https://www.rt.com/business/452148-us-venezuela-oil-imports-surge/
https://www.rt.com/news/452158-blumenthal-venezuela-supermarket-shelves/
https://www.oann.com/maduro-closes-venezuelas-border/
http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/855689?hpt=hp_t2
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/12/expanding_the_vp_debate_third_party
http://itsafreecountry.org
LIVE STREAM OF VP DEBATE YOU CAN WATCH NOW CLICK THIS LINK
ALSO if you want to watch SIMULTANEOUS tracking of focus groups VOTERS REACTIONS to the debate
see it here
http://www.cnn.com/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49378154
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/11/what-biden-must-do/?hpt=hp_t1
EXCERPT of text:
But the lessons for Joe Biden - as he thinks about his upcoming debate with Paul Ryan - derive less from watching Obama than from watching Romney. Romney had one of the best performances I can remember watching in a presidential debate ever - it was punchy, intelligent, empathetic. There is no question there were substantive problems, most notably the fact that Romney's tax plan simply doesn't add up - he cannot do a 20 percent tax rate cut while also retaining all the big deductions for most people without massively adding to the deficit. He certainly can't do it while also promising to maintain Medicare and Social Security as is for current retirees. But Romney was good enough that he was able to convincingly argue that 2 plus 2 equals 5.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57529861/vp-debate-impact-may-be-more-personal-than-electoral/
http://www.nj.com/us-politics/index.ssf/2012/10/5_things_to_watch_in_vp_debate.html
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1852870922001/rep-mckeon-white-house-libya-response-total-joke
Romney unofficially clinches nomination
Fox News Poll finds Obama currently 7% ahead of Romney
at the same time 43% of those polled say Obama has done nothing to help the economy
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1644398175001/new-polls-on-wh-race-economy
Romney Rolls: Projected to Win in Wis., Md., DC
Mitt Romney swept the three Republican primaries tonight, beating his main challenger, Rick Santorum, in what has become mostly a formality as the perennial frontrunner jogs toward the party's presidential nomination.
ABC News projected that Romney would defeat second-place Santorum in Maryland, in Wisconsin, and in Washington, D.C., where Santorum was not on the ballot.
Looking more inevitable than ever, Romney strode through the latest primary contests with a parade of establishment and revered GOP figures hoisting him up. His latest endorsements came from former President George H.W. Bush, budget idol Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and tea party scion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
"Republicans are unifying," Ryan told Romney's supporters Tuesday night in Wisconsin.
Get More News at ABC Politics, ABC's Primary Scorecard and a Different Spin at OTUS News
Already Romney had indicated that mentally, he'd moved on from the primary and on to the general election, after decidedly winning the primary in Illinois, a state in which Santorum's blue-collar appeal could have boosted him but didn't.
This week, the Republican National Committee -- which technically stays out of the primary until a nominee is decided -- announced it would start raising money jointly with the Romney campaign.
In Wisconsin, voters seemed to agree. Exit polls showed that regardless of their choice, 80 percent of them said they expected Romney to win the nomination, even as half of them said the former Massachusetts governor was "not conservative enough."
In a speech to supporters in Wisconsin, Romney, who has been dogged by charges that as a mega-millionaire he doesn't understand working-class values, called President Obama "out of touch" after being surrounded by people saying that "you're doing a great jobs."
"Out-of-touch liberals like Barack Obama say they want a strong economy, but in everything they do, they show they don't like business very much," he said. "But the economy is simply the product of all the nation's businesses added together. So it's like saying you like an omelet but you don't like eggs."
Despite Romney's wins, Santorum showed no signs of leaving the race.
"We have now reached the point where it's halftime," he told his fans in Pennsylvania, his home state. "Half the delegates in this process have been selected. And who's ready to charge out of the locker room in Pennsylvania for a strong second half?"
Santorum also put his scorn for the mainstream GOP on center stage, jabbing at Romney again over the famous "Etch A Sketch" comment his adviser made and pushing back against the party's power brokers.
"Time and time again, the Republican establishment and aristocracy have shoved down the throats of the Republican Party and people across this country moderate Republicans, because, of course, we have to win by getting people in the middle," he said to cheers.
Romney won the majority of voters in many demographics, according to exit polls. For example, among the 40 percent of Maryland voters who said beating Obama was the most important characteristic for the eventual nominee, Romney won over 72 percent of them. He also won 65 percent of the vote among those who said experience is most important.
