(CNN) – One day after Mitt Romney took heat for a comment he made about the poor, the Republican presidential candidate characterized his remark as a “misstatement.”

“I misspoke,” Romney said Thursday in an interview aired on KSNV, a CNN affiliate in Las Vegas. “When you do I don’t know how many thousands of interviews, now and then you may get it wrong, and I misspoke.”

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Romney made the original comment in an interview with CNN on Wednesday morning, in which he said he was not “concerned about the very poor” because there is a safety net in place for them—but added, “if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that.”

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to approve a $5 billion to $10 billion effort to help U.S. homeowners refinance as part of a wider package of proposals to shore up the depressed housing market.

Obama had sketched out the proposals in his State of the Union address last week, including a tax on banks to pay for the plan that Republicans quickly rejected.

The White House offered more details on Wednesday ahead of a speech by Obama to expand on his initiative, which some Republicans have derided as an election-year ploy.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Republicans portray President Obama as the tax-hiker-in-chief.

Obama portrays himself as a tax cutter for the masses but not the rich.

The truth isn’t so cut and dry.

The fact is, the president’s record on taxes is a mixed bag. In three-plus years in office, Obama has raised some taxes even as he has cut others.

The end result: Both sides get their election-year talking points, and families and businesses get a maze of temporary or soon-to-expire tax laws mixed in with some new ones on tap.

Low- and middle-income households: The president wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent for anyone making less than $200,000 ($250,000 for couples). In the meantime, as part of a deal with Congress in December 2010, he supported a two-year extension of them through the end of this year.

BOSTON — President John F. Kennedy’s library is releasing 45 hours of privately recorded meetings and phone calls, providing a window into the final months of his life.

The tapes include discussions of conflict in Vietnam, Soviet relations and the race to space, plans for the 1964 Democratic Convention and re-election strategy. There also are moments with his children.
On one recording, made days before Kennedy’s assassination, he asks staffers to schedule a meeting in a week.

He tells them he’s booked for the weekend, with no time to meet with an Indonesian general then.

“I’m going to be up at the Cape on Friday, but I’ll see him Tuesday,” JFK tells staffers.

(CNN) – Three days before the State of the Union address, President Barack Obama and Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling on Saturday offered what could be previews of their parties’ messages next week.

In the GOP weekly address, Hensarling bashed the record of Obama’s three-year administration, criticizing the state of unemployment, gas prices, and national debt under his watch.

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“Regardless of the president’s good intentions, his policies have failed the American people,” he said. “His policies haven’t just failed to make the economy better – they have actually made it worse.”

The White House was locked down Tuesday night because of “smoking objects” found near the North Portico as hundreds of protesters rallied outside the executive mansion, Secret Service officials said.

“We had approximately 1,000 to 1,500 protesters from Occupy D.C. on the fence line. There were no arrests but what we believe … was a smoke bomb was thrown over the fence,” said Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie.

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama asked Congress Friday for more power to streamline and reorganize the federal government, a move designed to claim the political middle ground in an election likely to be dominated by questions about Washington’s role in the economy.

The president asked legislators to grant him the authority to merge agencies that perform similar functions. If that power is granted, Congress would be required to hold an up-or-down vote on the president’s streamlining plan within 90 days of its submission.

Most states give their governors broad latitude in granting pardons. Some don’t trust them with that authority at all. And the rest allow a governor to grant pardons only with the recommendation of other state officials.

Mississippi’s raging controversy over last-minute pardons by outgoing governor Haley Barbour has generated calls for limiting the ability to grant pardons in that state. A survey of the clemency power reveals that states vary widely in the degree of authority placed in the hands of the nation’s chief executives.

The long-delayed start of a new consumer protection bureau took a major step forward Wednesday when the White House defied Congressional Republicans who had been holding out for changes that consumer advocates say would have substantially weakened the agency.

President Barack Obama announced a recess appointment to name Richard Cordray as the nation’s chief consumer watchdog despite strong Republican opposition, bypassing Senate approval.

“I refuse to take `no’ for an answer,” the president said told a cheering crowd in Ohio.

The announcement drew immediate fire from Republicans who have blocked Cordray’s appointment since it was announced in July.

Manchester, New Hampshire (CNN) — Republican presidential candidates faced off twice in 11 hours on Saturday and Sunday in debates ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. While both debates were staged in the Granite State, it was clear that the rivals intended for their messages to go beyond New Hampshire.

Here are five things we learned from the weekend.

Romney’s debating skills on display

Neither debate did much to change the state of play in New Hampshire. Front-runner Mitt Romney’s rivals went after him in both debates.