Political columnist Jonathan Alter is doubling down on his charge that "people will die" if Mitt Romney is elected and repeals "Obamacare," and disagrees with the suggestion that his remarks were over the line.
"Saying something is 'over the line' or 'beyond the pale' or whatever standard you have established for decency only works if you provide some evidence to back up your claim," he told POLITICO by email. "What is your evidence that people will not die if Obamacare is repealed? If you cannot refute the point then it is — by definition — within the realm of legitimate debate."
As evidence for his case, Alter cited a study by the New England Journal of Medicine that found nearly 3,000 fewer deaths per 500,000 people in states where Medicaid has been expanded than in states where it has not. The expansion of Medicaid is a central part of Obama's health care legislation.
Jon Huntsman Sr. called on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns Friday, complaining that the Republican nominee was not being “fair” with voters.
“I feel very badly that Mitt won’t release his taxes and won’t be fair with the American people,” Huntsman told the Washington Post. He said Romney “ought to square with the American people and release his taxes like any other candidate.”
Huntsman, father of Romney’s primary rival Jon Huntsman Jr., served as Romney’s 2008 finance chair. Some speculated that he might be the source for Harry Reid’s unsubstantiated claim that Romney paid no taxes for 10 years, based on the Utah billionaire’s past close relationship with Romney and his son’s more recent antagonistic one. Huntsman, while echoing Reid’s call for Romney to release his returns, denied to the Post that he was the source, calling the allegation “absolutely false.”
An American paediatrician known for his research into near-death experiences in children has been accused of waterboarding his own 11-year-old daughter.
Dr Melvin Morse, 58, who has appeared on television in the US to discuss his work on out-of-body experiences, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
Police said he used the controversial simulated drowning technique, more typically associated with the interrogation of terrorism suspects, at least four times over two years starting in May 2009.
The ultra-Orthodox community’s unofficial “modesty patrols” are selling glasses with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses, so that men don't have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed.
In an effort to maintain their strictly devout lifestyle, the ultra-Orthodox have separated the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces in their neighborhoods. Their interpretation of Jewish law forbids contact between men and women who are not married.
Walls in their neighborhoods feature signs exhorting women to wear closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts. Extremists have accosted women they consider to have flouted the code.
Now they’re trying to keep them out of clear sight altogether.
Fox News contributor Dick Morris told attendees at a Republican congressional candidate event on Tuesday that he will release a new book titled Here Come the Black Helicopters! later this year. Morris' book will purportedly expose President Obama's plans to impose global government through the United Nations.
"Black helicopters is the crazy word for the UN invading the United States," Morris told the crowd. "But it's really going to happen."
I’ve got my copy of Michael Grunwald’s new book on the making of stimulus, The New New Deal, and there are a lot of juicy nuggets in it. In particular, it may shed new light on the degree to which Republicans may have decided to deny Obama all cooperation for the explicit purpose of rendering his presidency a failure — making it easier for them to mount a political comback after their disastrous 2008 losses.
Grunwald has Joe Biden on the record making a striking charge. Biden says that during the transition, a number of Republican Senators privately confided to him that Mitch McConnell had given them the directive that there was to be no cooperation with the new administration — because he had decided that “we can’t let you succeed.”
RALEIGH, N.C. — The international security contractor formerly known as Blackwater has agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle federal criminal charges related to arms smuggling and other crimes.
Documents unsealed Tuesday in a U.S. District Court in North Carolina said the company, now called Academi LLC, agreed to pay the fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement to settle 17 violations.The list of violations includes possessing automatic weapons in the United States without registration, lying to federal firearms regulators about weapons provided to the king of Jordan, passing secret plans for armored personnel carriers to Sweden and Denmark without U.S. government approval and illegally shipping body armor overseas.
Days of heavy rain have badly damaged a section of the Great Wall of China. Local authorities are now trying to repair the collapsed area.
The rain in the Hebei Province in Northern China caused massive flooding, and tons of water swept down from the mountains and swept away a section of the wall at Dajingmen, a local official reported.
The 36 meter long section is now being repaired. Workers are also reinforcing other sections of the Wall damaged by the water. Reports from experts say other fragments of the Wall, which has stood for centuries, are also in danger due to erosion and cracking.
Harry Reid has a Republican source who has told him that Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes in 10 years. Who could he possibly known that would have that information? Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's dad sounds like the likely source.
Jon Huntsman Sr, is business partners with Robert C. Gay, who also happened to be Bain's managing director between 1989 and 2004. And if anyone knows the machinations Bain used to evade taxes for itself and its partners, well, it would be the guy in charge of the firm's finances.
To see how the federal government has pursued money-laundering cases against big banks over their dealings with Iran and other countries under U.S. trade sanctions, consider what happened when Barclays Plc (BARC) and the Justice Department were required to file reports describing the U.K. bank’s cooperation under a settlement in 2010.
The deadline came and went. Barclays and the Justice Department failed to comply, infuriating U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington, who had ordered that the reports be filed. “I am amazed that with all the legal talent before the court that no one opened the order to read it,” he said. A Justice Department attorney, Kevin Gerrity, told the judge he couldn’t explain the lapse. Before approving Barclays’s deferred-prosecution agreement, Sullivan called it a “sweetheart deal.” Barclays paid $298 million, its core business was unscathed, and no executives were charged.
BOSTON – Senator Scott P. Brown on Wednesday accused Elizabeth Warren’s daughter of using her position on the board of a nonpartisan organization in service of her mother’s Senate campaign.
It is the latest exchange between Mr. Brown and Ms. Warren, his Democratic opponent, in what has become the country’s most expensive Senate race – and one that will likely be critical in determining the Senate’s balance of power come 2013.
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