Tagged: Barack Obama

Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson has been appointed to President Obama's commission to improve U.S. elections, which was first introduced at this year's State of the Union address.

During the 2012 elections, voters across the country complained of long lines and confusion at the polls, and many have called for reforms to the system since the 2000 presidential race.

Speaking to reporters at an event organized by the Christian Science Monitor, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., blasted President Obama for using the families of gun violence victims in his push for legislative reforms.

From Huffington Post:

"I think gun control is a legitimate issue for us to debate," Paul said. "I hate to see using people, I think, as props and politicizing people's tragedy. When I see the father and the mothers and them testifying - and I know they're coming voluntarily, and they want to come and be part of this debate - but it still saddens me just to see them, and I think that in some cases the president has used them as props. And that disappoints me.

The president has reached out to family members of victims from the Newtown massacre in the aftermath.

One mother stood in for Obama during one of his weekly presidential addresses. In that speech Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son was murdered during the shooting spree, pleaded for stricter gun control laws.

Jasmine Farrier, a political science professor for the University of Louisville, will speak about the "enduring impact of a presidential election" at noon Tuesday at the Filson Historical Society. Farrier talked recently to WFPL's Jonathan Bastian.

"Every single person in the House won their election they do not necessarily see the need for political compromise that the rest of us see," Farrier said.

Listen to the rest below:

Much like the first presidential debate, there was no mention of climate change in the second match-up between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. But there was more talk about energy than during the first debate.

And, predictably, there was lots of work to be done by fact-checkers in the day following.

One of the most intense exchanges of the night was over oil and gas production on federal lands. Romney said production of oil on government land is down 14 percent, and production of gas is down nine percent.

Coal's role in this year's presidential election isn't going ignored by national media. Marketplace Morning Report had an interesting story this morning by Adriene Hill about the fuel's prominent role in President Obama and Mitt Romney's Ohio campaign strategies...even though there are less than 3,000 coal miners in the state. As the industry is always quick to point out, that doesn't include jobs that are related to and reliant on the coal industry.