From ABC/Yahoo:

The Supreme Court could say as early as Monday whether it will consider ending the Voting Rights Act’s advance approval requirement that has been held up as a crown jewel of the civil rights era.

The justices sidestepped this very issue in a case from Texas in 2009. In an opinion joined by eight justices, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote then that the issue of advance approval “is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today.”

Since then, Congress has not addressed potential problems identified by the court. Meanwhile, the law’s opponents sensed its vulnerability and filed several new lawsuits.

The advance approval, or preclearance requirement, was adopted in the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to give federal officials a potent tool to defeat persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.

The provision was a huge success, and Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent occasion was in 2006, when a Republican-led Congress overwhelmingly approved and President George W. Bush signed a 25-year extension.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan and New Hampshire. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives and Hispanics.

From The National Post:

So where do President Barack Obama and his Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney stand on the issues? We look at what they’ve said in the debates and elsewhere. (Click the image to see a larger version.)

See also: Obama’s Second Term Agenda, Blueprint for America [PDF]

From HuffPo:

The disparity, with Republicans spending $41.7 million and Democrats spending $23.5 million, illustrates a strategic gamble on behalf of the GOP presidential nominee to bury President Barack Obama and burn past him during the closing weeks of the campaign.

“Patience is a virtue,” one Republican source said of the decision to hold resources until the last weeks of the campaign.

The Republican source, who like all others would only discuss ad buying strategy and details on condition of anonymity, put the ad disparity at somewhat smaller than $18 million. The source offered the following data for the money being spent on both national cable and swing state television ads between Oct. 8 and Oct. 14.

1. Romney campaign: $17.7 million
2. Obama campaign: $16.5 million
3. The Karl Rove-started American Crossroads: $7 million
4. The Romney supporting super-PAC Restore Our Future: $6 million
5. The Obama supporting super-PAC Priorities USA: $4.2 million
6. The National Rifle Association: $1.3 million
7. The conservative American Future Fund: $400k

See also:

• More Romney Bundlers Revealed
  Sixty-three registered lobbyists have raised $14.3 million for the Romney campaign, and despite the campaign’s refusal to publicly disclose its list of bundlers — elite fundraisers who tap their personal and professional networks to raise funds. In addition, we’ve identified 37 of Romney’s other, non-lobbyist bundlers, whose names the campaign has refused to disclose.
• Backed by Adelson, Republican Pro-Israel Group Targets Obama
  With support from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and a board laden with well-connected luminaries of GOP fundraising, the Republican Jewish Coalition is making a strong push to turn just enough Jews against Obama to deny him re-election.

Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

(via http://huff.to/RDNTFO)

Brilliantly done.

You can watch and re-live President Obama’s best debate of his political career right here on CMP.

And also check out Romney’s Binder Full of Women here.

If you don’t have access to television or you’re held up somewhere this evening, you can watch the second presidential town hall style debate tonight on CMP, either on your laptop or on your smartphone (CMP is now smartphone friendly).

This second of the three debates, moderated by CNN’s Candy Crowley, will focus on foreign and domestic policy. When asked a question, the candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. Members of the audience asking questions are undecided voters who were selected to participate by the Gallup organization.

Obama and Romney meet again for a final time on Oct. 22, from Boca Raton in Florida, to talk foreign policy.

For a more exhaustive list of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy record, check out the following sources:

• Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments
• What Has Obama Done Since January 2009
• The Case for Obama

I love Sunday mornings and episodes of the Twilight Zone. To borrow and paraphrase New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Shack’s words, who wrote the following about former foreclosure mill Steven J. Baum, the GOP narrative ignores reality, as if existing in a parallel universe:

Rod Serling’s opening narration, to episodes in the 1961 – 1962 season of The Twilight Zone, could have been an introduction to the arguments presented in support of the instant motion by plaintiff’s counsel, Steven J. Baum, P.C. – ‘You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone.’ Read Judge Schack’s Twilight Zone case for yourself: HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v. Yeasmin, 2010 NY Slip Op 50927(U).

The GOP talking heads on this morning’s Sunday programming were no different. GOP Senator Rob Portman of Ohio made the following claim:

Watch video:

From ThinkProgress:

The numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ September jobs report prove both of Portman’s claims wrong: unemployment is lower than the day President Obama took office and the economy has created net positive jobs.

…

Portman also misled on Obama’s record on free trade agreements, saying “it’s unbelievable that the United States has sat on the sidelines for the last four years; hasn’t negotiated a single trade-opening agreement.” The President has renegotiated and signed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

Pay no attention to Obama’s record:

• 24 months of consecutive job growth and net positive job creation, notwithstanding the GOP’s obstruction of the passage of the Jobs Bill Act.
• The revitalization of the automotive industry and the fact that GOP puppet boy wanted to “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”
• The passage of Obamacare which requires health insurance companies to insure individuals with pre-existing conditions (GOP puppet boy thinks if you can’t afford it, you should go to the emergency room).
• The repeal of DADT and the DOJ position to not defend DOMA in the courts.
• Holding Osama bin Laden to account.
• Ending the war in Iraq.

For a more exhaustive list of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy record, check out the following sources:

• Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments
• What Has Obama Done Since January 2009
• The Case for Obama

In the meantime, however, Romney, who left Massachusetts worse off than prior to his governorship and who plans to reverse Roe v. Wade and gut Medicare/Social Security, scoffs at Obama’s record.

Channeling Shania Twain, he says “that don’t impress me much.”

From TP:

Speaking on CNN’s “Starting Point,” Chief Economist at Moody, Mark Zandi, acknowledged a study by the Tax Policy Center that shows Romney’s plan to lower taxes by 20 percent across the board, while making up those losses in government revenue by closing loopholes on the wealthy, doesn’t add up. Zandi even went so far as to say that “the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now”:

ZANDI: Yeah, I think the Tax Policy Center study is the definitive study. They’re non-partisan, they’re very good. They say given the numbers that they’ve been provided by the Romney campaign, no, it will not add up. Now, the Romney campaign could adjust their plan. They could say okay I’m not going to lower tax rates as much as I’m saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work. But under the current plan, with the current numbers, no it doesn’t. I’ll say one other thing, though. I think it is important that we do focus on the so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. Those are the deductions, and credits, and loopholes in the code. We need to reduce those, because if we do we’re going to make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and ultimately lead to stronger growth. So that’s the right place to focus. But, no, the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now.

See also: Romney’s Investments in 10 Chinese Companies that Embezzle, Ally with Iran, and Stole US Trade Secrets, Plus Romney Company Forces Workers to Take Down US Flag and Train Chinese Workers

In an entertaining yet scholarly fashion, the following video walks you through the reports, the facts and the figures which prove Mitt wrong, time and again. By the way, the maker of this video rooted for McCain in 2008.