Mitt's Royal Slam

What's the explanation for Mitt Romney's unparalleled breakout?  A few weeks ago, the Romney campaign was regarded as dead in the water.  The polls (with the exception of Rasmussen) had the campaign uniformly down, giving Obama up to half a dozen points.  Voter interest was phlegmatic at best.  A combined Chicago-media offensive appeared to have put Romney on the ropes.  The consensus was that Obama would cruise to another victory, one paralleling and perhaps even exceeding his triumph over John McCain four years ago.

Today, little more than an electoral-cycle heartbeat later, the situation is utterly reversed.  The big mo belongs to Romney.  The polls, excepting a few weird left-wing holdouts of the Reuters variety, show Romney with comfortable leads ranging from 2% to 5%.  The swing states are trending in his direction.  The expectations of the GOP are those of the 3^rd Army roaring into the Reich.  As for Obama, he has displayed every sign of a man on the run -- desperation moves, incipient hysteria, vast and expensive efforts to magnify minor Romney gaffes, appeals to Big Bird and Gloria Allred.  His expression in the debates was that of a man facing his karma, more haggard and haunted with each appearance.  At least one person in the campaign knows full well that the game is up.

This remarkable turnaround is unmatched in recent American political history, and as such, it requires an explanation.  Not many have been floated as of yet.  The most popular so far holds that Anne and Tagg Romney, acting as Mitt's consiglieres, pushed aside most the campaign's professional political operatives in a successful effort to encourage "Mitt to be Mitt."

Everyone involved denies that anything of the sort occurred, and that may well be the truth.  Occam's razor applies to politics as much as any other field, and the simplest and best explanation in this case is that no large-scale change occurred within the campaign or without -- that in fact, things are unfolding pretty much as they were planned to.  That it's happening this way because it was meant to.

Via: American Thinker

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Obama campaign now buying ads in … Detroit

Via Mark Halperin and Jim Geraghty, who points out that Detroit’s TV market doesn’t reach Ohio. This is all about defending Michigan, which would have seemed crazy a month ago but now, in a world where The One is under 50 percent in Oregon, makes lots of sense. This is, after all, a state capable of electing a Republican governor (by a landslide) and a Republican legislature, and there’s a native son at the top of the GOP ticket. The last poll of Michigan — taken one week ago — showed a dead heat. I wonder what those Hopenchange internal numbers are showing right now. From Halperin:

An Obama aide tells me this on the Michigan ad buy:

“Restore Our Future went up with a $2 million buy in Michigan. We’re matching states where they go up. We’re not going to let them make a play anywhere.”

Both sides have enough money for these end-game ad forays. The real issues remain candidate time/visits, the psy-ops involved here, and the belief of some Republicans that a combination of Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania could surprise on Election Day.

My only question: How likely is it that any of those three states comes through for Romney if Ohio doesn’t? And if Ohio comes through, why do we need any of those states? Seems like maybe the Romney Super PAC’s ad buy is less about stealing Michigan to capture the presidency even if Ohio falls through than it is (a) forcing Obama to divert money to a formerly “safe” state, and (b) increasing the odds of a big red wave if there’s a final small tilt towards Romney nationally (or regionally) over the next seven days. In that case, he wouldn’t “need” Michigan to win but it’d be lovely to have it as proof of a mandate to govern, and that’ll come in handy in twisting Democratic arms during those fiscal cliff/deficit reduction negotiations.

Elsewhere in “painting the map red” news: Romney just went up with his first ad in Pennsylvania, a state that ABC moved from “safe Democratic” to “lean Democratic” just yesterday — along with Minnesota. In the northwest, Team Mitt may be eyeing not only Oregon but even Washington state(!) as having turned more purplish than anticipated. And here’s a new ad from Citizens United that’s going up in Wisconsin and New Hampshire — a.k.a. Romney’s Plan B — but it’s not aimed at drumming up GOP turnout. In fact, it’s airing not on Fox News but on CNN and MSNBC. When you watch, you’ll understand why.

