Keystone Pipeline Delay Sparks Outrage on Capitol Hill

By John Parkinson
@JParkABC
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Jan 18, 2012 12:24pm

Speaker John Boehner this morning pressed President Obama to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, as the president is expected to block a permit to proceed on the pipeline — possibly as soon as this afternoon.

The speaker said the project would “create 100,000 new jobs,” and he warned that further delay on a decision about whether to go forward on the project could result in losing out to China.

“The Keystone Pipeline has been through three years and it’s passed every approval process as required by the law. Even the president’s own State Department has indicated that this thing ought to move forward,” Boehner said. “The Canadians are in conversations with the Chinese, and if we don’t build this pipeline to bring that Canadian oil and pick up the North Dakota oil and deliver it to our refineries in the Gulf Coast, that oil is gonna get shipped out to the Pacific Ocean and will be sold to the Chinese.”

“This is not good for our country,” he continued. “The president wants to put this off until it’s convenient for him to make a decision. That means after the next election. The fact is the American people are asking the question right now: Where are the jobs? The president’s got an opportunity to create 100,000 new jobs almost immediately. The president should say yes.”

Returning to Capitol Hill after three weeks of recess, Boehner also sharply attacked Obama’s record on job creation, saying that Republicans would focus their attention this year on creating private sector jobs.

“The policies that have been implemented by the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress they had that preceded us have made the economy worse and have made it more difficult for small businesses to create jobs,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “The issue of job creation in our country is critically important, and we’re going to continue to focus on it every single day that we’re here in Washington representing the interests of the American people.”

Boehner’s second in command, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, echoed the speaker’s comments, telling reporters that House Republicans “are united around a realization that the policies that have been promoted by this administration have not worked,” but he pledged to work in a bipartisan fashion with Democrats “to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make small businesses the centerpiece of this country again.”

“When you look at the spending and you look at the continued expansion of Washington, what hasn’t happened is the expansion of the private sector and job creation,” Cantor, R-Va., said. “Our members are going to be hyperfocused on how we go about creating small business jobs. We all know that the engine of jobs in this country are the small businesses. That will be our focus.”

From January 2009 to December 2011, total private sector jobs have decreased by about 1 million. Excluding the first month of Obama’s presidency, from February 2009 to December 2009, private sector jobs dropped by 332,000. Of the country’s 13.1 million unemployed, 42.5 percent, or 5.6 million people, have been out of work for six months or longer.

However, since employment hit post-recession lows in February 2010, the economy has added more than 3 million private sector jobs, recovering much of the jobs lost. For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million total jobs, more  than the 940,000 added in 2010.

Boehner welcomed back his rank and file colleagues this morning to the second session of the 112^th Congress, after an unpleasant end to 2011 when House Republicans reluctantly accepted a temporary two-month extensionto the payroll tax credit and unemployment insurance. A closed-door conference meeting today  lasted about 30 minutes longer than usual, with many members wishing to speak out after a lull back in their districts.

“We’ve got a lot of disparate voices in our conference,” Boehner said. “The president wanted the payroll tax credit extended for a year, so did we. We didn’t think the Senate should leave, but it was pretty clear the Senate wasn’t coming back. … We were picking the right fight, but I would argue we probably picked it at the wrong time.”

Boehner refuted criticism that the first session of the 112^th Congress was the most unproductive on record  and turned his disapproval to the United States Senate for a lack of action on a slate of House-passed legislation that Republicans believe would produce jobs.

“We’ve passed jobs bill after jobs bill after jobs bill. The House has done its work, but it takes two to tango, and that’s why our members are frustrated … that we’ve got 30 bills that will help produce more American jobs sitting in the United States Senate,” Boehner said. “It’s time for Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to quit playing hide the ball and to instead try to help the American people get the economy moving again.”

Obama administration: Republicans killed Keystone pipeline

By Heather Zichal

Enlarge

By Issouf Sanogo, AFP/Getty Images

In December, when Republicans in Congress proposed a 60-day deadline for deciding the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, the administration made it clear that a rushed and arbitrary timetable would prevent officials from conducting a full and necessary assessment of the pipeline's impact, especially as it related to the health and safety of millions of Americans.

• OUR VIEW: Obama's decision delays energy security

Wednesday, as a result of that arbitrary deadline, the State Department announced that it must deny the application, and based on that recommendation, the president agreed.

This decision was not based on the merits of the pipeline — it was because congressional Republicans chose to play politics and refused to allow the appropriate time for a full review. The decision made by Republicans to short-circuit the review killed the pipeline, but it doesn't change this administration's commitment to American-made energy that puts folks back to work and reduces our dependence on oil.

