The Golden Report

10 DAYS UNTIL SOUTH CAROLINA (25 delegates)
13 DAYS UNTIL THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
20 DAYS UNTIL FLORIDA (50 delegates)

TOP STORY: US TO RESUME PEACE TALKS WITH TALIBAN- previous talks had collapsed in December- from The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung

“A tentative U.S.-Taliban deal, including the transfer of five Afghan detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison to Qatar and an insurgent renunciation of international terrorism, collapsed in December when Karzai refused to go along with it.

There have been no meetings with the insurgents since then. Although all parties have publicly said that they agree to one element of the deal — the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar — “we need now to make it real,” one official said.

Prime Minister Hamad bin Jasim al-Thani, for the first time acknowledging Qatar’s support for the arrangement, said Wednesday that his government welcomed “any opportunity” to defuse tension in the region. Thani spoke after a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The administration, which has said that negotiations must be “Afghan-led,” insists that its talks with the Taliban are only a preliminary effort to build confidence before actual negotiations over Afghanistan’s future can begin between the insurgents and the Karzai government.

One hurdle is that the Taliban prefers to talk to the United States and is “not willing to sit down with the Afghan government’,” one official said. “Our job is to see if we can break through that door.” Karzai has been under pressure from domestic opponents of negotiations to stand firm against the talks.

IN MISSISSIPPI TONIGHT-  a judge has ordered the halt to the release of any further prisoners pardoned by Governor Haley Barbour, in his final days in office. Barbour has pardoned 200 prisoners, including 14 convicted murderers. Today, the Mississippi Attorney General said that the Governor’s actions threatened public safety. From CNN-

“He’s tried to rule the state like Boss Hogg and he didn’t think the law applied to him,” Hood told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, referring to a character in the 1980s TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“These families are afraid out here,” Hood said of relatives of crime victims.

Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green issued the injunction, saying it appeared some pardons, including those for the four murderers, did not meet the 30-day requirement. Any inmates released in the future must meet the standard, Green ruled.

On his way out the door, the Republican governor approved full pardons for nearly 200 people, including 14 convicted murderers, according to documents the Mississippi secretary of state’s office released Tuesday.

The four murderers who received full pardons last week — David Gatlin, Joseph Ozment, Charles Hooker and Anthony McCray — were cited in Green’s order.

They were all serving life sentences and worked as inmate trusties at the governor’s mansion, said Suzanne Singletary, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Trusties are inmates who can receive additional rights through good behavior.

ROMNEY RAISED $24 MILLION IN THE FOURTH QUARTER- from Reuters-

“The campaign has raised more than $56 million so far in the primary election season and has $19 million in cash on hand.

The strong fundraising means Romney has a substantial warchest as he strives for a third consecutive victory in the state-by-state race for the Republican nomination to oppose President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the general election in November.”

RON PAUL’S CAMPAIGN IS CALLING ON THE REST OF THE FIELD- EXCEPT MITT- TO DROP OUT- from a statement released by the campaign after the results from New Hampshire last night:

“Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have been shown in national polls to be the only two candidates who can defeat Barack Obama.

“And Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates who can run a full, national campaign, competing in state after state over the coming weeks and months. Ron Paul’s fundraising numbers — over $13 million this quarter — also prove he will be able to compete with Mitt Romney. No other candidate can do all of these things.

“Ron Paul is clearly the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney as the campaign goes forward.

“We urge Ron Paul’s opponents who have been unsuccessfully trying to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney to unite by getting out of the race and uniting behind Paul’s candidacy.

“Ron Paul is in this race for the long haul. And he is ready to fight.”

“See you on the campaign trail.”

TODD PALIN GOES ROGUE- endorses Gingrich without consulting wife, Sarah- Here’s the former Alaska Governor on FOX News last night

“First dude went rogue. I respect him for doing that, Todd is all about hardhats and steel-toed boots and getting people to work, that’s what he represented and worked verry hard for as First Gentleman in our state.”

VIDEO 

SUPER PACS BLANKETING SOUTH CAROLINA- from National Journal’s Reid Wilson

“After decades at the head of the primary calendar, South Carolina voters won’t be surprised when they turn on their televisions this morning and see wall-to-wall campaign advertisements. And while a super PAC backing Newt Gingrich has said it will spend $3.4 million on negative ads blasting front-runner Mitt Romney, it’s actually Romney and his allies who are spending the most on television time this week and next.

Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Romney’s campaign, has purchased more television advertisements than every other entity playing on South Carolina television, our sources in the ad buying community tell us. Restore Our Future has purchased more than $1.7 million in advertising over the next 10 days in South Carolina alone.

