Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s plans to revamp Medicare (ABC) are already sparking campaign-trail debate (NYT), shifting the focus from whether President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law should stand to who has the best plan to make Medicare affordable (CBS). Read more »

Though the campaign insists presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate and chairman of the House Budget Committee, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, see eye-to-eye in a campaign largely focused on the U.S. economy and the future of government spending, some analysts and pundits are noting the differences in their budget plans. Read more »

With GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney selecting Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman best known for his plans to drastically reduce federal spending, as a running mate, some analysts are beginning to take a closer look at Ryan’s foreign policy views (Reuters). Read more »

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney recently said he would end a government tax credit that helps subsidize Iowa’s burgeoning wind industry.

Romney favors letting the wind energy production tax credit expire at the end of the year, saying such tax credits interfere with the free market economy (NPR) and if the wind industry is viable, it should be able to survive on its own without government help. Read more »

A group of international human rights advocates recently released a list of the ten most pressing challenges for the winner of the 2012 presidential race, noting that it is in the best interest of the world as well as that of the U.S. interests abroad to protect human rights. Read more »

Under the Obama administration’s new policy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will begin accepting applications (Reuters)  starting August 15 for work permits from young undocumented immigrants so they will legally be able to stay in the United States and work, which is causing election-year stir. Read more »

Congress left Capitol Hill for its summer vacation without passing a measure that would protect U.S. infrastructure from foreign attacks via the Internet despite concerns expressed from the presidential campaign trail.

A bill that would have established security standards to prevent large-scale cyber attacks (WashPost) on the U.S. critical infrastructure failed to draw enough votes in the Senate to overcome a GOP filibuster last week, in spite of support from current and former homeland security, intelligence, and defense leaders from both sides of the aisle. Read more »

With the campaign still highly focused on the economy, both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are interpreting July’s jobs report in a way that best suits their election chances.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, 163,000 employers added in July, ending three months of weak hiring. But the gains were not substantial enough to lower the unemployment rate, which rose to 8.3 percent for July from 8.2 percent in June. Read more »

After a week of foreign travel, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s campaign is pushing his economic philosophies, touting a new tax plan they say will create 12 million jobs in the next four years (AP). Read more »

With presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s six-day, three country trip abroad at a close, analysts and politicos are weighing in on the candidate’s overseas performance.

Some Republicans consider the trip a win for the candidate. Read more »