Green: PHOTO: Dog Guards Dead Victim's Body After Oklahoma Tornado Disaster
The Huffington Post Sabrina Siddiqui First Posted: 07/19/12 08:06 AM ET Updated: 07/19/12 02:10 PM ET
Actor Morgan Freeman has pledged his support for President Barack Obama by cutting a $1 million check to pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, according to reports on Thursday.
The Oscar-winning actor made the seven-figure donation last month, helping boost the super PAC to a total haul of $6 million in June and marking its best fundraising month to date. Priorities USA, which is focusing its attacks on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital, has raised $11.7 million in the second quarter.
Freeman confirmed his donation in a statement, praising the president's first-term record and warning of the special interest groups targeting Obama with "hundreds of millions of dollars."
"President Obama has done a remarkable job in terrible circumstances," the actor said. "He has ended combat operations in Iraq, put in place sensible reforms of Wall Street, saved the auto industry and protected the healthcare of every American with a preexisting condition. He has recognized the full equality of all our brothers and sisters and placed impressive, accomplished women on the Supreme Court. In return for this he is being targeted by hundreds of millions of dollars in special-interest money. I for one am proud to lend my voice - and support - to those who defend him."
Paul Begala, a senior advisor to Priorities USA, told the Los Angeles Times that the group was "honored that he has lent his powerful voice to our cause," and called Freeman a "national treasure."
By HOPE YEN | Associate Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.
Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.
The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.
Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.