The pro-Romney group is spending nearly twice what any other candidate or PAC has purchased in the Greenville/Spartanburg, Columbia, Charleston and Myrtle Beach/Florence markets. And Restore Our Future is going head-to-head with the Gingrich-friendly super PAC, Winning Our Future, in the Charlotte, Augusta and Savannah markets, too.

Romney’s campaign dropped an additional $300,000 into South Carolina television time on Tuesday, reserving a total of $418,000 this week and $187,000 next week in total statewide spending.

Romney’s campaign will outspend his rivals this week, according to our sources. Rep. Ron Paul is spending $237,000 on television advertisements, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry spending $339,000 this week. Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who raised more than $2 million after nearly winning the Iowa caucuses, is starting to spend, too, reserving $337,000 in advertisements this week and another $52,000 next week. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is up with $149,000 spread across broadcast and cable.”

ROMNEY READIES HIS COUNTER ATTACK- POLITICO’S REID EPSTEIN

“Campaign advisers are polishing new messaging, tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately. They’re cueing up new commercials.

And they’re rolling out a more aggressive approach from the candidate himself, even as the candidates who’d been waging the Bain battle appeared to be retreating from the rhetoric on Wednesday.

The change comes following three days of stumbling responses from Romney and campaign aides, who admit they were caught unprepared for the explosion of Bain as the dominant topic of the Republican race – “out of nowhere,” one adviser said. And it comes as Romney is aiming to turn his polling lead into a primary win — an early-state hat trick they hope will quickly establish him as the presumptive GOP nominee.

They’ll start with advertisements featuring employees of companies started and rescued by Bain to tell their stories — a direct response to the documentary released by the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC that features employees of four companies closed by Bain that brutally slams Romney as a job killer. That documentary is set to be parceled out into shorter commercials which will air in South Carolina with a $3.4 million ad buy.

Romney adviser Kevin Madden says they’re confident they’ll quash those attacks with their new rebuttal.

REALITY FROM GINGRICH: THE PATH TO THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION COULD END IN SOUTH CAROLINA
from an interview on MSNBC this morning

“If Romney can win South Carolina, he’s probably going to be the nominee. This is his big test,” Gingrich said of his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. “He has so much money that if he also has the advantage of momentum, it’s going to be very hard to stop him,” Gingrich said of Romney.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: There is growing chorus of Republicans who are urging- privately & publicly- for candidates to stop the attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, believing that it ultimately will hurt the party and the man they see as the inevitable front runner. Watch, especially, for Newt Gingrich’s reaction.

WALL STREET TODAY- from CNBC-: Stocks ended near session highs Wednesday, but still closed narrowly mixed, as worries over the euro zone and declines in the energy sector limited gains.

• DOW down 13
• NASDAQ up 8
• S&P 500 up 0.4

FINALLY: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie visited President Obama today at The White House, to update the President on Jolie’s recent work on preventing mass atrocities and combating sexual violence to women, according to an Administration official. Pitt was using a cane, the result of a recent skiing accident.

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FRIDAY’S EARLY EDITION

TOP STORY: The Labor Department released the September Employment Report this morning, which showed the national unemployment rate remained steady last month, at 9.1%, while non-farm payroll increased by 103,000 jobs. This includes the approximately 45,000 workers at Verizon who returned to their jobs after a prolonged strike this summer. Meanwhile, employment figures for both July and August were revised upwards. Other highlights of the report:

There are approximately 14 million unemployed persons- a number essentially unchanged from last month [increases in jobs were due to increases in the labor market], 44.6% of whom have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer

Since April, payroll employment has increased by an average of 72,000 per month, compared with an average of 161,000 for the prior 7 months.

Local government employment declined by 35,000 and has fallen by 535,000 since September 2008. 5,000 US Postal Service workers were laid off

WALL STREET broke a 3-day winning streak and was positive for most of the session before falling at the end of the trading day

• DOW down 20 to 11,103
• NASDAQ down 27 to 2,479
• S&P 500 down 9 to 1,155

FOR THE WEEK, the Dow was up 1.7%, NASDAQ up 2.6% and S&P 500 up 2.1%

STATEMENT OF THE PRESIDENT on the 10-year anniversary of the War in Afghanistan- in part, “As we mark a decade of sacrifice, Michelle and I join all Americans in saluting the more than half a million men and women who have served bravely in Afghanistan to keep our country safe, including our resilient wounded warriors who carry the scars of war, seen and unseen.  We honor the memory of the nearly 1,800 American patriots, and many coalition and Afghan partners, who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan for our shared security and freedom.

Thanks to the extraordinary service of these Americans, our citizens are safer and our nation is more secure.  In delivering justice to Osama bin Laden and many other al Qaeda leaders, we are closer than ever to defeating al Qaeda and its murderous network.

As the rest of our troops come home from Iraq this year, we have begun to draw down our forces in Afghanistan and transition security to the Afghan people, with whom we will forge an enduring partnership.  As our sons and daughters come home to their families, we will uphold our sacred trust with our 9/11 Generation veterans and work to provide the care, benefits and opportunities they deserve.”

2012:

In South Carolina today, Republican presidential candidate MITT ROMNEY delivered a sharp rebuke to the Obama Administration’s foreign policy in a major address at The Citadel. “In an American Century, America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. In an American Century, America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world,” he said. 

The key line: “I will not surrender America’s role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your president. You have that president today.”

CNN is reporting that sources inside the Iowa Republican Party confirm that the date for the 2012 Iowa Caucus will be Tuesday January 02. Although that has not yet been officially announced, the remaining process is being described as a “formality.” That would leave New Hampshire as the only early state to not yet announce its primary date. 

If Iowa goes on the 2nd, it is widely expected that New Hampshire will go one week later, on Tuesday January 10th. That would be followed by Nevada four days later on Saturday January 14th and South Carolina a week after that on Saturday January 21st. Then, ten days later, the Florida Primary on Tuesday January 31st. In February, expect to see primaries in Missouri, Michigan and Arizona. 

Tuesday is the next Republican Presidential Candidates Debate, sponsored by the Washington Post and Bloomberg and presented by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. It will air live on Bloomberg television and be streamed online beginning at 8pm Tuesday evening from Hanover, New Hampshire. The following week, Tuesday October 18th, is another GOP debate- this one sponsored by CNN and the Nevada Republican Party, from Las Vegas. 

GALLUP released a disastrous job approval rating for President Obama today: 38%, with a 53% disapproval. A Rasmussen poll today put the President’s job approval at 42% with a 57% disapproval. The current Real Clear Politics is 42.3% approve, 51.8% disapprove.  

The 2011 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE was awarded to three women’s rights activists today. The Nobel Committee announced early this morning that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman of Yemen would be recognized for their “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

From BBC News, “The women will share the $1.5m prize money…the Nobel Peace Prize originally recognized those who had already achieved peace, but that its scope has broadened in recent years to encourage those working towards peace and acknowledge work in progress….The Nobel committee received a record 241 nominations for this year’s prize - among the individuals and groups believed to have been put forward were the European Union, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and key cyber dissidents in the Arab Spring movement.”

RECENT WINNERS of the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE:

2010 - Liu Xiaobo - Chinese dissident lawyer

2009 - US President Barack Obama

2008 - Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish president

2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), former US vice-president and environmental campaigner Al Gore

2006 - Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank

2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its president, Mohamed El Baradei

HOW WE DID: In Sunday’s THE EVENING REPORT, we highlighted three stories to watch in the week ahead. Here’s how they played out:

1/ 2012 & Chris Christie. We said that this week would be the final deadline for the New Jersey Governor to decide whether or not he would enter the 2012 race and, indeed, he decided, announcing on Tuesday that he would not be a candidate. One day later, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced that she, also, would not seek the nomination, all but sealing up the 2012 Republican field, now within the 90-day mark of the Iowa Caucuses.

2/ Congress & Chinese Currency Legislation. With Congress back in town, we highlighted the Senate’s consideration of a controversial (but, strangely, bi-partisan) piece of legislation to tighter control of the Chinese currency. What we didn’t know was that this legislation would become a lightning rod for some of the most partisan legislative tactics we’ve seen in years. Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked a version of the so-called “nuclear option” and changed the Senate rules to prohibit further amendment after a cloture motion had been successfully adopted on the legislation. With the Senate adjourned for the holiday weekend (and Senate Democratic leaders huddled at The White House for several hours this morning with the President and Vice-President), watch to see how this issue is resolved beginning on Tuesday.

3/ The Economy. An easy topic to watch, and one that will remain on our list for many months. Today’s better-than-expected employment report looked like it would propel the markets to a four-day winning streak, but momentum was lost towards the end of the day on continued anxiety from Europe looking ahead to another series of pivotal meetings of European finance ministers this weekend.

