2012 Presidential Election

The number of people claiming the key unemployment benefit rises for the first time since last year, but employment is surging by a record amount thanks to a jump in the numbers of students with jobs

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Mixed signals as unemployment falls to 7.8%

Tens of thousands attended the Rally of Remembrance for the 9/11 victims and against the Ground Zero mega-mosque on Saturday. The crowd was so large, it stretched as far as the eye could see; you could not see the horizon from our stage. Yet AP reported that the pro-mosque counter-demonstration drew around a thousand “activists,” while “a smaller group of opponents rallied nearby, chanting, ‘USA, USA.’” The New York Post was only marginally more honest, numbering our rally attendees at 2,500: “The estimated 3,000 pro-mosque demonstrators outnumbered the mosque opponents by about 500.” New York 1 did a story on the rallies, but only showed footage of the pro-mosque rally. The Post likewise only published pictures of the pro-mosque rally. AP ran an aerial photo of the rally, but one that was so poorly framed that one-third of it was dominated by a large gray building, and the crowd was cut off on the other side. No one ran accurate photos of the rally, showing the full size of the crowd stretching beyond the horizon. Why didn’t anyone think to take aerial shots of both rallies? That would have settled all questions. The pictures don’t lie, but the media does. AP and the Post were not alone in their depiction of our rally and the pro-Islamic supremacist one as “dueling rallies.” Their coverage of our immense rally versus the tiny counter-protest is dangerous and absurd. What’s more, the media is missing a bigger story: that some who attended our rally say that New York police were actually keeping people away from the rally. An Atlas Shrugs reader who was at the rally wrote to me speculating that police “must have been given orders to knock down the numbers.” She reported: “I was there and they were chasing us away – I was moved 7 times! I was moved so far away I had to go around the block and could not get back. The truth is they finally refused access to thousands.” The same eyewitness noted that when the Ground Zero memorial ceremonies concluded, “what seemed like thousands” began making their way to our Rally of Remembrance, the police “went crazy and closed down the sidewalk entirely. They kept shoving us backwards until I, along with many in my group were forced right out of the block.” And after this, the media says hardly anyone was there. The real coverage can only be found on my website, AtlasShrugs.com , and other reliable news sites. The media ignored the story of the Ground Zero mega-mosque for months. It was the American people who put this story on the map. But instead of dealing responsibly with the objections to the Ground Zero mosque, the media has tried to morph the outrage over the Ground Zero mega-mosque into some fringe pastor’s Quran-burning stunt, as if the only people who opposed the mosque were rednecks and bigots. Of course, that’s their narrative. They created that story. The Today Show flew the Pastor up for an interview. Got that? They have never had on a responsible voice of the mosque opposition. The media operates under the narcissistic assumption that if they don’t report it, it didn’t happen. The Ground Zero mosque story has shattered this fundamental belief of theirs. The Ground Zero mosque story is the first news story of not only national but international proportions that emerged as the leading news story day after day, week after week, month after month, without the propulsion of the mainstream media. They scrambled to cover it late. They were playing catch up, and then tried to force it, shape it, destroy it. The people were having none of it. The people drove that story. And they will continue to drive the story. The people sent blog coverage of our June 6 rally to their email lists and posted it in forums. That way it got millions of views without any mainstream media coverage. We had four times the number of people at this rally, and the mainstream media still refuses to cover it — and when they do it is in a completely false and deceptive way. A case in point is the total media indifference toward the appearance of Joseph Nassralla at our rally Saturday. Nassralla was the unwilling media darling of our June 6th rally, when a misunderstanding was blown out of proportion by the mainstream media as a racist incident; he was the Arab who was supposedly in a confrontation at that rally. At Saturday’s rally we were proud to feature him, and he was so passionate and rousing in his love for America and fierce denunciation of the thousand-year-old Islamic oppression of the Coptic Christians in Egypt that the crowd went wild as Joseph led them in cheers of “G-d Bless America!” But the media yawned. This is war in the information battlespace. This is the war of ideas. They have the muscle, but we have the heart and the soul. We have the truth on our side. We can’t lose. When you attend rallies and demonstrations, take pictures yourself. Write your own account. Get the pictures and reportage out there to your email lists. Expose the terrible propaganda campaign of deception. It’s going to be a long, hard struggle. Another reader summed it up: “We are going to have to march through hell, to save America.”