Via: Hot Air
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Romney, GOP suddenly plunging onto Democratic turf

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Mitt Romney is suddenly plunging into traditionally Democratic-leaning Minnesota and Pennsylvania, and his GOP allies are trying to put Michigan into play. It's forcing President Barack Obama to defend his own turf - he's pouring money into television ads in the states and dispatching top backers - in the campaign's final week.

The question is: Why this Republican move?

GOP efforts in the trio of Rust Belt states could indicate that Romney is desperately searching for a last-minute path to the needed 270 Electoral College votes - without all-important Ohio. Or just the opposite, that he's so confident in the most competitive battlegrounds that he's pressing for insurance against Obama in what's expected to be a close race.

Or perhaps the Republican simply has money to burn. Use it now or never.

(AP) President Barack Obama gestures while speaking during the his visit to the Disaster Operation... Full Image

Former President Bill Clinton was dispatched in response on Tuesday. "Barack Obama's policies work better," he declared on the University of Minnesota campus, one of his two stops in a state that offers 10 electoral votes and hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972.

This late-game expansion of a campaign playing field that, until now, had focused on just nine states was taking place exactly a week from Election Day. At the same time, Obama spent a second day in Washington to focus on his presidential duties and Romney edged back into active campaigning in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy.

"This is a tough time for millions of people ... but America is tougher," the president said during a brief visit to the American Red Cross, where he sought to reassure victims, encourage aid workers - and warn of more storm damage to come with rising floodwater.

In Ohio, Romney, too, spoke of concern for storm victims, telling supporters who were collecting supplies that "a lot of people hurting this morning."

Beyond the candidates' pause from feverish campaigning, the impact of the storm on the election wasn't all that clear.

(AP) Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds bags of food as he... Full Image

National polls show an even race for the popular vote, though Obama appears to have both an edge in key battleground states in the electoral vote hunt and more state-by-state pathways to reach the 270-vote threshold.

Of the nine states where the two men have spent more than $1 billion in advertising since June, Romney is in the strongest position in North Carolina. But public and internal campaign polls show he's locked in stubbornly tight battles in Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia and is fighting to overtake Obama's advantage in crucial Ohio as well as Iowa and Wisconsin.

That said, Romney still could win. Anything can happen in the race's closing days - including Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania or Michigan going Republican.

Via: MyWay

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Facebook Censors Navy Seals?

AP

Facebook Censors Navy SEALS to Protect Obama on Benghazi-Gate

Over the weekend, Facebook took down a message by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) which highlighted the fact that Obama denied backup to the forces being overrun in Benghazi.

The message was contained in a meme which demonstrated how Obama had relied on the SEALS when he was ready to let them get Osama bin Laden, and how he had turned around and denied them when they called for backup on Sept 11.

I spoke with Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc -- the media company that handles SOS postings and media production. Ward was the one who personally put the Navy SEAL meme up, and the one who received the warning from Facebook and an eventual 24 hour suspension from Facebook  because Ward put the meme back up after Facebook told him to take it down.

Here's what Ward told me: 

We created and posted this meme on Saturday after news broke that Obama had known and denied SEALS the backup they requested. 

Once the meme was up it garnered 30,000 shares, approx. 24,000 likes, and was read by hundreds of thousands of people -- all within 24 hrs. On Sunday, I went into the SOS Facebook page to post something else and found a warning from Facebook that we had violated Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities with our meme. So I copied the warning, put it on the meme as as caption, and re-posted the meme to the Facebook page. 

Along with the re-posted meme, Ward put a link to the Facebook "feedback comment" inbox so visitors to the SOS page could send a message to Facebook if they were as outraged over the meme being jerked down as he was. 