The president is committed to energy security and domestic oil and gas production. Since 2008, U.S. oil and gas production is up, foreign imports are down, and in 2011 we produced more oil than at any time since 2003. This administration has taken historic action to nearly double fuel economy of the cars and trucks we drive, saving families money at the pump.

Under President Obama's leadership, we have taken a series of historic steps to become more energy independent, and we'll keep at it. We will also continue to look for new ways to increase our energy security and create jobs.

Finally, it's important to remember that congressional Republicans voted down nearly every proposal in the American Jobs Act, which independent analysts estimated could create nearly 2 million jobs, including hundreds of thousands of jobs for construction workers. So, before they engage in more political theater, they should take a look at the important bipartisan proposals on their desk that will strengthen the middle class, create jobs and improve the economy.

Heather Zichal is an energy adviser to President Obama.

White House Spin on Keystone Pipeline

• 
• Erika Johnsen
  Blogger, Townhall.com

Jan 23, 2012 12:48 PM EST

As Guy pointed out last week, the Obama administration's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a practically giftwrapped opportunity for Republicans to pummel the President on his colossal failure to immediately invite private-sector job creation and economic growth into the USA -- highly hypocritical of him given his recent "We Can't Wait" motto. Knowing the potentiality for an election-year PR nightmare is in the works, I'm sure, the White House is hoping to beat Republicans to the punch:

White House and campaign officials are parrying attacks on Keystone by offering a broader defense of Obama’s record on oil-and-gas, pointing to increased production in recent years and steps the administration is taking to expand development.
“President Obama has pursued a comprehensive energy strategy that has increased our domestic energy production, reduced our dependence on foreign oil to below 50 percent for the first time in 13 years and supported more than 224,000 clean energy jobs,” Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement
Meanwhile, Heather Zichal, Obama’s energy and climate adviser, wrote an op-ed in USA Today and a post on the White House blog last week defending the decision.
She sought to undercut Republican claims that Obama’s rejection of the pipeline shows that the administration isn’t making creating new jobs a top priority. The GOP says Keystone would create 20,000 construction jobs and hundreds of thousands of other jobs over the life of the project.
Recovery Act investments in clean energy “have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and spurred thousands of clean energy projects across the country,” Zichal wrote on the White House blog Wednesday.
She added that the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program has helped finance 40 energy projects that will create 60,000 jobs, and, disputing industry and GOP claims about Keystone’s jobs potential, said the pipeline would create only a “few thousand” temporary jobs. ...
“So, before they engage in more political theater, they should take a look at the important bipartisan proposals on their desk that will strengthen the middle class, create jobs and improve the economy,” she said.

Political theater, indeed! If you can't get behind the philosophy that the federal government (read: taxpayers) should not be financing green energy ventures in the first place, just look at the results: there are at least twelve Solyndra-esque projects that have robbed the public coffers floating around out there; the growing employment in the energy sector is coming from oil and gas; and our decreased dependence on foreign oil has little to do with green energy (hint: we're in a recession. We're consuming less oil.).  The Obama administration minions are the ones engaged in more political theater here, just doing what they do best: pretending that government-backed, politically-appealing, clean green energy investment has had any significant role in driving economic growth.

GOP Plots Path Around President on Keystone Pipeline

By John Parkinson
@JParkABC
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Jan 20, 2012 12:29pm

As House Republicans launched an assault on President Obama this morning for nixing a popular energy pipeline from Canada to Texas, the party renewed its pledge to move ahead with the project even if the president won’t get on board.

Emerging from the GOP’s issues conference in Baltimore this morning, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan told reporters that he was “deeply disappointed” that the president denied the project, adding that Republicans are considering an array of alternatives that would put the Keystone XL Pipeline back on track.

“As much as the president might want this issue to go away and come back maybe after the election, we’re going to do everything we can to keep it on the front burner, and keep this in front of the American people and do what we can to get this mission accomplished,” Upton said.

“The Canadians are going to produce this oil no matter what. Why not refine it here, build a pipeline here, and let Americans use the product. We’re seeing jobs flee. We’re seeing refineries being shut down because of the lack of crude that’s coming into our ports. This is a win-win for just about everybody.”

Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary of state for Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs, the top administration official tasked with considering the project’s approval, is scheduled to testify next week before the committee and explain the Obama administration’s decision not to proceed with the project. Upton said he might also call on all of the governors from states along the route to testify to the economic impact of losing out on the project to another country such as China.

