Ryan Says He Stands With Emanuel on Chicago Teachers\' Strike

September 10, 2012, 7:18 pm

By TRIP GABRIEL

There may be no stranger bedfellows than Representative Paul D. Ryan and Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, the former White House chief of staff, but on Monday Mr. Ryan declared his support of Mr. Emanuel in the Chicago teachers' strike.

“We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel,'' Mr. Ryan said.

Mr. Emanuel and the teachers' union are at loggerheads primarily over a new evaluation system tied to student test scores and whether laid-off teachers should have priority to fill future job openings.

Education has been only a side issue in the presidential race, partly because many reforms pushed by the Obama administrati on are ideas that Republicans long championed. The teacher evaluation system at the heart of the Chicago strike was introduced through President Obama's Race to the Top initiative.

Mr. Ryan's praise of Mr. Emanuel was double-edged: he sought to put Mr. Obama on the spot and declare whose side he is on. The White House tried to remain neutral in its statements today. “We hope that both sides are able to come together to settle this quickly and in the best interest of Chicago's students,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said on Monday.

“This does not have to divide the two parties,'' Mr. Ryan said at a fund-raising event in Portland, Ore., according to a pool report. “And so we were going to ask, where does President Obama stand? Does he stand with his former chief of staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with the children and the parents, or does he stand with the union?''

Mitt Romney also issued a statement condemnin g the Chicago Teachers Union and accusing the Obama administration of being beholden to unions at the expense of children.

Although teachers' unions are traditionally strong supporters of Democrats, the Obama administration has strained that relationship at times. Arne Duncan, the education secretary, used to run the Chicago schools and clashed with the union.

Mr. Romney often speaks generally of putting “kids and their parents first” and “the teachers' union behind.'' Mr. Ryan, who has not spoken out about K-12 education issues since he joined the Republican ticket, echoed that idea.

“In a Romney-Ryan administration we will not be ambiguous, we will stand with education reform, we will champion bipartisan education reforms,'' Mr. Ryan said.

In Mr. Romney's major public school initiative to date, he proposed a voucherlike system to replace $25 billion in federal education aid now distributed to school systems for disabled and economically disa dvantaged students. Mr. Romney argued that it would give parents more choice of schools and that schools would compete, raising standards.

The proposal, which reverses a decades-long trend to give the federal government a central role in assuring equality of access to public education, goes further than any previous initiative with bipartisan support.

Romney Suggests \'Forewarned\' as Obama Slogan

September 10, 2012, 6:24 pm

By ASHLEY PARKER

MANSFIELD, Ohio - Fresh off a day of church and debate preparation, Mitt Romney returned to the trail Monday in Ohio, debuting new material against President Obama, who is enjoying a post-convention bump in the polls.

“‘Forward' is his campaign slogan,” Mr. Romney told a cheering crowd in a warehouse here. “I think ‘Forewarned' is a better term.”

He added, “We're forewarned, and that's why we're not going to re-elect this man.”

Turning to military spending, Mr. Romney said that the president had not yet specified what cuts he would make to the military.

“It seems we found one secret relating to national security that he's willing to keep, ” he said. “There's another secret he's willing to keep related to national security, and that's the flexibility he's willing to give Russia after the election, and that's not flexibility he's going to have.”

Mr. Romney also reprised a new portion of his stump speech that he had rolled out Saturday in Virginia, in which he uses lines from the Pledge of Allegiance to attack Mr. Obama and offer an alternate vision for the country.

“That pledge says that we are a nation under God,” Mr. Romney said. “When and if I become president of the United States, I will not take God out of my heart. I will not take God out of the public square, and I will not take it out of the platform of my party.”

He was referring to a kerfuffle the Democrats had at their convention last week in Charlotte, N.C., when they had to scramble to put back a reference to “God” in their party platform.