FINALLY…the Justice Department will release the transcript of former President Richard Nixon’s testimony to a grand jury investigating the Watergate scandal, POLITICO reports. “The release of Nixon’s testimony, set for November 10 at the Archives in Washington and at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., comes after the Justice Department decided not to appeal a judge’s ruling in July that the materials should be made public. Nixon’s testimony took place on June 23 and 24, 1975, nearly a year after he resigned. The sessions spanned 11 hours and were conducted near his home in San Clemente, Calif. The grand jury was based in Washington, so the foreman and one other member traveled to California to join prosecutors at the session”

In honor of the Columbus Day holiday, THE EVENING REPORT will next publish on Monday October 10. 

Gmar Chatimah Tova!

BREAKING I- US Sharpens Warning to Pakistan- “The Obama administration has sharply warned Pakistan that it must cut ties with a leading Taliban group based in the tribal region along the Afghan border and help eliminate its leaders, according to officials from both countries. In what amounts to an ultimatum, administration officials have indicated that the United States will act unilaterally if Pakistan does not comply.” Senior Administration officials, including Defense Secretary Panetta, CIA Director Petraeus and Secretary of State Clinton, have been delivering hard-line messages to their Pakistani counterparts in recent days, including at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and a 3 1/2 hour meeting that Clinton held on Sunday. 

BREAKING II- The Washington Post is reporting exclusively tonight that that the United States is building a series of secret bases across North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula from which to launch drone attacks. Last week in THE EVENING REPORTED we mentioned a series of US drone attacks in the nation of Yemen- one of the nations, and an al-Qaeda stronghold, that the United States has targeted in a renewed series of unmanned predator drone attacks this year. The information was first obtained through the WikiLeaks cables. “One of the installations is being established in Ethi­o­pia, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of the country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of “hunter killer” drones resumed operations this month after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could effectively patrol Somali territory from there,” the report says. 

BREAKING III- President Obama will meet tomorrow evening with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Earlier today, it was announced that the President will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow morning. The meetings are expected to be high-stakes ahead of a vote on Palestinian recognition [that the US has said it will block]. A bilateral meeting is not expected.

TOP STORY- Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed in a car bombing in Afghanistan today- hours before President Obama met with current Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the United Nations. After meeting with the President, Karzai cut short his trip to New York in order to return to Afghanistan. The assassination is the latest setback for the US and coalition effort in Afghanistan. Last week, insurgents placed the US & other European embassies in Kabul under siege in a protracted firefight. And last month, 33 Navy SEALS were killed when their helicopter was targeted and brought down by insurgents. In July, President Obama announced his plan for a drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan, beginning next year, and the end of the surge he announced in 2009. 

The INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND lowered its projects for economic growth for both the United States and Europe, as the Associated Press Reports, “The fund said it expected the American economy to grow just 1.5 percent this year and 1.8 percent in 2012. Its June forecast was 2.5 percent in 2011 and 2.7 percent next year. The organization also lowered its outlook for the 17 European Union countries that use the euro. It predicted 1.6 percent growth this year and 1.1 percent next year, down from its June projections of 2 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.”

WALL STREET ended the day mixed:

• DOW up 7.65 
• NASDAQ down 22
• S&P 500 down 2

2012: Just a week after announcing her candidacy in the Massachusetts 2012 Senate race, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren has a 46%-44% lead according to a new poll out today. Democrats will be targeting Massachusetts as one of their only chances of a Senate pick-up next year. 

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN POSSIBLE- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today suggested that the government may shutdown at the end of last week if the House & Senate can not reach an agreement over disaster funding. Earlier this week, it appeared that a deal was imminent to pass an continuing resolution through November 23rd [the same date the Supercommittee is expected to report back] and avoid a government shutdown. Although the conventional wisdom is that a shutdown will still be avoided, the current stalemate could extend into the weekend, and possibly force the House to stay in session through its planned Rosh Hashanah Recess. The sticking point is over offsetting additional funding for FEMA and both sides appear to be ready to go to the mat. “There is not going to be a government shutdown,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said today. “I’m not so sure about that, ” Majority Leader Reid repleid.

WATCH TOMORROW: The Federal Reserve will complete a two-day meeting and announce a decision on interest rate policy. No change is expected.

FINALLY- Glam Media has purchased the social networking company Ning- a platform that allowed individuals and organizations to create their own social networks. Last year, Ning shifted from a free service to a subscription-based model. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but TechCrunch reports it is likely higher than the $35 million that NewsCorp paid to acquire MySpace, but less than the estimated $100 million the company is estimated to have raised.