After Facebook Campaign, Jack the Cat Found Alive at JFK Airport

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Here's some news to warm your little cat-loving hearts: Jack the cat is safe and sound.

Jack is the tabby cat whose owner, Karen Pasco, had checked him into the American Airlines baggage area at New York's JFK Airport before she boarded a flight to escape Hurricane Irene back in August. However, in preparation for the storm, parts of the airport were closed down and Jack somehow got loose from his cargo cage. One extended search and an angry Facebook group later, still no trace of Jack could be found.

Until late Tuesday night, that is: an employee found the missing feline in an airport customs room. The cat has been taken to a Queens veterinarian hospital where's he's being treated for dehydration.

American Airlines has issued a public apology to Pasco and Jack, and even offered the cat a free flight to California to be reunited with his owner. However, after his ordeal, we can't imagine Jack wants to go near an airport anytime soon.

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Campaign against Shakespeare film

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25 October 2011 Last updated at 03:41 GMT Nine road signs have been temporarily taped over Shakespeare's name is being removed from signs in Warwickshire in a campaign against a new film which questions whether he wrote his plays.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is taping over nine road signs for the day to coincide with the premiere of Anonymous at the London Film Festival.

It criticised the film as an attempt to "rewrite English culture and history".

A memorial in William Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon is being covered with a sheet.

The sign on The Shakespeare pub in Welford, where the Bard is said to have enjoyed his last drink, is one of 10 pub signs that are being covered.

'Enormous legacy' Diane Owen and Katie Neville gave the BBC's Jenny Hill a tour of Shakespeare's birthplace

The trust said it wanted to highlight the potential impact of the film's "conspiracy theory" that William Shakespeare was the "barely literate frontman for the Earl of Oxford".

Anonymous stars Rafe Spall as the Bard, Rhys Ifans as the Earl of Oxford, Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I, and asks "Was Shakespeare a fraud?"

It reignites the age-old debate over the authorship of Shakespeare's work, taking the view that it was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and not William Shakespeare who was in fact the true author of the famous plays.

Dr Paul Edmondson, head of knowledge and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, said: "This film flies in the face of a mass of historical fact, but there is a risk that people who have never questioned the authorship of Shakespeare's works could be hoodwinked.

"Shakespeare is at the core of England's cultural and historical DNA, and he is certainly our most famous export.

"Today's activity barely scratches the surface, but we hope it will remind people of the enormous legacy we owe to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon."

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Herman Cain's New 9-0-9 Latest Campaign Clarification

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Herman Cain announced revisions to his 9-9-9 plan Friday in Detroit, resulting in a new 9-0-9 for those too poor to pay income taxes.

[Check out our editorial cartoons on the GOP.]

With his recent rise in the polls. Cain's 9-9-9 plan, which would implement a 9 percent national sales tax, 9 percent personal income tax and 9 percent corporate business tax, has undergone increased scrutiny and faced criticism for its potential effect on the poor.

In his revised plan, Cain said that people who now do not earn enough to pay income tax would pay nothing in income tax under his revised plan. "If you are at or below the poverty level, your plan isn't 9-9-9 it is 9-0-9," Cain said. "Say amen y'all. 9-0-9."

During the press conference, Cain said this and his "opportunity" zone exceptions, which would allow businesses in area's with high unemployment to receive additional tax breaksto the plan were always in the works, but that he waited to unveil them as a way to "get people used to the whole concept."

The new plan, however, is a red flag to some GOP insiders who say this is just the latest in a week filled with explanations.

"He has qualities that appeal to people, he's charismatic, but he doesn't know what he doesn't know and that is going to hurt him in this campaign," said Matt Mackowiak, a GOP campaign operative. "What appealed about 999 was its simplicity. Now that he needs to describe it in detail, it makes it less simple and makes him look like he didn't know what he was doing in the first place."

[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]

This isn't the first time Cain had been forced to backtrack. Cain announced at a campaign rally in Tennessee last weekend that he would build a 20-foot border fence that would be electrified in places.

"It's going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrified. And there's going to be a sign on the other side saying, 'It will kill you — Warning'," Cain said.

The next morning, Cain appeared on Meet the Press and said he was just joking, but by Monday again recanted and apologized for his comments, meanwhile telling reporters he still thought a border fence was a good idea.

"He just doesn't seem ready for prime time," Mackowiak says.

Cain again stumbled Tuesday night during the CNN debate when he said he'd never negotiate with terrorists when just hours before he said he'd consider negotiating with al Qaeda.

"I misspoke," Cain told CNN host Anderson Cooper following the debate in Las Vegas. "Because I didn't, you know, things are moving so fast, I misspoke. I would not do that, I simply would not do that."

Mackowiak says it's obvious that Cain isn't prepared for the speed of this race.

"I really think the narrative here and the one taking hold with Cain is that he's just not ready for this and he's going to start to lose supporters if he keeps this up."

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Obama Campaign Starts Well

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Home > Politics & Policy > Washington Whispers > Obama Campaign Starts Well

October 21, 2011 Print

Pollster John Zogby updates our weekly Obama Report Card with a grade on the president's performance. Zogby uses his polling, expert analysis, and interaction with major players to come up with a grade and some comments that capture how he sees the president's week ending.

