Rick Perry sues Virginia to get on primary ballot

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Charlie Riedel / AP

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during a campaign stop at the Main Street Cafe in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Tuesday.

By Pete Williams and Carrie Dann, NBC News

After failing to secure a spot in Virginia's presidential primary, the presidential campaign of Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday filed a federal court challenge to the state's stringent ballot access rules.

Perry was one of several candidates, including Newt Gingrich, who failed to gather 10,000 individual voters' signatures by Friday's deadline. 

"We believe that the Virginia provisions unconstitutionally restrict the rights of candidates and voters by severely restricting access to the ballot, and we hope to have those provisions overturned or modified to provide greater ballot access to Virginia voters and the candidates seeking to earn their support," said Perry communications director Ray Sullivan in a statement. 

Perry's lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a state law that says those who circulate petitions to get a candidate on the ballot must be eligible, or registered, to vote in the state. Perry claims that requirement violates his freedom of speech and association.

He also challenges another provision of Virginia law that requires that a portion of signatures for statewide candidates must come from each congressional district in the state. Those signers must attest that they intended to vote in the primary of the candidate's political party.

Perry's campaign notes that other states' laws similar to Virginia's ban on out-of-state petition circulators have been struck down by federal courts.

One of the nation's leading experts on election law predicted tough going for Perry's challenge.

"Such a suit now faces long odds, both legally and politically," said Prof. Rick Hasen of the University of California at Irvine Schoool of law.

The initial hurdle, Hasen explained, is the failure to bring suit before filing time. "This is an emergency of Perry's (and Gingrich's) own making. Surely they knew of the requirement earlier," he said.

Hasen said the federal courts have reached mixed decisions on residency requirements for petition circulators. 

Sullivan told NBC News on Friday that the campaign planned to review "the facts and the law to determine whether an appeal or challenge is warranted." 

In a statement released to press Tuesday, the Perry campaign argued that the Virginia rules are "onerous" and deny both candidates and voters their 1st and 14th amendment rights "to meaningfully participate in the political process." 

The Virginia contest is scheduled for March 6. 

NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams reported from Washington. NBC News correspondent Carrie Dann reported from Osceola, Iowa.

Obama to ask for debt limit hike: Treasury official

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By Reuters

Updated at 11:35 a.m. ET: The White House plans to ask Congress by the end of the week for an increase in the government's debt ceiling to allow the United States to pay its bills on time, according to a senior U.S. Treasury Department official on Tuesday.

The approval is expected to go through without a challenge, given that Congress is in recess until later in January and the request is in line with an agreement to keep the U.S. government funded into 2013.

The debt is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current cap by Dec. 30, when the United States has $82 billion in interest on its debt and payments such as Social Security coming due. President Barack Obama is expected to ask for authority to increase the borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion, part of the spending authority that was negotiated between Congress and the White House this summer.

Under the agreement struck in August during the showdown over the government's debt limit, the cap is automatically raised unless Congress votes to block the debt-ceiling extension. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote, which is largely symbolic because the president can veto it and Congress would be unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority to override it. Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives also is in recess until Jan. 17.

The deal called for raising the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion to serve the nation's borrowing needs into 2013 and also included mandatory cuts to the federal budget deficit. Since then, the extension has been increased twice by a total of $900 billion.

The debt limit currently stands at $15.194 trillion and would increase to $16.394 trillion with the request.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

First Thoughts: One week to go

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Where things stand one week before the Iowa caucuses… Why Gingrich’s inability to get on Virginia’s ballot matters… New Romney and Perry TV ads (and Gingrich goes after “Moderate Mitt”)… Breaking down the ad spending in Iowa… Fast facts about Iowa and the caucuses… And Obama (in terms of his approval rating) pretty much ends the year where he began it.

