Wis Election Results
Wis Election Results, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker beat back a recall challenge Tuesday, winning both the right to finish his term and a voter endorsement of his strategy to curb state spending, which included the explosive measure that eliminated union rights for most public workers.
The rising Republican star becomes the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall attempt with his defeat of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and the union leaders who rallied for months against his agenda.
In an interview, Walker said it was time “to put our differences aside and find ways to work together to move Wisconsin forward.”
The governor said he planned to invite lawmakers to meet as soon as next week over burgers and brats to discuss ways to bridge the political divide.
With nearly 80 percent of precincts reporting, Walker had 55 percent of the vote, compared with 44 percent for Barrett, according to early returns tabulated by The Associated Press.
In his concession remarks, Barrett said the state had been left “deeply divided” by the recall battle.
“It is up to all of us, their side and our side, to listen. To listen to each other,” Barrett said.
Democrats and organized labor spent millions to oust Walker, but found themselves hopelessly outspent by Republicans from across the country who donated record-setting sums to Walker. Republicans hope the victory carries over into November and that their get-out-the-vote effort can help Mitt Romney become the first GOP nominee to carry the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Romney issued a statement saying Walker’s victory “will echo beyond the borders of Wisconsin.”
Walker “has shown that citizens and taxpayers can fight back – and prevail – against the runaway government costs imposed by labor bosses,” Romney said. “Tonight voters said no to the tired, liberal ideas of yesterday, and yes to fiscal responsibility and a new direction.”
The recall was a rematch of the 2010 governor’s race. Throughout the campaign, Walker maintained his policies set the state on the right economic track. Defeat, he said, would keep other politicians from undertaking such bold moves in the future. (AP)
John Edwards Charges
John Edwards Charges, The jury in the trial of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards spent more than 50 hours deliberating six counts stemming from allegations that he accepted illegal campaign contributions, falsified documents and conspired to receive and conceal the contributions.
On Thursday, jurors emerged to announce they had reached a decision on one count but none of the others. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles ordered them back into the jury room to continue deliberating, but declared a mistrial after they returned less than an hour later to announce the deadlock.
The result leaves prosecutors to decide whether to re-try Edwards. There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department, which prosecuted the case.
Here is a breakdown of the charges that the jury deliberated:
Count 1: Conspiracy (carried a maximum 5-year sentence)
Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was accused of conspiring to receive and conceal contributions in excess of the allowed limits from Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and Fred Baron, a now-deceased Texas lawyer who was Edwards’ finance chairman. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, the most an individual could contribute to any candidate in 2008 was $2,300 in the primary election and $2,300 in the general election.
Prosecutors argued that Edwards, while a candidate for federal office, accepted $725,000 from Mellon and more than $200,000 from Baron. Counts 2-5 reflect that accusation.
Count 2: Illegal campaign contributions (maximum 5-year sentence)
Edwards was accused of receiving contributions from Mellon in excess of federal limits in 2007.
Count 3: Illegal campaign contributions (maximum 5-year sentence)
Edwards was accused of receiving contributions from Mellon in excess of of federal limits in 2008. He was acquitted on this charge — the only count that the jury reached a verdict on. (CNN)
The President’s ‘secret Kill List’
The President’s ‘secret Kill List’, When it comes to the “secret kill list”-a regularly updated chart showing the world’s most wanted terrorists-President Barack Obama is the “final moral calculation” in the kill or capture debate, according to the third in a series of New York Times articles assessing his record.
And despite his liberal background, Obama has taken an aggressive approach to countert*rror*sm.
The Times said it interviewed three dozen current and former advisers to Obama, who described his “evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda”:
They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to countert*rror*sm, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda-even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.”
Part of Obama’s “evolution” on terror apparently began early in his term, when a drone strike resulted in civilian casualties:
Just days after taking office, the president got word that the first strike under his administration had killed a number of innocent Pakistanis. “The president was very sharp on the thing, and said, ‘I want to know how this happened,’” a top White House adviser recounted.
In response to his concern, the C.I.A. downsized its munitions for more pinpoint strikes. In addition, the president tightened standards, aides say: If the agency did not have a “near certainty” that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama wanted to decide personally whether to go ahead.
“The care that Mr. Obama and his countert*rror*sm chief take in choosing targets,” the Times said, “and their reliance on a precision weapon, the drone, reflect his pledge at the outset of his presidency to reject what he called the Bush administration’s ‘false choice between our safety and our ideals.’”
