October 22, 2012

29% of FL Latinos are Cuban

http://www.christianpost.com/news/latino-demographics-suggest-gop-may-struggle-in-florida-67952/

In the most recent census (2010), those of Cuban descent were 29 percent of the Latino population

In a recent Survey USA poll
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=ac0d63ea-75f1-42aa-ba9c-e6955f64c76b
Romney leads with Cubans 48-40
Obama leads non-Cuban Latinos 67-27

When you combine those two groups, Obama leads 59-33

October 22, 2012

#CantAfford4More years of waiting for Romney's tax returns showing he took amnesty

October 22, 2012

Some Numbers on Obama's Foreign Policy

June 13, 2012 Pew Polls
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/06/13/global-opinion-of-obama-slips-international-policies-faulted/
























There's a pattern. Basically, Pakistan & Middle East/North Africa countries (with some exceptions like Libya) don't care for Obama. China isn't very keen on him either.

But the bulk of the planet like him, like him better than Bush (and in the link below Romney) and America's stature in the world has substantially improved under Obama which helps keep the peace, goof future diplomacy, good trade and is therefore, good for US business.

This link also has very favorable charts and facts on Obama's foreign policy performance
http://trends.gmfus.org/files/2012/09/TT-2012_complete_web.pdf
2009 here:
http://trends.gmfus.org/files/archived/doc/2009_English_Key.pdf

If US allies got to vote in the US election, Obama would win in a landslide.

October 20, 2012

When Nate Silver did his analysis of pollsters

he found PPP polls had a slight GOP lean and Rasmussen a heavy GOP lean
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/pollster%20ratings
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/?hp

Some of Nate's analysis in the first link is not displaying for me. So my comments are based upon my recollection of what Nate said about the two in that chart.

Rasmussen has always had a GOP lean. It's heavier until it gets close to the election (to help hide their tracks in my opinion because folks can only evaluate the final result). But my recollection was triggered by observing at a pollster given a D for Dem leaning that had slightly GOP leaning results. And a particular pollster I recall that happening to in Nate's report was PPP.

October 20, 2012

FYI, I previously posted about that false equivalency claim here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1546321

October 20, 2012

CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/benghazi-attack-becomes-political-ammunition/2012/10/19/e1ad82ae-1a2d-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html

“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States.

According to the CIA account,

... “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

... “This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and as currently available information continues to be evaluated.” This may sound like self-protective boilerplate, but it reflects the analysts’ genuine problem interpreting fragments of intercepted conversation, video surveillance and source reports.

....

“We believe the timing of the attack was influenced by events in Cairo,” the senior official said, reaffirming the Cairo-Benghazi link. He said that judgment is repeated in a new report prepared this week for the House intelligence committee.
..
There’s no dispute, however, that it was “an act of terror,” as Obama described it the next day.
...
Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room .?.?. never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”

The official said the only major change he would make now in the CIA’s Sept. 15 talking points would be to drop the word “spontaneous” and substitute “opportunistic.” He explained that there apparently was “some pre-coordination but minimal planning.”

From that Sep 15th CIA account that Darryl Issa has a copy of, the president and his administration told the truth about what they were told of the attacks.

Some folks seemed to appreciate some comments on this that I made recently here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1579948
In that post is corroboration of the events made by the NYT talking to witnesses

October 19, 2012

This guy had some insight to that:

http://www.infowars.com/more-evidence-neocon-network-behind-innocence-of-muslims-video/

which linked to this:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/09/18/the-pro-israel-network-behind-the-innocence-video/

October 19, 2012

Anyone is welcome to use any part of it

for whatever they deem appropriate.

And I don't give a crap about credits - or any such stuff.

I would add this which I posted as Daily Kos:

"A couple of years ago, Homeland Security released a report suggesting rightwing extremists were a security risk. Naturally, the GOP feigned outrage.

How quickly we forget:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/13/egypt-libya-hollywood-film

Produced and promoted by a strange collection of rightwing Christian evangelicals and exiled Egyptian Copts, the trailer was created with the intention of both destabilizing post-Mubarak Egypt and roiling the US presidential election. As a consultant for the film named Steve Klein said: "We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen."