By NBC's Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Brooke Brower

*** One week to go: Here’s where things stand in the GOP presidential race after the Christmas holiday and exactly one week until the Iowa caucuses: Mitt Romney remains the overall on-again/off-again front-runner, yet he’s vulnerable in Iowa if -- and it’s a big IF -- conservatives coalesce around one anti-Romney candidate. (“I don’t see any scenario where we’re not the nominee,” a senior Romney strategist told New York magazine.)… Newt Gingrich’s stock as the Romney alternative has nosedived, especially after his campaign was unable to get on Virginia’s ballot (the consequences of which we explain below)… Last week, Ron Paul emerged as the new Iowa front-runner, but racially charged newsletters bearing his name that appeared decades ago have recently dogged his campaign. (Don’t miss this New York Times headline from yesterday: “Paul Disowns Extremists’ Views but Doesn’t Disavow the Support.”)… And the latest Republican who appears to gaining momentum in Iowa is Rick Santorum.

*** Why Virginia matters: While Virginia awards only 49 delegates in the GOP presidential contest, Newt Gingrich’s inability to get on the ballot there -- despite holding events in the state to do just that and despite living there (!!!) -- was a huge blow to his campaign. Why? Because it reinforced this narrative that Team Romney has been trying to build for the last few weeks: that the Gingrich campaign isn’t built to go the distance with Romney (or even President Obama). What’s more, that particular news was the only political development over a slow Christmas holiday, which means that PLENTY of people heard about it. Meanwhile, Politico reports that a Richmond lawyer who used to serve as the Virginia Democratic Party chair is helping a conservative group challenge Gingrich’s exclusion from the Virginia ballot. 

*** New Romney and Perry ads: Heading into the final stretch in Iowa, Romney is up with a new TV ad in the Hawkeye State that highlights his conservative bona fides. That ad, per NBC’s Alex Moe, forced the Gingrich camp to respond with a press release – entitled “About Moderate Mitt’s Latest Ad” – noting a clip from Romney’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign in which he called himself “moderate” and “progressive.” Meanwhile, Rick Perry has anew TV ad, too, and it digs Michele Bachmann, Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum for their service in Congress. NBC’s Carrie Dann reports that controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio will join Perry on his bus tour through Iowa today and tomorrow.

*** The ad-spending race in Iowa: By the way, here are the latest ad-spending totals for Iowa: Perry $4.4 million, Restore Our Future PAC (pro-Romney) $2.8 million, Ron Paul: $2.3 million, Make Us Great Again PAC (pro-Perry): $1.6 million, Romney $1.1 million, Gingrich $475,000, Citizens for a Working America (pro-Romney) $461,000, Red White and Blue Fund (pro-Santorum) $329,000, Citizens United (pro-Gingrich) $196,000, and Bachmann $166,000 (but hasn’t spent since August).

*** Fast facts about the Iowa caucuses: With the Iowa caucuses just a week away, we’re going to spend the next several days detailing key information about the contest. Today it’s a list of key fast facts:
-- In the modern caucus/primary system (post-1972), only one Republican non-incumbent candidate has won Iowa and gone on to win the presidency: George W. Bush (2000). When you add Democrats to the mix, only three candidates have won Iowa and the presidency – Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.
-- But John McCain, in 2008, was the only Republican to finish outside the top three in Iowa and still win the Republican nomination.
-- In Iowa’s 2008 campaign, Mitt Romney outspent all other Republicans combined (some $10 million), but still lost to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee by almost 10 percentage points, 34% to 25%.
-- Iowa is one of only two states that has switched parties in three-straight presidential elections: The Hawkeye State voted for Gore in 2000, Bush in 2004, and Obama in 2008. The other state to do this is New Mexico.

*** On the 2012 trail: As you might expect with just a week until the Iowa caucuses, it’s a busy day in the Hawkeye State: Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, and Santorum all campaign in Iowa… And Romney has two events in New Hampshire before heading to the Hawkeye State.

*** Obama pretty much ends his year where he began it: While we never put much stock in the latest up and downs of the Gallup Daily Tracking poll (“live by the Gallup Daily Tracking, die by the Gallup Daily Tracking”), its latest numbers showing Obama’s approval rating above water confirm what the other national polls (WaPo/ABC, CNN) have recently shown. And these numbers suggest two things: 1) Obama ends the year pretty much where he started it, in the high 40s (before the Tucson shootings), and 2) he’s firmly out of the hole he found himself in after the bruising debt-ceiling debate.

