George McGovern passed away this morning at 90

post from AMERICAblog on 21 October 2012 06:58:20 PM. © AMERICAblog

"An exemplar of modern American liberalism... most known for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War."

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Are debates fact-free zones

post from Daily Kos on 21 October 2012 06:15:05 PM. © Daily Kos

U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney are pictured during the second U.S. presidential campaign debate in Hempstead, New York, October 16, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed During the second debate, the president was laughing all the way to the bank.Do you remember that scene from Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins? The one where young Bruce Wayne is sparring with swords on a sheet of ice against his mentor and future nemesis Ra's Al-Ghul? Bruce finally disarms Ra's and thinks he has him beaten, only to hear his opponent give him a warning that he needs to mind his surroundings right before he falls through the ice that was cracking underneath his feet.

The second presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney featured a moment somewhat like that. The president, seemingly knowing exactly what attack his Republican opponent was going to make on the issue of Libya and Benghazi, made very sure to mention his address in the White House Rose Garden on the day after the assault in Benghazi in which he referred to the tragedy as an "act of terror." Romney got a gleam in his eye and started to respond very excitedly: In the alternate universe of right-wing media, see, Obama had not referred to the incident as a terrorist attack until two weeks after the event. Sensing an opportunity to catch Obama in a lie and score a devastating strike that would likely have media outlets declaring him the winner, Romney eagerly reconfirmed with the president that he had, in fact, claimed to have called the incident an act of terror the very next day.

Obama's response, it could be argued, will become a classic in the annals of presidential debates. Instead of answering Romney's requests for confirmation, he simply said, "please proceed, governor." It was said with confidence, bravado, and a hint of righteous indignation that should have let the Republican know that he was walking into a trap. But backed by full confidence in the right wing's alternate version of reality, Romney went after it, and contradicted the president, claiming that it actually took the aforementioned two weeks.

"Check the transcript," retorted Obama.

(Continue reading below the fold.)

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/5zIawO97JW0/-Are-debates-fact-free
-zones

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Carol Tempel: Election Day is Getting Closer

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 21 October 2012 06:01:21 PM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

We're organizing for Election Day.

Election Volunteers Needed. Are you available on election day, November 6th, to serve as a poll watcher or information officer on James Island, Folly Beach, Kiawah, or Seabrook? If so, your help would be greatly appreciated.
This would involve only a 3 hour shift, place and time to be scheduled when we get our complete roster of volunteers; however, you can indicate your preference of these times: 7-10 AM, 10 AM-1 PM, 1- 4 PM, and 4-7 PM along with which location would be better for you.

Thank you so much for considering this opportunity.
Freida McDuffie (phone 762-7038 or email: mcduffif@bellsouth.net).

Thanks to everyone who is helping with the Phone Banks and Canvassing.

I am on the ballot as a PETITION candidate...so we must help voters know how to vote for me.

With YOUR voice or YOUR walk we can reach voters in a personal way.
The PHONE BANK schedule is:

On Monday and Wednesday, we phone bank from Carol & George Tempel's home, 758 Sprague Street from 5:30 to 8:00 pm.  Directions: From the Folly Connector go towards Folly Beach. After you cross Ellis Creek, take a left on Patterson (gas station and cleaners are on the corner), then turn right on Sprague. We are the 3rd house on the left. You'll see the house with a sign out front.    On Tuesday, we phone bank from Cindy Hale's home, 1176 Pauline Drive from 5:30 - 8:00 pm.
Directions: Take Folly Rd towards the beach, turn left on Camp Rd, then take the 3rd right to Pauline Ave.
On Thursday, we phone bank from Margaret Fabri's Office, 1612 Harbor View Rd from 5:30 - 8:00 pm. Directions: It's across from the Lutheran Church and Publix Shopping Center. Join us for an hour or two, we have scripts, snacks, and phones. If you can, please bring your cell phone.

The WALKING schedule is:

On Saturday, October 27 from 9:30-12:00, we will walk to our neighbors. We'll begin forming teams at the Tempel's, 758 Sprague Street. Come with comfortable shoes; we'll have clipboards and materials.
Thank you for your support.
Have a question? Please contact me at carol@caroltempel.com or 795-7857.

