Something I didn’t know about MTA:

In Con Ed’s case, the utility carries insurance policies that may cover it for the inevitable lawsuits over business interruption, structural damage from exploding transformers, and similar blackout-related losses.

In the case of an institution like the MTA or the Port Authority, there is insurance in place but the extent of it may not be sufficient.

The MTA maintains a so-called captive insurer, or insurance company that it set up itself for its own needs, called First Mutual Transportation Assurance Co.

A 2010 examination of First Mutual conducted by New York regulators indicated that it had about $1 billion in reinsurance lined up for property claims. But once that money runs out, someone else has to step in.

source: UPDATE 1-Hurricane Sandy losses may be twice those of Irene | Reuters.

Makes me wonder about SEPTA and other transit authorities.

Steven Greenhouse has unearthed the most revealing statement of this entire controversy over employers instructing employees how to vote. David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent his 7000 employees a mailer warning them not to vote for Obama. Asked to explain his letter, Siegel said:

I really wanted them to know how I felt four more years under President Obama was going to affect them. It would be no different from telling your children: “Eat your spinach. It’s good for you.”

Got that? No different.

source: Corey Robin.

Yes. He’s demanding his employees to vote a certain way to preserve their freedom.

New York and New Jersey are getting the brunt of day one..

Why did Obama get Colin Powell’s endorsement? John Sununu says he’s in the club. you know the bee el aye cee kay club!

SUNUNU: Well, I think that when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being President of the United States — I applaud Colin for standing with him.
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Back in Black.

Now I’m all: That Jive Turkey done figured us out, damn bruthaaaaaaaa!

He’s been saying racist sh*t for weeks now. Can’t wait til 11/6.

From Anne Laurie from Balloon Juice on the sad sack mess that is what’s left of Breitbart.com:

One pressing consequence of the company’s organizational challenges: Questions from inside the organization about how the finances are being handled. Shortly before Breitbart’s death, Bannon helped bring in $10 million in capital, which was meant to fund the site’s relaunch and expand its staff. But when Breitbart died, he left a wife and four young children who could benefit from a financial return — and two sources familiar with the situation say the widow has been asking about the money.

[…]

“I don’t even call it Breitbart.com anymore,” said one staffer. “I call it Wannabe Breitbart.com. I said at the time, when Andrew died, they gotta shut this thing down or else it’s going to fall apart. I think I was right.”

source: Breitbarts Inheritors Battle Over His Legacy.

That bold, that mine. My question is: why doesn’t Breitbart’s widow want to be means tested and survive from gold spun from her own bootstraps? That 10m is job creatin’ money! 10m so he could perform acts of journalism to expose liberal racists (Gay Activist Ann Coulter told me that all racism is liberalism so that’s redundant). Remember when Breitbart exposed the racists Shirley Sherrod:

“I don’t have it,” Breitbart told TPMmuckraker in an interview. Breitbart said his source sent him just the edited clips at first, but is in the process of sending the full video.

Breitbart said he’ll post the full video, if he can get permission from the video production company who filmed it for a local NAACP chapter. He also maintained that he didn’t edit the clip and that it was sent to him already edited.

Sherrod was the Georgia director of rural development for the USDA until yesterday, when Breitbart posted the video (below) in which she says that, in 1986, she didn’t help a farmer as much as she could have because he was white. Sherrod told CNN this morning she was forced to resign immediately by her superiors in Washington. She contends that, in the March speech to a Georgia chapter of the NAACP, she was telling a story of how she got past her own prejudices.

But even if the full video shows what Sherrod says it does, Breitbart said he’s seen enough.

“I think the video speaks for itself,” he said. “The way she’s talking about white people … is conveying a present tense racism in my opinion. But racism is in the eye of the beholder.”

He also takes issue with how the audience, many of them members of the NAACP, respond positively to her comments — proof, he says, of prevalent racism.

source: Breitbart On Sherrod’s NAACP Speech: ‘I Did Not Edit This Thing’ | TPMMuckraker.

Breitbart was good at making liberals and conservatives in the beltway journalism “village” “jump” when he said scandal. That’s all. He wasn’t a journalist, and the sooner Breitbart’s eponymous propaganda site implodes, the better.