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Countering the Lies of the MSM: The Ground Zero Mosque War in the Information Battlespace

Paul About a month ago, John, Scott, and I were talking about the election. I opined that there was a one-in-three chance that the Democrats would keep control of Congress, a one-in-three chance that the Republicans would end up with a fairly slim majority and a one-in-three chance that the Republicans would pull off a blow-out of historic proportions. I didn’t write this on Power Line because it was a totally unscientific, seat-of-the pants assessment — the kind that John has been tolerating from me for decades, but from which I usually spare our readers. Moreover, the election was three months away. I’m happy to report, however, that Nate Silver , a statistician who crunches poll numbers for the New York Times (as of late) and who (as I understand it) pretty much nailed the 2008 election, has reached the same conclusion I burdened John and Scott with. Silver writes: Republicans have a two-in-three chance of claiming a majority of House seats in November, [our] forecasting model estimates. And their gains could potentially rival or exceed those made in 1994, when they took a net of 54 seats from the Democrats. . . . According to the model, Republicans have about a one-in-three chance of winning at least 54 seats, their total in 1994, and nearly a one-in-four chance of gaining at least 60. . . .On average, the model predicts a net gain of 45 to 50 seats for Republicans. These days, I believe that the Republicans have a better than two-in-three chance of gaining control of the House. But I’ll defer to Silver’s analysis for now. SCOTT adds: See also Jay Cost’s “The forecast for November,” from the new issue of the Weekly Standard. In addition to forecasting the net Republican gain in the House, Cost crunches the numbers in the gubernatorial and Senate races to be decided on November 2.

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A forecast Democrats won’t want to hear

The Labor Department announced the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a point, to 9.6 percent in August so, as the AP noted , it “has exceeded 9 percent for 16 straight months,” while the economy lost 54,000 jobs. Yet, without avoiding the dire numbers, ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find a “mixed picture,” “mixed bag” or even a “silver lining” for President Obama and Democrats two months before election day. “It’s a mixed picture here, but it’s giving some encouragement to those who are out there looking, some who are hanging onto their jobs and their businesses by a thread,” Brian Williams insisted on Friday’s NBC Nightly News. On the CBS Evening News, fill-on anchor Erica Hill saw “a bit of a mixed bag” before Anthony Mason asserted that “weak as the job numbers were, they were better than Wall Street expected” and he touted: “With American businesses creating 67,000 jobs in August, the private sector has now added jobs for eight straight months.” Over on ABC, fill-in anchor David Muir elevated Obama’s spin, teasing World News: “More jobs lost and the President, just today, taking the Republicans on. Are they standing in the way?” He introduced the subsequent story: “This country lost another 54,000 jobs in August, and the President today took on the Republicans, saying they’re the ones blocking help for small business.” In a lengthy set up leading into a report from Jake Tapper, Muir trumpeted: But some economists say there is still a silver lining in these new numbers, because if you take away the 115,000 temporary government jobs – those Census jobs we knew were going away — a slightly different picture emerges. The crucial private sector actually adding 67,000 workers in August, health care and construction leading the way. And that comes after the private sector added 107,000 in July, 61,000 in June… Nice that Muir realizes the private sector is “crucial”!   Earlier today, from Julia Seymour of the MRC’s Business & Media Institute : “ CNN’s ‘Glass One-Quarter Full’ Spin: Emphasize Private Job Gains ” David Muir, on the Friday, September 3 ABC World News: We do turn now to the political storm brewing in Washington over the new jobs numbers out today. This country lost another 54,000 jobs in August, and the President today took on the Republicans, saying they’re the ones blocking help for small business. That, in a moment, but first, the numbers. Word that the nation’s employers cut another 54,000 jobs in August, marks the third month in a row that this country has seen a net loss of jobs. But some economists say there is still a silver lining in these new numbers, because if you take away the 115,000 temporary government jobs – those Census jobs we knew were going away — a slightly different picture emerges. The crucial private sector actually adding 67,000 workers in August, health care and construction leading the way. And that comes after the private sector added 107,000 in July, 61,000 in June. It’s growth, but still not the number of private sector jobs needed to keep one the nearly 15 million Americans still looking for work. And as I mentioned, the President was quick today to frame the numbers his way and so lets turn right now to Jake Tapper. CBS Evening News: ERICA HILL: Back home, a new sign the economic recovery will be a long, slow journey. Today the Labor Department reported private businesses added 67,000 jobs in August, but overall the economy lost jobs as the Census Bureau laid off more temporary workers. And the unemployment rate inched up to a tenth of a point, a tenth of a point, rather, to 9.6 percent. Wall Street was encouraged by the news that businesses are hiring, though. The Dow jumped 128 points today for its first positive close week in a month. Anthony Mason is our senior business correspondent. So overall, Anthony, it’s a bit of a mixed bag? ANTHONY MASON: Yeah Erica, weak as the job numbers were, they were better than Wall Street expected and seemed to give investors confidence the economy can avoid a double-dip recession. With American businesses creating 67,000 jobs in August, the private sector has now added jobs for eight straight months… Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News: Turning to the U.S. economy and the latest reading on the job market for August. Employers cut 54,000 workers from their payrolls, less than what analysts had predicted. The unemployment rate ticked up a notch: 9.6 percent now as discouraged workers restarted their job search. It’s a mixed picture here, but it’s giving some encouragement to those who are out there looking, some who are hanging onto their jobs and their businesses by a thread…