Carol
Reaching out to voters will electCarol Tempel for SC House 115
Petition Candidate

Website: www.caroltempel.com

Read The Full Article:
http://thepoliticsofjamiesanderson.blogspot.com/2012/10/carol-tempel-election-day
-is-getting.html

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Rubio Defends Romney: Lilly Ledbetter Act
'Nothing But an Effort to Help Trial Lawyers'

post from Crooks and Liars on 21 October 2012 06:00:51 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Rubio Defends Romney: Lilly Ledbetter Act 'Nothing But an Effort to Help Trial Lawyers'

Click here to view this media

Tea party-backed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Sunday defended Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's refusal to say whether he would sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act by suggesting that the law was not really about equal pay.

Romney was widely mocked last week after he told a questionable story about "binders full of women" in response to a question about whether he supported equal pay.

"If you say you're for equal pay for equal work but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia," President Barack Obama snarked at a campaign event on Friday. "If you say women should have access to contraceptive care but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia."

On Sunday, Rubio told ABC's George Stephanopolous that the president's comments were "cute" but didn't explain his plan for a second term.

"Does Gov. Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act or not?" Stephanopoulos pressed.

"I think anyone who is working out there and making a living -- if you're the most qualified person for the job, you should be able to get paid, you should get paid as much as your male counterpart," Rubio insisted. "Everyone agrees with that principle."

"But just because they call a piece of legislation an equal pay bill doesn't make it so," he added. "In fact, much of this legislation is in many respects nothing but an effort to help trial lawyers collect their fees and file lawsuits, which may not contribute at all whatsoever to increasing pay equity in the workplace."

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http://crooksandliars.com/david/rubio-defends-romney-lilly-ledbetter-act-not

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Election Diary Rescue 10/21/12

post from Daily Kos on 21 October 2012 06:00:09 PM. © Daily Kos

The Day Before The Last Debate - Go, Obama!

Samples of Today's 23 Diary Collection:

[MO-Sen] Fundraiser..Audio..Todd Akin and dog reference to Senator McCaskill - by Vetwife - The war on women just jumped a notch. Video of Todd Akin (R-Teabagger) using a dog analogy to talk about his opponent, incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill (D).

[OR-Var] A Look at Oregon's Ballot Measures by Cedwyn - Excellent overview of all 9 measures on the Oregon ballot this year, with reasons to vote yea or nay.

[NY-StSen-43] NY-Sen-43 - Centrist Democrat Challenges Right-Wing Zealot in Competitive Race for NYS Senate by Upstate Blue - After the recent defeat of New York State Senator Roy McDonald (R - Saratoga County) by ultra-conservative Tea Bagger Kathy Marchione in last month's GOP primary, mainly over fallout from his vote in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, Democratic candidate Robin Andrews has emerged as a viable candidate in a district once thought to be "safe Republican."

Today's EDR covers rescued down-ticket election diaries published between noon on October 18th till noon on October 19th. This edition of Election Diary Rescue includes the following gems dug up by our miners.

Diaries: (23)
Senate: (4) posts, (3) states
House: (8) posts, (3) states, (3) districts plus various
State: (1)
Ballot Initiatives: (2)
Various: (1)
General: (7)

More diaries and information about this project beneath the
Orange Squiggle of Down-Ticket Power

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/AT-GqMVfBHM/-Election-Diary-Rescue
-10-21-12

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'Gender Gap' Near Historic Highs

post from FiveThirtyEight on 21 October 2012 05:59:49 PM. © FiveThirtyEight

The biggest gender gap to date in the exit polls came in 2000, when Al Gore won by 11 points among women, but George W. Bush won by 9 points among men - a 20-point difference. The numbers this year look very close to that.

Read The Full Article:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/gender-gap-near-historic-high
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Chuck Todd's Sunday False Equivalence Follies -
Updated

post from Crooks and Liars on 21 October 2012 05:00:40 PM. © Crooks and Liars

This morning, this happened.

