Poland urges "explicit reaction" on death camp gaffe

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk delivers on May 30, 2012 a statement to the press in Warsaw.

(Credit: GRZEGORZ JAKUBOWSKI/AFP/GettyImages)
(CBS News) Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk remains unsatisfied with the White House response to a comment President Obama made Tuesday regarding a Holocaust-era "Polish death camp," and suggested the administration offer a more "explicit reaction" to the incident."

"We expect that America, in connection with this very statement, will join our efforts and help us eradicate such false and unjust phrases once and for all," said Tusk of the characterization, according to the Polish government's website. "We always react in the same way to ignorance, lack of knowledge and ill will which lead to the distortion of history. Such phrases are especially painful for Poland - Europe's most affected country by World War II."

On Tuesday, President Obama awarded a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter during World War II. In his remarks honoring Karski, who died in 2000, Mr. Obama described an incident in which Karski was smuggled "into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp" to witness atrocities taking place there. Karski subsequently reported what he saw to Franklin Roosevelt, in what Mr. Obama called "one of the first accounts of the Holocaust."

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Rubio taking advantage of veepstakes spotlight

(CBS News) The search for a vice president, as Democratic strategist Chris Lehane describes it, "is the original American Idol/Dancing With The Stars, with some candidates auditioning for the part and others leveraging the stage to launch their own national careers."

Marco Rubio is doing both -- and wiping the floor with his competition -- even if it's unclear whether he's really interested in being Romney's vice president, or if Romney's all that interested in him.

Rubio, the 41-year old senator from Florida and the country's most prominent Hispanic Republican, is mentioned in every discussion of potential vice presidents even though he's held federal office for less than two years. He has been busy this spring deepening his policy credentials and beginning to court the voters and politicians who will be crucial if he makes a run for the presidency in 2016 or 2020.

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Florida Dems push back against voter purge

Florida polling precinct

A Republican primary voter heads to the polls early at polling precinct No. 133 at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

(Credit: AUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Updated: 4:28 p.m. ET

(CBS News) Amid continued controversy surrounding a recent purge of potential non-citizens on Florida voting rolls, a handful of Democratic Florida lawmakers are pushing back, arguing in a letter to Gov. Rick Scott that the process "fails to meet the basic standards of accountability" and that proceeding with it would be "irresponsible."

The Florida Department of Elections is in the process of sweeping the state election rolls and identifying Florida residents deemed to be potential non-citizens based on a cross-search of data from the Florida Department of Elections and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Voters are notified by letter that they have been identified as potentially ineligible to vote, and have thirty days upon receipt of the letter to provide documentation of their citizenship or face removal from the polls.

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Romney camp fixes "Amercia" iPhone app gaffe

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

UPDATED 2:15 p.m. ET

(CBS News) As kids from across America compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Maryland, news emerged that Mitt Romney probably would not have made a good contender in the annual contest.

His campaign released an iPhone app Tuesday called "With Mitt" that shows 14 messages his supporters can superimpose on top of photos to be sent around to their friends or posted on social networks to show their allegiance to the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

In addition to "American Greatness" and "We're With Mitt," one of the slogans reads, "A Better Amercia."

The Twitterverse went nuts.

User Andrew Cove wrote that "some poor app designer is getting strapped in a cage on the top of a car and driven across country tonight. #amercia"

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told MSNBC Wednesday morning that "mistakes happen" and a new, corrected version would be fixed as soon as Apple approved the update.

It was fixed later Wednesday.

Alas, the Twitterverse had already found another piece of text that could have used a better copy editor.

"As president, Mitt will work to expand and enhance access and opportunities for Americans to hunt, shoot, and protect their families, homes and property, and he will fight the battle on all fronts to protect and promote the Second Amendment," read the text on the campaign website in the section on the candidate's views about gun rights.

Obama congratulates Romney on GOP primary win

(CBS News) President Obama and Mitt Romney briefly set aside their differences on Wednesday as Obama congratulated Romney on officially winning the delegates necessary to become the president's Republican rival.

The two spoke by phone in a call initiated by Mr. Obama.

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Planned Parenthood rolls out anti-Romney campaign

(CBS News) The political arm of Planned Parenthood on Wednesday announced a new $1.4 million ad campaign against Mitt Romney, the most ambitious foray into presidential politics for the women's health care organization.