Rep. Lee Terry, a Republican from Nebraska, where the pipeline has caught some snags, said construction on the rest of the pipeline should proceed while the state works out final approval. “The people in our country are confused,” Terry said. “Approving this pipeline seems like a no-brainer. Creating jobs and adding to our security. The American people want us to put aside politics and do what’s right, but the president failed to do that.

“They’re just sitting there waiting for the approval to start working,” he added. “Let them start working.”

Terry has introduced a bill that would strip approval from the president and give it to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also known as FERC. “We’ll continue to push this,” he said. “It seems to me that it makes more sense that we let the experts on pipelines make decisions on whether this is a safe and sound pipeline as opposed to a political entity worried about November elections.”

One other alternative House Republicans are considering is attaching the pipeline to a long-term extension of the payroll-tax cut and unemployment insurance. Upton said the conferees appointed to negotiate a deal could meet as soon as next week.

“The leadership made it very clear at the press conference earlier this week that we’re going to be looking at every option to keep this issue at the forefront,” Upton said. “Certainly that is within the scope of the conference, what the two bodies did, and I got to believe that at least two of us will be pushing for [tying the pipeline to the payroll-tax cut] as we move forward.”

Another Republican from a state along the proposed route of the pipeline, Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas, criticized the president for ignoring the country’s energy security. If Obama changes his mind, Burgess said, the ports and refineries in his state “are ready to handle this energy and get it to market.”

“An effective administration would have recognized that America needs jobs. An effective administration would have recognized America needs the energy. But, most importantly, an effective administration would have recognized that our security is jeopardized when we go and seek energy from countries that do not like us,” Burgess said. “Canada likes us. Let us get our energy from Canada. It makes sense. It’s the right thing to do.”

Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said that in addition to the 20,000 immediate U.S. jobs the project would create, tens of thousands of indirect jobs would also be added to the economies of states along the pipeline’s 1,700-mile, six-state route. “In 1958, my family moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana so my dad could sell life insurance to the men and women working in the petro-chemical plants. Now that is an indirect job,” Cassidy said.

“My family’s livelihood depended on my dad’s ability to sell to those men and women who are more prosperous because of jobs such as these. This is the same sort of indirect job will absolutely will have ripple effect throughout the economy.”

Boehner on Keystone Pipeline: ‘President is Selling Out American Jobs for Politics’

By John Parkinson
@JParkABC
Follow on Twitter

Jan 18, 2012 6:00pm

House Republicans blasted President Obama’s decision this afternoon to reject a bid to construct the Keystone XL Pipeline, with House Speaker John Boehner claiming that “the president is selling out American jobs for politics.”

“President Obama is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the Chinese.  There’s really just no other way to put it,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “The president was given the authority to block this project only and only if he believes it’s not in the national interest of the United States.  Is it not in the national interest to create tens of thousands of jobs here in America with private investment?  Is it not in the national interest to get energy resources from an ally like Canada, as opposed to some countries in the Middle East?”

“The president has said he’ll do anything that he can to create jobs.  Today that promise was broken,” Boehner continued. “The president won’t stand up to his political base, even in the name of creating American jobs.”

Boehner vowed that the president’s decision today is not the end of the fight over the pipeline and all options would be on the table to ensure the project proceeds, including possibly tying the approval to the long-term extension of the payroll tax cut.

“This fight is not going to go away.  You can count on it,” Boehner insisted. “There are legislative vehicles that we’ll be moving…in the weeks and months ahead, and Republicans on Capitol Hill will continue to do everything we can to make this decision a positive decision for our country.”

House Energy Chairman Fred Upton said he’s invited Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Capitol Hill next week to testify and explain the decision, which the president said he reached after agreeing with a recommendation from the State Department.

“I will remind you that in October of 2010, Secretary Clinton indicated that she was inclined to support this project,” Upton, R-Mich., said. “This last August 2011, the State Department completed their analysis, and they agreed that the proposed route was in fact the preferred route.”

Prior to the speaker’s news conference, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the president’s decision on Keystone was the Republicans’ fault for imposing a 60 day deadline, which was set to expire Feb. 21.

“If the Republicans cared so much about the Keystone pipeline, they would not have narrowed the president’s options by putting it on the time frame that they did,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said. “They left him very little choice.”

Boehner disagreed, however, and said that “while the president may say we forced his hand, the facts are indisputable that the State Department has had this under review for three years.”

“Under the agreement that was in the legislation, the president had to make a decision,” he said. “It had to be based on what was in the national interest of our country, and for the president to say that the Keystone pipeline is not in the interest of our country, I think most Americans are scratching their heads wondering why.”

Pelosi said that she disagreed with the Republicans’ assertion that the project will now end up in China, and said “this oil was always destined for overseas.”