With recent polls showing Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney either trailing or at best tied with Rick Santorum in the Michigan primary, some Republican leaders are starting to get nervous.
One "prominent Republican senator" told ABC News senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl on Friday that "if Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate," because with such a weak nominee "we'd get killed" in the general election.
He insisted that he expects Romney to eventually prevail in Michigan, but stated that "if he can't even win in Michigan, where his family is from, where he grew up ... he'd be too damaged" to run a successful presidential campaign.
The unidentified source also expressed the opinion that neither Rick Santorum nor Newt Gingrich would be an acceptable choice, because they would "lose 35 states," and named former Florida Governor Jeb Bush as his preferred alternative.
Meanwhile, Romney continues to come under fire from a variety of directions, with Salon's Glenn Greenwald now accusing the national finance co-chair of Romney's campaign - who is also a million-dollar donor to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future Super-PAC - of using threats to silence his critics.
According to Greenwald, Idaho billionaire Frank VanderSloot has previously run into legal problems involving charges that his dietary supplement company was running a pyramid scheme and that it was deceiving customers about its products.
"But it is VanderSloot's chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics - magazines, journalists, and bloggers - that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention," Greenwald writes. "In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices. .... He has been using this abusive tactic in Idaho for years: suppressing legitimate political speech by threatening or even commencing lawsuits against even the most obscure critics."
"Numerous journalists and bloggers in Idaho - who want to write critically about VanderSloot's vast funding of right-wing political causes - are petrified even to mention his name for fear of these threats," Greenwald continues. "As his work on the Romney campaign brings him national notoriety, he is now aiming these tactics beyond Idaho."
Greenwald goes on to document his charges against VanderSloot in detail, focusing on the case of Idaho independent journalist and LGBT spokesperson Jody May-Chang, who "is determined not to succumb to this bullying or to relinquish her right to opine and report on the conduct of a very significant political figure in her state."
"Anyone who is the national finance co-chair of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign deserves probing, substantial scrutiny," Greenwald concludes. "That's equally true of someone who continues to use their vast wealth to influence the outcome of our elections and our most inflammatory political debates. And it's certainly true of someone who has made it a regular practice of threatening journalists, bloggers and activists who shine light on his political and business practices."
Columbus, Ohio -- Newt Gingrich took a page out of the history books Monday to advocate for his vision of building a colony on the moon, saying America isn't a country that is "stingy and afraid" but one that has reinvented itself over and over to create a better future.
The candidate blasted his rivals Rick Santorum and and Mitt Romney for assuming his call for a moon colony would involve more federal funding, saying that their reactions were proof that the Republican establishment is just a "cheap version of the Democratic establishment."
Tuesday marked the first day of multiple presidential nominating contests, with non-binding elections being held in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Santorum and Romney are positioned to do well in those states and Gingrich appeared to avoid discussing the results by visiting the Super Tuesday state of Ohio -- where early voting has just begun - to present what his campaign has touted as "bold" solutions for America.
"Our elites are now so defeated, so cynical, so lacking in ambition that when I say let's have a bold program, it's met with derision." Gingrich said.
"Why did my two Republican competitors instinctively decide we couldn't go into space? Because they're cheap," Gingrich said, explaining he wanted to "unleash the American spirit" and make NASA more efficient, not spend more federal dollars. "They have no idea how technology works and they have no idea about how to create the future. And they think in narrow little boxes about government. But visionary people -- this is why I'm a Reaganite -- Reagan got it."
Arriving in Dayton, the hometown of the Wright Brothers, Gingrich argued the bicycle mechanics would never have built the first successful airplane had they waited around for outside funding to fulfill their dream.
"Can you imagine the modern era, everybody would have said to the Wright Brothers, have you applied for a federal grant?" Gingrich said to an amused crowd of over 400 people packed into Memorial Hall. "They wouldn't have gotten it. They had no credentials to justify a bureaucrat in Washington sending them money. So the result was they didn't wait around and ask, they just did it."
Gingrich said his campaign was built on the "tradition of the Wright brothers," which he described as "entrepreneurial pro-growth conservatism."
"I'm happy to debate my opponents on whether or not a bold, visionary exciting job-creating future that secures our national security by having us lead the way rather than China or Russia or India, whether that's the right path for a strong, prosperous America," Gingrich said.
