GOPolitico & GOP-Gallup: It’s a love thing!

rise and shine

TOD Alert!!!!

The kids at Desertflower’s school are trying to raise money for a new sound system. If the school can get in the top 15 of a challenge Pepsi are running, then the sound system will be paid for by Pepsi. They are currently at 19.

The challenge ends at midnight tonight – so please vote for Desertflower’s school!

You can do so either online or by text:

Go to the RefreshEverything website – registering takes two minutes, just type “desert shadows” in the search box and the school will come up. Then vote!

Or, Text 73774 and type in the message code 109320.

Desertflower: “I hope everyone will take a minute to push for this for these great kids … they all work too hard NOT to be heard. They have a voice too 🙂 Thanks family.”

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Business Insider – Thanks Dotster

Marketwatch: Growth in private-sector payrolls sharply accelerated in November, led by the service-producing sector and small businesses, according to the ADP employment report released Wednesday.

Employment in the private sector rose by 206,000 jobs in November – the largest gain since last December and almost twice the average increase in recent months. The October level was revised up to 130,000 from a prior estimate of 110,000.

… While economists have noted a divergence between estimates from ADP and the government, markets look to ADP’s report on private-sector payrolls to provide some guidance on the U.S. Labor Department’s jobs estimate, which will be released Friday and includes information on both private- and public-sector payrolls.

More here

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Wait….

Reuters

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11:30 Michelle Obama delivers the keynote address at Partnership for a Healthier America’s inaugural Building a Healthier Future summit

12:30 Michelle Obama welcomes military families to the White House for the first viewing of the 2011 holiday decorations

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Two more Reuters Photos of the Year:

…. visiting the Lincoln Memorial, April 9

Moneygall, May 2011

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Ooops:

Reuters: Herman Cain had almost daily contact this month with the woman who says she had a 13-year extramarital affair with him, even as he battled sexual harassment allegations from other women, ABC News reported on Wednesday.

More here

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Reuters: Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in more than 50 years Wednesday, launching an historic mission to press the reclusive country’s new leaders to sever illicit contacts with North Korea and deliver on reforms.

…. The visit, announced by President Barack Obama at a regional summit in earlier this month, could also open a new arena of U.S. competition with China, which has watched warily as Washington courts its resource-rich southern neighbor as part of a broader policy of increasing U.S. engagement in Asia.

More here

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OFA

More here

looking up

kinship

Reuters: ….In Africa, Michelle Obama has been welcomed as the daughter of a continent she has only visited a handful of times, and interest is high in her unique position as a black presidential spouse and leader in her own right.

….Does she feel a kinship with Africa? “Absolutely, yeah,” she said in the interview, before comparing that to the feeling she had in Moneygall, Ireland, where the president met a distant cousin in May.

“I absolutely feel that connection here. And I wasn’t surprised by it. I absolutely felt that connection in Moneygall (and was) a little more surprised by it.”

Thousands of people lined the main street of tiny Moneygall last month, welcoming the Obamas as if they were long lost relatives…. “The love, the warmth, the connection, the excitement. That was family, too. And that’s what I want my kids to understand – that your family is Granny in Kisumu, but it’s also your cousin in Moneygall. That is your history. That is really the American history.”

Audiences in Johannesburg and Cape Town found the first lady’s history and success inspiring … “As a young black woman, I see her as a role model,” said Nozi Samela, 26, in Cape Town, adding that it was Obama’s work – not necessarily her race – that generated admiration. “She has taken time to come to the communities, to see the people from the ground level, and actually talk to them, and hear what the issues they face are. I see her as a role model.”

Mamphela Ramphele, a former anti-apartheid activist who moderated Obama’s discussion with students at the university, said the first lady rose above skin color and gender. “To have someone like her who is successful in her own right and represents the transcendence of barriers of race, of class, of gender in the U.S. coming here and engaging in such a human way… that touches the hearts of ordinary people,” Ramphele said.

Full article here

Thank you CTGirl

ah yes, the liberal media….

