The Commentariat -- Nov. 3, 2014

Internal links, defunct video removed.

E. J. Dionne: "There should be no doubt that Republicans immediately saw [in Obama] the threat of what Sarah Palin came to call the 'hopey-changey stuff' and set out from the start to foil Obama and disappoint his optimistic expectations of harmony.... Obama remains the steward of the aspirations he awakened." ...

... CW: Dionne is right; in a country that has always looked to the future, Republicans set out to destroy hope. At the same time, they have been doing their best to actually destroy or circumscribe the futures of most Americans. In a just world, the parties would be competing to find ways to make life better for most Americans. But we live in Right Wing World, where everything is upside down.

Noam Scheiber of the New Republic does a mea culpa on his thesis -- produced in book form -- that the Obama administration botched the recovery. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link.

Greg Sargent: "A new batch of polls released over the weekend confirm that a GOP takeover of the Senate is now very likely. The major forecasts are putting the odds of that happening at 70 percent and higher. Yet even though it has not happened yet, the argument among Republicans over the meaning of their Senate takeover is underway. The differing interpretations capture the fault lines that will complicate the GOP quest to use their majority to prove they can govern in the run-up to the 2016 election." ...

... Sebastian Payne & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: Ted "Cruz's desire to turn his party further right in the coming months is one of the challenges already facing [Mitch] McConnell should Republicans regain the Senate, with tea party leaders inside and outside the Capitol spoiling for a number of hard-line moves." ...

... Alexander Burns of Politico: "With growing confidence as Election Day approaches, Republican leaders are preparing to argue that broad GOP gains in the House and Senate would represent a top-to-bottom validation of their party's mainline wing.... National Republicans managed this year to snuff out every bomb-throwing insurgent who tried to wrest a Senate nod away from one of their favored candidates."

Paul Krugman: "... business leaders often give remarkably bad economic advice, especially in troubled times.... Why?The answer, to quote the title of a paper I published many years ago, is that a country is not a company. National economic policy, even in small countries, needs to take into account kinds of feedback that rarely matter in business life." ...

... CW: This is why I laughed out loud at Maureen Dowd's column yesterday on Howard Schultz, the C.E.O. of Starbucks. Schultz figures that starting & running a successful company, along with a few visits to veterans (& having a WashPo reporter "co-author" a "slender volume" about it), make him presidential material. When Dowd asks him if he has presidential ambitions, Schultz replies, “'I have an interest in trying to make a difference.... I don't know where that's going to lead.' He believes that 'the country is longing for leadership and for truth with a capital T.'" Dowd doesn't argue with that. Oh, barf. Here's a better piece on President Schultz, which karoli of Crooks & Liars wrote in 2012.

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration's Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State." CW: Remember, this is precisely what Obama has feared all along, & what Hillary Clinton & Leon Panetta (and many Republicans -- John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, etc., etc. -- vehemently urged him to do. Panetta's whole book tour was a critique of Obama's failure to arm Syrian "moderates." ...

... MEANWHILE. Michael Gordon & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Iraqi security forces, backed by American-led air power and hundreds of advisers, are planning to mount a major spring offensive against Islamic State fighters who have poured into the country from Syria, a campaign that is likely to face an array of logistical and political challenges."

Once a Chickenshit, Always a Chickenshit. Bernie Becker of the Hill: "James Baker, a former secretary of State [under Bush I], didn't seem troubled during an interview on Sunday by recent anonymous comments from Obama administration officials knocking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.... Baker said that Netanyahu -- then a senior Israeli official on foreign policy -- had said that 'American policy in the Middle East is based on lies and distortions' during the George H.W. Bush administration. 'I barred him from the State Department,' Baker said. 'That may not be widely known.'"

Justin Elliott, et al., of ProPublica, in Salon: The Red Cross's Sandy disaster relief effort was, well, a disaster. (P.S. So was its Katrina effort.) CW: If the Red Cross got a fraction of the scrutiny Republicans give the Obama administration, no one would ever contribute a dime to the so-called charity. I haven't given them money in decades because I think they're a scammer outfit.