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/02/07/gingrich-gop-establishment-cheap-version-democratic-establishment#ixzz1llQqW41V
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/politics/gop-debate/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
http://www.prisonplanet.com/romney-doesnt-know-whats-in-ndaa-vaccines-dropped-from-the-sky-more.html
The Obama administration now faces a key legal and political dilemma -- what to do about the recent decision from a federal appeals court that said the new law's mandate that every uninsured American must buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
Many political analysts think the White House will try to delay Supreme Court consideration as long as possible.
"They definitely don't want to see it go to the Supreme Court until after the elections," said Kirsten Powers, a former Democratic operative and a Fox News analyst. "So my expectation is they would do whatever they can to slow walk this so that this does not get to the Supreme Court where possibly the individual mandate could be struck down which would be very damaging for the administration."
There is no doubt the health care law is headed for the Supreme Court -- the only question is when. The recent decision by a panel of judges from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta is only the broadest challenge to the law, brought by 26 states and the nation's largest association of small business owners. But there are multiple, conflicting appellate court rulings and huge stakes for the case.
"This is the most important constitutional cases of the decade, " said Greg Katsas, one of many lawyers challenging the new law. "You have two conflicting opinions, and you have one Court of Appeals striking down a federal statute. Either of those makes the case appropriate for Supreme Court review."
The 11th Circuit only invalidated the individual mandate, arguing Congress did not have the power to force people to buy insurance or any other product. As far as the rest of the health care law is concerned, its ruling only said Congress did have the power to create the other provisions.
But would they work without the individual mandate? Neither the president nor the critics think it would and that's one reason the administration may want to avoid an early Supreme Court decision.
"Regardless of whether the courts ultimately strike down the entire law, if they strike down the individual mandate as unconstitutional, the reform doesn't hang together and ultimately Congress will have to rework it in its entirety," said former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin.
The president seems to agree, arguing on the campaign trail in Minnesota this week that the new law could not work without the individual mandate.
"If an insurance company has to take you, has to insure you, even if you're sick," the president explained, "but you don't have an individual mandate, then what would everybody do? They would wait until they get sick, and then you'd buy health insurance, right?"
"You can't not have health insurance," the president continued, "then go to the emergency room, and each of us, who've done the responsible thing and have health insurance, suddenly we now have to pay the premiums for you. That's not fair."
So one might think the president has some interest in getting a quick decision from the Supreme Court.
But most analysts believe the White House will try to delay a decision as long as it can-- first, by asking the full appeals court to rehear the case, which could postpone a final decision there for months. Then, the administration could take the maximum time to request Supreme Court consideration, hoping to push a final decision past the 2012 election.
"It's not a politically-winning issue for them," Powers said. "All anybody cares about right now are jobs and economic growth and they don't want to be reminded about health care."
So the administration's strategy may be to postpone final judgment until after the election, and save the president potential embarrassment, but one of the lawyers challenging the law says the country deserves to know sooner rather than later.
"People have to invest millions if not billions of dollars in revamping the Medicaid program, re-designing health insurance programs, saving for the mandate," said Katsas said. "All of those sorts of decisions have to be made now by people who need to know what the rules are."
So an early decision would prevent money from being squandered if the law were eventually struck down after all that spending. And that is a judgment the president may be reluctant to face while running for reelection.
"That would be a major blow in the middle of a campaign season where they would have to then ... re-litigate the whole healthcare debate in a way that they just don't want to," Powers said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/19/white-house-faces-political-dilemma-on-health-law-challenge/#ixzz1V3OPjPDA
One clear prediction most could make already on Rick Perry's Presidential bid: Chris Matthews won't be apart of any of the Texas governor's campaign rallies.
A day before Perry officially announced his bid for the Republican nomination of President, the MSNBC host slammed Perry on his Hardball show, challenging the integrity of the Texas governor.
"He looks like a clown," Matthews said. "He dresses very fancy, there's something about the way that he puts himself together that doesn't look authentic."
He added: "There's something about him that doesn't add up to me. Maybe it's this Texas B.S., this boots and tuxedo thing they do down there. Why does it work? Outside of Texas it doesn't travel very well."
Earlier in the segment, guest James Moore wasn't as condescending as Matthews on the governor, but still offered a perspective that won't completely warm the hearts of Perry's supporters.
