Hissyspit
Hissyspit's JournalObama’s Approval Rises in Superstorm Sandy’s Wake
Source: TPM
TPM2012
Obama’s Approval Rises In Superstorm Sandy’s Wake
KYLE LEIGHTON NOVEMBER 3, 2012, 9:12 PM 13932
President Obama has seen a boost in his job approval ratings in the past week as the nation has dealt with Superstorm Sandy and its aftermath. Meanwhile, Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s favorability has hit a rough patch following almost a month of gains.
The shifts come with the the election just days away and could mark a late turn in a campaign that has drawn on for two years.
TPM Slideshow: PollTracker’s Top Races Of 2012
Since Oct. 28, a national tracking poll by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling has shown Obama’s job approval making a net gain of 6 percentage points. PPP is also the only national poll tracking a similar metric for Romney, his favorability rating, on a daily basis. During the same period, Romney’s favorability has dropped by a net 7 points.
Other daily tracking polls have also shown Obama making similar gains. Republican-leaning Rasmussen showed a 5-point net boost since its Monday poll. A daily ABC News/Washington Post poll has put Obama’s approval rating at 50 percent or above in nine of the 12 editions through Friday, and at 49 percent on the three other days.
Read more: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/obama-approval-superstorm-sandy.php
Juan Cole: Repubs Tip World Off to Covert CIA Role in Libya; Security Lack May Have Been for Intel
http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/republicans-tip-world-off-to-covert-cia-role-in-libya.htmlRepublicans Tip world off to covert CIA Role in Libya
Published on November 3rd, 2012
Written by: Juan
The politicization by the Republican Party of the tragic attack on the US consulate in Benghazi has been a security disaster for the United States. A document dump by Congressman Darrell Issa outed the identities of Libyans working with the US.
Now, it has come out that the annex of the Benghazi consulate was a Central Intelligence Agency HQ. Likely the consulate itself was thought safe because of the large numbers of CIA operatives at the annex, some of them with a background in military special forces. They were seen by the consulate staff as “the cavalry.”
Likewise, the reluctance to fortify the consulate may have come from fears that too much security would interfere with intelligence-gathering. State Department officials at the Beirut embassy in Lebanon have complained to me that they are virtually trapped inside the fortified complex, and can’t easily get out and mix with people, which interferes with their ability to build Lebanese contacts or do good political reporting. The CIA staff in Benghazi likely was trying to avoid a similar isolation.
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It is now clear why the Obama administration has been hampered in replying to the charges of Republican gadflies. They risked outing the CIA operations there. Obama quite admirably decided not to release information on an ongoing covert operation, even though he might, by doing so, have gained some political advantage. Certainly Karl Rove and George W. Bush would not have hesitated to out their own covert operation for political gain.
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NYC Marathon Canceled, Reports NBC News
Source: Reuters
@Reuters: No word on rescheduled date for NYC Marathon - NBC News
New York City Marathon will be canceled: city official
Fri Nov 2, 2012 5:34pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The New York City Marathon, one of the premier U.S. distance-running events, will not take place as planned on Sunday, a New York city official said.
City officials and the organizers of the marathon have been under pressure to cancel the event as the Northeast struggles to recover from heavy flooding and power outages caused by superstorm Sandy.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8A103R20121102
Rachel Maddow: Mitt's Mendacity - Final Count is 917 Untruths
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/02/14884755-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xli?liteChronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XLI
In a way, I blame my friend Greg Sargent. In the first week in January, he noted, almost in passing, that Mitt Romney seemed to be making a lot of false claims, and someone "really should document them all." That struck me as a good idea, so I decided to tackle this on my own.
After all, I thought at the time, how hard could this be? Once a week, I'd let readers know about Romney's whoppers, which I assumed would total about a half-dozen a week, and maybe after the election, I'd do a top 20 list of my favorites. The little project would be a nice little Friday-afternoon feature.
Little did I know at the time that Romney would become an ambitious prevaricator, whose rhetoric would come to define post-truth politics. Nearly 11 months after Greg Sargent's harmless suggestion, I've published 40 installments of in this series, which, before today, featured 884 falsehoods. (If you include today's edition, the new total is 917 falsehoods for the year.)
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New Details Discredit Fox News Reports on Benghazi Attacks
Source: Think Progress
New Details Discredit Fox News Reports On Benghazi Attacks
By Hayes Brown on Nov 2, 2012 at 9:47 am
A slew of new reporting this morning debunks Fox News reports claiming that the Obama administration withheld assistance during the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. With these revelations, the combined conservative narrative as led by Fox News — that the Obama administration failed to respond adequately during the attack and that mainstream media has not covered Benghazi enough — is in further disarray.
