News

Catholics' view of President Obama did not significantly change despite a high-profile battle over whether the administration would require religiously affiliated employers to include contraception in employees' health insurance plans, according to a new poll from Gallup.

Obama's approval among Catholics dipped from 49 percent to 46 percent over the week, within the poll's margin of error and in line with general polling trends, Gallup found.

The Obama administration announced last Friday that they would not require religiously affiliated employers to provide the coverage, instead shifting the burden in those instances to insurance providers.

A new poll released Tuesday found that a majority of Americans continue to favor cutting the payroll tax, although the percentage supporting that break has steadily decreased since last autumn.

According to a survey by CNN/ORC, 54 percent of Americans favor cutting the payroll tax, while 42 percent oppose doing so. That figure is down from 59 percent in October of last year, and 65 percent last September.

Democrats are evenly split on the issue, with 48 percent favoring a tax cut and 49 percent opposing. Nearly six in 10 Republicans support reducing the payroll tax, while 38 percent do not believe in doing so.
Read more...

A man who was a member of the White House residence staff suffered a hand injury at work Tuesday morning.

"There was a minor injury with a member of the residence staff – an ambulance was called out of an abundance of caution," said an administration official.

Lon Walls, spokesman for the D.C. Fire and EMS Department, told The Hill that emergency services were called to the White House at 10:52 a.m.

“We went there with a report of a possible amputation of either one or two fingers,” Walls said, but could not provide further details on the nature of the injury or what led to it.

The identity of the injured male has not yet been released.

Walls said "the person was assessed and we transported him to Washington Hospital Center.”

Updated at 7:27 p.m.

Ron Paul said Tuesday that Americans should be "outraged" over President Obama's 2013 budget proposal and echoed fellow Republicans in arguing that the plan fell short of the president's promises to reduce deficit spending.

"For the fourth year in a row our federal budget deficit will exceed $1 trillion, and President Obama is offering us a budget plan that will continue digging us deeper into this debt hole," said Pau in a statement. "This budget contains a massive tax increase, and President Obama’s policies of more debt and taxes will make the jobs crisis facing the nation much worse than the employment crisis we are facing."

Paul went on to lambast Obama — and his Republican opponents — for failing to take "the debt seriously."

Read more...

A new survey released Tuesday is the fourth national poll to show Rick Santorum snatching the lead in the race for the GOP nomination from Mitt Romney.

Santorum earned 34 percent of support by Republican voters surveyed compared to Romney’s 32 percent, according to the poll from CNN and ORC International. Santorum’s lead is within the margin of error, but his numbers are a huge jump from CNN/ORC’s poll last month, when Santorum took 15 percent.

Rick Santorum didn't hold any punches against his opponents on healthcare at a campaign stop in Couer d'Alene, Idaho on Tuesday.

Santorum attacked both President Obama and Mitt Romney over their records on healthcare. Regarding Obama, Santorum said if the administration's Affordable Care Act, which is scheduled to be fully implemented by 2014, is put in place the country would "be no more."

"If Obamacare is implemented, America as I described it to you will be no more," Santorum said. He said that Americans would have to pay "tribute" to the government if the law was fully put in place.

"This president is not a serious president when it comes to reducing government," Santorum continued. "Why? Because he doesn't want to reduce government."

Although he did not mention Romney by name, Santorum clearly contrasted himself with the former Massachusetts governor.

"But if you look at the other candidates in the race, they are not well positioned to take on President Obama on this issue," Santorum said. "One in particular is uniquely disqualified. We won't mention his name."

Santorum went on to jab Romney on his Massachusetts healthcare law.

"And who is the best candidate to go up against Obama on this signature issue of the day?" he asked rhetorically.

"You are," the crowd cheered in response.

Romney opponents attacking him over his healthcare reform law, which critics argue is very similar to the Obama administration's reform, has been commonplace in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Romney's surrogates have pointed out that Santorum voted for the Medicare Part D bill in 2003. The bill established a program that subsidizes prescription drug costs for Americans on Medicare, but the bill offered no method of paying for these benefits.

"He's wrong now to cast himself as the across-the-board comprehensive conservative," said former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.).

American Catholics' approval of President Obama remained virtually the same during a week when his administration introduced — and later backed off from — a rule to force health insurance providers to offer contraceptive care free of charge. 

The administration's birth-control mandate was met with fierce opposition from conservatives, and its “accommodation” did not win over the White House’s most harsh critics.

According to a new Gallup Poll released on Tuesday, Obama had the approval of 46 percent of Catholics last week. The week before that found 49 percent of Catholics approved of the job Obama was doing. In late January, 45 percent of Catholics approved of the job Obama was doing. 

Animal-rights activists launched a protest questioning Mitt Romney's treatment of his dog outside the Westminster Dog Show Tuesday.

The event — organized by a group called Dogs Against Romney — is meant to highlight a widely circulated story in which Romney strapped his family dog, Seamus, in a kennel to the roof of his car during a 12-hour road trip to Canada despite the Irish setter suffering from diarrhea. The incident happened in 1983.

"The protest is sponsored by Dogs Against Romney — and will seek to focus more public attention on the fact that Romney forced his dog to ride for 12-hours on the roof of his car — and even coldly hosed the dog down with water after he became ill and frightened, soiling himself — before driving for hours more — all while Romney's luggage rode inside the car," the group said in a press release Monday.

Herman Cain turned down an offer to compete on ABC's “Dancing with the Stars,” according to a report published Tuesday.