If you’re planning a cruise sometime soon, don’t look at this picture.
There are no reports of any injuries or anything close to injuries. But a smoke bomb of some sort was apparently thrown on to the White House grounds this evening, apparently during an Occupy protest outside the White House.
The Secret Service is currently investigating. Jennifer Bendery, a reporter for Huffpo, tweets that White House reporters are being forced to wait at the White House while the Secret Service investigates.
Late Update: From a White House press pool report of about 20 minutes ago …
Upon returning to the WH, members of the press corps are being prevented from leaving the grounds. USSS investigating an object that was allegedly thrown over the fence.
Penn Ave is closed as well.
Later Update: From another White House press pool report from 10:32 PM …
After holding in the briefing room for 45 minutes, a WH official escorted the press corps out of the WH grounds through the EEOB and out to an exit on 17th Street.
A very interesting nugget down deep in this Reuters piece on Romney’s taxes.
Tax analysts say Romney may have good reason to be reluctant to release his returns.
His vast fortune is invested in dozens of funds linked to Bain Capital LLC, the powerhouse private equity firm he co-founded and led for 15 years. Several Bain funds have offshore connections and take advantage of tax breaks used only by the U.S. financial elite.
President Obama faces a far more difficult election environment than he did in 2008. But that new political map his campaign created? Those new swing states are still in play in 2012.
We noted yesterday that Mitt Romney was playing with fire by tying himself to Kris Kobach, the anti-immigration hardliner and Kansas Secretary of State who authored Arizona’s extreme anti-immigration law. Well, it turns out he was Romney immigration advisor back in 2008 as well.
Top Democrat says House Republicans are going to have to cave big time in round two of payroll tax fight.
If Rasmussen’s latest poll is even close to accurate, Gingrich is in the midst of making a big, big move in South Carolina nationwide.
Late Update: I want to see another poll that shows this sort of movement before I’m convinced it’s real. But the Romney campaign held a Newt-bashing conference call this morning — the first time they’ve really gone there since the Iowa drubbing. So I think they’re at least seeing Gingrich moving up if not quite was Rasmussen is seeing.
Is your tax rate higher or lower than Mitt Romney’s? This chart will tell you.
Key issue: Mitt Romney is saying he’ll “probably” release his tax returns in April 2012. But the key is he’s saying he’ll only release his 2011 returns, in other words, the ones his tax preparers are preparing now. And that will help Romney because that return can be prepared with the needs of 2012 in mind.
If he’s forced to release returns for earlier years, that’s a very different proposition. He can’t change those.