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: Kenneth Tate, the armed Center for Disease Control guard who accompanied President Obama on an elevator at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, can't figure out why the CDC contractor fired him. Also, it turns out Tate did not have a criminal record, as previously reported; he "had been arrested several times, including on charges of robbery and assault, but never convicted." CW: Based on Schmidt's report, it seems the contractor fired Tate (& his son!) because of Secret Service screw-ups.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Steve M.: "Frank Bruni, the master of competently written know-nothing-ism, laments in today's column that the campaigns run by this year's candidates offer no 'visionary plan' for solving the big problems we have.... Bruni is the ideal pundit for our times. Nothing is ever just the fault of Republicans. Whenever anything bad is being done in politics, either Democrats do it or both sides do it." ...

... Charles Pierce on the Sunday shows. "Before we begin, let's stop and pay homage to ol' Panchito himself, Frank Bruni, of The New York Times, who may have written the beau ideal of what Jay Rosen calls journalism's 'View From Nowhere,' something I was taught against my better judgment in journalism school and which now, confronted with a party gone mad from three decades of a prion disease, is something that is worse than inadequate. It is actively dangerous to the craft itself and, therefore, to the politics of the country." ...

... AND Al Hunt of Bloomberg News complains that the midterm elections have been "about everything except a governing agenda." CW: So? But why should candidates be bothered with developing policy platforms if the media won't even cover them? (A number of Republican candidates found policy of so little import that they just cut & pasted their policy agendas from the proposals of candidates in earlier races. If Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed [or his intern] hadn't scoured the campaign literature for plagiarism, no one would have been the wiser.) ...

... Thomas Frank returns to Kansas, where he finds he is the ONLY REPORTER "who had bothered to come and hear [independent candidate for U.S. Senate Greg Orman]'s "plans for wind energy and broadband on the prairie." MEANWHILE, Orman's opponent, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, "has been able to call in an unlimited amount of Republican supporting fire, parading all manner of right-wing superstars through the state: Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, all of them here to tell us how highly they think of their dear buddy Pat and maybe rescue Republican dreams to control the Senate. On Friday, it was New Jersey governor Chris Christie's turn -- his third tour of duty for Roberts -- and I got to gape at the Roberts caravan when it pulled up, speakers blaring Kid Rock, into a vast and vacant field outside a NASCAR racetrack in Kansas City, Kansas.... Reader, it was a Republican cornucopia." And plenty of reporters. CW: A perfect example of the media's collective preference for parades over policy.

David Carr of the New York Times contrasts brand-sponsored "journalism" with the non-profit Texas Tribune, which is funded by corporations & foundations, who get no say about the content.

November Elections

I have got a simple message: we've got to vote.... Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.... Ukraine just went through an election, and they have got a war going on, and they had about a 60 percent turnout. There is no excuse for us to just give away our power. -- President Obama, at a rally for Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf. Voter participation in U.S. midterms usually hovers around 40 percent.

Kevin Bohn & Brian Rokus of CNN: "Vice President Joe Biden isn't buying the growing consensus heading into Election Day that Republicans are poised to take control of the Senate. 'I don't agree with the oddsmakers,' Biden [told] ... CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger. 'I predict we're gonna ... keep the Senate.' But even if Republicans do win the chamber for the first time in nearly a decade, Biden didn't seem to think the victory would have much impact on the administration's priorities."

Rachel Maddow in the Washington Post: "This year, the closing argument from the Republican side is a whole bunch of ghastly fantasies: Ebola, the Islamic State, vague but nefarious aspersions about stolen elections and a whole bunch of terrifying fantasies about our border with Mexico..... Congress thinks it's more advantageous to run ads about how scary the Islamic State is than to face the real threat of actually taking a vote on what to do about that threat." ...

... Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: "When does Ebola look like a gift? Apparently, when you are a Republican candidate for the Senate who sees it as a handy pretext for bringing up immigration politics while scaring people into voting for you.... While fears of Ebola ... clouded the campaign..., real dangers seemed to slip from view.... Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman, who became a gun-control advocate after she was wounded in a shooting in which six people died, toured the country in the run-up to the elections, calling for tighter legislation in order to help save lives. Not a single candidate joined her."

