Time: U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December, a steady gain that shows hiring held up during tense fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington …. The solid job growth wasn’t enough to push down the unemployment rate, which stayed 7.8 percent last month….
…. Robust hiring in manufacturing and construction fueled the December gains. Construction firms added 30,000 jobs, the most in 15 months… Layoffs are declining, and the number of people who sought unemployment aid in the past month is near a four-year low.
The once-battered housing market is recovering. Companies ordered more long-lasting manufactured goods in November, a sign they are investing more in equipment and software. And Americans spent more in November. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic growth.
Manufacturing is getting a boost from the best auto sales in five years. Car sales jumped 13 percent in 2012 to 14.5 million. And Americans spent more at the tail end of the holiday shopping season, boosting overall sales that had slumped earlier in the crucial two-month period.
President Obama at Island Snow, a shaved ice shop, on January 3 in Kailua, Hawaii
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Forgot to post this a couple of days ago:
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NY Mag: Newtown, Conn. has had its share of somber visits from dignitaries in the weeks since the tragedy there, but a planned Friday visit by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords is especially significant …. She’ll attend an event with no press access in a private house, and meet with families of the victims…
Saturday: The President has no public events scheduled
Sunday: The First Family will attend Christmas in Washington at the National Building Museum
Monday: The President will travel to Redford, Michigan for an event on the economy at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant
Tuesday and Wednesday: The President will attend meetings at the White House
Thursday: The President will host a Hanukkah reception at the White House
Friday: The President will attend meetings at the White House
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Business Insider: As negotiations on a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” enter the final three weeks, Republicans face a stark reality: The American public continues siding with President Barack Obama and Democrats on the issues crucial to any potential deal.
Polls taken over the past month have continually shown that a post-election bump for the President, combined with the relative unpopularity of Republicans, gives Obama a lot of leverage in the debate.
…. The kicker lies in the difference in approval ratings between Obama and Congressional Republicans. Obama’s approval rating hit an astounding 57 percent in Friday’s AP survey. Meanwhile, Congress has a 23 percent approval rating.
NYT: Fifty-eight years after it banned discrimination in public education, the Supreme Court has set the stage for the defining civil rights decision of this era — agreeing to hear two cases challenging laws that define marriage to exclude couples of the same sex. To us, and a growing number of Americans, the right course seems clear: that the justices continue the march toward real equality.
…. Public opinion is shifting on this issue as more people recognize the inherent wrong in a last bastion of official discrimination. The most important hearts and minds to be won at this point belong to the nine justices.
Washington Post: Former Florida governor Charlie Crist said late Friday night that he is now a Democrat.
The Republican governor-turned independent Senate candidate’s move was widely anticipated, especially in advance of a potential 2014 run for his old office. Crist endorsed President Obama for reelection this year and has aligned with Democrats over the last two years.
A boy listens to President Obama speak at The Community College of Aurora, Nov 4
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Today (all times ET):
11:45: President Obama delivers remarks at MLK Boulevard, Madison, Wisconsin
12:0: VP Biden and Jill Biden deliver remarks at Claude Moore Park in Sterling, Va.
12:55: PBO departs Madison
2:05: Arrives Columbus, Ohio
3:15: Michelle Obama in Charlotte
4:10: PBO delivers remarks at Nationwide Arena, Columbus (need to check time for this – some schedules say 2:25 )
6:10: Michelle Obama in Orlando
7:0: VP Biden and Jill Biden deliver remarks at the American Civil War Center in Richmond, Va.
8:25: PBO departs Columbus
10:0: Arrives Des Moines, Iowa
10:50: President Obama and Michelle Obama deliver remarks in Des Moines
12:0: Depart Des Moines
1:05: Arrive Chicago
(President Obama (and Romney) will both participate in interviews to air during halftime of the Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints. The interviews with ESPN’s Chris Berman will be taped earlier Monday)
Steve Benen: The voting fiasco in Florida reached truly farcical levels yesterday, with Dan Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, explaining, “We’re looking at an election meltdown that is eerily similar to 2000, minus the hanging chads.”
…. The early-voting debacle in the Sunshine State is deliberate …. Florida Republicans designed the system to work this way.
…. I’ll just conclude with Rachel’s conclusion: “It is frankly an outrage that there are forces at work in our politics right now that not only make this type of situation possible, but that make it inevitable – who see problems like this and go out of their way to try to make it worse…. If you are one of those people being forced to stand in those long lines tonight or tomorrow or on Election Day, honestly, your country needs you to do it. Your country needs you to do it, not only because it’s your civic responsibility, but also because there are people trying to profit politically off of you not doing it.”
Michael Tomasky: Whatever the result tomorrow, voter suppression is one of the big stories of this campaign and its enduring scandal. The Republican Party before 2012 was a party that certainly did not want black and brown and poor Americans voting, so it’s long been officially racist and classist in this particular sense.
But up to now its measures were local and somewhat haphazard … now, though, in these past couple of years, the GOP strategy has been institutionalized …. For example, read here about what the secretary of state in Ohio is trying to do right now. It’s rather incredible.
…. Republicans: Are you really proud to be in a party that tries to rig the rules so that people who vote for the other side have a harder time voting? …. This is really a disgrace. The new Jim Crow, enforced not with burning crosses but with fountain pens, to paraphrase Woody Guthrie.
Charles Pierce: It appears that, while I was watching the president this afternoon, I missed another big moment in the ongoing mess that is the early voting being conducted here in the World’s Greatest Democracy, when all hell broke loose down in Miami-Dade county. The nonpartisan, but very conservative, mayor of Miami jumped in with both feet, with entirely predictable results….
Elections officials, overwhelmed with voters, locked the doors to their Doral headquarters and temporarily shut down the operation, angering nearly 200 voters standing in line outside — only to resume the proceedings an hour later….
…. Nearly all the voters stayed in line until a campaign worker reported her car had been towed from a private parking lot across the street. Scores of people ducked out of the line to check on their own cars. A second car had been towed.
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