Nobama, Biden Take Vacations Despite Ukraine Crisis

Nobama, Biden Take Vacations Despite Ukraine Crisis Michael Dorstewitz Biz Pac Review March 8, 2014

President and Mrs. Obama will be vacationing after all, despite the escalating crisis in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. And for good measure, so will Vice President Joe Biden.

On Thursday, it looked as though events in Ukrainian were going to spoil the Obama’s long Florida weekend vacation plans, but the White House announced, not so fast.

The Obamas will be staying on in Key Largo, Fla., while Biden will be relaxing by the pool with tropical drink in hand in the Virgin Islands, according to Fox News.

“The president over the course of a very busy week has maintained his schedule and his ability to monitor ongoing events in Ukraine. I would anticipate that he’ll do the same thing this weekend,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “And the fact of the matter is what the president is doing this weekend in Florida is essentially what the president will be doing if he stayed back at the White House. It’s just that the weather will be a little warmer.”

The entire family will be enjoying the facilities available to them in the keys.

“There are some recreational amenities on the property, including workout facilities, tennis courts, a couple of golf courses,” he noted.

Fox reported: Meanwhile, a military truck broke down the gates of a Ukrainian base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol and the installation was under siege by pro-Russian troops on Friday, the Interfax news agency reported. No shots have been fired.

About 100 Ukrainian troops are stationed at the base, Interfax reported, citing a duty officer and Ukraine’s defense ministry. In the week since Russia seized control of Crimea, Russian troops have been neutralizing and disarming Ukrainian military bases on the Black Sea peninsula.

Some Ukrainian units, however, have refused to surrender.

GOP Gains Momentum In Close Fight For U.S. Senate John Whitesides Reuters March 8, 2014

Eight months before the November 4 elections, Republicans have expanded the number of competitive races for U.S. Senate seats and have a growing chance of gaining control of that chamber and stalling Democratic President Barack Obama's second-term agenda.

Public dissatisfaction with the president, concerns about his healthcare overhaul and a sluggish economy, and a series of retirements by key Democratic senators in conservative states have made a rugged year for Democrats even more so, analysts and strategists in both parties say.

Republicans, who are widely expected to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, need a net gain of six seats to take back the 100-member Senate. Recent polling indicates they have big leads

in three states - Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia - where longtime Democratic senators have retired or will retire in January.

Although the primary season is just starting and the candidates in many races are not set, polls suggest Republicans have boosted their odds of gaining additional Senate seats by becoming competitive in politically divided states such as Michigan and Colorado, where a year ago they were given little chance of winning.

Senate races in those states and five others now represented by Democrats - Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina - have been close in early voter surveys.

Democrats have a chance to pick up Republican-held seats in two states: Kentucky, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to dispatch a Tea Party-backed challenger in the primary but would face a tough fight against Democrat Alison Grimes in November; and Georgia, where Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, will face the winner of a crowded Republican primary in a race to replace retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss.

That leaves Republicans needing to win at least three of the seven closely contested races for seats now held by Democrats, while holding off Grimes and Nunn in Kentucky and Georgia. If either of them wins in November, the task for Republicans will be more difficult.

"It's moving a little in the Republican direction," said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. His Crystal Ball website rates the Senate as a toss-up. "Republicans will pick up Senate seats, probably three or four. The question is, will they get that wave in October that carries them to the six they need?"

CONCERN AT THE WHITE HOUSE If Republicans were to control the Senate and the House for the last two years of Obama's presidency, virtually any legislation or nomination he sought from Congress would probably be frozen in place.

Republicans also would be likely to press the Senate to join the House in trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Although Obama could veto any bill from Congress that targets it, a Republican takeover of the Senate would put him on defense for the balance of his tenure.

There have been signs that Obama's administration is increasingly concerned about the 2014 elections.

This week's decision by the White House to extend the time insurers can offer health plans that do not meet minimum requirements under Obamacare was seen by some as an effort to protect Democrats from having to explain a new wave of policy cancellations during the final days of the fall campaign.

Obama has promised to help Democratic candidates any way he can, but told Senate Democrats last month that he would not be offended if those in conservative states do not want his help.

The president has acknowledged the difficulty of getting Democrats to vote in November. The electorate at midterm is typically smaller, older and whiter than in presidential election years, factors that favor Republicans.

That was the case in 2010, when the rise of the Tea Party movement carried dozens of Republicans to victory and sent a new generation of compromise-resistant conservatives to Washington.

"Too often, when there's not a presidential election we don't think it's sexy, we don't think it's interesting," Obama said this week at a Democratic National Committee dinner in Boston. "Because the electorate has changed, we get walloped. It's happened before and it could happen again if we do not fight on behalf of the things we care about."

RETIREMENTS HURT DEMOCRATS Democrats have faced an uphill battle in Senate races from the start of the political cycle. Of the 35

Senate seats up for election, 21 are held by Democrats and 14 by Republicans, so Democrats have more seats to defend.

Beyond that, those Democrats include Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan in North Carolina, who represent conservative states where Obama and Obamacare are particularly unpopular.

The top challengers to all four have raised significant campaign cash, and outside advocacy groups such as Americans for Prosperity, funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, already have spent millions of dollars on ads attacking the senators for backing Obamacare.

Republican candidates are heavy favorites to capture the seats of retiring Democrats Jay Rockefeller in West Virginia and Tim Johnson in South Dakota, two other states in which Obama's ratings are poor.