“It’s just a question of whether it leaves Canada by way of Canada or it leaves Canada by way of the United States,” she said. “It was always going overseas.  I don’t know where to, but it wasn’t for domestic consumption, and that’s really an important point because the advertising is quite to the contrary.”

“When I was in Canada last year for the then-speaker’s meeting in September, this was Topic A, Subject A,” Pelosi continued. “My questions were, to them, ‘why don’t you take it out through Canada?’ Well, they don’t want to.  They don’t want to take it out through Canada. They want to take it out through the United States.  But it is going out [regardless].”

Here Is Newt Gingrich's 2010 Tax Return

By Derek Thompson

Jan 20 2012, 4:17 PM ET 43 Newt Gingrich released his tax 2010 tax return last night, revealing that he paid nearly $1 million in taxes on more than $3 million in earned income. Below we've taken a snapshot of the first page of his report. Here's the full thing.
GingrichIncomeTaxReturn




Newt's famously grandiose comparisons to historical figures paint him as an exceptional human being, and when it comes to both earnings and taxes, there is no room for debate: He really is.

Gingrich's income is firmly within the top 0.1% of all earners. In 2011, the cut-off for the top 0.1% of households was $2.9 million, a few hundred thousand dollars below the Gingriches' joint filing. But a 31 percent effective tax rate is similarly exceptional. No surprise there, since Gingrich belongs to the group with the highest average effective tax rate: Those earning between $2 million and $5 million. After that, ETR slides a bit as investment income (which is taxed at a lower rate) makes up more and more of average total income.

Gingrich Firm Releases Freddie Mac Contract

By Clea Benson and Julie Bykowicz - Jan 23, 2012 8:56 PM ET

Newt Gingrich’s consulting firm tonight released a copy of its 2006 contract with Freddie Mac (FMCC), which covers just one year of his multiple years of service and documents only $300,000 of the $1.6 million he received from the mortgage company.
The Republican hopeful’s first contract, spanning 1999 to 2002 and worth between $1 million and $1.2 million, according to two people familiar with the agreement, wasn’t released because officials at the Center for Health Transformation can’t find it, said Susan Meyers, a center spokeswoman who also works for the Gingrich campaign. The 2006 contract also applied to 2007, she said, which means the total value of that contract was $600,000.
“We’re not even sure we signed anything for 2007,” said Meyers.
Gingrich and his allies have come under increasing pressure from chief rival Mitt Romney to release the records, and his association with Freddie Mac is emerging as major theme in the race. Many Republicans have criticized Freddie Mac because the company invested in risky mortgages and then required billions of dollars in taxpayer money for a bailout after the housing market meltdown. Since September 2008, Freddie Mac and sister company Fannie Mae, both now operating under U.S. conservatorship, have cost a total $153 billion in taxpayer aid.
“Why isn’t Speaker Gingrich disclosing the full extent of his relationship with Freddie Mac?” said Brian Jones, a Romney spokesman for the campaign. “Ultimately this disclosure raises more questions than it actually does answer.”

Romney Also Vulnerable

Romney may also be vulnerable on the issue. His most recent financial-disclosure report, which he filed in August 2011, shows he had a financial interest in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (FNMA)
The disclosure said he held assets in both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae valued at between $100,000 to $250,000. He received between $5,001 and $15,000 in interest income from his Freddie Mac assets and another $5,001 to $15,000 in interest income from his Fannie Mae assets.
Financial-disclosure reports allow candidates to report assets in broad ranges.
Jones said Romney’s assets are in a blind trust, and the trustee makes all the decisions about how they are invested. Romney “has no input or oversight” over the investments, he said.

$25,000 a Month

The contract released tonight states that Gingrich and his firm were retained to “provide consulting and related services as requested by Freddie Mac’s Director, Public Policy in exchange for which Freddie Mac will pay Consultant $25,000 per each full calendar month.”
“The contract was solely for consulting purposes and not lobbying,” Nancy Desmond, who has served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Center for Health Transformation since Gingrich left the firm to seek the presidency in May, said in a statement. Gingrich has maintained that he didn’t formally lobby on behalf of Freddie Mac.
Gingrich’s consulting contract expired at the end of 2007, Meyers said.
Former and current Freddie Mac executives have told Bloomberg News that Gingrich was hired to develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it. He wasn’t asked to personally deliver that message on Capitol Hill, they said.