So the rightwing extremists get their way, wind up with American blood on their hands and what they intended to trigger with this attack is largely overlooked as a prevailing issue today and their effort to disrupt an election is rewarded. Meanwhile, the president of the country whose administration got slammed warning his people about these extremists is getting hammered in the media for almost semantics in the early hours after an attack. I condemn the media for that disgraceful nonsense."

October 19, 2012

On Bush's watch, there were 12 attacks on US diplomatic facilities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_attacks_on_U.S._diplomatic_facilities

22 January 2002 Calcutta, India Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami gunmen attack Consulate
14 June 2002 Karachi, Pakistan al-Qaeda truck bomb detonates outside Consulate
12 October 2002 Denpasar, Indonesia Consular Office bombed by Jemaah Islamiyah
28 February 2003 Islamabad, Pakistan Unknown gunmen attack Embassy
30 June 2004 Tashkent, Uzbekistan Islamic suicide bomber attacks Embassy
6 December 2004 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia al-Qaeda gunmen raid diplomatic compound
2 March 2006 Karachi, Pakistan Car bomb explodes outside Embassy unknown
12 September 2006 Demascuc, Syria Gunmen raid US Embassy
12 January 2007 Athens, Greece RPG Fired at Embassy by Revolutionary Struggle none
18 March 2008 Sana'a, Yemen Mortar attack against US Embassy
9 July 2008 Istanbul, Turkey Armed attack against Consulate
17 September 2008 Sana'a, Yemen Two car bombs outside US embassy in Yemeni capital

Around 60 died.

Where was Darryl Issa, Mitt Romney & the GOP's outrage in the media for all those attacks?

Bush got massive funding increases for diplomatic security. Obama got massive funding decreases for diplomatic security.

Score: Bush 12 attacks in 8 years, Obama 2 attacks in nearly four years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/us/politics/questions-and-answers-on-the-benghazi-attack.html?_r=0

What do eyewitnesses say about the events in Benghazi? Were they related to the insulting video, or is that a red herring? And was the assault planned for the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, or was it spontaneous?

According to reporting by David D. Kirkpatrick and Suliman Ali Zway of The New York Times, eyewitnesses have said there was no peaceful demonstration against the video outside the compound before the attack, though a crowd of Benghazi residents soon gathered, and some later looted the compound. But the attackers, recognized as members of a local militant group called Ansar al-Shariah, did tell bystanders that they were attacking the compound because they were angry about the video. They did not mention the Sept. 11 anniversary. Intelligence officials believe that planning for the attack probably began only a few hours before it took place.

So the only thing the Obama admin via their intelligence services got wrong in the early hours after the attack was the peaceful demonstration before the attack. Why might that be?

a) the folks who could best tell us what happened were dead
b) this occurred in a semi uncivilized country trying to construct a government and police force
c) there was a crowd formed during & after the attack
d) other diplomatic facilities experienced demonstrations that same day due to the video

From that, I think a little latitude for inaccuracy on the crowds in the early hours is not unreasonable - as most rational people would.

However, from the NYT, in the early hours after the attack, here's what the administration got right:
1. It was an act of terror
2. It was motivated by the video
3. There was a crowd of peaceful observers during the attack
4. There was a crowd of peaceful observers after the attack

Again, all they really got wrong in the early hours was when the formation of the crowd took place - that it didn't start as a peaceful demonstration, it started as an attack.

According to one of the US right wing extremists who created of that video, they claimed they expected the video to upset the US election with their expectations that the middle east would react as it did. Where's the media outrage for these GOP wingnuts?

The US media collectively (ignoring the NYT & NY Daily News in this case) has some serious problems. Some of those problems may well be related to the political motivations of the billionaires who own them and fund the GOP Super PACs.

Richard Clarke expresses some of this better than most:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/romney-libya-shameful-article-1.1185889

October 19, 2012

Huh? Romney said "act of terror" on FOX:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/25/romney-chides-obama-on-attack-in-libya/

Romney Chides Obama on Attack in Libya
September 25, 2012, 9:23 PM
....
“That’s an act of terror,” Mr. Romney said in a Fox News interview Tuesday of the four Americans who were killed in the attack in Benghazi, Libya. ”But the White House doesn’t want to admit it.”

"Act of terror" are the very words Romney used on FOX ... nearly two weeks after Obama used them in the Rose Garden and the following day.