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Nets See ‘Mixed Picture,’ ‘Mixed Bag’ and ‘Silver Lining’ in Rising Unemployment Rate

A couple of Christine O'Donnell fans didn't like yesterday's post on the radio interview . My mistake, fellas. You're right. It was a terrific interview. A candidate who doesn't like the questions she's being asked should always tell the host that there are rumors he's taking bribes from the other campaign. When she says she won two out of three counties, no one should acknowledge that she lost both, one by 14 percentage points. Conservatism is best served when we all close our eyes and pretend we don't see a false statement by a candidate we prefer! Now, I'm not going to tout Mike Castle as anything other than what he is. He has a lifetime ACU rating of 52.49. That's pretty darn “meh” for conservatives. But the moderation of the other guy isn't sufficient reason to give a thumbs up to a candidate who makes blatantly, easily-to-verify false statements on the trail, nor to countenance her attacks on those who have the audacity to bring her the bad news. I'm listening to the audio of Mark Levin, who in O'Donnell's defense, declared, “If she's a moral, ethical person who follows the law, I don't care about the rest of this stuff.” Looking at that Weekly Standard interview … Asked about a financial disclosure showing that

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Who’s Backstabbing Who In Delaware?

Paul As I see it, the nation’s current economic woes translate, under normal political practice, into a net gain of roughly 50 House seats for the out-of-power party. The perception that President Obama won the presidency on false pretenses, is governing from too far to the left, and needs to curbed translates into a net gain of roughly 25 seats. The question is, will the Democrats serve these two “sentences” concurrently or consecutively? UPDATE: I am being a bit whimsical in this post. Obviously, the 50-seat “economic” pick-up (if that’s the correct number) will come mostly from districts where the Democrats are inherently vulnerable, with some seats in particularly distressed districts mixed in. The 25 seats winnable on ideological grounds (if that’s the correct number) will also consist largely of inherently vulnerable ones. Thus, if my numbers are right (and they are hardly scientific), the Republican net gain will be closer to 50 than to 75.

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Concurrent or consecutive sentences?

With liberals up in arms over News Corp’s political contributions, here’s an interesting fact worth noting: of the roughly $1.15 million network TV employees gave to political candidates in 2008, a full 88 percent of it went to Democrats. Barack Obama received almost half a million dollars from those same execs, while John McCain received just over $25,000. The discrepancy between donations to the Democratic and Republican parties was also enormous. Though the numbers are striking, the imbalance is not altogether surprising. But they do help to put in prospect the left’s righteous indignation over the political activities of Fox News’s parent company. According to the Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott : The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880. By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744… President Obama received 710 such contributions worth a total of $461,898, for an average contribution of $651 from the network employees. Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain received only 39 contributions totaling $26,926, for an average donation of $709, Ninety-six contributions by broadcast network employees to the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senate and House campaign committees totaled $217,881. Thirty-eight contributions by broadcast network employees to the Republican National Committee and the Republican Senate and House campaign committees totaled $23,805… Notable contributors found in the CBS data include “journalist” Seth Davis, who gave $2,750 to Obama, CBS Corporation vice president and editor-in-chief Jane Goldman, who contributed $250 to Obama, CBS Radio “host” Mike Omeara, who gave $1,471 to Obama, and “journalist” Beverly Williams, who donated $200 to Obama. Among NBC contributors were Saturday Night Live producer Jeffrey Ross, who contributed $500 to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CN, former NBC Today Show weatherman Willard Scott. who gave $500 to the Republican National Committee, NBC Universal CFO Jennifer Cabalquinto, whose donations to Obama totaled $1,200, NBC Universal “editor” David Mack, with $250 to Obama and $2,300 McCain.

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Lefties Upset By Murdoch Donation Take Note: 88 Percent of Network Donations Went to Dems

Recently, CBS had appeared to take its sampling methodology a little more seriously.  Partisan splits had started to appear more rational, and not coincidentally, Barack Obama’s polling had declined sharply in their surveys.  So when CBS reported , oddly considering the economic news of late, that Obama had gotten a slight bounce in his numbers, I became a little suspicious … Read the rest