Not Registered

The 2006 contract, written by Freddie Mac and signed by Scott Cotter, a vice president of the Gingrich Group, as the Center for Health Transformation was then called, would have required Gingrich to register as a lobbyist if that was part of the work he did for the company.
The consultant will supply copies of any reports or disclosures “such as reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act,” the document says. Gingrich didn’t register as a lobbyist.
The center released the document after several weeks in which Gingrich gave varying reasons why he couldn’t do so.
At first he said he was bound by a confidentiality agreement with Freddie Mac. After Freddie Mac officials said he was “welcome” to make the contract public, he said the power to release it lay with the Center for Health Transformation.

Changing Position

Stefan Passantino, the center’s attorney, said earlier this month that he wouldn’t allow the document to be released for fear of jeopardizing confidentiality for the company’s other clients. Passantino -- who is also counsel to the Gingrich campaign -- said in an e-mail today that he changed his position after he spoke directly with the general counsel at Freddie Mac and “she expressly authorized release of the contract.”
Gingrich also made public remarks on Jan. 22 urging the center to make the records public.
The increased pressure on Gingrich to provide more details about his work for Freddie Mac coincides with his campaign’s new momentum going into the Florida primary after his victory in South Carolina’s contest on Jan. 21.
The Romney campaign said today it will begin airing a television ad in Florida tying Gingrich’s work to the state’s troubled housing market.
In the ad, which opens with the word “foreclosed” being stamped over the state of Florida, a male voice says, “While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in. Gingrich was paid over $1.6 million by the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis.”

Calls for ‘Transparency’

Surrogates for both candidates traded jabs over Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac today.
Former Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Florida House Speaker-designate Will Weatherford said in a Romney-arranged conference call with reporters that Gingrich needed to provide “transparency” about his work for Freddie Mac.
“We don’t have insight or transparency into what he actually did,” Pawlenty said. He called Gingrich’s claims that lawyers are holding up the release of the contracts “B.S.” and “just nonsense.”
J.C. Watts Jr., a Gingrich supporter and a former U.S. House member from Oklahoma, said in a conference call with reporters that Romney’s attacks are “silly,” as is the idea that Gingrich was a major player in Freddie Mac discussions in Washington.
Watts left the House in January 2003 and was chairman for six years of FM Policy Focus, a group that pushed for increased regulation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Watts said that, even though he had “day-to-day” contact with the people most interested in Freddie Mac, “Newt Gingrich was never on my radar screen.”
  Freddie Mac Agreement

The State of the Union – In the Public’s Eyes

By Gary Langer

Jan 23, 2012 4:29pm

 

Where does public opinion stand on the eve of President Obama’s third State of the Union address? Here’s the tale of the tape, drawing on data from our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll completed Jan. 15, previous ABC/Post polls since 1981 and Gallup polls before them.
1. The president’s at a dead-even split in public opinion: Forty-eight percent of Americans approve of his job performance, 48 percent disapprove.

• In polling since 1940 only four previous presidents have started their re-election year with approval ratings less than 50 percent, and just one of them went on to win a second term, Richard Nixon in 1972. (The others were Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

• Obama’s approval rating is up from a career-low 42 percent in October.

• While he’s gained some ground, intensity of sentiment remains against him. “Strong” disapprovers outnumber those who approve strongly by 37 percent to 25 percent.

• Plenty of presidents have had ratings as low as Obama’s, or lower, heading into SOTU addresses: GW Bush and Truman three times apiece, Johnson and Ford twice and once each for Bill Clinton, GHW Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Nixon. Among them, GW Bush had just 32 percent approval heading into his last such address in January 2008, 16 points below Obama’s today. The lowest on record was Harry S Truman’s 23 percent heading into his 1952 SOTU.

2. The public’s still in a recession-inspired snit, albeit a slightly lessened one. Two-thirds (68 percent) say the country’s gotten seriously off on the wrong track. Fewer than half as many, 30 percent, say it’s headed in the right direction.

• Bad as it is, that “wrong track” number is down from 77 percent in September, and “right direction” is up by 10 points.

• “Wrong track” is slightly worse than its 62 percent heading into last year’s SOTU. It’s been higher, though: Seventy-seven percent heading into GW Bush’s last SOTU in 2008 and 78 percent for GHW Bush in January 1992. (It also was 78 percent at the time of Obama’s inauguration.)

• In available data since 1973, “wrong track” ratings have been this high or higher heading into SOTUs seven times – ’08, ’07, ’95, ’92, ’76, ’75, and ’74. (Data for the last three are from fall of the previous years, the most recent available).

• Unemployment has been this high or higher heading into SOTUs three times – the past two years, and once under Reagan.

 3. The president has a weak 41 percent approval rating for handling the economy (57 percent disapprove), his single greatest vulnerability. But he also has some room for push back on economic issues. Among them:

• He leads the Republicans in Congress by a 13-point margin in trust to better protect the middle class, 48-35 percent. It’s clear why this has been advertised as a key topic of his address.