Countdown to Iowa caucuses: 7 days
Countdown to New Hampshire primary: 14 days
Countdown to South Carolina primary: 25 days
Countdown to Florida primary: 35 days
Countdown to Nevada caucuses: 39 days
Countdown to Super Tuesday: 70 days
Countdown to Election Day: 317 days

'Transformation': Perry now opposes all abortion, even in rape or incest cases

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By NBC's Carrie Dann

OSCEOLA, Iowa -- In what the Texas governor calls a  "transformation," Rick Perry on Tuesday said that he has reversed his acceptance of abortion in some severe circumstances, saying that he now opposes the procedure even in cases of rape and incest.

Perry said the change came after seeing the "Gift of Life" film produced by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. He told an audience of Iowans at Clark Electric Co-op in Osceola that he was moved by the story of a woman who introduced the film during a screening earlier this month in Des Moines.

"She said, 'I am the product of rape.' And she said 'my life has worth,'" Perry said of his exchange with the woman. "It was a powerful moment."

The Texas governor made the statement in response to a question from Joshua Verwers, a pastor at Full Faith Christian Center in Chariton, who noted that Perry had recently signed a stringent Personhood USA pledge that urges signatories to oppose abortion "without exception and without compromise."

Candidates Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have also signed the pledge.

Verwers said after the event that he was initially skeptical of Perry's flip on the position but that the governor's answer was "too perfect" and "sincere" to have come from anywhere but Perry's own heart.

"I do believe it was a sincere answer and that he has converted his position and that he would support personhood," the pastor told reporters

Paul's surge prompting a new look from GOP voters

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By The Associated Press

Ron Paul wants to legalize pot and shut down the Federal Reserve. He thinks the federal government has no authority to outlaw abortion, no business bombing Iran to keep it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and no justification to print money unless it's backed up by gold bars.

And he might win the Iowa caucuses.

The closer the first votes of the 2012 presidential campaign get, the more competitive the Texas congressman has become. It's a moment his famously fervent supporters have longed for. Plenty of others are asking: What's Ron Paul about, again?

As in his two prior quixotic campaigns for president, Paul has toiled for months as a fringe candidate best known for staking out libertarian positions. As every other Republican candidate lined up to attack President Barack Obama's health care law and to promise tax cuts, Paul again demanded audits of the Federal Reserve and a return to the gold standard.

Leading in some state polls, Paul is getting a look from mainstream voters in Iowa, where the 76-year-old obstetrician has emerged as a serious contender in the Jan. 3 caucuses — and in other early voting states, should he pull off a victory.

The sudden rush of attention to Paul's resume hasn't been kind. He's spent the past week disowning racist and homophobic screeds in newsletters he published decades ago, including one following the 1992 riots in Los Angeles that read, "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to collect their welfare checks three days after rioting began."

"Everybody knows I didn't write them and they're not my sentiments, so it's sort of politics as usual," Paul said during a recent Iowa campaign stop.

Looking to cut into Paul's support, rivals laid into him on Tuesday.

In an interview on CNN, Newt Gingrich said Paul holds "views totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American." And Rick Santorum chided, "The things most Iowans like about Ron Paul are the things he's least likely to accomplish and the things most Iowans are worried about about Ron Paul are the things he can accomplish."

Paul returns to Iowa on Wednesday, giving his impressive grass-roots organization in the state a last chance to present, and perhaps defend, positions he's staked out over a long political career and reiterated during the 13 Republican debates held this year.

Paul has served a dozen terms in Congress as a Republican, but he espouses views that have made him the face of libertarianism in the U.S. He blames both Republicans and Democrats for running up the federal debt and opposes any U.S. military involvement overseas. He wants to bring home all troops from all U.S. bases abroad.

He vows to do away with five Cabinet-level departments — Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior — and repeal the amendment to the Constitution that created the federal income tax. He opposes federal flood insurance and farm subsidies and wants to remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances while allowing states to decide how to regulate it.

He says he'll cut $1 trillion out of the first budget he offers as president. He doesn't believe in a border fence but says illegal immigrants shouldn't get a free education in public schools.

He's reliably described by political pundits as non-establishment, quirky, unorthodox. During a Republican debate in Sioux City, Iowa, earlier this month, Paul defended his views and rejected the idea that they make him unelectable.