Mr. Romney sought to cast the election as a choice between two diffe rent visions for the country, warning that the president's path would lead to military spending cuts, higher taxes and increased regulation on small businesses, as well as cuts to Medicare.

“That's the path he's put us on,” Mr. Romney said. “He wants to fundamentally transform America. I don't want America to become something new. I want America to become something better.”

Politics and the Pizza Man

September 10, 2012, 5:57 pm

By GERRY MULLANY

On Sunday, Scott Van Duzer became the Obama campaign's favorite Republican bench-pressing pizza-parlor owner when he lifted President Obama off the floor during a surprise hug in his Florida restaurant. The image made the front pages of newspapers around the country and immediately whizzed around the Internet.

But on Monday, Mr. Van Duzer found that fame can be a complicated proposition. The Yelp profile page for his pizza place, which had only two reviews before Monday (“Love the Pizza, wings, subs and the best strombolie [sic] in town”) was suddenly inundated with hundreds of reviews, making it perhaps the most politically charged pizza review board around.

“Politics aside. I hate this pla ce is gonna get any kind of publicity. The pizza is terrible and greasy. NOTHING like NY,” wrote Smith K. of Knoxville, Tenn.

But others quickly came to the defense of Mr. Van Duzer and his pizza. “All in all, I recommend the ham and pineapple pizza to any pizza eater earning less than $500,000 per year who likes tax cuts, less war, an end to torture, and dead terrorist kingpins,” wrote Dennis J. of Milton, Ontario.

By the end of the day, sentiment was running overwhelmingly in favor of Mr. Van Duzer's pizza and his politics, with many nevertheless saying the two should never mix. “Pizza is Pizza and one should be judged on how good the crust is and not your political stance,” wrote Rob S. of San Francisco.

Polls: Slight Post-Convention Bounce for Obama

September 10, 2012, 6:00 pm

By ALLISON KOPICKI

A new poll from CNN/ORC shows some positive movement for President Obama in the days immediately after the Democratic National Convention that ended last Thursday in Charlotte, N.C., but the presidential race is still close.

Before the convention, Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney were tied at 48 percent of support among likely voters in CNN's survey. But in polling conducted Friday through Sunday, after the convention was over, Mr. Obama's support rose to 52 percent and Mr. Romney's landed at 46 percent, a difference that is still within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points on each candidate.

These are some of the first poll results to emerge in the days after the Democratic convention to show some improvement for Mr. Obama's re-election bid. While these numbers are likely to be part of the spin cycle in the next few days, whether the bounce turns out to be sustainable or ephemeral remains to be seen.

These early poll results would suggest that the Democrats achieved a better outcome from their convention than the Republicans. After the G.O.P. gathering in Tampa, Fla., from Aug. 27 to Aug. 30, about 36 percent of voters said the convention made them more likely to vote for Mr. Romney. After the Charlotte convention, 46 percent said what they saw or read about the Democratic convention would make them more likely to vote for Mr. Obama.

The Democrats' convention also produced a lift in the Gallup Daily tracking poll for Mr. Obama's approval, pushing his job approval rating to 50 percent through this past weekend, up from a 45 percent approval rating for the three days before the speeches a nd festivities began in Charlotte. Gallup first measured Mr. Obama's approval rating rise during the convention, the first time since June that his approval rating has risen above the important halfway mark.

According to historical analysis by Gallup, incumbent presidents with approval ratings above 50 percent in the final Gallup poll before Election Day won their re-election bids with solid margins, going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But below the 50 percent mark, the results become mixed: President George W. Bush narrowly won re-election with a 48 percent approval mark, while  President Gerald R. Ford lost by 2 percentage points with a 45 percent approval rating at the time of the election. Jimmy Carter and the first President George Bush both failed to hold onto the Oval Office, and had pre-election approval ratings under 40 percent.