Obama says Ayn Rand Is For Misunderstood Teenagers and says kids will turn from Romney because he’s a bullshitter. even though both of things are true, zomg the President said ess aych aye tee will

Meanwhile, more Republicans reveal themselves as part of the legitimate rape brigade with the latest being IN senate candidate Murdouck who extols the blessings of bearing a child to a rapist.

From digby:

This is the man who has been living on TV for the last few weeks, especially MSNBC, speaking for the Democrats:

“If President Obama loses the election — and I’m not sure he will, I like to say he’s a slight favorite — but if he loses he lost it because when the Simpson-Bowles Commission report [came out], he didn’t do anything with it initially. … He didn’t grab it by the horns and go with it,”

source: Hullabaloo.

Rendell, Sullivan, Scarborough are some of the many Simpson-Bowles zombie Army appearing on TVs near you. They are always running around saying 2, 3 or 4 to 1 spending cuts to tax increases is the thing Obama should have done in the first term to guarantee re-election to a second term and because he didn’t do that, he basically let Mitt Romney into contention. Why is this wrong headed?

1. Who the hell are Simpson Bowles? Is it that TNT hour long show after Zack Morris and Breckin Meyer’s show Rizzoli and Isles? No it’s well…wait who the hell are Simpson and Bowles? No mass group of Democrats, liberals or potential Obama voters is mad they didn’t get Simpson-Bowles. There’s no commercial with a family around a kitchen table where the wife says: “these bills keep coming in. we may lose the house honey” and the husband says: “If only they would listen to Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, now those guys who no one knows have the prescription we asked for”. It’s just the debt. Even if Obama had passed Simpson-Bowles, the debt would be fixed in out years.
2. Who the hell is Sista Souljah? And what are those two dudes from that TNT show Simpson-Bowles doing running around with her? Remember when George HW Bush raised tax rates? It was the right thing to do. It was politically courageous and it actually kneecapped his campaign. He didn’t get extra credit for being right. He got slayed for it. So they keep saying Obama should make a Sista Souljah moment by embracing raising the retirement age for folks currently under 55 from 67 to 92 or something. The thing is, Bill Clinton in the “Sista Souljah” moment was berating a rapper. The equivalent, all the Republican chest beaters telling the Dixie Chicks to STFU when they said George W Bush was an embarrassment. See, the Dixie Chicks and Sista Souljah are easy marks: pick someone who is an entertainer or non-elected public figure that said something that is unpopular with like 75% of the public but looks like they should be on your side. Then smack them down with indignation as if what a rapper or country trio has to say matters. Ta-da: a Sista Souljah moment and an undeserved but never forgetten reputation for independence. Actually pass a bill that is against your base’s wishes and isn’t popular, lose your damned election because of your actual independence.
3. Wait, What the hell is Simpson-Bowles? Can you just break it down one more time? No one outside of people that care to know can tell you what the fuck Simpson-Bowles is. The fear mongered the debt. Passing Simpson-Bowles, like health care would have to force Obama to explain Simpson-Bowles. among other things. and re-explain them. Like the Recovery act has to explained and re-explained. Like the American Jobs Act has to be explained and re-explained. Like Obamacare has to be explained and re-explained. Like Dodd-Frank has to be explained and re-explained. Like the auto industry rescue has to be explained and re-explained. Like why Afghanistan War was an Obama 08 campaign promise while getting out of Iraq was also a promise has to be explained and re-explained. Get what I am saying? No one would remember Simpson-Bowles except for Romney saying: zomg he cut your medicare to old people in Boca Raton.
4. Why the hell did Obama run that Simpson-Bowles hail mary? Would they say there is no mandate for Simpson-Bowles if Obama wins? These guys think Simpson-Bowles is so important to the American voter, that If Obama loses it’s because he didn’t commit to Simpson-Bowles never passed recommendations. Well, Obama wins, is it because he chose not to do Simpson-Bowles, but if he
5. “Simpson-Bowles” the commission wasn’t behind Simpson-Bowles. What elected person running for POTUS or VPOTUS embraced Simpson-Bowles? Not Obama. Not Joe Biden. Not Paul Ryan. So who the hell was all: let’s do this. Not even Simpson-Bowles commission was behind them.