• He leads by 8 points in trust to better handle job creation, 45-37 percent.

• He continues to escape the main blame for the economy. By 54 percent to 29 percent, more Americans pin chief responsibility for the country’s current economic problems on George W. Bush than on Obama.

• The public by 55-35 percent says unfairness in the economic system that favors the wealthy is a bigger problem than over-regulation of the free market that interferes with growth and prosperity. That puts Obama on the 20-point more popular side of this central debate.

• While just 45 percent say the economy’s even begun to recover, that’s up by 9 points since November. And the president’s approval on handling it also is up a bit, by 6 points, from its low last fall.

4. Obama also has significant vulnerabilities beyond the economy and the broad unhappiness it’s engendered. Among his lowest ratings, just 35 percent approve of his handling of the deficit. And fewer than half, 47 percent, say he’s achieved significant accomplishments as president.

• Countering these, Obama may make reference to the demise of Osama bin Laden last spring. The president maintains a 56-percent approval rating on handling terrorism, his best on any issue we’ve tested.

5. Look for slings and arrows directed at Congress; for all the president’s problems, he’s positively popular in comparison.  

• Just 13 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job, its lowest in nearly 40 years of polling by ABC News with The Washington Post, and Gallup previously. Sixty-five percent “strongly” disapprove, 28 points worse than Obama’s negative intensity.

• Cutting to the parties, the Republicans in Congress have a lower approval rating, 21 percent, than the Democrats’, 33 percent.

6. All this, and an election year too.

• Obama runs about evenly with Mitt Romney in our latest poll – among registered voters, it’s Romney 48 percent, Obama 46. Against Newt Gingrich the president does better – Obama 52 percent, Gingrich 40. Obama vs. Ron Paul is 49-42 percent; vs. Rick Santorum, 52-41 percent.

• The president is not favored to win re-election in the public’s eyes. Asked whom they expect to win, 49 percent of Americans say it’s the eventual Republican candidate, 46 percent, Obama. Nonetheless, that’s significantly better for Obama than the 55-37 percent split on this question in October.

In sum, as the economy’s gained a little traction, so has the president’s popularity. The gains are tenuous, though, and any number of forces – including, for instance, the price of gasoline, a confidence-killer that’s on the move again – could send him reeling.

Marching for Life in Washington, D.C.

Jan 23, 2012 03:40 PM EST

Editor's note: posted by Laura Schaefer.
Don’t be too surprised if the mainstream media, like CNN, ignores the fact that thousands of pro-life defenders are peacefully marching in Washington D.C. today. Amidst rain and weather that dropped well into the thirties, thousands gathered to stand up for life following the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, a decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Yet 39 years after the legalization of abortion, we find ourselves in a nation whose heart has changed.
In May of 2009 Gallup released a poll showing that more Americans (51%) identified themselves as “pro-life” over “pro-choice” for the first time since polling began in 1995. The thousands of pro-life marchers gathering on the National Mall today are a true testament to the pro-life majority. The most inspiring message sent to lawmakers each year is the increasingly large number of young pro-life supporters.
These are your future voters! These are your current constituents! One glance around the March for Life and it is easy to see that this issue is one that the American public is deeply passionate about. Students with brightly-colored “Smile, your mom was pro-life” sweatshirts, small children carried on the shoulders of their fathers and young adults waving “we are the pro-life generation” signs are a true sight to be seen. And Washington D.C. is not alone -- marches from Seattle to Dallas to Columbia are happening across the county.
The surge in pro-life support leads me to believe that the “abortion issue” will play a large role in securing the social conservative vote this year. We see candidates like Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul signing pro-life pledges while Mitt Romney tends to “flip” on the issue. On the other hand, President Barack Obama continues to live up to his title as the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history. On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade yesterday, President Obama said:

“As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters… I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right… we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

There is not a doubt in my heart that the sanctity of human life will become an increasingly larger debate topic for our presidential candidates. My only hope is that as a nation we vote to protect the sanctity of human life this November.

March for Life Mon, January 23, 2012 Fox News Dateline:America On the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, Melissa Odhen, an abortion survivor, shares her story.

The State of the Union – In the Public’s Eyes

By Gary Langer

Jan 23, 2012 4:29pm

 

Where does public opinion stand on the eve of President Obama’s third State of the Union address? Here’s the tale of the tape, drawing on data from our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll completed Jan. 15, previous ABC/Post polls since 1981 and Gallup polls before them.
1. The president’s at a dead-even split in public opinion: Forty-eight percent of Americans approve of his job performance, 48 percent disapprove.

