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Union halting power repair crews is top Democratic donorPaul Bedard - Washington Secrets November 2, 2012 | 12:36 pm The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, cited in news reports for halting nonunion repair crews from helping to restore power in superstorm Sandy's New Jersey-New York path, is one of nation's top union donors to Democrats, a group President Obama last year praised in a visit to an IBEW training Center. The Center for Responsive Politics, a public political spending watchdog, said IBEW has the nation's fifth highest spending political action committee, doling out nearly $2.3 million, 97 percent of which...

It's down to the final days of a big-spending, combative race between Rep. Nan Hayworth and Democratic challenger Sean Patrick Maloney, each courting voters in a redrawn district by portraying themselves as moderate and bipartisan and their opponents as extreme or untrustworthy. Hayworth, a Westchester County Republican who unseated John Hall two years ago in another hard-fought race, has spent much of the campaign on the defensive, fending off Maloney's portrayal of her as a tea party extremist bent on replacing Medicare with a voucher program, cutting off aid to Planned Parenthood and lowering taxes for the wealthy. But her...

With just four days to go before the elections, and Obama's media doing everything within their power to ignore the subject of Benghazi, Libya, you would think they'd also be turning a blind eye to disaster relief problems in areas hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy. That's why I was shocked to see this headline at the Huffington Post a few hours ago: "Anger Grows In Outer NY Boroughs, NJ Over Sluggish Response To Sandy." As you can see, the top of the Post's front page listed article after article of bad news from the region. Not what you would expect...

The city’s problem-plagued Board of Elections needs to relocate some 80 polling places because of Hurricane Sandy – but isn’t saying which ones. “We’ve asked for lists of where they think they’re going to have problems,” Mayor Bloomberg said Friday. “They’ve yet to come up with those lists.” With the presidential election coming Tuesday, the board needs to scramble for supplies such as tents and generators – and should ask the city for help, said City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan).

With Election Day only four days off, the Justice Department is planning to send 780 observers to polls in 23 states including Texas, California and New York. DOJ lawyers and other employees will monitor voting in Harris, Fort Bend, Dallas and Jefferson Counties in Texas; Alameda and Riverside Counties in California; and Orange County in New York. The Justice Department observers will join a growing throng of lawyers and poll watchers sent by the presidential candidates as well as state and local candidates. In addition, Houston-based True the Vote, self-proclaimed poll integrity organization, has pledged to deploy a virtual army...

A Madison County judge has appointed a special prosecutor to determine if felony forgery charges will be filed following an investigation into signatures on Independence Party petitions. Madison County Undersheriff John Ball said three residents filed police reports in September after learning that their signatures appeared on petitions submitted by the Independence Party in support of New York State Assemblyman Bill Magee (D-Nelson), Madison County District Attorney William Gabor and Oneida Common Council candidate Helen Acker. The residents said they never signed the petitions, which were circulated by volunteers from the Madison County Independence Party in July, Ball said. After...

In an act of sheer idiocy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided that the New York City Marathon should still be held. His decision comes despite the fact that the city is still struggling to recover from “Superstomr Sandy.” We’re talking about a city where children are dumpster diving for food, yet the Mayor thinks an event where out of town runners trot through storm damaged boroughs while being handed free energy bars and water is a good idea? The marathon will kick off in Staten Island where bodies are still being pulled from the rubble. The marathon is still a go,...

In post-storm New York, the bike is having a moment of sorts. With subways still not running under the East River or between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, traffic snarled in many places and lines for buses stretching for blocks, many people in Brooklyn took to bicycles on Thursday to get where they had to go. “I’m extremely glad I have a bike right now — it’s one of the best assets you can have,” said James Emery, 22, who was riding on Thursday afternoon from Williamsburg to Red Hook to help a friend whose screen-printing business had been flooded. Thomas...

Writing at Instapundit, Elizabeth Price Foley says she’s never seen anything quite like this blistering editorial. I have to agree. It’s astounding. Based on documents released by the committee, on the day of the attack the Pentagon dispatched a drone with a video camera so everyone in Washington could see what was happening in real time. The drone documented no crowds protesting any video. But around 4 p.m. Washington received an email from the Benghazi mission saying it was under a military-style attack. The White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA were able to watch the live...

NEW YORK – The New York Marathon will not be held Sunday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday, backtracking just a few hours after he defended the decision to hold it despite heavy criticism as the city struggles back from Superstorm Sandy.