The CNN/ORC poll interviewed 875 registered voters by telephone from Sept. 7 to Sept. 9, including 709 likely voters. Th e margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The Gallup Daily tracking survey is based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 national adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The Caucus Click: Testing the Field

September 10, 2012, 4:16 pm

By DOUG MILLS

No, Nicki Minaj Did Not Endorse Mitt Romney

September 10, 2012, 2:50 pm

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Ha! Thank you for understanding my creative humor & sarcasm Mr. President, the smart ones always do… *sends love & support* @BarackObama

- Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) 10 Sep 12

Lest there be any lingering confusion: sometimes performers say things in the context of their work that they do not mean literally â€" political endorsements included.

Following a convention week in which Mitt Romney learned that celebrity testimonials were not all they are cracked up to be â€" just ask Clint Eastwood and his chair â€" the Republican presidential nominee received an unexpected shout-out from the hip-hop musician Nicki Minaj.

In a guest appearance on the track “Mercy,” from the Lil Wayne mixtape “Dedication 4,” Ms. Minaj, an artist known for her garishly imaginative outfits and a range of cartoonish voices to rival Mel Blanc's, rapped, “I'm a Republican, voting for Mitt Romney.” She then completed the verse by rhyming it with a vulgar line about “lazy” people who were wreaking havoc on the economy.

While nothing about Ms. Minaj's music is as simple as it may seem, some listeners took “Mercy” (which started appearing online around Sept. 3) at face value. Music Web sites like rapdose.com reported on the lyric with headlines that read “Nicki Minaj Endorses Mitt Romney,” while the gossip blog Gawker hedged its bets, asking readers, “Did Nicki Minaj Really Endorse Mitt Romney?”

However, there were clues in the song that Ms. Minaj was not describing a factual set of circumstances. For example, in the very next line of the song, she raps: “Out in Miami I be chillin' with a zombie.”

There would also seem to be a general rule that applies to pop songs and other works of performance, under which artists are allowed to adopt fictional personae in the service of evoking an audience's emotions. (To date, there is no evidence that Johnny Cash ever shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.)

President Obama appeared to suggest as much in an interview with the Orlando, Fla., radio station Power 95.3. Asked whether he thought Ms. Minaj's lyric was an authentic endorsement of his rival, Mr. Obama said: “I'm not sure that's actually what happened. I think she had a song on there, that â€" a little rap that said that. But she likes to play different characters.”

Ms. Minaj gave credence to the president's interpretation of the song on Monday, writing in a post on her Twitter account: “Ha! Thank you for understanding my creative humor & sarcasm Mr. President, the smart ones always do…”

Romney Criticizes Teachers\' Union and Obama

September 10, 2012, 12:36 pm

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mitt Romney issued a statement Monday criticizing the teachers' union in Chicago for going on strike, and faulted President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for their words in support of labor, suggesting that the president has already taken sides in the fight.

“I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city's public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education. Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children, and today we are seeing one of the clearest exa mples yet. President Obama has chosen his side in this fight, sending his vice president last year to assure the nation's largest teachers union that ‘you should have no doubt about my affection for you and the president's commitment to you.' I choose to side with the parents and students depending on public schools to give them the skills to succeed, and my plan for education reform will do exactly that.”

App Smart Extra: Cat Apps Work for Babies

September 10, 2012, 11:46 am

By KIT EATON

Last week's App Smart column was all about apps for babies, because they really will love playing with your tablet and smartphone as much as you do (though you may need to pay a lot of attention lest they drop your expensive electronic item onto the floor or dribble on it).

There are hundreds of apps that are aimed specifically at babies, but don't limit yourself to these alone. There are many other surprising apps babies may love.

For example, while I mentioned a rattle app for Android (and there's a similar free one for iOS), my children loved the official Star Wars Lightsaber app $1 on iOS app when they were babies. It's simple, and it makes great sounds when you wave the phone around. There are similar free apps for Android and Windows Phone.