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] GALLUP: ROMNEY UP 52-45% AMONG EARLY VOTERS

***MORE: Obama's Early Vote Advantage Collapses 22-Points Over 2008

Very early on, before this campaign started in earnest, live or die, I publicly cast my lot with Gallup and Rasmussen. As a poll addict going back to 2000, these are the outlets that have always played it straight. It's got nothing to do with politics and everything to do with credibility and not wanting to kid myself. So when an outlet like Gallup tells me Romney is up seven-points, 52-45%, among those who have already voted, that's verybig news.  

Just as Gallup did with their bombshell survey showing that 2012 is looking like a year where Republicans will enjoy a record three-point turnout advantage over Democrats (a ten-point shift from 2008), for whatever reason, they buried the lede with this latest bombshell, as well. When you consider the fact that the CorruptMedia's been talking for weeks about how Obama's crushing Romney in early voting, you would think Gallup proving that Narrative a big fat phony lie would be news. Instead, though, they bury this explosive news at the bottom of a piece headlined: "In U.S., 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots".

Via: Breitbart

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Mooch: Kids As Young As 10-Years-Old Should Be Working On Obama Phone Banks…

SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA IS FORCING KIDS TO DO OBAMA'S DIRTY WORK

In the battleground state of Iowa, first lady Michelle Obama made a pitch for individuals as young as 10-years-old to help President Barack Obama win re-election.

“Here’s something that I always remind young people, because I’ve met so young people over these four years who said — told me — my parents and grandparents were not going to vote for Barack in 2008 until I talked to them and I told them what this election means for my future, and because of that conversation they voted for him. Now, that’s the power that young people can have,” Michelle Obama said Monday in Iowa City.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are. I’ve had 10-year-olds who are on a phone bank — 14-year-olds. I mean, I’m telling you, there is power because this is your future and you can tell people that they don’t have to wait until November the 6th to cast their ballots.”

The first lady went on to encourage individuals to take advantage of early voting.

“We all know that early voting has started, and there’s some good early voting happening right here in this state. I voted by mail early already, a couple of weeks ago,” she said.

“And I voted for Barack Obama, just in case you were wondering. I really, objectively feel that he’s the best man for the job.”

Via: Daily Caller

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HEROES: NYU NURSES, FIRST RESPONDERS SAVE NEWBORNS, CRITICAL CARE PATIENTS

When emergency back-up generators at New York University Langone Medical Center-Tisch Hospital failed Monday night during Hurricane Sandy, nurses and first responders improvised. These heroes used their instincts, and relied on training exercises to dramatically save the lives over 200 patients, 20 whom were babies in the hospital's neonatal unit and 45 of whom were patients in critical condition. Some were on battery-operated respirators. 

When the hospital's elevators ceased to function, nurses carried babies down nine flights of stairs in the dark, insulating and ventilating them, often manually pumping oxygen into the babies. Some nurses asked to be carried down in stretchers so they could keep the newborn babies close to their skins to ensure they were warm. 

"It's a challenging situation," NYU Medical Dean Robert Grossman told WCBS-TV Monday night. "We drill all the time for this kind of thing. But this isn't a drill. This is the real thing."

According to Fox5 New York, patients were transferred from the adult critical unit, neo-natal intensive unit, pediatric critical care unit and obstetrics. Some patients were battling cancer. Patients were moved to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Mount Sinai.

Jonathan LaPook, M.D., a medical correspondent for CBS, arrived on the scene last and observed the hospital's lobby "was filled with doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and a command team of medical center personnel headed by Dr. Robert Grossman, the Dean and CEO of the medical center": 

Via: Breitbart

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GALLUP: OBAMA'S EARLY VOTE ADVANTAGE COLLAPSES 22-POINTS OVER 2008

My pal Guy Benson found a juicy nugget that helps to bring more clarity to the news from Gallup yesterday that shows Romney leading Obama in the early vote by a full seven points, 52-45%. Almost exactly four years ago (October 28, 2008),  according to Gallup, Obama was massacring John McCain among early voters with a fifteen-point lead, 55-40%. That means, at least according to Gallup, that Obama's early vote advantage has dropped 22 points when compared to '08.

