Tag Archives: Politics News
Trayvon Martin: Rep. Bobby Rush Thrown Off House Floor For Wearing Hoodie Video
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) was thrown off the House floor Wednesday after wearing a hoodie and sunglasses in protest of the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida.
“Racial profiling has to stop,” Rush said as he peeled off his suit jacket to reveal a hoodie underneath, at which point he pulled the hood over his head and replaced his glasses with sunglasses. “Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.”
Rush began citing passages from the Bible about the need “to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” and about being “sent … to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and to recover the sight to the blind and to set the oppressed free …. I urge all men who hear these words to heed these lessons.”
Rep. Greg Harper (R-Miss.), who was presiding over the chamber at the moment, repeatedly hammered the gavel and tried to interrupt Rush, but he kept talking with a louder voice.
Rick Santorum Wins: Louisiana Primary Results 2012
Rick Santorum won the Louisiana Republican presidential primary Saturday, beating front-runner Mitt Romney in yet another conservative Southern state.
“We’re still here. We’re still fighting. We still believe, as this race really shows,” Santorum told supporters in Green Bay, Wis.
Although the victory gives Santorum bragging rights and at least nine more delegates, it does not change the overall dynamics of the race; the former Pennsylvania senator still dramatically lags behind Romney in the hunt for delegates to the GOP’s summertime nominating convention.
Even so, Santorum’s win underscores a pattern in the drawn-out race.
The under-funded underdog has tended to win in Bible Belt states that include Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. Romney – a deep-pocketed, highly organized former Massachusetts governor – has persistently struggled in such heavily conservative regions.
Said Santorum: “I’m not running as a conservative candidate for president. I am the conservative candidate for president.”
Super Tuesday Results 2012 Live Video
Super Tuesday results from races in ten states will determine how a total of 419 delegates are awarded to contenders competing in the Republican primary.
To secure the GOP presidential nomination, a candidate must secure 1,144 delegates.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney went into Super Tuesday running ahead of the pack, but former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul are determined to give the former Massachusetts governor a run for his money and show no signs of plans to abandon their respective campaigns.
Voters in the following states cast ballots on Super Tuesday: Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
From delegates to endorsements, check out HuffPost Election Dashboard for a rundown on where the candidates stand in the primary race.
Mitt Romney’s Narrow Michigan Win 2012 – Video
Santorum won almost as many delegates as Romney in Michigan, and still had the potential to tie him on Wednesday morning. All but two of the state’s 30 delegates were awarded based on who won each congressional district. Romney won seven districts to Santorum’s six, giving him 15 delegates to Santorum’s 13, according to the Detroit Free Press. One district remained up in the air, and if Santorum wins it, he’ll tie Romney in delegates. Romney won all of Arizona’s 29 delegates.
Losing the popular vote in Michigan would have been a body blow to Romney’s chances at the GOP nomination, and would have thrown the Republican Party into convulsions. For the moment, the tremors and the talk of a late entry into the race by another candidate will be stilled.
But having avoided a gaze into the abyss, Romney and his campaign must quickly move to seize the initiative in Washington state, which will caucus Saturday, and then in several of the 10 states that will vote next week on Super Tuesday, a quickening of the primary’s pace that stands in stark contrast to the three-week lull that preceded the contests in Michigan and Arizona.
Romney focused his victory speech on criticizing President Barack Obama, in keeping with the way he has sought to elevate himself every time he has won a primary contest. He spoke to supporters here in a suburb of Detroit, in Oakland County, where he romped decisively over Santorum with the help of upper-income, moderate Republican voters. Romney won 50 percent of the vote here and beat Santorum by more than 20 percentage points.
Rick Perry On Death Penalty And ‘Ultimate Justice’ In Texas
Wednesday night, Williams asked without naming Willingham, or going at Perry armed with the science that undermined the prosecution’s case. (A pity: this came on the heels of the moderators trying to get Perry in a spat with Jon Huntsman about who was “anti-science.”)
Williams simply asked in general if Perry had ever struggled with the idea that someone who was killed via capital punishment was innocent. The weak sauce allowed Perry to wriggle off the hook: “No, sir. I’ve never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which — when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that’s required.
“But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you’re involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.”
Wisconsin Recall Election Results – Full Video
The Democrats targeted in Tuesday’s election were among the 14 senators who fled the state in February in opposition to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal curbing public employee collective bargaining rights.
Both won in recalls against Republican challengers.