The Los Angeles Times’ version of the CIA’s role focuses the most heavily on pushing back on Fox’s spin:
“At every level in the chain of command, from the senior officers in Libya to the most senior officials in Washington, everyone was fully engaged in trying to provide whatever help they could,” a senior intelligence official said in a statement. “There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support.”
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In fact, the official said, the military diverted a Predator drone from a reconnaissance mission in Darnah, 90 miles away, in time to oversee the mission’s evacuation. The two commandos, based at the embassy in Tripoli, joined the reinforcements. And a military transport plane flew the wounded Americans and Mr. Stevens’s body out of Libya.
The new reports also contain previously unreported details about the CIA’s role in Benghazi. President Obama and Secretary of Defense Panetta did order U.S. forces into the region, but the CIA was the first to respond to the attack, arriving on the scene in under half an hour.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/02/1128831/new-details-discredit-fox-news-benghazi/?mobile=nc
Wall Street Opens Higher After Payrolls
Source: Reuters
Wall Street opens higher after payrolls
NEW YORK | Fri Nov 2, 2012 9:37am EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened higher on Friday as employers stepped up hiring in October, with a stronger-than-expected payroll report serving as a hopeful sign for a lackluster economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 51.22 points, or 0.39 percent, at 13,283.84. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 4.87 points, or 0.34 percent, at 1,432.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 9.21 points, or 0.31 percent, at 3,029.27.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-markets-stocks-idUSBRE89T0LN20121102
Payrolls Rise Sharply, Giving Obama Some Relief
Source: Reuters
Payrolls rise sharply, giving Obama some relief
WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 2, 2012 8:42am EDT
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers stepped up hiring in October and the jobless rate ticked higher as more workers restarted job hunts, a hopeful sign for a lackluster economy that has dragged on President Barack Obama's reelection chances.
Employers added 171,000 people to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. The government also said 84,000 more jobs were created in August and September than initially estimated.
The jobless rate edged a tenth of a point higher to 7.9 percent, but that was due to a surge of workers back into the workforce. Only people who have recently looked for a job can count as unemployed.
The employment data was the last major report card on the economy before Tuesday's presidential election, which pits Obama against Republican Mitt Romney.
While the rise in the jobless rate was expected, the increase in payrolls beat even the most optimistic forecast in a Reuters poll.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8A106620121102
Nate Silver Has Obama's Election Day Chance-of-Winning Up Above 80% for 1st Time Since Oct. 6
in latest 11:40 p.m. update. Trend continues upward.
Nov. 6 Forecast:
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Springsteen Pays Tribute to Storm-Damaged NJ Coast
Source: Associated Press
SPRINGSTEEN PAYS TRIBUTE TO STORM-DAMAGED NJ COAST
By GENARO C. ARMAS — Nov. 1 10:20 PM EDT
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen says his home state will rebound from the devastation wrought by Superstorm Sandy.
During a stop at the Jordan Center on the Penn State campus Thursday, Springsteen also thanked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for "doing a fine job" of taking care of citizens. He lauded police, firefighters and other first responders.
Springsteen then launched into an extended, heart-wrenching rendition of his song "City in Ruins."
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"It's so hard to see those businesses ... be washed away by the storm last week," Springsteen said.
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Springsteen also made several other references to the storm during the show. He said he hoped his hometown of Asbury Park, N.J., would recover from Sandy's wake much quicker than the 25 years it took for the coastal town to rally from earlier hard times.
During a line from the second song of the night, "Wrecking Ball," Springsteen paused for at least a minute following the line "Now my home is on the Jersey shore."
Read more: SPRINGSTEEN PAYS TRIBUTE TO STORM-DAMAGED NJ COAST
The second opening song was "We Take Care of Our Own."
Scope of Sandy's Devastation Widens, Death Toll Spirals (98)
Source: Reuters
By Edith Honan
NEW YORK | Fri Nov 2, 2012 1:04am EDT
(Reuters) - From New York City's Staten Island to the popular beach towns of the Jersey Shore, rescuers and officials on Friday faced growing evidence of widespread destruction wrought by superstorm Sandy, mounting anger over delayed relief and a rising death toll.
The total killed in one of the biggest storms to hit the United States jumped by a third on Thursday alone, to 98. In New York City, 40 people have been found dead, half of them in Staten Island, which was overrun by a wall of water on Monday.
Among the dead in Staten Island were two brothers, aged 2 and 4, who were swept from their mother's arms after her car stalled in rising flood waters. Their bodies were found near each other in a marshy area on Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Administrator Richard Serino planned to visit Staten Island on Friday amid angry claims by some survivors that the borough had been ignored.
Scenes of angry storm victims could complicate matters for politicians, from President Barack Obama just four days before the general election, to governors and mayors in the most heavily populated region in the United States. Obama visited New Jersey on Wednesday and has received praise for his handling of Sandy.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-storm-sandy-hurricane-idUSBRE89N16J20121102
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