John Zogby on Week: 144

"With hardly any pretense, Team Obama is in campaign mode and enjoying it. The president is on the road in winnable states promoting his jobs bill, taking swings at Republicans, and announcing initiatives like a private-public partnership to hire 25,000 war veterans. The hardest hits taken by the GOP presidential contenders are coming from each other. Team Obama had to love the slugfest debate in Las Vegas where Mitt Romney and Rick Perry bared their teeth and took bites out of each other and the whole crew chopped up Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. Obama also got some trade agreements passed which may not help him politically, but at least Republicans will find it difficult to criticize him for steering through some free market policies."

This week's grade: C+

Last week's: C-

John Zogby is chairman of the board and chief insights officer for IBOPE Zogby International, a nonpartisan public opinion, research, and business solutions firm with experience working in more than 70 countries around the globe. IBOPE Zogby International specializes in telephone, Internet, and face-to-face survey research and analysis for corporate, political, nonprofit, and governmental clients. The firm is headquartered in Utica, N.Y. John Zogby is also the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House).

Tags:2012 presidential election, John Zogby, Barack Obama, trade 2011: 2010: 2009: 2008: 2007: 2006:

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Obama Campaign Raises $70M During Summer

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's campaign raised more than $70 million combined for his re-election and the Democratic Party during the summer, an amount that gives him a clear financial advantage over his Republican rivals even as faces economic and political headwinds.

The fundraising total announced Thursday exceeds a goal set by the campaign of $55 million combined for the July-September fundraising period but is about $16 million less than Obama raised during the April-June quarter.

[Read the latest on Obama's American Jobs Act.]

Obama has dealt with declining poll numbers and a weakened economy during the summer, prompting the president to recently call himself the "underdog" in the presidential race. Campaign officials had said they would raise less because of canceled fundraisers during the summer's debt ceiling negotiations and a typical summertime lull in raising cash.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in an e-mail to supporters that more than 600,000 people donated to the campaign in the most recent quarter, more than the previous three months. He said more than 980,000 people have given money to the campaign, and in the most recent quarter, 98 percent of the donors gave $250 or less, with an average donation of $56.

"Getting to a million grassroots donors isn't just a huge accomplishment this early in the campaign. It's our answer to our opponents, the press, and anyone who wants to know whether the president's supporters have his back," Messina said.

The numbers include $42.8 million for Obama's campaign and $27.3 million for the Democratic National Committee, which will help Obama's re-election effort next year. Obama raised $86 million combined during the April-June quarter.

[Vote now: Will Obama be a one-term president?]

Obama still leads his Republican rivals in fundraising by tens of millions and can save most of it for next year because he does not face a primary opponent.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads the Republican field in fundraising, pulling in more than $18 million in his first three months of campaigning. He is not expected to surpass that mark for the past three months but should lead the pack in cash on hand.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry raised $17 million in his first seven weeks of campaigning and had $15 million in the bank. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a favorite of libertarians, collected $8 million during the summer after raising $4.5 million in his first three months.

The fundraising by the presidential field doesn't include money being raised by independent organizations trying to get their preferred nominee elected by raising and spending unlimited amounts of money to run ads supporting their candidate or attacking a rival. Perry and Romney have at least one super PAC working to enhance their candidacies while another super PAC is backing Obama's re-election bid.

Obama advisers have told donors privately they hope to match or exceed the $750 million they raised in 2008, a staggering amount that would help the president pay for expensive TV ads and a massive get-out-the-vote operation. But to match the amount they raised the last time, Obama would need to bring in nearly $120 million combined for each of the next five quarters to keep pace.

Messina said the campaign was using the money to build its operation. He said the campaign has opened up three new field offices every week during the past three months, and volunteers and organizers have made 3 million phone calls and in-person visits to voters.

[See a slide show of 10 issues driving Obama's re-election campaign.]

"We're up against a Republican Party and special interest-funded groups that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars spreading any message that they believe will defeat the president and roll back our efforts to build a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility, not large corporations," Messina said.

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Axelrod's Positive Spin on Obama 2012 Campaign

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It's easy to tell when politicians or parties are worried about an issue or a trend. They take the offensive and aggressively spin their own version of events. That's what David Axelrod, President Obama's chief strategist, did this morning.

Faced with a barrage of news stories and commentaries that President Obama is on the ropes, Axelrod sent a memo to Sunday talk-show producers making the case that things are actually going quite well for Obama's re-election campaign.

"Members of the media have focused on the president's approval ratings as if they existed in a black box," Axelrod wrote in his memo, which has been obtained by many news organizations and reporters, including me. "Following the intransigence of the Republicans during the debt debate, the approval rating of the GOP brand dropped to a historic low. The approval rating of Congress dropped to a near historic low."

Axelrod argued that many of the president's proposals to create jobs are popular with voters when assessed individually, including his proposals to cut taxes for the middle class and rebuild roads and bridges. [See five reasons Obama is the same as Bush and Clinton.]

And Axelrod went out of his way to argue that Obama is not losing support within his Democratic base.

"Despite what you hear in the elite commentary, the president's support among base voters and in key demographic groups has stayed strong," Axelrod said. He cited the latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showing that 81 percent of Democrats approve of Obama's job performance. "That's stronger than President Clinton's support among Democrats at this point in his term and, according to Gallup, stronger than any Democratic president dating back to Harry Truman through this point in their presidency," Axelrod said, adding that 92 percent of African-Americans, one of his key constituencies, approve of Obama's job performance. [Check out political cartoons about the budget and deficit.]

Of course there is another side to all this. For example, Axelrod doesn't acknowledge that an overwhelming majority of Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction, a very bad sign for any president. And there is a powerful anti-incumbent mood that appears to be growing and that could sweep many office-holders out of their jobs--Republicans, Democrats, and Obama himself.

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