In Montana, Democrat John Walsh recently was appointed to fill the Senate seat vacated by Max Baucus, the new U.S. ambassador to China. Walsh is up for election in November and is running far behind Republican Steve Daines in early polling.

Democrats also could be stung by the retirement of Michigan Senator Carl Levin, which has put that state in play. Democratic Representative Gary Peters and Republican Terri Lynn Land, a former Michigan secretary of state, are now in a tight battle.

In Colorado, what had looked like a smooth path to reelection for Democratic Senator Mark Udall got much tougher last week when Republican Representative Cory Gardner announced he would take on Udall.

In Iowa, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin's retirement has given Republicans hope of picking up that seat. Representative Bruce Braley will be the Democratic nominee; the state's Republican establishment appears to be lining up behind state Senator Joni Ernst in a crowded primary field.

In another boost to Republican efforts, former GOP National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie jumped into the race against Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, a former governor.

Gillespie is a long shot to defeat Warner, who is perhaps Virginia's most popular politician and has been endorsed by a former rival, retired Republican senator John Warner. But Gillespie's presence and fundraising prowess mean that Mark Warner's reelection might not be as easy as it once seemed.

Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, put Republican chances of a Senate takeover at 40 percent but said that could jump past 50 percent by November.

"The Republicans are competitive in places I didn't think they would be, but they still have some challenges," she said, citing the potential for divisive Republican primaries in Georgia, North Carolina and Iowa that could leave the party with weakened, ultraconservative candidates who might have difficulty winning.

In Georgia, Nunn could face either Phil Gingrey or Paul Broun, Tea Party favorites in the House with a history of inflammatory comments on the campaign trail.

Democrats are hoping for a repeat of 2010 and 2012, when Tea Party candidates won Republican primaries but blew winnable races by committing gaffes that helped Democrats paint the entire party as outside the nation's political mainstream.

"One thing Democrats have going for them is the Republicans' continued ability to put their own foot in their mouth by making one provocative statement after the other," said Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

"As folks step toward the voting booth, they are going to think long and hard about giving control of

the Senate to a bunch of Tea Party types," Manley said.

Some Republicans say the party has learned from those mistakes. They note that in Colorado, Gardner's entry into the race led two other prominent Republicans to bow out, a sign that party officials' effort to avoid debilitating primaries might be gaining ground.

"I'm not seeing the problem with primaries materialize the way it did in previous cycles," said Brian Walsh, a former aide at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Primaries are only a problem when you nominate someone who can't win in November."

The Democratic Party’s Dirty Little KKK Secrets Infowars.com March 8, 2014 Updated with a new video below.

Jon Bowne investigates the mass amnesia associated with the indisputable connection between the Ku Klux Klan and the Democratic Party as well as its long history of murder, torture and voting coercion: Ku Klux Klan: Democratic Party Muscle VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOX0kAcdXNI

And Alex explains how the Democrats’ history ties into their current race-based, divide and conquer platform: Democrats Are The Party Of Race Politics VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV7_Q307SWk Yet the mainstream media is always trying to bury these obvious connections.

For example, shortly after the death of Democratic Senator Robert Byrd in 2010, Daily Caller contributor Mike Riggs pointed out the mainstream media’s whitewash of Byrd’s former ties to the Ku Klux Klan: Deceased U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd will be remembered by lots of things: His love for dogs and hyperbole, his ability to funnel federal dollars into make-work jobs in his native West Virginia, his loathing of balanced budgets and the fact that he skillfully conned several generations of Appalachian woodhicks into voting for him, over and over again, for almost six decades.

In passing, Sen. Byrd will also be remembered for having joined the Ku Klux Klan as a “young man.”

A quick check of this morning’s obituaries reveal that in the eyes of the traditional media, Byrd the Progressive Porker is much more important than Bob the Exalted Cyclops.

Byrd joined the Klan at the ripe young age of 24 — hardly a young’un by today’s standards, much less those of 1944, when Byrd refused to join the military because he might have to serve alongside “race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds,” according to a letter Byrd wrote to Sen. Theodore Bilbo at the height of World War II.

Today’s obituaries, however, made little mention of Byrd’s once-deeply held hatred for African Americans.For your reading pleasure, a collection of obituary snow jobs: From the 11th paragraph of the LA Times’ Byrd obituary: “Byrd was not always a champion of liberal causes. He had come of age as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and cast a “no” vote on the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited discrimination against African Americans and others. He later renounced his actions in both cases and called his membership in the KKK ‘the worst mistake of my life.’”

ABC News noted that “despite his successful political track record, the Senate’s senior Democrat was no stranger to controversy and was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan,” as if calling for the extermination of dark-skinned peoples (as well as Jews, Catholics, and gays) was no more stirring a gaffe than Gary Hart’s monkey business.

MSNBC.com reported that “Byrd’s success on the national stage came despite a complicated history on racial matters. As a young man, we was a member of the Ku Klux Klan for a brief period, and he joined Southern Democrats in an unsuccessful filibuster against the landmark 1964 Civil Rights.” (The Ku Klux Klan no doubt objects to being called complicated, and has held since Day 1 one that there is nothing wishy-washy about castrations, lynchings or burning folks alive.)

CNN also gave Byrd a pass on his association with the early 20th-century homegrown terrorist movement, writing in the 20th paragraph of Byrd’s obituary that “He blamed ‘that Southern atmosphere in which I grew up, with all of its prejudices and its feelings,’ for his opposition to equal rights, which included joining the [domestic terrorist outfit] Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s.”

INFOWARS.COM BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND