5A

The Brunswick News / Thursday, October 11, 2012 5A

Romney says not going to raise taxes

By DAVID ESPO and STEVE PEOPLES
Associated Press

Page One, Part 2

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio Mitt Romney barnstormed battleground Ohio and pledged Im not going to raise taxes on anyone in a new commercial Wednesday as Republican running mate Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden looked ahead to their only debate of the 2012 campaign. President Barack Obama spent a rare campaign day at the White House, leaving it to aides to accuse Romney of dishonesty for saying he wont pursue any abortion-related legislation if he wins the White House. The former Massachusetts governor, who once supported abortion rights, reaffirmed his opposition. Neither Biden nor Ryan had any public appearances the day before Thursday nights 90-minute debate in Danville, Ky. Vice presidential encounters rarely make a significant difference in a White House campaign, although aides engage in the same sort of attempt to shape public expectations as when the men at the top of the ticket are ready to face off. For Ryans camp, that meant whispering that the 42-year-old

Jay LaPrete/AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks Wednesday at a campaign stop in Delaware, Ohio.

Wisconsin congressman and House Budget Committee chairman was comfortable discussing spending issues and domestic policy, but might not be able to hold his own on foreign policy, a Biden strong suit. The vice presidents side let it be known that Ryan is smart and wonky, a man who knows the budget better than anyone but its a version that omits mention of Bidens nearly four decades

of experience in government and his role as Obamas point man in budget negotiations with Republicans on an elusive deficit-reduction deal. Not even Romney or Obama seemed to pay much attention to the chatter. Instead, each expressed confidence in his own understudy. Whatever the impact of the Biden-Ryan encounter, last weeks presidential debate boosted Romney in the polls nationally and in battleground states, to the point that Obama was still struggling to explain a performance even his aides and supporters say was subpar. I think its fair to say I was just too polite, he told radio host Tom Joyner in an interview late Tuesday. ... But, you know, the good news is, is thats just the first one, he said, criticizing Romney for having made numerous claims last week that are untrue. Public opinion polls suggested the impact of last weeks debate was to wipe out most, if not all, of the gains Obama made following both parties national conventions and the emergence in late summer of a videotape in which Romney spoke dismissively of the 47 percent of Americans whom he said pay no income taxes, feel like

victims and dont take personal responsibilities for their lives. Eager to capitalize, Romney told a factory audience in Ohio during the day: My whole passion is about helping the American people who are struggling right now ... The president says hes for the middle class. How have they done under his presidency? Not so well. The Republican challengers new television commercial was an appeal to voters pocketbooks and also a rebuttal to Obamas claim that Romney had a plan to cut taxes by $5 trillion on the wealthy that would mean higher taxes for the middle class. The president would prefer raising taxes, Romney is shown saying in an exchange from last weeks debate. Im not going to raise taxes on anyone ... My priority is putting people back to work in America. Unemployment and the economy have been the dominant issues in the race for the presidency, and while Romney gained from the debate, last weeks drop in the jobless rate to 7.8 percent gave Obama a new talking point for the Democratic claim that his policies are helping the country recover, however slowly, from the worst recession in decades.

THE PUMPKINS ARE

COMING!

OCTOBER 13-31
HOURS OF SALE:

Monday-Friday 1pm-8pm Saturday 9am-9pm Sunday noon-7pm

St. Simons United Methodist Church

Corner of Ocean and Demere YOUTH FUNDRAISER

Happy 65th Anniversary Jack and Anne Rivers October 11, 1947

Judges OK S.C. voter law, say it must wait

By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press

WASHINGTON A threejudge panel has upheld South Carolinas law requiring voters to show photo identification but has delayed enforcement until next year adding to the list of states that have had to postpone or drop strict ID or voting laws they wanted in place for the Nov. 6 elections. The federal panel on Wednesday found that the law was not discriminatory because of the safeguards in it, but would require more time to put those pro-

tections against discrimination in place. The move follows a string of recent voter law decisions. In Pennsylvania, a judge blocked the state from enforcing its voter ID law next month, saying voters would have trouble getting IDs before elections. A federal appeals court forced Ohio to reinstate three early voting days leading up elections. And in Mississippi last week, state officials announced they could not enforce photo ID requirements for this years elections after the Justice Department asked for more details on the law. Courts also have blocked voter ID

laws in Texas and Wisconsin. In several states, though, photo ID laws are in effect such as in Indiana, Georgia and Tennessee. Such laws became priority issues in mostly Republican legislatures and for governors after the 2008 elections. Opponents have described them as responses to the record turnouts of minorities and other Democratic-leaning constituencies that helped put Barack Obama, the first AfricanAmerican president, in the White House. Debate over the laws intensified in part because of the tight presidential race between Obama

and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Supporters have pitched these laws as necessary to deter voter fraud, even if very few cases of voter impersonation have been found, and to build public confidence in elections. South Carolina officials portrayed Wednesdays decision as vindication for the state. Would I have loved for it to happen in 2012? Absolutely. But do not lose sight that this was a powerful fight that we really had to scratch and kick to get done, said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican. She signed the law last December.

Best Wishes and Love From Your Family

Spam: Text messages increase

Continued from 1A

Theres no way to tell definitively why text spamming has become a growing problem, Skelly said, but he suspects its because of the rise in popularity of smartphones. In 2008, about 1.5 billion messages that were sent and received could be considered spam, he said. Four years later, the number had increased to 4.5 billion. Persons who dont want to receive telemarketing phone calls on home or cell phones can place their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, operated by the Federal Trade Commission, but there is no such service to prevent unsolicited text messages, said Mitchell Katz,

College: Entry will be new face

Hepburn said. Designed in the coastal Mediterranean style of the colleges master plan, which Regent Bishop helped to develop, the campus entrance will honor his unparalleled contributions. Hepburn said the gate and accompanying arch will become a signature feature for the college.

spokesman for the FTC. There are laws prohibiting deceptive marketing, though, that make text spamming illegal, such as the Federal Commission Act and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, better known as the CAN-SPAM Act. Few cases have made it through the court system, but in February 2011 the FTC filed an unprecedented complaint against a marketer named Phil Flora who sent a mind-boggling number of unwanted commercial text messages pitching a mortgage modification service and stated incorrectly that he was associated with a government agency. One of the websites the messages directed people to claimed

to provide home loan modification information. Flora is also alleged to have collected information from consumers who responded to the text messages positively and those who asked to be removed and sold it to third parties. A settlement order found Flora guilty of violating the CANSPAM Act and banned him from sending or helping others send unsolicited commercial text messages and bars him from making false of misleading claims about goods or service. Flora was ordered to pay a fine of $32,000, reduced from the original judgment of $58,946.90. To register a phone number on the FTC do-not-call list, go online to www.donotcall.gov.

Continued from 1A

The Bishop Arch will honor former regent James Bishop, who was instrumental in the colleges transformation, said college president Valerie Hepburn. This will be a lasting and significant tribute to Regent Bishop,

Experts: Warming means more ice

By SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press

This entrance will become one of the most recognized features on campus, Hepburn said. The strong visual statement not only welcomes people to our campus, but also symbolizes our linkage to the Glynn County School System, the city of Brunswick and the Altama Corridor.

WASHINGTON The ice goes on seemingly forever in a white pancake-flat landscape, stretching farther than ever before. And yet in this confounding region of the world, that spreading ice may be a cockeyed signal of man-made climate change, scientists say. This is Antarctica, the polar opposite of the Arctic. While the North Pole has been losing sea ice over the years, the water nearest the South Pole has been gaining it. Antarctic sea ice hit a record 7.51 million square miles in September. That happened just days after reports of the biggest loss of Arctic sea ice on record. Climate change skeptics have

seized on the Antarctic ice to argue that the globe isnt warming and that scientists are ignoring the southern continent because its not convenient. But scientists say the skeptics are misinterpreting whats happening and why. Shifts in wind patterns and the giant ozone hole over the Antarctic this time of year both related to human activity are probably behind the increase in ice, experts say. This subtle growth in winter sea ice since scientists began measuring it in 1979 was initially surprising, they say, but makes sense the more it is studied. A warming world can have complex and sometimes surprising consequences, researcher Ted Maksym said this week from an Australian research vessel surrounded by Antarctic sea ice. He

is with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Many experts agree. Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado adds: It sounds counterintuitive, but the Antarctic is part of the warming as well. And on a third continent, David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey says that yes, whats happening in Antarctica bears the fingerprints of man-made climate change. Scientifically the change is nowhere near as substantial as what we see in the Arctic, says NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, an ice expert. But that doesnt mean we shouldnt be paying attention to it and shouldnt be talking about it.