Nicholas Confessore & Derek Willis of the New York Times: "A stealthy coterie of difficult-to-trace outside groups is slipping tens of millions of dollars of attacks ads and negative automated telephone calls into the final days of the midterm campaign, helping fuel an unprecedented surge of last-minute spending on Senate races."

Nate Cohn of the New York Times: Even if they win the close races, 2014 won't be "as good as it seems for the Republicans." Cohn explains why. ...

... Michael McDonald in the Huffington Post: "... my take on the early vote data -- where there are enough statistics to be informative -- is that the Republican sweep screaming in the headlines is overblown. Senate control is up for grabs and Democrats have a decent chance to defy the polls. I expect that the election will be so close that we won't know who won until all ballots are counted and the vote is certified several days following the election, not to mention highly probable run-off elections in Georgia and Louisiana." Via Greg Sargent. ...

Campbell Robertson & Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: Control of the Senate may be decided in runoff elections in Georgia & Louisiana.

Rachel Blade of Politico: "A record number of rogue Christian pastors are endorsing candidates from the pulpit this election cycle, using Sunday sermons to defiantly flout tax rules. Their message to the IRS: Sue me. But the tax agency is doing anything but.... IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in an interview last month with Tax Analysts suggested the IRS isn't planning to crack down on churches anytime soon.... It's another sign of the tax agency turned upside down by the tea party targeting controversy. Although the IRS is under fire from the right for being heavy-hand with conservative tax-exempt entities, it's also getting hit from the left for failing to enforce decade-old rules governing churches and politics."

David Schanzer & Jay Sullivan argue in a New York Times op-ed that the U.S. should pass a Constitutional amendment to increase House terms to four years & change Senate terms to four or six years, thus cancelling the midterms. CW: Schanzer is a professor of public policy. Does he have any idea how difficult it is to change the Constitution? Not gonna happen, gentlemen.

California. Claire Tragesor of KPBS: "Just days before Tuesday's election in the tight race for San Diego's 52nd Congressional District seat, a second former staffer [-- Navy veteran Justin Harper, 25 --] for Republican candidate Carl DeMaio is accusing him of sexual harassment.... DeMaio has denied sexual harassment allegations made by another former campaign staffer, Todd Bosnich.... A 10News/U-T San Diego poll released Sunday shows DeMaio and [first-term Rep. Scott] Peters [D] in a statistical tie -- 46 percent for DeMaio, 45 percent for Peters and 11 percent undecided."

Connecticut. Christopher Keating of the Hartford Courant: "Independent candidate Joseph Visconti abruptly dropped out of the race for governor on Sunday and endorsed Republican challenger Tom Foley. The surprise move -- only two days before the election -- could provide a boost to Foley in a race that recent polls have put at a dead heat. Visconti made the announcement during a joint campaign appearance with Foley at the local Republican headquarters in Brookfield.... Visconti said he made his decision at 4 p.m. Saturday after seeing a poll by Public Policy Polling of North Carolina that showed [Gov. Dannel] Malloy [D] ahead by 3 percentage points with Visconti in third place at 6 percent."

Iowa. CW: Apparently Republicans, the great defenders of women's rights & chiefs of the PC police, are all upset by Tom Harkin's "sexist" remark about Joni Ernst. Puh-leze. Contrary to Ernst's claim that Harkin would never have said this if she were "Jon Ernst," plenty of pundits (Charles Pierce) have commented on Scott Brown's attractiveness. That few have made "sexist" comments about handsome male Republicans probably reflects the fact that the majority of male GOP candidates are remarkably unattractive.

New Hampshire. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton defended Democrats' focus on women's rights on Sunday, as she returned to her old redoubt of New Hampshire to help the party keep hold of a crucial US Senate seat and maintain the state's all-female congressional delegation.... Appearing at a rally in Nashua alongside Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Clinton attacked Shaheen's opponent, Scott Brown, for past votes opposing legislation that would guarantee women equal pay and coverage for contraception in their health insurance."