While still crawling, my babies also loved the kind of amazing visual reaction they could get from apps like Newton's Dream ($1 on iOS). While it's actually a demonstration of some clever physics, and technically an adult toy, in action it's a lot of brightly colored dots that move strikingly on the screen when you touch it. You may need to be present for a bit of supervision, but you'll probably enjoy playing too.

And for a strange idea, try App For Cats ($1 on iOS). It's a game where targets like ladybugs and a cartoon mouse move on the screen against plain backgrounds. They react when touched by a paw or hand. It's designed to be simple enough for your cat to operate, so it's likely to amuse your baby too.

Also don't be afraid to try apps that seem beyond your baby's age. One big hit in my home was Alien Buddies ($2 on iOS). This is an educational app themed around cartoon aliens, and it teaches abou t letters, numbers, colors and so on. While it has very sophisticated sections, my son has loved it for its fun value and pictures since he was 18 months old. It helped introduce him to puzzles.

Romney Pollster Calls Post-Convention Poll Results a \'Sugar High\'

September 10, 2012, 11:09 am

By ASHLEY PARKER

Neil Newhouse, Mitt Romney's pollster, had a message for voters on Monday morning: “Don't get too worked up about the latest polling.”

In a memo released by the campaign, Mr. Newhouse acknowledged that President Obama had emerged with more of a post-convention bump in some polls after two weeks of back-to-back party conventions, but dismissed it as “a sugar high.”

“While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly,” he wrote. “The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama presidency, and Mitt Romney will win this race.”

The mere existence of the memo seemed to place Team Romney on the defensive, forced to publicly assert that it is still in a position to win on Election Day. But the Romney campaign used the memo to underscore what has been its existing rationale for his candidacy - the struggling economy, which has not improved as quickly as Mr. Obama and most voters had hoped.

“The key numbers in this election are the 43 straight months of 8 percent or higher unemployment, the 23 million Americans struggling to find work, and the 47 million Americans who are on food stamps,” Mr. Newhouse wrote, citing the disappointing jobs report that came out on Friday. “Americans are not better off than we were four years ago, and that is why President Obama has struggled in this race.”

In the memo, the campaign also pointed to the expanding map of swing states, as well as its post-convention cash advantage, as reasons why it expects to win in November.

One Hour Photo? Try One Minute.

September 10, 2012, 10:00 am

By ROY FURCHGOTT

Although we get digital photos instantly, it generally takes a quite a bit longer â€" days, in fact â€" to send away for prints of your shots.

If you are a devotee of instant gratification, there is the new Canon Selphy CP900, a photo printer that is the company's first with built-in Wi-Fi. That means it can make prints from your computer, phone or tablet if they are connected to your Wi-Fi network.

The Selphy uses a dye-sublimation cartridge and glossy paper to make prints it says will last 100 years and won't run if dampened.

And it doesn't take up too much desk space at 7 by 5 by 2.4 inches. With the paper tray in, it spreads out to 7 by 12 by 2.4 inches.

But the Selphy has its lim its. It prints only on postcard-size 4- by 6-inch paper, although you can buy sticker paper that makes eight smaller prints at a time.

Set up is easy, provided that you remember your Wi-Fi passwords and that they are case sensitive. The Selphy can also get images from a camera attached by a USB cable, or slip a camera's memory card into the provided slot.

The Selphy has some built-in touchups, such as noise reduction, skin smoothing and contrast improvement.

The prints themselves are colorful and glossy, although the colors are not entirely accurate. Blues were exaggerated in my test shots, so a green car looked a bit turquoise, and a cat had some reflection on its white fur turn disconcertingly azure. But the tints paid off handsomely in a photo of a lighthouse with a bright blue sky behind it.

According to the specifications, prints are 300 by 300 dots per inch with 256 levels of color.