"This man is quite possibly the best, most instinctive politician Texas has ever had since LBJ," he said. "He's a horrible governor Chris, don't make a mistake about that, but his instincts are good."
WATCH: Video From MSNBC, on August 12, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/chris-matthews-on-perry-he-looks-like-a-clown/
If it had been revealed that GE's - CEO - Jeffrey Immelt once hired an undocumented nanny, or defaulted on his mortgage, he would be forced to resign as head of President Barack Obamaâ??s â??Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.â?? But the fact that General Electric, where Immelt is CEO, didnâ??t pay taxes on its $14.5 billion profit last yearâ??and indeed is asking for a $3.2 billion tax rebateâ??has not produced a word of criticism from the president, who in January praised Immelt as a business leader who â??understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy.â??
What it takes, evidently, is shifting profit and jobs abroad: Only one out of three GE workers is now based in the U.S., and almost two-thirds of the companyâ??s profit is sheltered in its foreign operations. Thanks to changes in the tax law engineered when another avowedly pro-business Democrat, Bill Clinton, was president, U.S. multinational financial companies can avoid taxes on their international scams. And financial scams are what GE excelled in for decades, when GE Capital, its financial unit, which specialized in credit card, consumer loan and housing mortgage debt, accounted for most of GEâ??s profits.
Thatâ??s right, GE, along with General Motors with its toxic GMAC financial unit, came to look more like an investment bank than a traditional industrial manufacturing giant that once propelled this economy and ultimately it ran into the same sort of difficulties as the Wall Street hustlers. As The New York Timesâ?? David Kocieniewski, who broke the GE profit story, put it: â??Because its lending division, GE Capital, has provided more than half of the companyâ??s profit in some recent years, many Wall Street analysts view G.E. not as a manufacturer but as an unregulated lender that also makes dishwashers and M.R.I. machines.â??
Maximizing corporate profits at the taxpayerâ??s expense is what top CEOs are good at, and after all it was Immelt who presided over GE when it got so heavily into the subprime mortgage business that it needed a government bailout to avoid bankruptcy. This was before Obama made him a trusted adviser.
Back at the end of 2008, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. government had agreed to insure an additional $139 billion in GE Capitalâ??s debt holdings, the second such intervention within a month, adding, â??The companyâ??s exposure to the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s has cut its market value by more than half this year.â?? A Washington Post exposé titled â??How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescueâ?? documented the power of Immeltâ??s lobbying operation in Washington. GE was not initially deemed eligible for the debt guarantee program offered to failing banks, â??but regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the scenes appeals from GE.â?? And it worked; as the Post reported, â??The governmentâ??s actions have been `powerful and helpfulâ?? to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged.â?? For the next two years, GE would still report enormous profits without paying taxes, adding insult to the injury that financial shenanigans had inflicted on ordinary taxpayers who bailed the company out.
On Feb. 6, 2009, Immelt sent a contrite annual letter to GE shareholders, admitting, â??Our Companyâ??s reputation was tarnished because we werenâ??t the â??safe and reliableâ?? growth company that is our aspiration.â?? While conceding his own culpability in GEâ??s downturn, Immelt predicted a rosy future: â??I accept responsibility for this. But, I think the environment presents an opportunity of a lifetime.â??
Not, obviously, for the 50 million Americans who have either lost their homes or are deeply underwater in a housing market that is still in steep decline thanks to the lending practices of companies like GE Capital. Nope, the good times are in the offing only for corporations that know how to make the U.S. government a partner in their scams. As Immelt stated blatantly: â??The global economy, and capitalism, will be `resetâ?? in several important ways. The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.â??
Thatâ??s the essential blueprint for Obamaâ??s restructuring of the economy, as the president put it in selecting Immelt to replace Paul Volcker as head of his outside team of economic advisers. Volcker had become increasingly critical of the corporate high rollers. Obama, although noting the suffering of ordinary Americans, clearly believes that such populism is now beside the point. As the president put it in announcing Immeltâ??s appointment on Jan. 20, 2011: â??The past two years was about moving our economy back from the brink. Our job now is putting our economy into overdrive.â??
But overdrive, with CEOs like Immelt shifting the gears, is what brought us so close to the brink. Once again Obama seems fatally addicted to the notion that the heavy hitters who got us into this mess are the very folks to be trusted to get us out of it. What he seems incapable of grasping is that while they are personally very good at avoiding the precipice, the rest of us are hardly passengers in their limos.
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.
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