• In polling since 1940 only four previous presidents have started their re-election year with approval ratings less than 50 percent, and just one of them went on to win a second term, Richard Nixon in 1972. (The others were Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

• Obama’s approval rating is up from a career-low 42 percent in October.

• While he’s gained some ground, intensity of sentiment remains against him. “Strong” disapprovers outnumber those who approve strongly by 37 percent to 25 percent.

• Plenty of presidents have had ratings as low as Obama’s, or lower, heading into SOTU addresses: GW Bush and Truman three times apiece, Johnson and Ford twice and once each for Bill Clinton, GHW Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Nixon. Among them, GW Bush had just 32 percent approval heading into his last such address in January 2008, 16 points below Obama’s today. The lowest on record was Harry S Truman’s 23 percent heading into his 1952 SOTU.

2. The public’s still in a recession-inspired snit, albeit a slightly lessened one. Two-thirds (68 percent) say the country’s gotten seriously off on the wrong track. Fewer than half as many, 30 percent, say it’s headed in the right direction.

• Bad as it is, that “wrong track” number is down from 77 percent in September, and “right direction” is up by 10 points.

• “Wrong track” is slightly worse than its 62 percent heading into last year’s SOTU. It’s been higher, though: Seventy-seven percent heading into GW Bush’s last SOTU in 2008 and 78 percent for GHW Bush in January 1992. (It also was 78 percent at the time of Obama’s inauguration.)

• In available data since 1973, “wrong track” ratings have been this high or higher heading into SOTUs seven times – ’08, ’07, ’95, ’92, ’76, ’75, and ’74. (Data for the last three are from fall of the previous years, the most recent available).

• Unemployment has been this high or higher heading into SOTUs three times – the past two years, and once under Reagan.

 3. The president has a weak 41 percent approval rating for handling the economy (57 percent disapprove), his single greatest vulnerability. But he also has some room for push back on economic issues. Among them:

• He leads the Republicans in Congress by a 13-point margin in trust to better protect the middle class, 48-35 percent. It’s clear why this has been advertised as a key topic of his address.

• He leads by 8 points in trust to better handle job creation, 45-37 percent.

• He continues to escape the main blame for the economy. By 54 percent to 29 percent, more Americans pin chief responsibility for the country’s current economic problems on George W. Bush than on Obama.

• The public by 55-35 percent says unfairness in the economic system that favors the wealthy is a bigger problem than over-regulation of the free market that interferes with growth and prosperity. That puts Obama on the 20-point more popular side of this central debate.

• While just 45 percent say the economy’s even begun to recover, that’s up by 9 points since November. And the president’s approval on handling it also is up a bit, by 6 points, from its low last fall.

4. Obama also has significant vulnerabilities beyond the economy and the broad unhappiness it’s engendered. Among his lowest ratings, just 35 percent approve of his handling of the deficit. And fewer than half, 47 percent, say he’s achieved significant accomplishments as president.

• Countering these, Obama may make reference to the demise of Osama bin Laden last spring. The president maintains a 56-percent approval rating on handling terrorism, his best on any issue we’ve tested.

5. Look for slings and arrows directed at Congress; for all the president’s problems, he’s positively popular in comparison.  

• Just 13 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job, its lowest in nearly 40 years of polling by ABC News with The Washington Post, and Gallup previously. Sixty-five percent “strongly” disapprove, 28 points worse than Obama’s negative intensity.

• Cutting to the parties, the Republicans in Congress have a lower approval rating, 21 percent, than the Democrats’, 33 percent.

6. All this, and an election year too.

• Obama runs about evenly with Mitt Romney in our latest poll – among registered voters, it’s Romney 48 percent, Obama 46. Against Newt Gingrich the president does better – Obama 52 percent, Gingrich 40. Obama vs. Ron Paul is 49-42 percent; vs. Rick Santorum, 52-41 percent.

• The president is not favored to win re-election in the public’s eyes. Asked whom they expect to win, 49 percent of Americans say it’s the eventual Republican candidate, 46 percent, Obama. Nonetheless, that’s significantly better for Obama than the 55-37 percent split on this question in October.

In sum, as the economy’s gained a little traction, so has the president’s popularity. The gains are tenuous, though, and any number of forces – including, for instance, the price of gasoline, a confidence-killer that’s on the move again – could send him reeling.