Benson also notes that the percentage of voters who have or intend to vote early was 33% in 2008 and remains at 33% today. As Don Surber said in this tweet, "People don't wait in line to vote for the status quo[.]"

In his email to me, Benson makes The Point: "Obama had a 55/40 lead on McCain with early voters in '08, but only led by 3 pts with the election day crowd.  He ended up winning by 7 overall."

In other words, among those who actually voted on Election Day, Obama's advantage over McCain was only three points. Obama won by seven overall because of the early vote margins he had accumulated. If Gallup is correct about 2012 and Romney being ahead by seven with early voters, that means Obama's in very deep trouble. Even polls that show Obama with a small lead in states like Ohio confirm Romney will win among those who vote on Election Day.

Like me, Benson is skeptical of Gallup because, like its daily tracker that gives Romney a five point lead over Obama nationally, this early voting poll defies the CorruptMedia's conventional wisdom. But there are a few things you have to keep in mind.

Via: Breitbart

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FEMA, W.H. send storm victims to Internet

When President Barack Obama urged Americans under siege from Hurricane Sandy to stay inside and keep watch on ready.gov for the latest, he left out something pretty important — where to turn if the electricity goes out.

Despite the heightened expectation of widespread power and cable television failures, everyone from the president to local newscasters seem to expect the public to rely entirely on the Internet and their TVs for vital news and instructions.

(PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy)

None of the major cable or local news channels put emergency phone numbers or key radio station frequencies on their screens. The only phone-related instructions on the homepage of ready.gov is how to get monthly disaster-prep text messages. The Federal Emergency Management Agency told the public via Twitter to use texts and social media outlets to stay informed.

TV and radio are still the primary methods of getting information about Hurricane Sandy to the public, but social media are increasingly important to those efforts, FEMA chief Craig Fugate said Monday.

(Also on POLITICO: Tracking Hurricane Sandy: Facebook, Twitter abuzz with chatter)

“With these types of storms, you get a lot of this is going to be carried out through the traditional TV and radio media,” Fugate told reporters on a conference call. “But we’re using a lot more social media, we’re using everything from Facebook to Twitter. I think there’s a higher degree of awareness that people have of the storm is coming and what the impacts are going to be.”

Via: Politico

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Dingy Reid: “Karl Rove And 17 Angry Old White Men Are Trying To Buy The Election”…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a former boxer, isn't one to let a few bruised ribs take the fight out of him.

Still feeling the after-effects of a recent car accident, Reid sat down with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review Journal and explained that one of his biggest worries about the upcoming election was the power of the moneyed interests supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"My concern is that Karl Rove and 17 angry old white men are trying to buy the election. And that's the truth," Reid told the Review Journal. "You have [Las Vegas Sands casino billionaire Sheldon] Adelson, the Koch brothers [billionaires David and Charles]. You have [billionaire Harold] Simmons of Texas. They are literally trying to buy the election. Think about this. The day after the election, Karl Rove sits down and talks to …the 17 angry old white guys and says, 'Hey, listen guys, we just bought America. And we're still rich.' That's the concern that we all have."

The men Reid listed are all top contributors to super PACs that support Romney's campaign.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, individuals, corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on attempts to influence elections. And spend they have, to the tune of more than $650 million this cycle.

Pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future announced earlier this month that it raised $20 million in the first half of October, half of it from Adelson alone.

Reid has been a tireless Romney detractor throughout the general election. Earlier this month, Reid described himself as a "one-man wrecking crew" set on getting Romney to release additional years of tax documents. Romney, Reid charged, was a “plastic man" who "changes his position every chance he gets."