"The important thing is, the philosophy I'm talking about is the Constitution and freedom, and that brings people together," Paul said. "It brings independents in the fold and it brings Democrats over on some of these issues."

Paul doesn't always side with the most extreme conservative proposals. When it comes to Gingrich's suggestion that judges could be hauled before Congress to explain their rulings, Paul joined other Republicans in dismissing the idea.

Paul's recent surge in Iowa isn't the first time the GOP establishment has been forced to pay attention to him. A fundraising blitz that netted $5 million in one day in 2008 led Republican operatives to weigh whether he was a bigger threat to siphon votes than previously thought.

Now he may be in his best position yet to do more than just steal votes.

"I see this philosophy as being very electable, because it's an American philosophy, it's the rule of law," Paul said.

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

We Are the 99 Percent

Who are we? We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?

Well, who are you? If you’re reading this, there’s a 99 percent chance that you’re one of us.

You’re someone who doesn’t know whether there’s going to be enough money to make this month’s rent. You’re someone who gets sick and toughs it out because you’ll never afford the hospital bills. You’re someone who’s trying to move a mountain of debt that never seems to get any smaller no matter how hard you try. You do all the things you’re supposed to do. You buy store brands. You get a second job. You take classes to improve your skills. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough. The anxiety, the frustration, the powerlessness is still there, hovering like a storm crow. Every month you make it is a victory, but a Pyrrhic one — once you’re over the hump, all you can do is think about the next one and how much harder it’s all going to be.

They say it’s because you’re lazy. They say it’s because you make poor choices. They say it’s because you’re spoiled. If you’d only apply yourself a little more, worked a little harder, planned a little better, things would go well for you. Why do you need more help? Haven’t they helped you enough? They say you have no one to blame but yourself. They say it’s all your fault.

They are the 1 percent. They are the banks, the mortgage industry, the insurance industry. They are the important ones. They need help and get bailed out and are praised as job creators. We need help and get nothing and are called entitled. We live in a society made for them, not for us. It’s their world, not ours. If we’re lucky, they’ll let us work in it so long as we don’t question the extent of their charity.

We are the 99 percent. We are everyone else. And we will no longer be silent. It’s time the 1 percent got to know us a little better.

On Sept. 17, 2011, the 99 percent will converge on Wall Street to let the 1 percent know just how frustrated they are with living in a world made for someone else. Let us know why you’ll be there. Let us know how you are the 99 percent.

NOT affiliated with MoveOn.org

Current TV Ep. 13 // The 99 Percent Originally aired December 12, 2011

"Vanguard" is Current TV's no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories. For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard. 




Street-level view of NYPD Occupy raid aftermath: Scenes from 'Vanguard' December 14, 2011

Two days after the New York Police Department raided and cleared out the OWS encampment, the movement regrouped on November 17th for their biggest action yet. Thousands of protesters took to the streets of lower Manhattan in an effort to shut down New York City's financial district. As they clashed with police, tensions rose and it became clear that something had to give...



In this scene from "The 99 Percent," Lauderdale County resident and U.S. Navy veteran Fetzer Mills gives Vanguard correspondent Christof Putzel a tour of the town he grew up in. What they find is a small American town that has been ravaged by the economic downturn. Fetzer explains why he has joined the Occupy Wall Street movement, and why his neighbors support him.

Pictures of the Occupy (99%) Movment in NYC

gnast  I SMELL FREEDOM IN THE AIR SO I GUESS IT'S REVOLUTION,EVERYBODY ROUND ME DON'T TRUST THE INSTITUTION,FEELS LIKE A NOOSE WHEN ITS WRAPPED AROUND YOUR NECK,WHEN THE RENTS DUE,NO FOOD, AND THEY CUT YOUR CHECK,MAN WHAT DID YOU EXPECT,COME ON TELL ME WHAT YOU FEEL,CAUSE THE SHIT JUST HIT THE FAN MAN,WE'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE,WE'RE THE 99 PERCENT,WE'RE THE 99 PERCENT ,YOU BE LOOKING OUT YOUR WINDOWS,WE BE STANDING AT YOUR FENCE !!thanks 4 the listen!!!please share and download!!!!!!!http://www.reverbnation.com/gnast !!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/they-dont-care-about-us!!!!!!/id471792775