Scott Brown, Elizabeth Warren Make Pact to Fight Super PACs

By Amy Bingham

Jan 23, 2012 6:16pm

  

Bloomberg/Getty Images

What do comedian Stephen Colbert, a Massachusetts senator and the woman trying to take his seat have in common? They are all battling super PACs, those recently legal groups that collect and spend unlimited funds from people and corporations to support or oppose political candidates.
But where Colbert used over-the-top satire to inflate the two-year-old campaign finance laws, Republican Sen. Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, are employing self-imposed sanctions to diminish the influence of super PACs on their race.
Warren and Brown agreed today to shun outside groups by signing a pact to donate half the value of any ad run on their behalf by third party groups to a charity of the opposing candidate’s choice.
“This is a great victory for the people of Massachusetts, and a bold statement that puts Super PACs and other third parties on notice that their interference in this race will not be tolerated,” Brown said in a statement.
The Massachusetts Senate race is the first campaign of national significance in which both candidates have vowed to reject the millions of ad dollars that super PACs can provide.
“Do we know it will succeed? No,” Warren said, The Associated Press reports. “But I do know that we go into this in good faith to try to have a chance to make our best case to the voters of Massachusetts. I think that’s worth trying.”
The Massachusetts race is expected to be the most expensive Senate race in 2012, and possibly the most costly Senate race in history.
Warren, a Democratic darling who helped the Obama administration create consumer protection regulations, is aiming to unseat Brown, whose upset victory in a special election following Ted Kennedy’s death in 2010 broke the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Woman Calls Obama An "Avowed Muslim" At Santorum Town Hall

By Shushannah Walshe

Jan 23, 2012 4:40pm

Santorum Says It’s Not His Job to Correct a Woman on Obama’s Religion

 

LADY LAKE, Fla. — Rick Santorum became annoyed at reporters today for asking him why he didn’t correct a woman at a campaign event who called President Obama an “avowed Muslim.”
“Why do you guys ask these ‘gotcha’ questions, like it’s my job to go out and correct everybody who says something I don’t agree with?” Santorum said to reporters after the event. “I don’t think it’s my responsibility. Why don’t you go out and correct her? It’s not my responsibility as a candidate to correct everybody who makes a statement that I disagree with.”
The woman told Santorum that Obama is not “legally” the president, that he “totally ignores” the Constitution, and that “he is an avowed Muslim.” She asked Santorum why Obama is still president, and the candidate responded by saying, “I’m doing my best to get him out of the government right now.”
“He uniformly ignores the Constitution,” Santorum said, not correcting the woman on Obama’s religion. “He did this with these appointments over the, quote, recess that was not a recess, and if I was in the United States Senate, I would be drawing the line.”
Obama is a Christian, but hasn’t been able to persuade many Republicans that he is, despite going to church and praising Jesus Christ publicly.
An August 2010 Pew poll showed 18 percent of Americans believe the president is a Muslim, up from 12 percent the month before he was elected.
During the 2008 campaign, a woman asked GOP nominee John McCain a question and called Obama an “Arab.” McCain immediately corrected her, saying, “No, no ma’am, he’s a decent, family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is about.”
Santorum told ABC News it wasn’t his “responsibility” to “correct” every questioner that says something “crazy.”
“There are lots of people who get up and say stuff in a town hall meeting and say things that I don’t agree with, but I don’t think it’s my obligation, nor should it be your feeling that it’s my obligation to correct somebody who says something that I don’t agree with,” Santorum told reporters.
At the end of his town hall at an American Legion Hall here, several Occupy protesters screamed, “Mic check” and “Stop the hate!” while throwing glitter.
He told reporters they “have the right to protest.” They have interrupted several of his events, including his speech the night of the South Carolina primary, where he came in third.
Despite calls for him to get out of the race and back Newt Gingrich, Santorum was very clear after his event today that he intends to be in the race “long term” and he’s looking beyond the primary in this state, which is on Jan. 31.
“We feel like we do as well as we can here and move on to the next state. We’re focused on four or five primaries in the next week or so after Florida,” Santorum said. “We’re planning already for Super Tuesday states and investing resources in states there. So this is going to be a long campaign, and we hope to do well here, but we understand this is a very, very expensive state.”
He added that “everybody realizes this race is going to change again in a week, change again in another week.”
“If there’s one thing we’ve seen about this race, it’s unpredictable,” Santorum said. “What you’re seeing is, a lot of folks saying ‘let’s wait’ and let this thing run out a little bit, see how the campaign is going, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
He spent most of his speech, before taking questions from the audience, focused on health care and criticizing the president on his health care reform legislation. Most of the people there were senior citizens, a large part of  Florida’s population.
The event space was only a half-mile away from The Villages retirement community, which has a large Republican population, and many of the people who attended Santorum’s speech live there.