AP-Political-NewsBrief

Repeal­ing Obama’s health care law won’t be easy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Yes, if Mitt Rom­ney wins the White House and his Repub­li­can allies retake the Sen­ate, he could shred most of Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s health care law with­out hav­ing to over­power a Demo­c­ra­tic fil­i­buster. But it won’t be as easy as some Repub­li­cans por­tend, and it cer­tainly won’t be quick.

Obama to tout auto bailout, tax poli­cies in Ohio

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres­i­dent Barack Obama is prepar­ing to tell Ohio vot­ers that Repub­li­can Mitt Romney’s tax pro­pos­als would spur job growth in for­eign coun­tries includ­ing China. The pres­i­dent also plans Mon­day to high­light his administration’s 2009 bailout of the auto indus­try, which saved thou­sands of jobs in Ohio, accord­ing to Democ­rats. Rom­ney opposed Obama’s use of mas­sive fed­eral loans to keep Chrysler and Gen­eral Motors afloat while they reor­ga­nized under bank­ruptcy protection.

Obama: DC ‘feels as bro­ken as it did 4 years ago’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres­i­dent Barack Obama says Wash­ing­ton “feels as bro­ken as it did four years ago,” when he took office. He says he’s most frus­trated by the inabil­ity “to change the atmos­phere” in the nation’s cap­i­tal “to reflect the decency and com­mon sense of ordi­nary peo­ple” who want their lead­ers to solve problems.

Rom­ney charges Obama’s ad attacks ‘misdirected’

WOLFEBORO, N.H. (AP) — Repub­li­can Mitt Rom­ney demanded Mon­day that Pres­i­dent Barack Obama back away from his per­sis­tent attacks on Romney’s record at Bain Cap­i­tal, advis­ing that it would be bet­ter “if you spent some time speak­ing about your record.” ”What does it say about a pres­i­dent whose record is so poor that all he can do in this cam­paign is attack me,” Rom­ney said in a nation­ally broad­cast interview.

AP News­Break: Feds OK Fla. access to cit­i­zens list

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a vic­tory for Repub­li­cans, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment has agreed to let Florida use a law enforce­ment data­base to chal­lenge people’s right to vote if they are sus­pected of not being U.S. cit­i­zens. The agree­ment, made in a let­ter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s admin­is­tra­tion that was obtained by The Asso­ci­ated Press, grants the state access to a list of res­i­dent nonci­t­i­zens main­tained by the Home­land Secu­rity Depart­ment. The Obama admin­is­tra­tion had denied Florida’s request for months but relented after a judge ruled in the state’s favor in a related voter-purge matter.

Rom­ney pro­posed ‘fool­proof’ death penalty in Mass.

BOSTON (AP) — As Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor, Repub­li­can Mitt Rom­ney set him­self a daunt­ing chal­lenge: craft a death penalty law that vir­tu­ally guar­an­teed only the guilty could be exe­cuted, then push it through an over­whelm­ingly Demo­c­ra­tic state Leg­is­la­ture that was leery of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Mak­ing the task even more dif­fi­cult, the push by Rom­ney — who is now run­ning for pres­i­dent — came in 2005 at a time of grow­ing national skep­ti­cism about the death penalty. Just two years ear­lier, Illi­nois Gov. George Ryan had cleared his state’s death row after the death sen­tences of sev­eral inmates had been overturned.

Pen­ta­gon send­ing air­craft car­rier to Mideast early

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pen­ta­gon is send­ing an air­craft car­rier to the Mid­dle East sev­eral months early to make sure two will con­stantly be present in the trou­bled region. There are two air­craft car­ri­ers in the area cur­rently, but one was sched­uled to leave before its replace­ment arrived.

Gov. Jin­dal rehabs image by focus­ing on Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Bobby Jindal’s rough national debut seems long for­got­ten. Louisiana’s youth­ful gov­er­nor rou­tinely now receives praise in GOP cir­cles across the nation. He’s being cast as a knowl­edge­able pol­icy wonk with strong con­ser­v­a­tive cre­den­tials who appeals to the Chris­t­ian right and can claim a long list of accom­plish­ments, such as lead­ing the state through a series of dis­as­ters, includ­ing the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Is it just the econ­omy? Other issues may play role

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the econ­omy col­ors and polar­izes vot­ers’ atti­tudes, the Elec­tion Day out­come for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Repub­li­can chal­lenger Mitt Rom­ney may be decided on the mar­gins by nar­rower issues that ener­gize small but cru­cial sliv­ers of the pop­u­la­tion. For three months, the econ­omy by most mea­sures has fal­tered. Yet the White House con­test has remained locked in place, with the incum­bent hold­ing on to a slight national lead or in a vir­tual tie with his rival. Ana­lysts from both par­ties have no doubt that absent a defin­ing, unpre­dictable moment, the race will remain neck and neck until November.

Cam­paign focus on Vir­ginia, ‘Mother of Presidents’

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — The pres­i­den­tial motor­cade, the cor­don of Secret Ser­vice agents, the sight of a pres­i­dent cam­paign­ing on a small-town street. Heady stuff — and new for Vir­ginia dur­ing a pres­i­den­tial race. For decades, the com­mon­wealth was one of the 40-something states whose pol­i­tics were so pre­dictable that they were vir­tu­ally ignored dur­ing pres­i­den­tial con­tests. Vir­ginia was a sure-fire Repub­li­can state — it hadn’t voted for a Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date since 1964.

Posted by AP News on Jul 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.