Tonight’s CBS News, starring John Dickerson:

“In national polls he (Mitt Romney) beats Barack Obama.”

Really?

Dickerson must have missed the last national poll (June 8), by Reuters/Ipsos (here): “….President Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points – 51 percent to 38 percent.”

“The emails turned out to be great news for Sarah Palin …. she can also say that she was given a thorough tea-cleaning by the media and there were no bombshells, which is good news for her.”

Really?

He must have missed dozens of those emails, including the ones about her getting questions in advance from friendly media, having her staff research the answers and feed them in to a teleprompter, which she then read from during her ‘interview’. Seriously.

And funny, Dickerson neglected to mention that Alaska officials redacted information from more than 2,300 of the emails, and held back 953 entirely (Washington Post). Um, how could the half-termer have been given a “thorough” cleaning by the media when her Alaskan buddies withheld all the damaging stuff?!

‘Palin emails redacted by same people who worked for her’

Paul Jenkins (Anchorage Daily News): As they prepare to finally cough up more than 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin’s emails gleaned from her brief, odd stint as governor, Alaska officials tut-tut they are going to withhold 2,415 pages from the public. Why? Those communications are privileged, personal or somehow exempt from Alaska’s disclosure laws. Or so they say.

How convenient. Guess where the good stuff will be. No, really. Guess. Now, you might wonder, as I do, how emails sent or received by a governor or her minions on state time, using state resources, yakking about state business can be personal or exempt from disclosure laws. But state officials say there is the right to privacy thing and the attorney-client privilege thing and the “deliberative process” thing. Apparently – and it was a shock to me – there is no public’s right to know thing.

Who made these decisions? It turns out state lawyers and folks in the governor’s office – where some, it turns out, worked for Palin but now work for Gov. Sean Parnell, who was Palin’s lieutenant governor – made the calls on those 2,415 emails. Not an impartial panel of citizens and lawyers, or folks lacking direct or indirect ties to the authors of the emails or any court. Just insiders.

More here

Quality reporting, Mr Dickerson 😉

E-MAIL: evening@cbsnews.com

huh?

Yesterday (Washington Post): ….according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, President Obama leads five of six potential Republican presidential rivals tested in the poll. But he is in a dead heat with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney …. among all Americans, Obama and Romney are knotted at 47 percent each, and among registered voters, the former governor is numerically ahead, 49 percent to 46 percent.

Today (Reuters): …according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday, President Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points – 51 percent to 38 percent.

Thanks Debra 😉

50+

Reuters: President Barack Obama comes out ahead against the field of potential Republican hopefuls for the 2012 presidential election, with more than a 10-point lead over the closest of the pack – Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

When Obama was pitted against each possible Republican candidate, he scored more than 50 percent. His highest rating came against Donald Trump with 57 percent saying they would vote for Obama versus 30 percent for the New York real estate magnate….

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UPI: President Barack Obama could win six key states against all but one of four potential GOP opponents, a Marist poll released Wednesday indicates.

The Marist Institute for Pubic Opinion found that Obama is leading in 23 out of 24 hypothetical match-ups tested in six of the nine states that George W. Bush won in 2004 and Obama won in 2008.

The president leads former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

Match-ups also have him leading former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The only potential GOP candidate the president currently trails is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and it is only by one point in the state of North Carolina.

…Marist said with the exception of Huckabee, voters in the six states generally do not like Republicans running for president.

(Thank you Donna Dem)

cautious & consultative = weak. seriously.

You gotta love the poll Reuters carried out with Ipsos after the start of operations in Libya. People were given just three choices to describe President Obama, these were the results:

48 percent: Cautious and consultative
36 percent: Indecisive and dithering
17 percent: Strong and decisive

Note how they separate ‘cautious and consultative’ from ‘strong and decisive’, like being cautious and consultative are signs of weakness when you’re contemplating sending American men and women in to combat. If weakness is being cautious about taking military action against another country, before consulting widely to get the best advice, and then acting accordingly – then I love weakness!

