(AP) – American veterans seem to be largely in Mitt Romney’s camp. That’s the indication from a new Gallup poll.
Fifty-eight percent of the veterans who were surveyed say they are backing Romney, while 34 percent support President Barack Obama.
Several of the closely-watched states in the November election have large blocs of military voters. Florida is home to several military installations — and, according to government figures, more than 1.6 million veterans. Pennsylvania has nearly a million veterans, while Virginia and North Carolina each have about 800,000.
Exit polls in 2008 found that Obama was supported by about 44 percent of voters who said they served in the military, while 65 percent voted for John McCain — a former Navy pilot and POW.
According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report in march, 12.1 percent of U.S. Armed Forces veterans who served on active duty after 9/11 were unemployed last year. The unemployment rate for all veterans was 8.3 percent.
(AP) – A House committee chairman charged Wednesday that the CIA and Defense Department jeopardized national security by cooperating too closely with filmmakers producing a movie on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King. R-N.Y., first raised questions about the bin Laden movie last summer, but said newly released documents confirm his suspicions.
The filmmakers are director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Academy Awards for the motion picture “The Hurt Locker.”
King referred to documents obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act request. He said the filmmakers received “extremely close, unprecedented and potentially dangerous collaboration” from the Obama administration.
Judicial Watch said the documents show that the Defense Department granted Bigelow and Boal access to a “planner, operator and commander of SEAL Team 6″ – the unit that killed bin Laden in Pakistan.more
(AP Photo)
(AP) – Apparently, California Gov. Jerry Brown forgot to rent “The Social Network.”
In an appearance Friday morning on “CBS This Morning,” the California governor said his state is still the land of innovation and even where Facebook was invented.
He added: “Not in Texas, not in Arizona, not in Manhattan and certainly not, you know, under the White House or the Congress.”
But interviewer Charlie Rose pointed out that CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others developed the iconic social network at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
Brown responded that the Facebook inventors quickly came to California, “where all the other innovative people are.”
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company began selling stock Friday. Brown and other officials hope it could bring in as much as $2.1 billion in tax revenue for California.
New Jersey politicians spoof Seinfeld in video
L.A.'s Morning News: Phil Hulett and Penny Griego, Entertainment,Politics
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city are channeling the Seinfeld-Newman rivalry in a video parody that spoofs the mayor’s heroics and Christie’s vice presidential potential.
The Republican governor finds himself thwarted at do-gooding by Newark Mayor Cory Booker. The Democrat rescued a neighbor from a fire last month.
Booker tells Christie “I got this” as he fixes the governor’s flat tire, helps Bruce Springsteen replace a missing guitar and Tebows after catching a baby dropped from a state Capitol balcony before Christie’s eyes.
Each time, Christie grits his teeth and says “Booker!” Booker is then shown on a phone talking to presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, when Christie cuts in. Here is the video, which played at yesterday’s New Jersey Press Association’s Legislative Correspondents Club show.
Actor George Clooney listens to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. during a news conference about Darfur at the National Press Club in Washington in this April 27, 2006 file photo. (AP)
(AP) – George Clooney played the suave host, chef Wolfgang Puck whipped up something for dinner and President Barack Obama and about 150 of his Hollywood donors enjoyed a few laughs at Clooney’s good-humored expense.
Obama told the crowd that his famed “Hope” poster from the 2008 campaign was based on a photograph of Obama sitting next to Clooney when Obama was a U.S. senator. Clooney had been in Washington advocating on behalf of Darfur.
“This is the first time that George Clooney has ever been photo-shopped out of a picture,” Obama said. “Never happened before, never happen again.”
In fact, the artist who created the poster, Shepard Fairey, used another photograph of Obama but said he relied on the Obama-Clooney picture to avoid a copyright infringement case with The Associated Press. He pleaded guilty in February to criminal contempt for fabricating and destroying evidence.
In this crowd, Obama didn’t even need to mention gay marriage to get vigorous applause. “Obviously,” the president said obliquely, “yesterday we made some news.”
The event, held under a tent with a transparent roof outside Clooney’s sprawling Tudor-style canyon home, raised nearly $15 million, a record for a single fundraiser.