Washington State. Chris McGreal of the Guardian: "Washington state voters appear ready to go where their politicians fear to tread and impose greater gun controls in the face of a well-funded campaign by the National Rifle Association and a rival spoiler measure on Tuesday's ballot. Opinion polls suggest a clear majority in favour of requiring background checks on all firearms sales in Washington state including at gun shows and through private advertising."

Wisconsin. Betsy Woodruff of Slate: Republicans think Gov. Scott Walker's race for re-election is "the most important election in America."

Beyond the Beltway

Jack Gillum & Joan Lowy of the AP: "The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.... The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response." ...

... Caroline Bankoff of New York: "The AP's report on the no-fly zone is hardly the first time that the police have been accused of violating the First Amendment rights of reporters trying to cover the events in Ferguson, but the apparent participation of the federal officials at the FAA makes this one especially troubling."

Presidential Election

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: In Detroit & elsewhere, Rand Paul courts the black vote. CW: Of course this is a cynical ploy, but I give Paul points for guts. Also, unlike Paul Ryan, Rand Paul seems to really believe in the initiatives he's pushing that will help blacks; Ryan, by contrast, is using his new-found interest in "helping" the poor to further his cruel Ayn Rand-inspired ideology of leaving the poor behind.

News Ledes

NPR: "Tom Magliozzi, one of public radio's most popular personalities, died on Monday of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 77 years old. Tom and his brother, Ray, became famous as 'Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers' on the weekly NPR show Car Talk. They bantered, told jokes, laughed and sometimes even gave pretty good advice to listeners who called in with their car troubles."

Bangor Daily News: "Attorneys for nurse Kaci Hickox and the state have agreed that the temporary court order issued Friday by a Maine District Court judge will remain in place until 11:59 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10, when the 21-day incubation period for Ebola expires. Judge Charles C. LaVeriere signed the order Monday morning."

Oregonian: "Brittany Maynard, who moved to Oregon to use the Death with Dignity act, died Saturday in her home in Portland, the nonprofit Compassion & Choices confirmed Sunday. Maynard, 29, was diagnosed with a grade four glioblastoma, a highly malignant and aggressive form of brain tumor. After being told she had six months to live, she moved to Portland from California this summer."

AP: "Israeli officials are pushing forward with plans to build new apartments in an east Jerusalem settlement after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's endorsement last week. Jerusalem's Planning and Building Committee said Monday it approved construction of 500 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a week after Netanyahu gave his blessing for the plans."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 2, 2014

Internal links, graphics & related text removed.

Justin Gillis of the New York Times: "The gathering risks of climate change are so profound they could stall or even reverse generations of progress against poverty and hunger if greenhouse emissions continue at a runaway pace, according to a major new United Nations report. Despite rising efforts in many countries to tackle the problem, the overall global situation is growing more acute as developing countries join the West in burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said here on Sunday." ...

     ... The Washington Post report is here.

Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon has scaled back its plan to assemble an overseas spy service that could have rivaled the CIA in size, backing away from a project that faced opposition from lawmakers who questioned its purpose and cost, current and former U.S. officials said. Under the revised blueprint, the Defense Intelligence Agency will train and deploy up to 500 undercover officers...."

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Jed Rakoff in the New York Review of Books: "The criminal justice system in the United States today bears little relationship to what the Founding Fathers contemplated, what the movies and television portray, or what the average American believes.... "Our criminal justice system is almost exclusively a system of plea bargaining, negotiated behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight. The outcome is very largely determined by the prosecutor alone.... Until roughly the end of the Civil War, plea bargains were exceedingly rare.... [But now mandatory sentencing] guidelines, along with mandatory minimums, were causing the virtual extinction of jury trials in federal criminal cases."

Fred Kaplan of Slate calls the war against ISIS "Obama's Quagmire": "So here we are, back in the Middle East again, shoring up a dysfunctional regime, caught in the middle of a sectarian conflict, saddled with allies who aren't doing much and whose interests conflict with ours, roped off from potential allies who could do much more but whose interests conflict with ours more deeply, and facing a bunch of millenarian savages whose appeal grows as our involvement deepens."

Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: "The chief safety officer of the hazardous-materials company that cleaned the apartment of New York City's first Ebola patient was, in a past career as a mortgage negotiator, accused of fraud in 2009 by the attorney general at the time, Andrew M. Cuomo.... City officials have said that they followed the standard vetting protocol for the cleanup contract given to Bio-Recovery Corporation, and that health officials had reviewed the company's work and determined that it was successfully completed."

Ahiza Garcia of TPM: "Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) came to the defense of his former running mate, Sarah Palin, on Friday, more than a month after she and her family were involved in a drunken, bloody altercation at a house party in Alaska. During an interview with Phoenix television station KTVK, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said he wasn't excusing the brawl but went on to blast the media's coverage of it." He blames liberals, too. CW: Yo, John, if the media suck, why don't you boycott them?

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Molly Ball of the Atlantic: "Joni Ernst ... has ... flirted seriously with wacky conspiracy theories, especially Agenda 21, which takes off from an innocuous, voluntary UN resolution and turns it into a sinister plot.... And she has made comments about Americans totally dependent on government that make Mitt Romney's '47 percent' observations look almost populist by comparison.... Tom Cotton ... has ... said, at a town-hall meeting, 'Groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico who have clearly shown they're willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism. They could infiltrate our defenseless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas.'... [Yet] the premier newspapers of our time, The Washington Post and The New York Times ... [don't report] ... about the wacky or extreme things they have said.... The most common press narrative for elections this year is to contrast them with the 2010 and 2012 campaigns.... What [this] suggests is how deeply the eagerness to pick a narrative and stick with it, and to resist stories that contradict the narrative, is embedded in the culture of campaign journalism." ...

... Steve M.: "It's also that the press agrees with the GOP (and much of the public) that Barack Obama is a terrible president who needs to be punished. Journalist resent Obama because he hasn't always been nice to them (why weren't they allowed to watch him play golf with Tiger Woods?).... What's happening now is the result of journalists settling on a story they like about Republicans -- but it also reflects a story they like about Obama, which is that he's getting what's coming to him." ...

... Here's a letter to the Post by Grace Morsberger of Chevy Chase, Maryland, complaining about the Post's hagiographic profile of Ernst while suggesting her Democratic opponent Bruce Braley is an elite snob.

God News

Paul Kengor, in the Washington Post: Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave speeches/sermons on both sides of the Berlin wall. The transcript of the East Berlin speech is here. ...

Lauren Markoe of Religion News Service: "The mayor of Houston on Wednesday withdrew the subpoenas of sermons from five pastors who opposed an ordinance banning discrimination against LGBT people."

Pope Francis Gets the Obama Treatment. Josephine McKenna of Religion News Service: "American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the feisty former archbishop of St. Louis..., likened the Roman Catholic Church to 'a ship without a rudder' in a fresh attack on the pope's leadership. In an interview with the Spanish Catholic weekly Vida Nueva, published Thursday (Oct. 30), Burke insisted he was not speaking out against the pope personally but raising concern about his leadership."

Marlene Winell & Valerie Tarico of AlterNet, in Salon: "... certain aspects of Christian beliefs and Christian living ... can create ... stressors, even setting up multigenerational patterns of abuse, trauma, and self-abuse. Also, over time some religious beliefs can create habitual thought patterns that actually alter brain function, making it difficult for people to heal or grow."

AND Pat Robertson says Ouija boards cause people to communicate with "demonic spirits." Also via Benen.

November Elections

Georgia. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: Former President Jimmy Carter & his grandson Jason Carter, who is running for governor, "are close confidants, but they've appeared infrequently together in public. The former president, who is a polarizing figure in this largely Republican state, has been kept to a series of discreet appearances at union halls, predominantly black colleges and rural communities. Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who remains widely popular in Georgia, has spent more time with her grandson greeting voters on the campaign trail.... At age 90, [President] Carter has traveled the state at a dizzying pace this year as he maintains an active travel schedule around the globe."

Kentucky. Lee Fang of the Nation has the full story on Mitch McConnell's cocaine connection, which P.D. Pepe mentions in today's Comments. Kinda makes you wonder if Mitch is living off a drug lord; in any event, the future Senate Majority Leader is living off his father-in-law.