So far in in this election cycle, two U.S. Senators — Arlen Specter and Robert Bennett — have fallen short in their effort at being nominated and a third — Lisa Murkowski — may be on life-support. Murkowski would be the first Republican Senator to lose a primary this year. Bennett lost by a vote at a convention and Specter, of course, is an ex-Republican. Murkowski would also be the first Senator to lose a primary to a candidate supported by the Tea Party Express. But that organization has been a significant player in several primaries where a contender seemingly came out of nowhere to defeat one or more better known candidates. In light of these successes, I thought we should hear Tea Party Express’s explanation of how Miller either defeated or nearly defeated Murkowsk. Here, in relevant part, is its statement about the Alaska primary: For the past 2 months we have criss-crossed Alaska on the ground quietly building a network of support for Joe Miller. We activated our membership of over 1,000 people in the state and told them how important this election was and how hard we needed them to work. At the same time, our supporters from across the nation contributed nearly $600,000 to allow us to blitz the TV and radio airwaves, as well as newspaper ads and direct mail pieces. We were able to narrow the funding advantage Senator Murkowski had over Joe Miller. . . During the past two months the Tea Party Express organized rallies, held meet-and-greet events, and sat down for meetings with tea party activists across Alaska including the following cities: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Sitka, Wasilla, Kodiak, Ketchikan, Homer and more. The Tea Party Express commissioned two polls during the race. The second poll came out the Thursday before the election and showed Miller had gained 25% and was surging fast. At that point the Tea Party Express made a giant final round of advertising buys to help give Miller the chance to pull out a win. We were the only people to release a poll of likely GOP primary voters in the final days of the campaign. So we knew this race was going to be close. Apparently some people got caught sleeping at the switch, not the least of whom was the Murkowski campaign. . . The Tea Party Express spent nearly $600,000 on the Miller Senate race including TV and cable ads that at times ran at rates that exceeded twice per hour on various stations and networks in the final week of the campaign. Half-page newspaper ads were purchased in two waves including a final blitz of half-page ads that ran on Election Day in the Anchorage Daily News, Sitka Sentinel, Kodiak Daily Mirror and Peninsula Clarion. The newspaper ads featured an issue-by-issue comparison between Miller and Murkowski. The Tea Party Express also activated its membership to phone voters in Alaska, reaching 10,000 high-propensity Republican households in the final 2 days of the campaign. The Tea Party Express regularly featured Governor Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Miller in the advertising, as polls showed Palin enjoyed a higher level of “Strongly Favorable” poll responses than Senator Murkowski or any other Republican in the state. So many media stories cited polls that questioned Governor Palin’s popularity. The problem was, those results reflected the responses of hardcore Democrats. Among GOP primary voters Palin was beloved, but the media missed that. . . . Governor Sarah Palin and her husband Todd also increased their campaign activities for Miller in the final days of the campaign, galvanizing conservative voters to turn out in higher numbers than the experts predicted. Meanwhile, KFQD-Anchorage conservative radio talk show host, Dan Fagan, came out heavily for Joe Miller in the final days of the campaign joining other conservative radio talk show hosts who had increasingly mobilized their listeners to not count Joe Miller out. The Tea Party Express has been one of the most politically active tea party organizations in the nation. With over 400,000 members, the Tea Party Express has lent its backing to winning candidates such as Sharron Angle in Nevada, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Mike Lee in Utah and Scott Brown in Massachusetts. These victories are just the most recent for the Tea Party Express’s political action committee. The Tea Party Express has also successfully defeated or forced to retire such incumbents as Congressman Bart Stupak in Michigan, Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Congressman Alan Mollohan in West Virginia.

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A force to be reckoned with

-By Warner Todd Huston Mark Tapscott has an odd idea of a fun time, but I’m glad he does. He was casually tooling through the info posted on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau and decided to see how many welfare bureaucrats there were working in the states . I know, I know, Tapscott needs to take up bowling or something. But, still, the numbers he found are instructive. He found, for instance, that out of every 100,000 residents, the State of New York has 256 welfare bureaucrats and Wisconsin has 249. That’s quite a number, isn’t it? That means that New York, having 19,541,453 residents, has at least 50,026 welfare bureaucrats feeding off the taxpayers. Wisconsin, why it employs 14,080 welfare workers. These number are, well, idiotic. But they are true nonetheless. Here are the top ten as Tapscott calculated: New York – 256 Wisconsin – 249 New Hampshire – 241 Ohio – 228 Minnesota – 208 California – 189 Pennsylvania – 178 North Carolina – 174 North Dakota – 164 New Jersey – 146 Tapscott also had an excellent point. He asked what the readers thought this proved? He then answered saying that it proved that just about anyone with an Internet connection could find this information. That ought to scare the dickens out of government employees everywhere because it represents a level of transparency and, ultimately, accountability that is unprecedented. Indeed it should. But will our politicians be wary of this fact and act in a more upright manner? I doubt it. Still, it was a good exercise and more people should try it out.

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Welfare Bureaucrats Swarm Like Locusts Upon The States