President Obama stands to lose as many as 340,000 votes as a result of Hurricane Sandy, not enough to affect the outcome in heavily Democratic Northeastern states, but something that could make a difference in the popular vote if the results of Tuesday’s presidential race are as close as polls indicate, a First Read analysis finds. “Sandy has the potential to reduce Obama's national popular vote share by depressing turnout in highly Democratic areas along the Eastern Seaboard,” Dr. Michael McDonald of George Mason University, who studies turnout, told First Read. “The storm is unlikely to change the Electoral College...

The New York City Marathon has been cancelled, the mayor’s office confirmed to 1010 WINS on Friday afternoon. Earlier, Mayor Michael Bloomberg came under fire for pressing ahead with thieweekend’s New York Marathon in a city still reeling from Superstorm Sandy, with some New Yorkers and many public figures saying that holding the 26.2-mile race would be insensitive and divert police and other important resources when many are still suffering. At a news conference, Bloomberg defended his decision as a way to raise money for the stricken city and boost morale less than a week after Sandy flooded neighborhoods, knocked...

It’s been more than three days since power went out in many parts of New York City, including the Lower East Side where multi-story public housing complexes like the La Guardia Houses don’t have electricity, heat or water. Many of the residents are also without food. Many of the low-income residents receive cash and supplemental nutritional assistance from the state electronically through what the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance calls Electronic Benefit Cards (EBT.) Recipients buying eligible foods are suppose to swipe their EBT cards like any other credit card for their purchases but since Hurricane...

The nightmare that began when raging storm waters ripped two little Staten Island boys from their mother’s arms reached its tragic conclusion yesterday when their bodies were found in marshlands close to where they disappeared.Glenda Moore wailed uncontrollably after cops showed up at her Great Kills home yesterday and delivered the grim news. The short lives of Brandon, 2, and Connor, 4, ended in murky water, under debris and trees toppled by the storm. They were found about 20 yards apart at around 10 a.m. by cops in wet suits using shovels and pitchforks to clear the thick brush.“It’s a...

While thousands in New York and New Jersey struggled in the devastating aftermath of Sandy, some celebs couldn’t stop the party. Giuseppe Cipriani and son Ignazio threw a lavish bash at Cipriani 42nd Street on Wednesday night, as Halloween was canceled across the region and downtown Manhattan remained cloaked in darkness. Stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Dita Von Teese, Jay-Z and Beyoncé joined the bash, which Cipriani reps say went on until well after 5 a.m. and was not for charity. One guest told us, “The Ciprianis put a lot of effort into the party, bringing in DJs who...

In Michael Bloomberg's Manhattan, just as in Barack Obama's Washington, D.C., the political and media elite seem to think that talking about something, holding a press conference or televising a party amounts to doing something to solve a problem. The residents of Staten Island, desperately in need of food and power generators three days after Hurricane Sandy hit, know differently. So far, neither the Red Cross nor the supposedly "new and improved" Federal Emergency Management Administration have provided them with much assistance, if any. Meanwhile, NBC executives have made the situation worse for Staten Island residents. NBC has decided to...

At least two groups of people scheduled to run the New York City Marathon Sunday are organizing protests against the city's decision to allow the marathon to go forward, despite Hurricane Sandy's devastation. Furious over resources going to the marathon instead of to relief efforts, Penny Krakoff, a social worker, plans to take food and supplies to the Staten Island starting line before breaking off to deliver them to Sandy victims. "I cannot start a 26.2 mile run in Staten Island—people are missing, stranded, in need of resources. Brooklyn and Queens have equal devastation," she told Gothamist. "Parts of Manhattan...

Please RT: @fema: Text SHELTER + your ZIP code to 43362 (4FEMA) to find the nearest shelter in your area. Standard text rates apply. #Sandy— The White House (@whitehouse) November 2, 2012

A powerful new storm system is preparing to batter the East Coast next week, even as millions are still reeling from the devastation left by Superstorm Sandy. The nor’easter storm will bring snow and strong winter winds beginning Tuesday, Election Day, until Thursday. Most of the severe weather will hit northern New England – hundreds of miles north of where Sandy made landfall.

This cover today is making the rounds in the alarmosphere, where a single storm, a single data point in the hundreds of hurricanes that have struck the USA during its history, is now apparently “proof” of global warming causing bad weather.