C&L's Late Night Music Club With Television

post from Crooks and Liars on 04 October 2012 11:00:00 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: VenusArtist: Television

I've been listening to Television a lot a work lately. What songs do you listen to that get you through your day?

Marquee Moon

Price: $9.99 (As of 10/04/12 06:27 pm details)

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My good Samaritan moment in the Paris Metro

post from AMERICAblog on 04 October 2012 10:30:26 PM. © AMERICAblog

Despite not being very intimidating in person, my cat and I managed to stop two pickpockets in the Paris Metro.

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Why I Call It the GOP/Media Complex: Censoring
Bushs Debate Cheating Story

post from Firedoglake on 04 October 2012 10:12:39 PM. © Firedoglake

As the 2012 presidential debates get underway, my memory goes back to other recent presidential elections:Remember how Dan Rather was hounded out of the anchor's chair because one portion of his otherwise-unquestionably-rock-solid story on George W.[...]

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Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Earliest
post-debate polling hints at minimal boost for Romney

post from Daily Kos on 04 October 2012 09:30:04 PM. © Daily Kos

Last night's Wrap, as luck would have it, came out on Daily Kos Elections a half-hour after the combatants shook hands and feigned mutual respect in the hall in Denver. And, of course, that became 99 percent of the discussion in the comments section of the Wednesday Polling Wrap. To say there was a lack of consensus in the commentary would be one hell of an understatement.

The polar extremes of largely unmerited optimism and pessimism bordering on self-parody are both, in my best guess, off of the mark.

The bad news? That belief will remain merely an opinion for at least three or four days, because it will be that long before a critical mass of data to tell us what, if anything, can be gleaned from round #1 in the three-round verbal joust that will end up with one guy as president and the other guy as a footnote in history. Today, though, we did get one set of data that may well prove instructive.

More on that later. For now, though, on to the numbers:

PRESIDENTIAL POLLING:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama 49, Romney 45
NATIONAL (Ipsos-Reuters "Post-Debate" Poll): Obama 48, Romney 43 (LV); Obama 47, Romney 42 (RV)
NATIONAL (McLaughlin and Associates--R): Obama 49, Romney 45
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama 49, Romney 47
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama 49, Romney 44 (LV); Obama 49, Romney 41 (RV)
COLORADO (McLaughlin and Associates--R): Romney 50, Obama 46
CONNECTICUT (Quinnipiac): Obama 54, Romney 42
MISSOURI (Rasmussen): Romney 49, Obama 46, Others 2
MISSOURI (Wenzel Strategies for the Akin campaign--R): Romney 50, Obama 40

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

CT-SEN (Quinnipiac): Linda McMahon (R) 48, Chris Murphy (D) 47
HI-SEN (Benenson Strategy Group for the Hirono campaign): Mazie Hirono (D) 54, Linda Lingle (R) 37
MO-SEN (Wenzel Strategies for the Akin campaign): Todd Akin (R) 49, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) 47
WA-SEN (Rasmussen): Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) 57, Michael Baumgartner (R) 37
WI-SEN (WPA Research for Now-or-Never PAC--R): Tammy Baldwin (D) 48, Tommy Thompson (R) 45
MO-GOV (PPP): Gov. Jay Nixon (D) 54, Dave Spence (R) 35
NC-GOV (Rasmussen): Pat McCrory (R) 54, Walter Dalton (D) 38
AZ-02 (OnMessage for the McSally campaign): Rep. Ron Barber (D) 47, Martha McSally (R) 47
CA-10 (Momentum Analysis for the Hernandez campaign): Rep. Jeff Denham (R) 45, Jose Hernandez (D) 43
KY-06 (Public Opinion Strategies for the Barr campaign): Rep. Ben Chandler (D) 49, Andy Barr (R) 46
NJ-03 (Stockton Polling Institute): Rep. Jon Runyan (R) 49, Shelley Adler (D) 39
VA-02 (Benenson Strategy Group for the Hirschbeil campaign): Rep. Scott Rigell (R) 49, Paul Hirschbeil (D) 40
VA-02 (Public Opinion Strategies for the Rigell campaign): Rep. Scott Rigell (R) 54, Paul Hirschbeil (D) 32

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...

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olling-Wrap-Earliest-post-debate-polling-hints-at-minimal-boost-for-Romney

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CT Sen: Republican Linda McMahon Takes a One
Point Lead

post from Firedoglake on 04 October 2012 09:25:41 PM. © Firedoglake

For the past few weeks the news for Senate Democrats has been mostly positive, but the closeness of the open Senate race in Connecticut is the rare piece of very good news for Republicans. The latest Quinnipiac poll of the state shows Republican Linda[...]

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Anti-Voter State Laws Detailed by GAO

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 04 October 2012 09:01:18 PM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

WASHINGTON - October 4 - New state laws that make it harder for millions of voters to cast ballots are detailed in a Government Accountability Office report released today.

The comprehensive study was requested by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). The senators asked the non-partisan research arm of Congress to investigate what they called an ?alarming number? of new state laws that will make it ?significantly harder? for millions of voters to cast ballots on Nov. 6.

Sanders called the voter restrictions, enacted mostly by Republican legislatures and governors, a ?savage attack on American democracy.? Leahy said ?we must work to protect one of the most fundamental rights Americans enjoy.? Durbin said the report confirms that the spate of state voting laws is making it harder for millions of disabled, young, minority, rural, elderly and low-income Americans to vote. ?Despite widespread public outcry,? Nelson said, ?state lawmakers have tried to make it harder? to vote.

The GAO report was issued two days after a Pennsylvania judge issued the latest in a string of court rulings that have struck down or limited several state laws restricting access to the ballot box.

Overall, the study documented a major shift during the past decade. Twenty-one states passed new voter ID laws and seven states tightened existing ID requirements. Altogether, 31 states have requirements for all eligible voters to show identification prior to casting a ballot at the polls on Election Day, the report said. In addition, six states passed new proof-of-citizenship requirements and 18 states imposed new restrictions on voter registration drives during the past 10 years.

Since voter fraud was the ostensible reason for the new laws, the senators asked for details on ?any prosecutions or convictions for voter impersonation fraud within each state during the previous 10 years.? Citing a lack of data, the GAO was unable to document voter fraud. (An earlier report by the Brennan Center for Justice found that substantiated cases of voter fraud were extremely rare, comprising, for instance, just 0.0004 percent of votes cast statewide in the 2004 New Jersey general election ? and that photo ID would not have prevented any of the problem votes.)

The GAO plans a follow-up report next year analyzing the impact of the new state laws on voters' ability to exercise their rights. That report will include a state-by-state analysis of the cost and accessibility of documents required to register to vote and obtain photo IDs, as well as data on the race, gender and socioeconomic status of the voters affected by the new requirements. The second phase of the report also will explore how many provisional ballots are cast and how many are ultimately counted in each state.

?We must make it easier, not harder, for poor and working people to vote and to participate in the political process,? Sanders said. ?There is no credible evidence of voter fraud having had any impact whatsoever on the outcome of an election in recent history. Using unfounded scare tactics and isolated cases to weaken the public?s faith in elections and to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters is reprehensible.?

?Today?s GAO report shines a light on the wave of newly enacted state laws that burden and restrict the right to vote for millions of Americans,? said Leahy, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman. ?I hope GAO follows up quickly with the review we have requested of alleged in-person voter fraud, the justification used by states in erecting these new barriers affecting millions of voters despite an almost total absence of evidence that it has impacted any election. As we saw in our recent Judiciary Committee hearing looking at the impact of laws to restrict voting, we must work to protect one of the most fundamental rights Americans enjoy ? the right to vote.?

?Today?s GAO report confirms what many have been saying for over a year: the spate of recently passed state voting laws is making it harder for millions of disabled, young, minority, rural, elderly and low-income Americans to vote,? said Durbin, who has chaired three congressional hearings on new state voting laws. ?Protecting the right of every citizen to vote and ensuring that our elections are fair and transparent are not Democratic or Republican values, they are American values.?

?Voting is the most basic tenant of any democracy, and despite widespread public outcry state lawmakers have tried to make it harder to do,? Nelson said. ?The steps taken by legislatures across the country have gone too far, as evidenced once again by the study released today.?

To read the GAO report, click here.

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Ryan May Have Gone all Pinko on Us

post from The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! on 04 October 2012 09:01:17 PM. © The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! - Contrary to a Type A personality's belief, it isn't everyone else who is the asshole.

BOO FRICKIN HOO – “I feel for you victims. It must be terrible to have to take welfare. Now move the hell out of this house so I can foreclose and get the movers in here.”

When Mitt Romney insulted half of America he said he was, ?inelegant?. Anyone with an IQ higher than a jelly donut could see Paul Ryan believed the same, but was just too elegant to say it. Yet, lo and behold, it turns out Mr. Ayn Rand is as inelegant as his erstwhile boss. The only difference is he only insulted a third of America.

I fear Ryan may have gone all pinko on us.

The men argue 47% or 30%, depending on the crapweasel you believe is the lesser liar, are takers and not givers. Both men believe people on the public dole choose it as a lifestyle in much the same way the homeless choose to live in filth and piss in doorways. Or as Willard puts it, ??they believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.?

THOSE GREEDY BASTARDS!

Ryan sheds a tear over the welfare state.

Paul Ryan sheds a tear over those damn goldbrickers on public assistance.

Mitt, a world-renown expert on poverty, went on to say the takers, ??believe that, that they are victims.? Then, he simply wrote them off as goldbricking ingrates who couldn?t change if they wanted.

Apparently, not victimizing them is too radical an idea.

Since Romneyan are only brave enough to say these things before sympathetic groups, they are preaching to the choir. The choir, 2400 of whom are millionaires collecting unemployment, believe that crap. I?d wager that more than 47+30% of them believe it because their only up close and personal experience of poverty is sipping champers in a darkened limo while driving on the safe, faraway edge of a favela on the way to Carnival.

A mind that sees medicine, food, and housing as optional entitlements is psychopathic. A mind that sees people choosing to work three jobs, skip meals, and live in their cars is profoundly ill. By contrast, whining about paying less tax than your average upper middle class family or refusing to discuss your economic recovery plan because it is too time consuming to explain is mere hubris of Rumsfeldian proportions.

Last year, the United Farm Workers hosted a program to place interested parties in the fields alongside migrant farm workers doing stoop labor in the 100 degree sun. The idea was to give folks the chance to see the rigors of that work in person. Shockingly, there were few takers ? only one so far as I know, Stephen Colbert. Still, it was a good program. When your head is as hard as the reinforced concrete in Cheyenne Mountain, having the essence of a clue is a good thing.

I?d like to offer Mitt and Paul a similar learning moment. Perhaps they would like to ?choose? to live like a ?victim? for a day or two to see what it is like. Maybe eat in a meal kitchen or live in a car, and not the Expedition either. Mitt, you can even wear your permapress mom jeans that are as authentic as Obama?s ?black? accent.

If you can stand the heat and don?t leave the kitchen where your third job is a Denny?s short order cook, I?ll be happy to listen to your advice on the poor.

Until then, shut your caviar and champagne holes.

Mike Lux: Makers and Takers (huffingtonpost.com)
Romney’s Inelegant Remark (themoderatevoice.com)
Watch: Mitt Romney’s ‘Inelegant’ Words Caught on Tape (abcnews.go.com)
We’re all makers and takers (rdavis0981.newsvine.com)
Taker (stevebetz.wordpress.com)
Paul Ryan on video: 30 percent of Americans ‘want their welfare state’ (thegrio.com)
‘There Aren’t That Many Takers in America’ (economistsview.typepad.com)
Ryan Said 30% Want a Welfare State (politicalwire.com)
Ron Paul is the real Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan is the impostor (headlineclicker.com)

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Mitt's five most outrageous statements

Here are mendacious Mitt's five most outrageous statements:

"I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut."Romney flatly lied about the cost of his proposal to cut income-tax rates across the board by another 20 percent (undercutting even the low rates of the Bush tax cuts). Independent economists at the Tax Policy Center have shown that the price tag for those cuts is $360 billion in the first year, a cost that extrapolates to $5 trillion over a decade.

"I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." Romney has claimed that he will pay for his tax cuts by closing a variety of loopholes and deductions. The factual problem? Romney hasn't named a single loophole he's willing to close; worse, there's no way to offset $5 trillion in tax cuts even if you get rid of the entire universe of deductions for the wealthy that Romney has not put off the table (like the carried interest loophole or the 15 percent capital gains rate.) The Tax Policy Center report concludes that Romney's proposal would create a "net tax cut for high-income tax payers and a net tax increase for lower- and or middle-income taxpayers." Moreover, some of Romney's tax cuts are micro-targeted at American dynasties, particularly his proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which would reduce his own sons' tax burden by tens of millions of dollars.

"We've got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country." Romney is lying for effect. The nation's crisis of joblessness is bad, but not 23 million bad. The official figure is 12.5 million unemployed. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. How does Romney gin up his eye-popping 23 million figure? He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being "out of work."

Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have." Romney is reviving Sarah Palin's old death panels lie here. Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors.

"Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." In the biggest whopper of the night, Romney suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. This is just not true. Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn't afford the premiums, you would be shit out of luck. Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny you coverage, as even Romney's top adviser conceded after the debate was over.

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Tough As It Gets

TPM Reader LF doesn't buy the idea that Obama is weak ...TPM Reader HM is way off on the President. Yes, I admit to bias, but this is pretty typical cries of failure from our side whenever President Obama does not, as Chris Matthews would have him do,[...]

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Get A Grip!

TPM Reader SW thinks libs are projecting their own fears and insecurities onto Obama ...In regards to your "toughness" discussion and Democrats' sensitivity to it, I think it has a lot to do with some of the Democratic presidential nominees of the[...]

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