The voting machine conspiracies belong in same category as the Trump birther garbage.
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 21, 2012

I cannot think of anything less equivalent than the controversies over voting machines and the birther theories, and it did not go unnoticed, mostly because it may be one of the dumbest things Chuck Todd has ever uttered from the keyboard of his BlackBerry.

Brad Friedman picked up on it, offering to explain it to Chuck, and from there it snowballed among the Twitterati. Here's a very small sample:

I've heard a lot of false equivalencies from the Villagers, but this one might just take the cake. There are very real concerns about technology proven to be easily hacked without any trail, reports in every election about machines recording votes which are proportionately different from votes cast, and more. In 2008, Tennessee officials went to jail for jacking around with voting and election integrity.

In other words, concerns about voting machine technology are real. They're not some whacko, out there conspiracy theory, and they should be addressed, as Joy Reid pointed out. Joy, by the way, is a veteran of Florida in 2000. It's not like she doesn't have experience with this.

On the other hand, the birther conspiracy theories have been widely investigated, debunked over and over again, and now are the province of people living their lives in a constant state of denial in order to soothe their racist feathers over the fact that a black guy is in the White House.

Simply put, Chuck, there is NO equivalence. None. Zero. For you to try and flip it around to a larger conversation about voter access laws and what you didn't say is just smoke for what you did say, which was stupid and unworthy of someone reporting on this election.

Here's my question: When Obama wins this election, and the right wing claims it was "stolen", will Chuck suddenly give voting machines a hard look?

Update: Brad Friedman has written a powerful answer to Chuck. Will attention be paid?

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/sunday-twitter-talk-show-stars-chuck-todd

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Chuck Todd's Sunday False Equivalence Follies

This morning, this happened.

The voting machine conspiracies belong in same category as the Trump birther garbage.
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 21, 2012

Brad Friedman picked up on it, offering to explain it to Chuck, and from there it snowballed among the Twitterati. Here's a very small sample:

Here's my question: When Obama wins this election, and the right wing claims it was "stolen", will Chuck suddenly give voting machines a hard look?

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/sunday-twitter-talk-show-stars-chuck-todd

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Obama And Romney The Same The Matter Of Supreme
Court Appointments

Friday, Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, penned an OpEd for HuffPo about the dangers a President Romney would pose to women's rights. Like so many of us have noticed, Keegan points out that Romney has been covering up "his actual positions on everything from reproductive rights to women in the workplace, in a desperate attempt to convince voters that he actually cares about women's lives."

My rule of thumb is, whenever Romney changes his positions and tries to sound reasonable, I think about what his Supreme Court would do. With many issues, the damage a Romney presidency would do in four years is eclipsed by the damage a Romney Court would do in 40. Women's rights are no exception. Let's break it down.

Asked about equal pay for equal work, Romney went into a bizarre, now famous rant about how he demanded "binders full of women" to fill jobs in his administration in Massachusetts. The story was not only strange and condescending, but also turned out to be a lie. He also boasted of providing flexible work hours to his chief of staff, a woman who wanted to be home in time to cook dinner for her family. It's admirable that Romney provided her with the flexibility that she wanted, but it's stunningly old-fashioned that he assumes all women in the workplace would have the same needs and that men are apparently exempt from such responsibilities.

Here's the reality of Romney's position on workplace inequality. His campaign has never been able to give a straight answer on whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which ensures that women can sue their employers for pay discrimination. And he's promised to appoint Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, whose decision denying Ledbetter the right to sue her employer for decades of pay discrimination made the Ledbetter Act necessary in the first place. So look to the Court and you know where Romney comes out on fair pay for women.

...Whenever Romney tries to lie about his agenda, just remember the Supreme Court. Romney has consistently promised right-wing ideologues that he will appoint more of their own to the Supreme Court, and named the infamous Robert Bork as his judicial adviser as a down-payment on that promise. Romney's dangerous agenda, whatever it is, would last for four years. His right-wing Supreme Court could last for forty years. That's a scary thought for anyone who cares about the rights of women.