The only thing to come out of Simpson-Bowles was zombies who believe Simpson-Bowles is good because it was a bi-partisan failure.

Romney said he would try Ahmadinejad for Genocide. Ahmadinejad hasn’t committed genocide.

Ronna Romney is an idiot. to make a point for her brother in law Mitt Romney she signed into facebook, posted pictures of Amb. Stevens being drug to the hospital by Libyan security forces trying to get him to medical care. Also, she doesn’t know the difference between Khaddafi and Chris Stevens. She took it down, but follow that link above to see how dumb she is.

He knows he’s just lying about what he’s offering. He knows a lot of people know he’s bullsh*tting, but if he can get enough people to buy what he’s selling, he makes his numbers for the election and it’ll be all good! Andrew Sullivan’s live blogs are fun reads, especially when he wigs out, but this wig out is definitely merited:

9.31 pm. Romney went very soft on Israel; some difference that “existed” – past tense – was merely “unfortunate.” Watching this man shape-shift in front of your eyes is staggering. I’m fascinated by the purity of the cynicism. Seriously, I’ve never seen any human being up close like this – a mechanical, unstoppable machine of say anything, forget everything in the past, refuse to take any responsibility for anything he has said in the past, and just smile and golly-gee smile his way along. There’s a a machine-like quality that chills me. I have no idea what he would do in office on anything. I believe nothing he says.

10.35 pm. […]

[Obama’s] flawed; he’s made mistakes; but who hasn’t? If this man, in these times, with this record, against this opposition, does not deserve re-election, then I am simply at a loss for words. I have to believe the American people will see that in time.

source: Live-Blogging The Foreign Policy Debate – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

Obama pivoted to painting Romney as a know what to say to whoever he is selling to: a Joe Isuzu. The battleships/bayonets/horses vs aircraft carriers/nuclear submarines line destroyed Romney’s stupid, nutty ship argument. It was snark, but deserved: If you want to make idiotic points for know nothings (like Sarah Palin guffawing about NIH and other scientific research using fruit flies), you should be talked to like a know nothing. Mitt Romney is a smart guy running a stupid campaign. The great thing about democracy: we get the government we deserve. I hope we deserve better than Mitt Romney’s cynicism.

Note: Bob Scheiffer did solid job, but no climate change. no good.

* America’s role in the world
* Our longest war – Afghanistan and Pakistan
* Red Lines – Israel and Iran
* The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism – I
* The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism – II
* The Rise of China and Tomorrow’s World…

source: Tonight’s Questions – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

Climate Change/Water Supply is key to all of us. Especially with growing Gobi Desert in China (with some new structures appearing in the desert) and continuing low regulated fossil fuel and mineral drilling fields in developing countries destroying their water supplies using the water for the drilling and then for dumping chemical waste after the excavation.

This is the “gold standard”/”currency manipulation” argument. The Chinese can go dig gold up in all the countries where they have put roots down. This is the “energy independence” argument. If they can monopolize developing world energy, they monopolize energy in the fastest growing economies in the world. Our natural probably increasingly exhausted resources are key to what we can do and how we can operate our country.

I don’t have much hope it will be a topic tonight, but it needs to be debated.

Before the debates, the political press pool covering Mitt Romney plays football with the candidate and his staff:

Mr. Romney joked that his team should try to win at all costs.

“Don’t worry about injuries guys — this counts,” he said. “Win!”

During his brief beach appearance, Mr. Romney also was asked — and ignored — several questions about the news of the day.

“Governor, as president, would you be open to one-on-one talks with Iran?” asked one reporter in the wake of a New York Times report suggesting that such talks were in the offing. The other two questions dealt with recent poll numbers and Monday night’s debate.Garrett Jackson, Mr. Romney’s body man, tried to brush the questions off: “Guys, this is a football game,” he said. “Come on. Are you kidding me?

source: A Football Draw for Romney’s Staff and the Press – NYTimes.com.