Romney Birth Certificate
Romney Birth Certificate, Donald Trump, left, greets Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.Washington – Finally, there is definitive proof: the presidential candidate was born in the United States, and his father was not.
Yes, Republican Mitt Romney appears eligible to be president, according to a copy of Romney’s birth certificate released by his campaign. Willard Mitt Romney, the certificate says, was born in Detroit on March 12, 1947.
His mother, Lenore, was born in Utah and his father, former Michigan governor and one-time Republican presidential candidate George Romney, was born in Mexico.
So on a day when real estate and media mogul Donald Trump was trying to help Mitt Romney by stirring up a new round of questions about whether Democratic President Barack Obama was born in the United States, Romney’s own birth record became a reminder that in the 1968 presidential campaign, his father had faced his own “birther” controversy.
Back then, George Romney – who died in 1995 – was a moderate who was challenging eventual President Richard Nixon in the Republican primaries.
Records in a George Romney archive at the University of Michigan describe how questions about his eligibility to be president surfaced almost as soon as he began his short-lived campaign.
In many ways, they appear to echo today’s complaints that Trump and some other conservative “birthers” have made about Obama while questioning whether Obama – whose father was from Kenya and mother was from Kansas – was born in Hawaii.
In George Romney’s case, most of the questions were raised initially by Democrats who cited the Constitution’s requirement that only a “natural born citizen” can be president. (AP)
Romney For President 2012
Romney For President 2012, With little fanfare, Willard Mitt Romney crossed an important threshold Tuesday.The 65-year-old former governor of Massachusetts clinched enough primary delegates to earn the Republican Party’s nomination to face President Obama on the Nov. 6 ballot. The magic number came as he won nearly 70 percent of the vote in Texas. Romney dispatched nine rivals during the course of a sometimes brutal and bitter primary contest, and won all but 13 states this year.
Without balloons or confetti, Romney issued a statement with his eye on the prize.
“I am honored that Americans across the country have given their support to my candidacy and I am humbled to have won enough delegates to become the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee,” Romney said.
“Our party has come together with the goal of putting the failures of the last three and a half years behind us,” he said. “I have no illusions about the difficulties of the task before us. But whatever challenges lie ahead, we will settle for nothing less than getting America back on the path to full employment and prosperity. On November 6, I am confident that we will unite as a country and begin the hard work of fulfilling the American promise and restoring our country to greatness.”
The primary win officially put behind Romney his failed past campaigns against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and for president in 2008. It also marked a historical moment for the candidate: an achievement he’s dreamt about for years, since his father’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 1968, says Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe, who wrote the biography “The Real Romney.”
“He really put his father on a pedestal and he said he’s the real deal and has tried to emulate him in so many ways,” Kranish told Margaret Warner on Tuesday’s NewsHour. “His father was a very successful businessman, governor of Michigan. And here we have Romney, businessperson, governor of Massachusetts, and seeking the presidency.”
Kranish also pointed out that Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital spans 15 years and can’t fairly be boiled down into a soundbite in a political ad.
“People at Bain Capital would say, after work, he would put his briefcase in the car and then he went home,” Kranish said. “And Mitt Romney has said he didn’t take the briefcase out of the car when he got home. And that tells you I think a lot about Mitt Romney. He wanted to go in, do the job, leave it behind and then go home to his family.” (PBS)
Romney And Trump Birther
Romney And Trump Birther, Controversy over the “birther” movement hung over a meeting in Las Vegas on Tuesday between Mitt Romney and high-profile supporter Donald Trump, whose comments about President Barack Obama have put the Republican presidential candidate in an awkward spot.
Trump has again raised doubts about whether Obama was born in the United States, an issue that is most passionately pursued by conspiracy theorists and which Romney has tried to avoid as he focuses on attacking the White House’s economy record.
“A lot of people are questioning his birth certificate,” Trump said on CNBC on Tuesday. “They’re questioning the authenticity of his birth certificate.
“I’ve been known as being a very smart guy for a long time. I don’t consider myself birther or not birther but there are some major questions here and the press doesn’t want to cover it,” he said.
Romney has said he believes Obama was born in the United States but he has drawn fire from Democrats for not distancing himself from Trump, who has alleged Obama was born in Kenya and is thus not eligible to be U.S. president.
Romney later appeared with Trump, who once had presidential ambitions of his own, at a fundraiser in Las Vegas. But Trump avoided the issue altogether when introducing Romney at Trump International Hotel.
Romney clinched the Republican nomination on Tuesday night in the Texas primary, where he picked up scores of delegates and reached the target of 1,144 needed. (Reuters)