Via: Huffington Post

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Col. Ralph Peters: The Triumph of Failure - Obama’s Disastrous Foreign Non-Policy

 When an American president evidently dislikes our national heritage, distrusts capitalism and despises Israel, we might expect a troubled foreign policy. But the consistently naïve, occasionally vicious and thoroughly incompetent set of confused initiatives masquerading as a foreign policy under this administration amount to a catastrophe.

It takes a sort of genius to get the entire world completely wrong.

The simplest way to critique the Obama administration’s inept overseas efforts is just to list the failures. Set aside the tawdry efforts of this timid president to portray himself as the bold commander-in-chief who all but dispatched bin Laden with his bare hands (were the SEALs even there?). There’s enough of a mess without that stolen valor:

Iran: We’ve spent four years talking. Tehran’s spent four years pursuing nuclear weapons. When brave Iranians challenged their oppressors in the street, begging for “hope and change,” our president cowered in silence, protecting his cherished “strategy” of negotiations with a regime that kills Americans and wants all Israelis dead. The ayatollahs’ thugs crushed the uprising.

Predictably, negotiations failed. Now we’re told that sanctions are the answer. But there’s zero chance that Iran’s leaders will abandon their nuke program. If they did, their domestic authority would collapse. (I believe that this administration has privately accepted that Iran will get nukes.)

Israel: An election-eve military exercise can’t compensate for four years of disdain. As our president made clear in his iniquitous Cairo speech, he regards Israelis and Palestinian terrorists as, at best, morally equivalent. Obama deems Israel not an ally, but a nuisance. Want to understand this man’s antipathy to Israel? Study the sermons of the president’s old Chicago pastor, which mirror the Muslim Brotherhood’s view of the world.

Libya: While the Bush administration failed to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq, the Obama gang refused to plan for a post-Khadafy Libya. Turning the situation over to leftists in the State Department — who prefer local thugs to US Marines — Obama slighted the secular elements who reflect at least some of our values. Now al Qaeda’s embedded in a country where it never had a presence. And four Americans are dead.

Egypt: Our president has shown more understanding toward the Muslim Brotherhood now ruling Egypt than toward Israel’s truly democratic government and Prime Minister Netanyahu. And we’re still subsidizing the Egyptian military.

Via: New York Post

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Reporters Overheard Dissing Romney on Live Stream: ' A 40% Chance That He Says Something Stupid'

AP

Jon Ward@jonward11

Reporters overheard on politico live stream speculating before Romney event that there is "a 40% chance that he says something stupid."

Via: TWITTER

Death Toll from Sandy's Destruction Rises, Millions Face Life Without Power, Mass Transit for Days

For the latest developments on Sandy click here and here! 

CLICK HERE to check your flight!

At least 39 dead, millions without power in Sandy's aftermath

Published October 30, 2012 | Associated Press

NEW YORK –  Millions of people from Maine to the Carolinas awoke Tuesday without electricity, and an eerily quiet New York City was all but closed off by car, train and air as superstorm Sandy steamed inland, still delivering punishing wind and rain. The U.S. death toll climbed to 39, many of the victims killed by falling trees.

The full extent of the damage in New Jersey, where the storm roared ashore Monday night with hurricane-force winds of 80 mph, was unclear. Police and fire officials, some with their own departments flooded, fanned out to rescue hundreds.

"We are in the midst of urban search and rescue. Our teams are moving as fast as they can," Gov. Chris Christie said. "The devastation on the Jersey Shore is some of the worst we've ever seen. The cost of the storm is incalculable at this point."

More than 8.2 million people across the East were without power. Airlines canceled more than 15,000 flights around the world, and it could be days before the mess is untangled and passengers can get where they're going.

The storm also disrupted the presidential campaign with just a week to go before Election Day.

Via: Fox News

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EDITORIAL: Dirty Tricks on Election Day

THE WASHINGTON TIMES -- The race for the White House is coming down to the wire, and the closer this contest gets, the greater the chance it could be decided by electoral shenanigans.