It’s not a football game. it’s an election, i wish the press would remember that.

Darrell Issa, The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee may have included names of Libyans who worked with the US Government that were previously unknown, but that isn’t the only news to come from the doc dump. These documents support the fact that US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice remarks on “Meet The Press” indeed reflected the US intelligence apparatus’ official summation of the Benghazi incident at the time:

The night before Susan Rice went public with the administration’s assessment that the Sept. 11 U.S. consulate attack in Libya grew out of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Muslim video, intelligence analysts were receiving new information that contradicted the account she gave.

Intelligence agencies soon amended their stance, but it then took weeks longer—until early October—for a new intelligence assessment discounting the protests to make its way into public statements from senior officials in the Obama administration.

Ms. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, based her statements that Sunday on intelligence agency conclusions that the attack had spun out of protests in Benghazi, fueled by anger over an anti-Islamic, U.S.-made video that had sparked protests elsewhere.

The picture began to change over that weekend, according to U.S. intelligence officials, in the most detailed account yet to emerge of a period that has been a focus of controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the aftermath of the attack, which killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador.

Some intelligence came in on Saturday evening that contradicted the protest claim and prompted the office of the Director of National Intelligence to begin to question the agencies’ initial conclusions, intelligence officials said.

Despite their growing uncertainty, intelligence officials didn’t feel they had enough conclusive, new information to revise their assessment. Ms. Rice wasn’t warned of their new doubts before she went on the air the next morning and spoke of the attacks being spurred by demonstrations, intelligence officials acknowledged.

The fact that Republicans are jumping about Obama conversationally using the phrase “not optimal” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the big response from Issa is to protect his flank after possibly compromising key domestic Libyan contacts for the US government shows that the Libya exchange in the debate allowed Obama to re-establish his foreign policy narrative. His task tonight is to represent that narrative and show that Romney’s foreign policy is dominated by neo-con foolishness. Fox News has taken to calling all this a “cover up”. Of what, I have no idea.

The expectation that someone could even sit on a morning show shortly after a terror attack and have a clear view and understanding of all the forces at work are preposterous. When we have mass shootings domestically, with tons of witnesses and the full infrastructure of our local/national/cable news networks and personal reporting methods (phone cams, blogs, tweets, check-ins) it takes time to figure out who and what. I hope in the future the Obama Administration (and in a 2nd term) tempers this need to satisfy the news cycle with ravenous demands for the “full story, right away, even before an investigation can be conducted”.

Under George W Bush, the Iraq war was fought because the nation was told and believed that someone needed to stop Saddam Hussein from deploying WMD’s (and the nation did believe, Bush was re-elected to further prosecute this unnecessary war). Our soldiers served bravely but it seeded the region to a Shi’a majority Iraqi government sympathetic to the Iranian government, further isolated Kurds in Iraq and left Sunni’s to be a minority under siege in that country. Saddam Hussein is dead, but not one WMD was found.

Although I disagreed with bombing of Libya by the US military due to the use of War Powers Act to begin and sustain military action against the Khaddafi regime, I support the decision not to put American soldiers on the ground in that theater. Yes two foreign service officers (one an ambassador) and two veterans died in that attack, but deposing Khaddafi by supporting a Libyan revolution and allowing Libyans to elect a new government is a better strategy of aggressive intervention than dropping thousands of soldiers into a country. Warring is the most expensive thing a country can do. We need to be more restrained and exacting in using our military around the world. And one thing Mitt Romney is advocating for liberally using military force around the world. None of this would have stopped 9/11. All of what Romney is proposing would make us spend more money we don’t have, put more American lives at risk and directly interject us as primary stakeholders in more hot conflicts.

The Republicans are beginning to try to take away Obama’s foreign policy advantage by casting Obama through the lens of the protests around the Middle East at US embassies on and after 9/11. That would necessitate one forgetting the Iraq war draw down, the Bin Laden Raid and the appropriately measured support for citizen upheavals of totalitarian government in the Middle East.

Tonight is a foreign policy debate where the distinction needs to be drawn between “shoot first, aim later” neo-con policy and the liberal policy of patient intervention. “Please proceed governor”.