Democrats picked up two seats through the nine recalls but were unable to wrest majority Senate control away from the GOP, which now holds a narrow 17-16 majority. Before the recalls, Republicans had a 19-14 edge in the chamber.
Democratic Sen. Bob Wirch of Pleasant Prairie defeated Kenosha attorney Jonathan Steitz, and Sen. Jim Holperin of Conover beat tea party Republican Kim Simac of Eagle River.
A third Democrat won a recall election last month. Two Republicans were defeated in six recall elections last week.
Even though they remain in the minority, Democrats were savoring Tuesday’s victories.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said Democrats have “fundamentally changed the face of power in the Wisconsin Legislature” through the recalls. Even though Republicans remain in the majority, Tate said Democrats’ picking up two seats and making gains in Republican districts sets the table for big wins next year.
“It’s really hard to go five for nine and not be pleased of the progress that we made,” he said.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said in a statement that he was proud the GOP maintained its majority through the recalls. He said Tuesday’s results were a rejection of the recall process.
“The problems facing our state are too serious for these political games, and the Democrats’ permanent campaign cycle,” Fitzgerald said in the statement. “The Democrats need to start working with the other side of the aisle, not just moving on to their next recall target.”
Walker pledged last week to reach out to Democratic leaders to find proposals they could work on together, but his overtures were met with skepticism by the Democrats still stung by his pushing through of the collective bargaining bill without compromises.
Holperin, who won with 54 percent of the vote based on unofficial results, said the election showed that not everyone disapproved of Democrats leaving the state during the heated collective bargaining debate.
Michele Bachmann And Tim Pawlenty Go Head-To-Head – Video
Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty took off the gloves and threw several punches at one another. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum nearly screamed at each other over whether to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And Newt Gingrich didn’t like some of the questions thrown his way, which he angrily denounced as “Mickey Mouse games.”
The key exchanges were between Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, and Pawlenty, Minnesota’s former governor, who are in a battle to see who can come out ahead of the other in a key straw poll vote Saturday in Ames.
For weeks, the two had been bashing one another, mostly on the campaign trail here in Iowa. Bachmann has claimed the title of Iowa frontrunner, while Pawlenty has been playing catch up in advance of Saturday’s straw poll. Fox News’ Chris Wallace was quick to give the two an opportunity to fight it out in person.
Pawlenty, whose argument has been that he has the executive experience as a governor that Bachmann lacks, said the congresswoman has “done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it’s an indisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishments and results is nonexistent. That’s not going to be good enough.”
As Pawlenty, whose fiber was questioned after he failed to take on Mitt Romney in the last debate, delivered his rebuke, he turned to face Bachmann, but turned away after a few moments. Bachmann, in her response, faced Pawlenty the entire time she spoke. She blasted his record as governor.
Live Update : Wisconsin Recall Election Results 08-10-2011
Six Wisconsin senators fought Tuesday to keep their jobs in a recall election, trying to beat back Democratic challengers who stoked a political backlash against Republican Gov. Scott Walker for his efforts to strip public employees of most union rights.
Fueled by millions of dollars from national labor groups, the attempt to remove GOP incumbents did not ultimately shift control of the Wisconsin Senate to Democrats. In the match-ups that unfolded on Tuesday, the Associated Press declared four Republican state senators the winners of their respective races. Two Democratic challengers defeated sitting GOP lawmakers.
Obama Birthday Celebration Video
50th birthday, Obama spoke to donors at two fundraisers at the historic Aragon Ballroom, and via video conference to supporters at more than 1,000 house parties from coast to coast.
The fundraisers were held as Obama’s presidential campaign lowered expectations for how much money it would bring in this summer, in part because the campaign had to cancel 10 events while the president and his staff were stuck in Washington for the showdown over raising the government’s debt limit. Obama’s quick stop in Chicago was his first trip outside the Washington region in more than a month.
Obama didn’t try to sell his supporters on the deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending that he signed this week after arduous negotiations with Republicans. But he did warn that the country couldn’t afford another “self-inflicted wound” like it experienced this summer.
“We don’t have time to play these partisan games. We’ve got too much work to do,” Obama said. He told supporters not to be discouraged by the partisan fights in Washington, saying, “You did not elect me president to duck the tough issues. You elected me president to do the tough things.”
At a high-dollar dinner fundraiser later in the night, took a swipe at his Republican adversaries, saying, “I give the other side credit. They are single-minded in their focus in wanting to cut programs and shrink government.”
