The Commentariat -- Oct. 21, 2012

Presidential Race

Jeff Mason & Steve Holland of the AP: "Facing a cliffhanger re-election attempt, President Barack Obama will launch a round-the-clock, two-day campaign blitz through six battleground states next week to try to fend off the challenge from Republican Mitt Romney. Polls show Obama's strong debate performance this week gained him little or no ground against the former Massachusetts governor with just over two weeks until the November 6 election."

Truly Troubling. Tom Kludt of TPM: "President Barack Obama's lead in Ohio is down to a point, a survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling on Saturday shows.... The poll was conducted after Tuesday's debate, and the results suggest the town hall in Hempstead, N.Y. was not a game changer for the president, whose overall lead dropped despite a plurality of Ohio voters declaring him the winner of the debate." ...

... CW: this is the first time in perhaps six months that I've thought it likely Romney would win the election. I'm pissed off at everybody. (Which is supposed to come first, anger or depression? I went right to anger.) ...

... Nate Silver has more. ...

... AND It Matters that Romney Owns the Fucking Voting Machines. Gerry Bello, at al., in the Free Press: Mitt Romney, "his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public." The controlling firm also "has on its board of directors at least three close associates of the Romney family" who have contributed megabucks to Romney's campaign. Fully a third of [the company's] leadership previously worked at Romney's old Bain firm." ...

... In a somewhat tepid endorsement, the Cleveland Plain Dealer nonetheless favors Obama for re-election.

Alina Selyukhof, et al., of Reuters: "Mitt Romney held a financial advantage over President Barack Obama heading into October thanks to strong fundraising by the Republican Party that will allow its candidate to spend more on the last stretch toward the November 6 election."

New York Times Editors: "Mr. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan -- have become ... artful about obfuscating their plans for Medicare, Medicaid.... Almost nothing the Republican candidates say on these or other health care issues can be taken at face value.... Mr. Romney ... says his plans would have no effect on people now on Medicare or nearing eligibility. But ... most beneficiaries would see their annual premiums and cost-sharing go up. The average beneficiary in traditional Medicare would pay about $4,200 more over the 2011-12 period, and heavy users of prescription drugs about $16,000 more over the same period, if the act was repealed...."

CW: if, like me, you are a middle-class taxpayer, and if, unlike me, you think Romney will give you a 20 percent tax break & strew your garden path with rose petals, WAKE THE FUCK UP. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress notes that to support his case that his math-free tax plan will totally work, Romney uses a study which assumes that almost all middle-class tax breaks will be eliminated. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.

Digby: "... obsessing over what the administration said in the first days after the [Benghazi] attack is the stupidest right-wing manufactured pseudo-scandal I've come across in quite some time. And it's pathetic that the mainstream press is still so willing to chase after these shiny objects."

David Firestone: "Bill Clinton took the stage at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Friday night and delivered an hour-long education in the real issues at stake in this election. He talked about Medicaid and financial reform and the student loan system with an appreciation for the granular not usually displayed by the man he was stumping for, President Obama. It was the dream speech of a policy wonk, but Mr. Clinton never assumed that the details would bore a general audience, and they did not." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. Here's a taste:

Jeff Sommer of the New York Times: "Through Friday, since Mr. Obama's inauguration -- his first 1,368 days in office -- the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 67.9 percent.... The market's rise and fall has an enormous effect on the wealth of ordinary Americans -- and on whether they feel themselves to be wealthy. American presidents since 1900.... The stock market has flourished under the president -- and under Democratic presidents generally. Since 1900, it has returned 7.1 percent annually when Democrats have occupied the White House, and only 3 percent under Republicans.... Are you better off than you were four years ago? For stock portfolios, at least, the last four years have been bumpy but they haven't been bad at all."

MoDo doesn't like Obama & she doesn't like Romney: "In some ways, the two rivals are alike: cold, deliberative fish, self-regarding elitists with upbringings out of the norm and trouble connecting at times...." Read at your own risk.

This was inevitable:

Multi-billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticizes both candidates, too. At least his criticisms are substantive.

Ha ha. The New York Times reports that the U.S. & Iran have agreed to talks re: Iran's nuclear program. So I wrote: "get ready for the wingers to claim Ahmadinejad is a key Obama supporter." Well, sure enough, here's some person named Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator: "This is nothing other than an Iranian attempt to bolster Obama's re-election chances." Ditto from Jazz Shaw at Hot Air. Must the wing-nuts be so predictable?

Congressional Races

The New York Times endorses Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) of New York for U.S. Senate.

The New York Times endorses Rep. Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut for U.S. Senate.

Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times: "U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is heading back to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn."

Other Stuff

In a New York Times column, former Obama economic advisor Christina Romer reports on academic studies that show the stimulus was a big jobs creator. She also goes into what-all could have been done better, implicitly blaming the Obama administration for a failure to communicate. CW: Do you suppose the "undecideds" depicted below will gobble up Romer's analysis & immediately become staunch Obama backers? See, actually, facts don't matter.

For those of you having trouble "Understanding the Undecideds," Brian McFadden of the New York Times is here to help:

CLICK ON CARTOON TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.Bill Marsh of the New York Times outlines new state voting restrictions. "The most rigid voter ID laws are believed to affect about 10 percent of eligible voters, said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center." CW: of course most of those would be Democratic-leaning voters, so that raises, to as much as double the percentage of Democratic voters who may find they can't or don't dare to vote. So when I said in a comment to yesterday's Commentariat that Obama could lose even though more Americans preferred to vote for him than for Romney, I wasn't exaggerating. Michelle Obama said not long ago that voting rights were the civil rights movement of our era. She was right. ...

... You Are Now Living in a Third-World Country. Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week."

** Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.... 'When you dump a bunch of documents into the ether, there are a lot of unintended consequences,' an administration official told The Cable Friday afternoon. 'This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road.' ... Even WikiLeaks had approached the State Department and offered to negotiate retractions of sensitive information before releasing their cables.... Issa did not grant the State Department that opportunity...."

Glenn Greenwald on the "unfathomable ignorance" of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (Fla.), who appears, in the embedded video, not to know anything about President Obama's "kill lists."

Tracy Bloom of TruthDig: The Rev. Phil Snider, a Missouri pastor, delivered an impassioned speech before the Springfield City Council in which he appeared to be making the case against amending the city's nondiscrimination ordinance to add protection for sexual orientation and gender identity." Don't be offended, & do listen till the end. Thanks to contributor P. D. Pepe for the link:

... In his post "This Week in God," Steve Benen highlights a preacher of a different stripe: Romney supporter Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association who argues that "'masculine leadership in society over the nation' is 'God's basic plan for today,' and 'political leadership ought to be ... reserved for the hands of males.' Anticipating criticism, the religious right leader added that those who believe in gender equality won't offer a 'reasoned' response to his shameless misogyny." Benen provides video, so enjoy your Sunday sermon. ...

... Also via Benen, Eric Maripodi of CNN reports, "Shortly after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney enjoyed cookies and soft drinks with the Rev. Billy Graham and his son Franklin Graham on Thursday at the elder Graham's mountaintop retreat, a reference to Mormonism as a cult was scrubbed from the website of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association." Whaddaya bet Mitt didn't diss the cookies this time?

In a New York Times op-ed, Samantha Bee discusses a recent scientific UCLA study which found that GOP female Members of Congress have more feminine faces than do Democratic women MOCs. Bee is thrilled that research dollars are going to such important work.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Russia's security services have killed 49 rebels and captured dozens more in a counterterrorism offensive that officials called a "considerable" blow to the insurgency in the North Caucasus region, the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced on Sunday. President Vladimir V. Putin had urged the use of increasingly aggressive means to subdue the insurgency in the North Caucasus ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the southern city of Sochi, which is at the edge of the turbulent region."

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Seven people were shot late Sunday morning at a spa near the Brookfield Square Mall [near Milwaukee, Wisconsin] - apparently none fatally - and police were combing the area searching for the suspect. The multiple shooting occurred about 11 a.m. at the Azana Salon & Spa on N. Moorland Road, just south of Blue Mound Road and across the street from Brookfield Square."

New York Times: "George McGovern, the United States senator who won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972 as an opponent of the war in Vietnam and a champion of liberal causes, and who was then trounced by President Richard M. Nixon in the general election, died early Sunday in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 90." The Washington Post obituary is here.

** ABC News: "The latest intelligence assessment of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi indicates there was little if any pre-planning for it and that it was in part an opportunistic response to the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.'"

Reuters: "Libyan militias captured Muammar Gaddafi's chief spokesman on Saturday, the government said, but an audio clip posted on Facebook purporting to be the voice of Moussa Ibrahim denied his capture."

The Commentariat -- Oct. 20, 2012

Presidential Race

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

Nate Silver: President Obama continues "to hold leads in most polls of critical states. Of the 13 polls of swing states released on Thursday, Mr. Obama held leads in 11 of them."

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Several battleground states, including Florida, Nevada and Ohio, saw large drops in unemployment over the last 12 months, the government reported Wednesday."

Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "Americans who report watching the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney believe Obama did a better job, by 51% to 38%. That is a sharp reversal from the first debate for which Romney was widely regarded as the winner.... Three-fourths of Americans (76%) in an Oct. 17-18 Gallup poll say they watched the debate, higher than the 66% who told Gallup in an Oct. 4-5 poll that they watched the first presidential debate on Oct. 3."

"Romnesia!" Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "President Obama fired up nearly 10,000 supporters in Virginia on Friday by debuting a new line of attack on Mitt Romney, accusing him of having 'Romnesia' for changing his positions and trying to move to the political center. In a speech devoted almost entirely to attacking Romney, an energized Obama smiled, joked, waved his finger and portrayed the Republican as a 'throwback to the 1950s' who would restrict women's rights, favor the wealthy and squeeze the middle class." Watch the whole video:

This Is Stunning. Salt Lake City Tribune Editors: "... our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first."

David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren't supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official. 'Talking points' prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States." CW: Isn't this a timely leak? Let's hope we see Obama II in the 3rd debate & he whacks Romney for his multiple, repeated irresponsible statements about the Libyan attack. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

An Obama campaign ad running in Ohio. Jed Lewison of Daily Kos calls the ad "easily one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, ads of the campaign. And that last question -- 'How can you say something like that?' -- that's not a question that Mitt Romney can answer":

... CW: If you ask me, I think this ad is just as effective, albeit for a different demographic. "I'd be delighted" to see this ad run in every swing state & a few that might be swingable. I don't think women know this:

Gail Collins: "When it comes to gun control, both presidential candidates are strongly in favor of quality education."

Romney is outdoing himself. Steve Benen chronicles forty-nine lies in this week's installment of "Mitt's Mendacity." ...

... Free, Free at Last. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: Mitt Romney is no longer "being careful, and weighing himself down on debate stages with painstakingly parsed positions (this was frequently the situation in the primaries...). Now there's no more future to worry about and he's ... being what he basically is at heart, which is a salesman and bullshit artist of the highest order. Romney's realized that numbers don't matter, and past facts don't even matter that much: he's run all fall on completely made-up, mathematically-incoherent jobs and tax plans, and not only is he not suffering, he's made it all the way to a statistical tie with the president...."

** Charles Pierce: "There are people who have made careers and a very comfortable living by telling the rest of us how we can't expect 'government' to do everything for us, and by railing against the "nanny state." But who's out there now, spouting off about all he'll make the government do for us if we just put him and his zombie-eyed, granny-starving running buddy in charge of it? Who's talking about Five Point Plans and North American Energy Independence and all the things he'll do for us?"

"Bailout Bonanza." Greg Palast of The Nation: Mitt "Romney has done a good job of concealing, until now, the fact that he and his wife, Ann, personally gained at least $15.3 million from the [auto] bailout -- and a few of Romney's most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romneys', were astronomical -- more than 3,000 percent on their investment.... Mitt Romney may indeed have wanted to let Detroit die. But if the auto industry was going to be bailed out after all, the Romneys apparently couldn't resist getting in on a piece of 
the action." CW: Read the whole story -- especially the part about how billionaire investors screwed the Delphi workers -- then got some of them to complain in TV ads that Obama was responsible.

Investor Peter Joseph, in a New York Times "Campaign Stops" blogpost: "... voters need to consider whether the time [Mitt Romney] spent in single-minded pursuit of profit ... has prepared him to tackle the complex problems facing America, which can't be reduced to a financial model. Romney's financial success ... came by following the mantra of increasing cash flow, cutting jobs and minimizing taxable income.... The real issue is how Romney's experience relates to a president's need to balance budgetary responsibility with the heavy lifting required to address our collective concerns, our common obligations.... I can assure you that compassion and broader social concerns rarely make it into an investment memo."

Rick Hertzberg & John Cassidy talk with Dorothy Wickenden about the presidential town-hall debate:

Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg News, with a little help from Jonathan Chait of New York magazine, prognosticates on what a Romney presidency would look like. CW: it depresses the hell out of me. ...

... Wilkinson didn't even mention the Romney-Ryan International Misogyny Program. New York Times Editors: "Romney & Ryan "would support the recriminalization of abortion with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and they would limit access to contraception and other services. But they have also promised to promote policies abroad that would affect millions of women in the world's poorest countries, where lack of access to contraception, prenatal care and competent help at childbirth often results in serious illness and thousands of deaths yearly."

Jamil Smith, writing in The New Republic, on a new form of voter suppression: billboards -- up in poor Cleveland neighborhoods -- announcing that "Voter Fraud Is a Felony! 3-1/2 Years & $10,000 Fine." You might not give such a billboard a second thought, but many people who live in neighborhoods where the police & the courts are their enemies would likely take a different view. ...

     ... What Smith doesn't mention is that Clear Channel Communications -- the company that owns the billboards themselves -- is owned by Bain Capital. What a coincidence! Color of Change, has an online petition campaign to force Clear Channel to take down the billboards. Rashad Robinson, who heads Color of Change, told The Huff Post, "For us, these billboards, they create a culture of fear. They've only been put up in black and brown neighborhoods, so these are not widespread billboards. They are targeting certain communities, and they're creating a fear for people going to the polls."

Bush III. Tim Dickinson's piece in Rolling Stone -- "19 Ways Mitt Romney Is Just Like George W. Bush" -- is mostly superficial, but the superficial parallels are still notable & form a cautionary tale.

Congressional Races

Dana Milbank: "If not for a series of tea party upsets in Republican primaries, the Republicans would be taking over the Senate majority in January."

CW: Contributor Julie complained about Scott Brown's latest misleading attack ad against Elizabeth Warren, but it's worse than it appears. Per the Huffington Post: "Scott Brown recently got in hot water for falsely claiming that ... Elizabeth Warren was using paid actors in her commercials. Brown ... should have known more about the people appearing in his ads." A Brown television ad "featured a union construction worker whose publicly accessible Facebook page is riddled with insults against ... Warren and President Barack Obama. On one post made in August, well before Brown's ad appeared, the worker, George Patriarca, calls Warren a 'DOUCHEBAG.' On another he labels the president a 'faggot,' and on a third he says, 'there is a Muslim in the White House.' ... Patriarca's ... union, the Sprinkler Fitters and Apprentices Local Union 550..., supports Warren." ...

... CW: I missed this from earlier in the week, but it's worth passing along. Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Sen. Scott Brown apologized Wednesday after suggesting people in an ad defending Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren's work on an asbestos case were paid actors -- in fact, all five were the relatives of asbestos victims. 'A lot of them are paid,' Brown had told reporters, according to the Taunton Daily Gazette. '... Listen, you can get surrogates and go out and say your thing. We have regular people in our commercials. No one is paid. They are regular folks that reach out to us and say she is full of it.'" Yeah, regular folks like George Patriarca. Brown's assertion was disgraceful. Noah Bierman of the Boston Globe has more.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United States and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, according to Obama administration officials, setting the stage for what could be a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran." CW: get ready for the wingers to claim Ahmadinejad is a key Obama supporter.

Washington Post: "The U.S. government is intensifying its intelligence sharing and military consultations with Turkey behind the scenes as both countries confront the possibility that Syria's civil conflict could escalate into a regional war, according to U.S. and NATO officials." ...

New York Times: "The government of Syria, trying to contain a rapidly expanding insurgency, has resorted to one of the dirty tricks of the modern battlefield: salting ammunition supplies of antigovernment fighters with ordnance that explodes inside rebels' weapons, often wounding and sometimes killing the fighters while destroying many of their hard-found arms."

Washington Post: "When local elections opened on Saturday, Palestinians across the West Bank began to exercise their right to vote for the first time in six years. Here in this city, the poll carried even more significance: A long 37 years have passed since residents last cast ballots for their municipal council." ...

... AP: "Israeli army radio is reporting that naval vessels have made contact with a pro-Palestinian boat sailing to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade. The radio reported Saturday that Israeli forces ordered the Swedish owned, Finnish-flagged Estelle to halt its course."

The Commentariat -- Oct. 19, 2012

Presidential Race

Mike Isikoff of NBC News: "A campaign worker linked to a controversial Republican consulting firm, [Strategic Allied Consulting,] has been arrested in Virginia and charged with throwing voter registration forms into a dumpster. The suspect, Colin Small, 31, was described by a local law enforcement official as a "supervisor" in a Republican Party financed operation to register voters in Rockingham County in rural Virginia, a key swing state in the Nov. 6 election." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link.

Nate Silver: "The Gallup national tracking poll now shows a very strong lead for Mitt Romney. However, its results are deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case."

Stanching the Voter Drain? Mark Murray of NBC News: "... new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls show President Barack Obama maintaining his lead over ... Mitt Romney in the battleground states of Iowa and Wisconsin. According to the polls -- which were conducted from Monday through Wednesday, encompassing Tuesday's presidential debate in New York and after -- Obama receives the support of 51 percent of likely voters in Iowa to Romney's 43 percent.... And in Wisconsin, Obama is ahead by six points among likely voters, 51 percent to 45 percent...."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama paid a call on 'The Daily Show' on Thursday.... [Jon] Stewart made Obama laugh several times, but he also pressed Obama on why his administration appeared 'confused' in its response to the terror attacks on American diplomatic personnel in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11." Update: here's the video, Parts 1 & 2:

... CW: what does Matt Drudge glean from the Stewart interview? Here's the headline: "WHEN FOUR AMERICANS GET KILLED, IT'S NOT OPTIMAL.” No link. I read this someplace else. I'm not going to Drudge. 

Sharon Otterman of the New York Times: President Obama & Mitt Romney will both speak at the Al Smith Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City this evening. CW: And wouldn't you know it: "Angry e-mails from conservative Christian organizations flooded Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan's in-box in August, after he announced that he had invited President Obama, along with Mitt Romney, to speak at the New York Archdiocese's biggest charity gala of the year, despite the church's differences with the president over contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage." ...

... Update: President Obama was terrific:

... Mitt Romney was pretty funny:

     ... Here's the New York Times story, by Richard Oppel, of the event.

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: Bruce "Springsteen joined former President Bill Clinton on stage for [a campaign] event [in Parma, Ohio], as part of the Obama campaign's full-throated effort to scrounge up every single vote it can in Ohio." CW: Here's one of those entertaining guys:

... AND the other one:

... PLUS this guy says that he has cleaned up the mess. President Obama in New Hampshire Thursday:

Mike Allen of Politico: "From an Obama campaign aide: Wed., the day after the town-hall debate, 'was the biggest campaign fundraising day for the Obama campaign in history, including 2008.'" (CW: this is an item, not a story; there's no more to it. I'm not linking it because Allen only provides a generic link that will only hold till he makes an update.)

Tom Miles & Rachelle Younglai of Reuters: "The World Trade Organization barred China on Thursday from imposing duties on certain U.S. steel exports, siding with U.S. President Barack Obama in a dispute with Beijing over a type of steel made in two election battleground states. The case involved duties imposed by China on 'grain-oriented electrical steel,' which is used in the cores of high-efficiency transformers, electric motors and generators. The steel is made ... [in Ohio & Pennsylvania]. Although the specialty steel case is tiny compared with other trade disputes with Beijing, the WTO ruling gave Obama a timely win as he defends himself against accusations by his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, that he is soft on China."

Mike Elk of In These Times: "In a June 6, 2012 conference call posted on the anti-union National Federation of Independent Business's website..., Mitt Romney instructed employers to tell their employees how to vote in the upcoming election.... After making a lengthy case that President Obama's first term has been bad for business, Romney said:

I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees.

      "... Romney went on to reassure his audience that it is perfectly legal for them to talk to their employees about how to vote:

Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.

     "... He's correct that such speech is now legal for the first time ever, thanks to the Citizen United ruling, which overturned previous Federal Election Commission laws that prohibited employers from political campaigning among employees." Thanks to a friend for the heads-up. Here's the audio:

Greg Sargent: "As the presidential race hits the final stretch, you'll be seeing more and more under the radar communications -- unannounced or highly targeted ads, robocalls, mailers -- that will grow increasingly dishonest as Election Day approaches. Case in point: A new radio ad that the Rove-founded Crossroads GPS is running in Colorado that is almost comically misleading about the latest unemployment statistics and the trajectory of unemployment on Obama's watch."

** "Snow Job on Jobs." Paul Krugman: "... the true Romney [jobs] plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney's personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn't dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we're getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There's no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people." CW: a masterful piece of writing. ...

     ... Greg Sargent sez, "this 12 million jobs plan is the main rationale for Romney's whole case for the presidency. Why isn't the fact that it has been revealed to be a sham a bigger media story?"

** Tim Egan: "The great mystery of the first presidential debate was what happened to the Barack Obama a slim majority of the country was poised to rehire for another four years.... But there was another missing man in the Mile High City that night, and on Tuesday, he reappeared -- the petulant, unlikable and bullying corporate persona that is Mitt Romney's default mode. With his feigned slights, his constant squabbling over the rules, and his arrogance that he alone has a trust-me-it'll-work business plan to right the country, Romney was the very picture of a C.E.O. used to getting his way."

AND now it's time to check in with octogenarians Margaret & Helen to see what they think of the Romney family & Mitt's serial lying to women & all. Thanks to Bonnie for the link.

Jason Cherkis of the Huffington Post: "In the wake of Rep. Paul Ryan's embarrassing soup kitchen photo-op last week, the organization that runs the facility tells The Huffington Post that donors have begun pulling their money out of the Youngstown, Ohio charity." After the local director of the St. Vincent de Paul charity told the Washington Post that the Ryan people had "'ramrodded their way in,' ... Ryan supporters have ... targeted [him] and his soup kitchen." CW: So backers of Mr. Slash-the-Social-Safety-Hammock, in a pretense of compassion, are withholding funds from a typical, privately-funded, church-affiliated charitable organization -- the kind these yahoos say they love. Thanks to Haley S. for the link.

Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party-aligned group part-funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, is building a state-of-the-art digital ground operation in Ohio and other vital battleground states to spread its anti-Obama message to voters.... The group hopes that by creating a local army of activists equipped with sophisticated online micro-targeting tools it will increase its impact on moderate voters, nudging them towards a staunchly conservative position opposed to President Obama's economic and healthcare policies. Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is spending tens of millions of dollars developing its local strategy, already employing more than 200 permanent staff in 32 states."

Congressional Races

"Doctor" Joe Walsh says abortion never saves the life of the mother, cements his earlier-won Misogynist of the Year prize. Rick Pearson & Duaa Eldeib of the Chicago Tribune: during a debate between Joe Walsh (RTP-Ill.) & Tammy Duckworth (D), who is challenging Walsh for his Congressional seat, Walsh said he opposed abortion "without exception." "Asked by reporters after the debate if he was saying that it's never medically necessary to conduct an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded, 'Absolutely. With modern technology and science, you can't find one instance.... There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.'"

AP: "Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill cast herself as a moderate willing to work with Republicans while GOP challenger Todd Akin repeatedly linked her to the policies of President Barack Obama as they highlighted their differences Thursday night in the final debate of the Missouri Senate race."

Daniela Altimari of the Hartford Courant: Rep. Daniel Chris Murphy (D) & Linda McMahon (R) of Connecticut held their final debate Thursday afternoon. "A University of Connecticut/Hartford Courant poll released Thursday showed Murphy with a six point lead." CW: this is good news. The multimillionaire fake wrestling empress McMahon has led Murphy for much of the campaign season.

Other Stuff

CW: A number of contributors have been complaining about undecided & low-information voters. Marvin S. went out and found a truly low-information lady. Marvin has a suspicion of which way this woman will vote. The scary part to me is that the woman sounds like an adult, & she is relatively articulate. If you happened into a conversation with her -- as long as you kept to innocuous topics like the weather -- you might never guess what a dunderhead she was. Although -- come to think of it -- when she started complaining that the new local weatherman was constantly bringing on blizzards & droughts & such, you'd get a clue. This audio, BTW, has had nearly 2.5 million listeners:

Ah, Free Speech. AP: "An 80-year-old Connecticut woman has been charged with larceny and breach of peace after tearing down political signs that included an image of President Barack Obama with an Adolph Hitler-style mustache. Nancy Lack tells WVIT-TV she was offended by the picture and took down three posters that were being hung last Thursday near the post office on Main Street in Hebron, Conn. Workers for frequent presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, who were putting up the signs, called police. Lack says she knew she would get in trouble. But she says she lived through World War II and was angry that someone would portray the president as a Nazi."

Ah, Schadenfreude. AP: "The conservative scholar behind a high-grossing film that condemns President Barack Obama has resigned as head of an evangelical college. The King's College in New York announced Dinesh D'Souza's resignation Thursday. Its board had been meeting about the school president and his relationship with a woman who is not his wife." ...

... Ariel Kaminer of the New York Times has more.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A large bomb exploded in the heart of Beirut's Christian section on Friday, killing a top Lebanese security official and at least seven others, wounding dozens and spreading anxiety and dread in a city where memories of sectarian violence from Lebanon's long civil war have been resurrected by the conflict in neighboring Syria."

New York Times: Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan, has recovered to the extent that she is now able to stand with assistance and communicate in writing, medical officials at the British hospital where she is being treated said on Friday."

Washington Post: "The CIA is urging the White House to approve a significant expansion of the agency's fleet of armed drones, a move that would extend the spy service's decade-long transformation into a paramilitary force.... The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency's ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots...."

AP: "The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press."

New York Times: "European Union leaders said early Friday that legislation enabling rescue aid to be channeled directly to Spanish banks should be agreed by the end of the year, but they left open critical decisions on how soon it could go into effect." The Guardian has a liveblog on this as negotiations are continuing.

Washington Post: "BP said Thursday that an oil sheen detected in the Gulf of Mexico last month probably came from crude trapped in the giant coffer dam that the company used in a futile attempt to capture the oil that was spilling from a BP well in 2010."