The Selphy, available in black or white, lists for $100, but the cost of using it ramps up quickly when you consider the cost of cartridges and paper. It costs $15 for enough paper and ink for 36 prints (that's 42 cents each) or $35 for 108 prints (32 cents each). By comparison, a 6- by 4-inch print from Apple is 12 cents, with $3 shipping. Even with the shipping, though, 10 prints from Apple would cost about the same as 10 from the smaller pack of Selphy paper. But then you wouldn't have it instantly.

Biden and the Bikers

September 10, 2012, 8:56 am

By SARAH WHEATON

The photo of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. above was taken by an Associated Press photographer in Ohio. Is it not, as one might reasonably assume, an edited image to go with an Onion article.

It's not clear whether Mr. Biden is getting closer to his fictional beer-swilling, chest-baring, bar fight-starting alter-ego dreamed up by the satirical newspaper, or whether images of the real man that seem to reinforce his Joe Everyman character are just getting more popular.

But there are two ways in which the man second in line for the presidency will probably never resemble the Onion's version. First, Mr. Biden does not drink, so the chances of him bouncing a check at the liquor store are pretty sl im. Second, as he told Car and Driver last year, he would not drive the Trans Am the Onion envisioned him washing shirtless in his driveway. (But just the Trans Am part is unrealistic, he said: “I have been in my bathing suit in my driveway and not only washed my Goodwood-green 1967 Corvette but also simonized it.”)

Q&A: Shutting Down a Missing Kindle

September 10, 2012, 7:45 am

By J.D. BIERSDORFER

Buying books on a Kindle Fire is very easy, but what do I do if the device ever gets lost or stolen? Is there a way to prevent someone from using it to buy a bunch of stuff on my credit card?

If your Kindle Fire e-reader goes missing, Amazon advises that you log into the Manage Your Kindle page on its Web site and unregister the device from your Amazon account. To cut the missing Kindle loose after you log in, find it in the list of devices and apps registered to your account and click the Deregister button next to it.

If you have subscribed to any electronic newspapers or magazines on the lost Kindle, cancel those subscriptions on the Manage Your Kindle page as well to stop the billing. You sh ould get a refund for any issues left on the subscription.

If you suspect the Kindle has been stolen or lost you may also want to file a report with the local police department and contact Amazon's Kindle customer service department. While you may not get your e-reader back, Amazon has been known to blacklist the serial numbers of stolen Kindles so that the device cannot be re-registered with another Amazon account to buy content from the online Kindle store.

The Early Word: Trillion

September 10, 2012, 5:45 am

By JADA F. SMITH

Today's Times

- The question of whether Mitt Romney's tax plan would help or hurt the middle class has dominated the presidential campaign, a conflict that has focused sharper attention on what many experts agree is one of the tax code's biggest problems: an array of tax breaks totaling more than $1 trillion a year, Annie Lowrey and David Kocieniewski report.

- Big-money advertising may not be the only swaying factor in the November elections, as it could also hinge on last-minute legal battles over voting procedures â€" particularly in key battleground states, Ethan Bronner reports. Any truly tight race will most likely generate post-election litigation that could delay the final result.

- Mitt Romney strayed from his usually harsh, partisan critiques of President Obama on Sunday, offering praise for some of his policies, Michael Barbaro writes. It appeared to be part of a direct appeal to middle-of-the-road voters who are likely to decide the race.

- As Congress returns to business after a five-week recess and their parties' conventions, lawmakers appear to be focusing their attention on bills that emphasize their political agendas over actual lawmaking, Jennifer Steinhauer reports.

- While Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Representative Paul D. Ryan are lobbing more personal barbs against each other on the campaign trail, supporters from both parties are eager for their Oct. 11 debate, Trip Gabriel reports.

Happenings in Washington

- Michael B. Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, will talk about U.S.-Israeli relations at the B'nai B'rith International Policy Conference.

- The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community will hol d its second annual “Muslims for Life” blood drive at the Capitol, with the goal of collecting 11,000 bags of blood to honor the victims of Sept. 11.