earth. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. mitt romney is using ads, web videos, speeches to hammer away at president obama on welfare. romney is taking a lot of heat though over his claims about the administration s policies, but with support from an unlikely ally he s raising the stakes today. here s our national political correspondent jim acosta. reporter: wolf, mitt romney is not backing away from his accusation that president obama is trying to make it easier for the poor to receive welfare checks and to help make his case he s getting some help from an old rival. they just send you your welfare check. reporter: even though his ad accusing the president of weakening work requirements for welfare recipients got a pants on fire from politifact and four pinocchios from the washington post, mitt romney is doubling down on the claim. this is to help people go to work so they can stop drawing a welfare check and start drawing a paycheck. reporter:
landings in history. but for now, all eyes on this. the very first video of the curiosity landing, released today. the grainy video was shot onboard moments before touching down. john zarrella and chad myers join me now for more. so, john, let s start with you. you have been following the story very closely and are live at nasa s jetropulsion laboratory in california. tell us about this new veo and what exactly are we seeing? reporter: well, in fact, zoraida, what we re seeing in this video are images taking from the descent camera, made by space industries down in san diego. and the video shows the curiosity rover as it is descending down through the atmosphere to the touchdown on mars. it was 297 images all put together into one continuous short video. and then there was the haz cam image. they finally did get a higher resolution picture which shows mt. sharp in the distance. and that mt. sharp is, of course, critical what they are hoping to do is get over to mt. sharp ev
up right now, and that s a good sign considering we re more than halfway through the trading day. you are seeing stocks rally on good economic news of the jobless claims numbers fell last week and we got strong corporate earnings from a bellwether company, cisco system, and you are seeing wall street focus on the positive today and we are seeing the bargain hunting going on as well, and you are seeing the bargain hunters getting in there and buying stocks up, randi. and the trader mthere with you, allen valdez. what about the first time they dropped below 4,000 for the first time in four weeks, and how much do you think that contributed to the rally we are seeing today? well, under 400,000 you know, that jobs number is probably the most important number for traders. it really is. we watch that number on a weekly basis. and this economy is powered by consumer spending, so if the consumer is not working he is not spending. anything under 400,000, they re not spending. l