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Gavin Newsom (AP Photo)
(AP) – California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting a new platform for sharing his made-in-San Francisco values – a national cable television talk show.
Current TV, the liberal-leaning cable channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, announced Wednesday that it had retained the telegenic Democrat to host a weekly hour-long program during which he will chat up “notables from Silicon Valley, Hollywood and beyond.”
“The Gavin Newsom Show” is scheduled to premiere in May during an as-yet undetermined time slot, Current spokeswoman Laura Nelson said.
Newsom, who knows both Gore and Current CEO Joel Hyatt, approached the network with the idea for the program, the lieutenant governor’s spokesman, Francisco Castillo, said. He cleared it with his lawyers to make sure it would not pose a conflict with his elected office, Castillo said.
“One of the intentions for this show is to promote and showcase California, which only benefits the state,” Castillo said.
The commitment should not detract from Newsom’s political duties, which include filling in for Gov. Jerry Brown when he is out of the state and leading several boards and commissions, because his guests are expected to be people he already knows. That would reduce the time he needs to prepare for interviews, Nelson said.
“We do know the show will have a very West Coast, California-focus,” she said. “It’s not an onerous task.”
Newsom, 44, burst onto the national scene in 2004 shortly after he was elected mayor of San Francisco and allowed same-sex couples to get married at City Hall in defiance of state law. As mayor, he also built his reputation by promoting the city as a technology hub and advancing first-of-their-kind programs in the areas of the environment and health care.
Newsom ran for governor in 2010, but dropped out of the race when Brown appeared to have a lock on the election and became a candidate for the infinitely less glamorous job of lieutenant governor. He is often mentioned as a potential future contender for governor or U.S. senator.
The talk show “may provide him with a forum to discuss issues he would love to be dealing with if he were governor,” Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento, said. “He needs a forum that allows him to articulate a platform, because (as lieutenant governor) he really doesn’t have one.”
California campaign rules do not preclude elected officials from getting paid for regular broadcast work as long as their compensation is in line with what other hosts get and they do not use their air time to campaign for re-election or slam political opponents, according to guidance the state Fair Political Practices Commission gave a candidate for Los Angeles mayor who hosts a radio program.
Gore and Hyatt founded Current TV in 2005 as a liberal foil to Fox News. It is available in 60 million U.S. households, but has struggled to cultivate a significant audience.
(Image: AP)
(AP) – President Barack Obama is hauling in about $1 million for his campaign and for Democratic Party groups.
The president was fundraising Thursday about a block from the White House, meeting with about two dozen supporters, each of whom paid $40,000.
The gathering is his third fundraiser in two days. Obama raised cash at two campaign events Wednesday in Michigan.
The president’s appearance on Thursday was closed to the press.
As in other events, the proceeds of the fundraiser are split between Obama’s re-election campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various state party organizations.
As of the end of March, Obama had raised about $350 million for his re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee so far in this election cycle.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (AP Photo)
(AP) – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie insists he was listening – not sleeping – during a recent Bruce Springsteen concert in New York City.
Christie says a fan snapped a photo of him with head back and eyes closed during the show at Madison Square Garden one day after returning from the Middle East. The governor says The New York Post incorrectly concluded that he had dozed off.
Christie told reporters Thursday that actually he simply leaned back and shut his eyes to listen to the spiritual-sounding song “Rocky Ground” when the picture was taken.
The governor is a mega-fan who has attended 127 Springsteen concerts, though he and Springsteen seldom agree politically.
Christie says he buys his tickets from band members Steven Van Zandt or Max Weinberg at face value.
(Image: AP)
The Obama campaign is running its first Spanish-language television ads aimed at rallying support among Hispanics, an increasingly important voting bloc.
The four television spots each feature an Obama supporter talking about the president’s education policies, including improving Head Start centers that serve over 362,000 Hispanic children and increasing funding for Pell Grants to help nearly 2 million Hispanic students pay for college.
The ads will air in Colorado, Nevada and Florida, political battleground states with growing Hispanic populations.
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