Reuters’ headline? ‘Few Americans see Obama as strong military leader’!

So, because 48% chose cautious and consultative, instead of ‘strong and decisive’, Reuters seem to interpret this as meaning those 48% think the President is ‘indecisive and dithering’. Okay – but if that’s the case, then, eh, why didn’t they choose ‘indecisive and dithering’?

Could it possibly be that these people just think being cautious and consultative is a good thing, bearing in mind the catastrophic military madness of the Bush creature (and his VP, Dick Haliburton) and all the lives lost during his ‘reign’?

“The survey suggested Americans may see Obama in a very different light from his predecessor, George W. Bush, who launched the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with some allies but was widely seen as a go-it-alone leader.”

No shit Sherlock!

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Thanks to Suzanne for linking this terrific Kevin Drum post in the comments:

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones): I’m not likely to blog very much about Libya, but I have to say there’s an air of unreality surrounding a lot of the commentary that’s starting to get on my nerves. Criticizing Obama for not consulting Congress is one thing. It’s not as if this is some kind of unprecedented break with past practice or anything, but still. I get it.

But the “dithering” complaint? Give me a break. When did it suddenly become a personality defect to decline to intervene in a foreign rebellion the instant it broke out? Isn’t there anyone left who appreciates the fact that Obama still retains a few shreds of anti-interventionist instinct and moves in a deliberate fashion?

Then there’s the “why did he change his mind?” nonsense. Answer: because when events on the ground are moving fast, presidents change their minds. How? Usually by first holding a meeting and getting lots of input. Obama changed his mind last Tuesday in exactly the same way that every president since George Washington has changed his mind.

And then the “following, not leading” complaint. Look: if the only thing you actually care about is showing just how manly the United States can be, this makes sense. But that’s a pretty stupid justification. There’s just no reason why America should be required to take the leadership role in every military action around the globe.

Finally, there’s all the handwringing over why we’re intervening in Libya but not Bahrain or the Congo or Yemen. Please…..

Look: I’m not really happy about the intervention in Libya ….. but an awful lot of the criticism is just so unremittingly juvenile that I can hardly stand listening to it anymore. Time to grow up, people.

Full post here

44 at 51

Reuters: President Barack Obama’s approval ratings inched up again this month as Americans grew slightly more optimistic about the economy and the future, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

Obama’s job approval rating rose to 51 percent from 50 percent in January … continuing an upward trend since October’s low of 43 percent.

The improvement for Obama came as the economy showed signs of improvement … the jobless rate dipped to 9 percent in January from 9.4 percent the month before, completing a 0.8 percentage point drop since November that was the biggest two-month decline since 1958.

…Americans are feeling more confident about the future as the economy improves, the poll found … “The more positively people feel about the economy, the better they feel about Obama,” Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said.

Full article here

green shoots

Reuters: The United States will lead the rich world’s economic recovery over the next two years while Japan and major European economies flounder by comparison, according to Reuters polls of more than 200 economists.

Backed by strong retail sales that rose for the fifth straight month in November, the poll showed expectations U.S. consumers will step up demand, prompting a wave of upgraded forecasts for economic growth there.

…”Three months ago the key issue for markets was whether the softness in economic activity was temporary or a sign of something more concerning,” said Barclays’ Head of Research Larry Kantor.

“The vast majority of recent data readings, however, have made it clear that it was no more than a pause — one that signaled a transition from the initial inventory and stimulus-led surge in growth to a more sustainable, but still solid, expansion.”

The Reuters survey showed U.S. gross domestic product growth averaging 2.7 percent next year, up markedly from the 2.3 percent seen in the November poll. Analysts expect the economy to pick up steam in each quarter through to the end of 2011.

…The poll was conducted after President Barack Obama stuck a deal on taxes last week with opposition Republicans, a bill that looks headed for overwhelming passage through the Senate on Wednesday.

While the new fiscal plan has divided both political and economic opinion, analysts suggested it would support consumer spending next year, which accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity.

Thanks for the link Hachikō 😉