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...Mary Blackwell said the league's Okaloosa County chapter held a voter registration drive at a college campus in Niceville and that a person who was registering voters told her he was "lucky" he only had applications from Republicans or independents -- Blackwell said she was "distressed" by the comments and became worried that he may be discarding voter registration forms filled out by Democrats.

Todd Akin’s list of allies has grown yet again. Akin this morning won the endorsement of the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), the PAC founded by influential conservative Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. DeMint himself endorsed Akin Wednesday in a joint announcement with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Activists say they're challenging some names to ensure 'election integrity.' Others say it's an effort to suppress the votes of likely Obama supporters. Lori Monroe, a 40-year-old Democrat who lives in central Ohio, was startled a few weeks ago to open a letter that said a stranger was challenging her right to vote in the presidential election.

Conservatives had hoped that Mitt Romney’s choice of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) as his running mate would make Romney act more like Ryan — bold, specific, confident.

...The Romneys gave $4.1 million to charity, but only took a deduction of 2.5 million of that in order to make sure their tax rate stayed above 14 percent... If he loses, he might be able to file an amended return and claim those deductions anyway.

Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, paid $1.94 million in federal income taxes on 2011 income of $13.7 million, most of it from investments, for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, his campaign said Friday.

Now, at least, there can be no doubt about who is waging class warfare in this presidential campaign. Mitt Romney would pit the winners against the “victims,” the smug-and-rich against the down-on-their-luck, the wealthy tax avoiders against those too poor to owe income tax. He sees nearly half of all Americans as chumps who sit around waiting for a handout.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has resigned as a national co-chairman of Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign to lobby for Wall Street. He has also ruled out a run for governor or Senate in Minnesota in 2014....

In a brief and hastily called news conference Monday just after 10 p.m., Mr. Romney acknowledged having made the blunt political and cultural assessment, saying it was “not elegantly stated,” but he stood by the substance of the remarks, insisting that he had made similar observations in public without generating controversy.

...He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them.