Iowa. Judd Legum of Think Progress: "The GOP is trying to convince Iowa voters on Facebook that their neighbors will know if they voted Republican. Screenshots of Facebook ads, promoted by the official Facebook page of the Republican National Committee feature an ominous message: 'NOTICE: All Voting Is Public.' The ad tell voters that 'In a few months, Iowa will release the list of individual who voted in this election.' Most troublingly, the ad includes an aerial view of a neighborhood with checkmarks indicating that 'These People Voted GOP.'"

New York. He's a Jerk, But He's Our Jerk. Sahil Kapur of TPM: "Rep. Michael Grimm appears to be [on] his way to a landslide reelection victory on Tuesday, at least if a new Siena College poll is any indication.The Staten Island Republican leads Democrat Domenic Recchia by a 19 points among likely voters in the district, a shocking result considering that forecasters expected the race to be very close. Grimm's lead defies the troubled year he has had. In January he threatened to break a New York reporter in half and throw him off a balcony. In April he was indicted by the federal government on fraud charges." ...

... Update. Victoria D., with a little help from Jon Stewart, explains why this is:

Presidential Election

Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "Why is it that so many people, in and out of the Republican Party, continue to bounce along with the Bush family? It is an article of faith with that crowd that Jeb is a natural leader. And yet his presence reminds one of Play-Doh left out of the container too long.... The odd idea is that, after one mediocre Bush Presidency and one failed one, it would be a matter of simple fairness to try a third."

Way Beyond the Beltway
But a Lot Like Texas

Jo Becker & Steven Myers of the New York Times: By the time the school year began this fall, the number of approved textbooks for Russia's 14 million schoolchildren had been slashed by more than half. The summary winnowing by the Ministry of Education and Science upset lesson plans, threatened the livelihoods of nearly two-dozen small publishers and left principals, teachers and parents puzzled and angry. There was, however, one standout winner: A publishing house whose newly appointed chairman was a member of President Vladimir V. Putin's inner circle, Arkady R. Rotenberg, a judo sparring partner from Mr. Putin's St. Petersburg youth."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 1, 2014

Internal links removed.

Josh Hicks of the Washington Post: "... travelers [to the U.S. from from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea] now have to submit to temperature checks and questioning. But scientific studies published by the National Institutes of Health have shown that similar protocols were largely ineffective during an outbreak of Swine Flu in 2009, as Government Executive pointed out in an article last week.... A study of screenings at Australia's Sydney Airport during the Swine Flu pandemic found that ... screeners likely missed the vast majority of individuals who arrived at the facility with Swine Flu, despite grabbing thousands of travelers who showed signs of fever." ...

... Jerome Groopman of the New Yorker: "... there are still serious gaps in what we know about the biology of Ebola, and that ignorance inhibits us from preventing future outbreaks and reducing death rates that still exceed seventy per cent. We don't know enough about the biology of Ebola to bring the outbreak under full control, or to neutralize the virus once the outbreak is contained."

Stupid FBI Tricks. New York Times Editors: "The F.B.I. has a history of pushing the limits that protect Americans' civil liberties. And it has continued to broaden agents' investigative powers in troubling ways.... Deceptive tactics used in Las Vegas and Seattle, if not prohibited by the agency or blocked by courts, risk opening the door to constitutional abuses on a much wider scale."

Joe Nocera of the the New York Times on developments in the case against force-feeding Guantanamo prisoners.

I'm not a scientist. -- Republicans

I'm not a Republican. -- Scientists

Maria Konnikova of the New Yorker takes seriously Jonathan Haidt's assertion that social psychologists are biased against Republicans. CW: What both Konnikova & Haidt overlook is that most of what passes for conservatism today is laughable bullshit. Where it's not cohesive sociopathy, it's incoherent, non-intellectual rationalization based on disproved hypotheses or deceit. So, yeah, I guess the vast majority of social psychologists are "biased" against conservatives to the extent they can see through the malarkey & discount it -- or study! -- it.