The National Journal published a look at how appointments in the next Obama Administration and a perspective Romney Administration would differ markedly. Their Supreme Court choices would be especially at odds-- and crucial for decades to come. Moderation-- or even mainstream judicial thought-- will not be on Romney's plate.

Don?t expect Romney to select a moderate justice for the Supreme Court who could morph into a liberal in the fashion of the retired David Souter. The candidate has said he supports a strict reading of the Constitution-- and his Justice Advisory Committee is cochaired by none other than Robert Bork, the conservative firebrand who was denied a seat on the Court during the Reagan administration. On his website, Romney pledges he?ll send to the Court nominees in the mold of Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Roberts, however, fell out of favor with Romney after he was the swing vote to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. ?I certainly wouldn?t nominate someone who I knew was going to come out with a decision I violently disagreed with-- or vehemently, rather, disagreed with,? Romney said in July after the health care ruling.

There is one clear favorite for a high-court nomination and that?s Paul Clement, the George W. Bush administration solicitor general. Clement, just 46, recently argued against the constitutionality of the Democratic health care law in the most highly watched Supreme Court case of the past term.

Viet Dinh, a former Justice Department official during the Bush administration, would make history as the first Asian-American justice and brings a compelling personal story as the child of Vietnamese immigrants. Another possibility: Miguel Estrada, who was blocked by Democrats from a federal Appeals Court appointment in 2003. Republicans have wanted revenge ever since.

Still other potential choices include Jeffrey Sutton, a judge on the U.S. Appeals Court in Cincinnati (who could be hampered by his decision to uphold ?Obamacare?); Diane Sykes, a judge on the U.S. Appeals Court in Chicago; Michael McConnell, former judge on the U.S. Appeals Court in Denver and a member of Romney?s Justice Advisory Committee; Brett Kavanaugh, the former Kenneth Starr aide who sits on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Janice Rogers Brown, another D.C. Circuit Court judge who also served on the California Supreme Court.

The next Obama picks are likely to be more moderate, mainstream jurists like Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. National Journal points out that he's "carried the name of Merrick Garland, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in its back pocket for use when Senate Republicans could make confirmation difficult for a liberal-leaning nominee to the high court. Garland is a former high-level Justice Department official who oversaw the prosecution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and is widely viewed as a judicial moderate. His nomination would likely be a no-fuss confirmation. Having appointed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan during his first term, Obama may feel less pressure to appoint a woman or a minority if a vacancy arises. But if, say, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires, a more natural choice could be Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who might be treated more gently by her Senate colleagues than other nominees. Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor and state attorney general, has also been widely mentioned as a possible candidate who could provide a Sandra Day O?Connor-like perspective to the Court. An up-and-comer is Kamala Harris, the attorney general of California."

Of course, the other important factor for keeping right-wing radicals off the Supreme Court-- aside from keeping Romney out of the White House-- flows through the Senate. When Democrats took a stand against corporate shill and radical right freak Sammy Alito, it was only then-Senator Obama plus two dozen Democrats who were willing to stand up and oppose him. Many conservative Democrats, corrupted by the same corporate cash as Republicans, went right along with the GOP agenda and voted for one of the least suitable candidates for the Supreme Court in any of our lifetimes. In all, 20 Democrats voted with the GOP to shut down the filibuster, and not just the usual suspects like Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln either. That's makes the election in two weeks of principled progressives like Tammy Baldwin (WI) and Elizabeth Warren (MA) even more crucial. Their opponents, Tommy Thompson and Scott Brown are avid supporters of extreme right wing judicial appointments and both have bragged about it publicly. Watch the short clip up top and then dig deep.

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/10/obama-and-romney-same-matter-of-supre
me.html

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WI Shooter, Radcliffe Haughton, Shows Off His Gun

Well-regulated militia member shows off gun he may have used to go all NRA at Wisconsin spa.

I'm certain this is the shooter. Evidence: man in photo lives in Brown Deer, WI; his name, Radcliffe Haughton, is the same as the shooter's; and his wife and stepdaughter have the same names as shooter's wife and stepdaughter. I'm not putting up links because I'm uncomfortable with identifying the wife and stepdaughter.