Rolled out simultaneously with Planned Parenthood Action Fund's endorsement of President Obama's re-election bid, the new ad campaign hits the presumptive Republican nominee for his views on women's health issues, calling them "out of touch" and "harmful."

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said her organization "couldn't be prouder" to issue its endorsement -- the group's third for any presidential candidate -- of Mr. Obama.

"The contrast with Mitt Romney couldn't be starker," she said in a prepared statement. "Planned Parenthood Action Fund is committed to ensuring that voters know how wrong Mitt Romney is for women - in his own words."

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Longtime incumbent Rep. Reyes loses in Texas

Silvestre Reyes (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

(CBS News) Rep. Silvestre Reyes had endorsements from President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, but the long-time Democratic lawmaker nevertheless lost his Texas congressional seat in a tight primary Tuesday night.

In the five-way race, former El Paso city councilman Beto O'Rourke won the Democratic nomination for Texas' 16th congressional district with just over 50 percent of the vote. O'Rourke beat Reyes, an eight-term incumbent, by a margin of just under 3,000 votes.

Reyes, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is the sixth House incumbent defeated in this election cycle so far.

While Reyes had big-name endorsements, he faced opposition from the Campaign for Primary Accountability, an anti-incumbent group that targets senior lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The group confirmed to Hotsheet it spent $240,000 to help defeat Reyes.

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At fundraiser, Romney praises but disagrees with Trump

Romney (Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

(CBS News) LAS VEGAS, Nev. - After a day in which his message was overshadowed by talk of Donald Trump and birtherism, Mitt Romney's appearance at a fundraiser at Trump's hotel showed the fine line he walks between embracing the brash billionaire and keeping him at a safe distance.

Tuesday night's event, which was expected to raise upwards of $2 million for Romney's campaign, followed a day in which Trump doubled down on his claims that President Obama was not born in the United States and was instead born in Kenya.

"A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate," Trump said of Obama's Hawaii birth certificate in an interview on CNN just hours before he hosted Romney's fundraiser. Democrats slammed Trump's position throughout the day, believing it can win them voters who find such talk repugnant.

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Romney takes a gamble and embraces Donald Trump

Romney, Trump plane (Credit: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)


This post originally appeared on Slate.

Mitt Romney and Donald Trump teamed up for a Las Vegas fundraiser last night. We've seen this movie before: The straight-laced square goes to Vegas with his outrageous friend and wakes up with a Mike Tyson tattoo, next to a woman who draws a heart over the "i" in her stage name. Romney's general-election strategy has been to allow no distraction from his focus on the economy. Trump's strategy is pure distraction. In neon. Recently he tried to raise --yet another time-- questions about the president's birthplace. Yesterday, Trump put the birthplace question at the center of the election: "@BarackObama is practically begging @MittRomney to disavow the place of birth movement, he is afraid of it and for good reason. He keeps using @SenJohnMcCain as an example, however, @SenJohnMcCain lost the election. Don't let it happen again."

Mitt Romney is a risk-averse politician. His speeches almost never vary. He carefully limits his interactions with the press and sticks closely to the script because, as he explained, specifics can get you in political trouble. So it is notable that the Trump arm-lock is the second risk he has taken in a week. The first was a visit to Universal Bluford Charter School in West Philadelphia, a predominantly African-American neighborhood where there aren't many Republican voters. Now Romney's engaged with Trump, whose obsession with the president's birthplace--and the racial overtones of that quest--undoes the message Romney was trying to send the week before.

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Why Wisconsin's recall election matters

Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, left, and Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

(Credit: Tom Barrett Campaign/Getty)

Updated 3:10 p.m. ET

(CBS News) In less than a week, voters in Wisconsin decide if they want to keep their Republican governor, Scott Walker, who has been at the forefront of controversial policies that have divided Democrats and Republicans in the state and nationally. But the outcome of the recall election against Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, Milwaukee's mayor, could have much broader implications for the presidential race in November.

"The Wisconsin recall is what the Spanish Civil War was to World War II," Mordecai Lee, a governmental affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, told Hotsheet. Lee said the state is "a warm up, a testing ground" for the presidential race.

Once again a battleground

Although Wisconsin has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1984, the state is considered a key battleground this year. President Obama beat Republican John McCain by 13 percent in 2008, but Republicans made massive inroads in 2010, winning the governorship and taking control of the state legislature. In addition, Tea Party-backed Ron Johnson defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, a favorite of progressives.

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