Corby Kummer of the Atlantic: "Long before the food movement took shape, [Boston's former mayor] Thomas Menino believed in -- and acted on -- its ideals: fresh food available to everyone of every income level, and as a route to better health."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. CW: I've sort of avoided this story because it seemed thin at best & bogus at worst. Steve M. has done the legwork for us, & he's going with bogus: "Sharyl Attkisson, the former CBS reporter turned wingnut hero, has a new book out in which she claims that sinister forces from the government invaded her computer and monkeyed with her data. She's now released a video purporting to show what happened.... Robert Graham, in a post at the blog Errata Security, says that a lot of the claims in excerpts from her book don't pass his smell test." Neither does the video offer any measure of convincing "proof" that a government agency has hacked Attkisson's computer. Graham says he is a "right-winger," so he hasn't released his conclusions because of some political bias. Post includes Attkisson's scary video, wherein the most incriminating evidence revealed is that she watches "Dancing with the Stars." ...

... Hannah Groch-Begley & Joe Strupp of Media Matters: "Computer security experts say that a video released by former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson appears to show her computer 'malfunction[ing],' likely due to a stuck backspace key, not being hacked by government agents as she had suggested." Groch-Begley & Strupp cite four experts who find no evidence of hacking. ...

... OR, as J. K. Trotter of Gawker puts it: Sharyl Attkisson blames broken laptop on Benghazi.... A stuck backspace key is, unfortunately, a less dramatic explanation than a hidden government conspiracy to surveil reporters who write unflattering things about the President. It is also the more likely one." ...

... CW: So, kids, if your backspace key gets stuck, it isn't a government plot; it's a crappy keyboard. And all along I thought that time my "e" & "t" died on my old computer, it was Barack Obama out to get me. Such are the dreams of the everyday paranoid.

November Elections

Here's your election day pop quiz from Gail Collins.

All the News Is Bad News. CW: I'll let Nate Silver break it to you.

Sam Wang in the New Yorker on gerrymandering. "Using the tool of redistricting, [Republicans] have successfully tilted the political playing field to secure a large majority for at least the next two years without the same popular appeal."

Jonathan Chait: "The contest to control the Senate is about one thing: whether Obama can confirm judges and staff his administration.... What's more, if a Supreme Court justice becomes incapacitated or dies, the judicial gridlock could become a Constitutional struggle.... News reports have wildly overstated the legislative importance of Republican Senate control. At the same time, they have understated its importance to the judiciary." ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times Channels Victoria D. (See yesterday's Comments): "... given the universal mythology that a lower deficit is always a good thing, would it kill Democrats to point out that the deficit actually has fallen by more than 50 percent since President Obama took office? None of [the Democratic candidates] mention that the budget is in far better shape largely because taxes went up on the rich, and because health care costs are falling. It's unusual even to hear that unemployment is down to 5.9 percent, or that 5.5 million jobs have been added since 2009, which is four times more than under all eight years of George W. Bush.... If Democrats lose control of the Senate next week, they may wonder why they ... left out the country's good news." Read the whole post. ...

... Here's the President, yesterday, mentioning the good stuff that Democratic candidates are too skeert stoopid to tout:

Richard Hasen & Dahlia Lithwick in Slate: "This year's scary election ads will destroy any lingering confidence in the judicial branch....In 39 states, some or all judges must face some kind of election -- often a partisan one. These races used to be about as interesting to watch as Bingo night. But now, it's all Law and Order, and all the time. The ads are scarier than the shows they interrupt. These new judicial attack ads are a consequence of a series of Supreme Court rulings that have allowed judicial elections to get noisier, nastier, and costlier, with no limit on outside spending by groups such as the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity." CW: Thanks again, Supremes!

Colorado. Molly Ball of the Atlantic tries to profile Colorado's GOP Senate nominee Cory Gardner, which isn't easy to do since in all likelihood he's an arch-conservative now parading around as a moderate.

Kentucky. Sahil Kapur of TPM: "The campaign of Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes has filed a lawsuit to stop Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign from distributing a mailer that it says amounts to illegal voter intimidation tactics. The Grimes campaign on Friday said it had filed for an immediate injunction.... The mailers have the words 'ELECTION VIOLATION NOTICE' sprawled at the top and attack Grimes for spreading 'fraudulent' information." ...

... