advantage in registered voters. But local Republicans have more than a glimmer of hope now that Mr. Weiner has resigned, after having tweeted lewd photos of himself to various women and lied about it.

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