Friday, November 2, 2012

NATIONAL ELECTION

► This morning from Reuters — Job growth quickens, giving Obama some relief — 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 been a drag on President Barack Obama’s re-election chances.

► In today’s Washington Post — The last land mine in Obama’s path is diffused — The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ October report was unexpectedly decent: 171,000 nonfarm jobs added in October, and unemployment essentially unchanged at 7.9%. What’s more, the August numbers were revised upwards from 142,000 to 192,000, and the September numbers were boosted from 114,000 to 148,000. This suggests the possibility that something was stirring in the economy that we hadn’t picked up, and could help explain why Obama’s small but seemingly durable edge in the electoral college has persisted.

► In today’s NY Times — The blackmail caucus (by Paul Krugman) — We shouldn’t worry about the ability of a re-elected Obama to get things done. On the other hand, it’s reasonable to worry that Republicans will do their best to make America ungovernable during a second Obama term. After all, they have been doing that ever since he took office.

► At PoliticsUSA — Business abandons Romney as Bloomberg, The Economist endorse Obama — Days before the election, the business community is abandoning Republican “businessman” Mitt Romney in order to endorse the Democratic incumbent President Obama over Romney’s failure to make the math work and his hard turn to the right.

► From Reuters — Chrysler exec to Trump: ‘You’re full of sh*t’ — A Chrysler executive tells Donald Trump that the real estate executive and TV personality was “full of sh*t” for repeating Romney’s claim that Chrysler is shipping U.S. Jeep production to China, which the automaker refutes.

STATE ELECTION

► At SeattleTimes.com — Final Washington poll: Inslee leads narrowly, all initiatives looking good —  Democrat Jay Inslee led Republican Rob McKenna 48.7% to 45.6% among likely voters, a slight improvement for him from his 1-point lead in the poll’s mid-October sampling. All four statewide initiatives also appear to be popular with voters.

► At TheOlympian.com — McKenna held fundraiser during state-paid trip — A recent Seattle Times story highlighted that state Attorney General Rob McKenna has accepted $184,000 in free travel — including trips to Washington, D.C., and overseas to Israel and Japan — paid by private sources since he took office in 2005. But it turns out that isn’t the whole story. McKenna also took trips on official state business that were paid by taxpayers, and one in July to Disneyland included a campaign fundraiser.

► At RawStory.com — John Koster’s rape comments demonstrate conservative inability to understand consent (by Amanda Marcotte) — In case that’s not enough to convince you that Koster really struggles with the idea of consent, you have him equating getting raped with seeking abortion with this “putting more violence onto a woman’s body” nonsense. That the former is, by definition, something a woman didn’t want and the latter is something she actively sought out doesn’t even surface as a concern in his thinking. What women want and don’t want is simply not part of his equation.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — McKenna: Koster’s ‘rape thing’ comment was ‘inappropriate’

EDITOR’S NOTE — Ya think?

LOCAL

► In the Seattle Times — Air pollution from Puget Sound ports is declining, survey finds — A new detailed survey of air emissions showed the most dangerous type of pollution associated with the maritime industry — the tiny toxic particles found in diesel exhaust — had declined 16% since 2005.

► In the P.S. Business Journal — Local officials court Hanjin amid Sodo arena concerns — Seattle and Port officials are trying to persuade South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping to exercise a 10-year option for the port’s Terminal 46, which is the terminal closest to the proposed site for a new sports arena. The deadline for exercising the option is Dec. 31. Hanjin has operated the terminal, visible from downtown Seattle, since 2002.

► In today’s Peninsula Daily News — Wild Olympics says plan won’t cut jobs; loggers disagree — A new analysis commissioned by the Wild Olympics Campaign has concluded that proposed legislation to declare as wilderness 198 square miles of Olympic National Forest would have a negligible effect on logging and would not cause job losses. But the North Olympic Peninsula Timber Action Committee remains opposed.

► At PubliCola — Seattle Times falls off circulation list’s Top 25 — We still have no idea what metrics the Seattle Times plans to present to political campaigns to prove that its ad for GOP candidate Rob McKenna was successful — but they’re not likely to include the latest circulation numbers.

NATIONAL

► In today’s NY Times — Nonpartisan tax report withdrawn after GOP protest — The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.

► In today’s Washington Post — On tax cuts, it’s CEOs vs. CEOs — A rift has opened in the U.S. business community over whether tax increases should be an important part of the government’s strategy for tackling the federal deficit and heading off destabilizing changes in tax and spending policies set to kick in at the end of the year.

T.G.I.F.

► Bremerton boy Ben Gibbard, the lead singer of the Bellingham-born band Death Cab for Cutie, considered the Washington State Ferries a lifeline to Seattle’s live music and culture when he was growing up. A couple of years ago, when Gov. Chris Gregoire floated the idea of cutting Bremerton ferry service after 9 p.m., it truly twisted Gibbard’s stomach into knots. Today, as the WSF faces yet another of its continual revenue crises, and state officials weigh more service cuts and fare increases versus finally committing to the ever-elusive “dedicated stream of revenue,” the entire staff of The Stand presents Death Cab’s “The Sound of Settling.”

Have a great weekend — brought to you by the Labor Movement.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 9 a.m.