Though voter fraud affects everyone, it has turned into a highly partisan issue. Republican efforts to strengthen laws to require voter identification and an audit of voter rolls have met persistent challenges from Democrats and the Obama Justice Department. Democrats pretend such fraud is imaginary and allegations to the contrary must be manifestations of racism. This argument not only has a corrosive effect on the political culture, it is demonstrably untrue.

Independent investigations across the country have identified serious systemic problems. An audit by Election Integrity Maryland found cases of deceased voters still on active rolls, duplicate voter registrations and people listing vacant lots or business addresses as residences. In North Carolina, investigations discovered several thousand voters listed at the age of 110. Another 30,000 turned out to be deceased. Sometimes these are just paperwork errors, but other times something far more troubling is going on.

Maryland’s 1st Congressional District Democratic challenger Wendy Rosen was forced to withdraw from the race in September after she admitted casting ballots in both Maryland and Florida. In Philadelphia, there are precincts where voter turnout surpasses 100 percent of those registered there. In North Carolina, some early voters noted that their touch-screen ballots for Mitt Romney were defaulting to Barack Obama. Local election officials said the problematic machine needed “calibration.” However, this illustrates the frightening potential for deliberate fraud in electronic and computer-based voting. Without a physical record, there’s no way of verifying whether anyone was disenfranchised. We may one day look back on the “hanging chad” as a bulwark of democracy.

The Obama campaign has made early in-person voting part of its end-game strategy, rushing supporters to the polls before they have a chance to change their minds. This, too, is an invitation to fraud. Human Events reported that non-English-speaking Somalis were being taken by the busload to vote early at Ohio polling places, shepherded by Democratic minders.

Via: Washington Post

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DOCUMENTS: OBAMA ADMIN SLASHED 20,000 NON-UNION AUTOWORKER PENSIONS

Newly uncovered internal documents between the Treasury Department and the federal agency in charge of private-sector pension benefits reveal that the Obama Administration was directly involved in the elimination of pension benefits for 20,000 retired salaried workers of GM supplier Delphi Corp., a claim it previously denied.

The revelation, says GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, should make Ohioans and others think twice about buying President Obama’s claim that he saved the American auto industry. 

“You see, the president likes to go around Ohio talking about how he saved the auto industry, how the auto bailout was such a success,” said Ryan to an Ohio audience. “He hasn’t talked to these Ohio Delphi salaried employees. Because this is one of those examples of the government picking winners and losers.”

At issue is whether the federal agency tasked with handling private-sector benefits, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), actively conspired with the Treasury Department to protect unionized employees while slashing the pensions of non-unionized Delphi retirees between 30 and 70 percent, as well as cutting healthcare, life insurance, and other benefits.

The Obama Administration originally pointed the finger at the PBGC, but new internal emails uncovered by the Daily Caller demonstrate clear coordination between the Obama Administration and those it now blames for gutting the pensions of 20,000 non-union employees. Specifically, a July 2009 document titled “Treasury Talking Points re: Delphi” was sent as an attachment to a July 7, 2009, email from PBGC’s Joseph House to Treasury’s Matthew Feldman, Oren Haker and Paul Nathanson.

Via: Breitbart

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Sandy’s Coup de Gras for Obama

Remember how Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath was blamed on President Bush? Remember his words to then-FEMA director, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”?

No doubt FEMA is all geared up for the damage Hurricane Sandy will do throughout the Northeast and wide swatches to the West. And no doubt it will be the States and local communities and utilities that will do the heavy lifting as FEMA tries to give the appearance of doing anything useful.

All of which is bad news—actually more bad news—for President Obama who, insanely campaigning, flew to Orlando, Florida on Sunday and then immediately flew back to Washington, DC, without leaving the airport. Just how much did that little round-trip cost the taxpayers? How stupid and indifferent does one have to be to leave Washington as a major hurricane is bearing down on the Northeast’s coasts?

Via: Canada Free Press

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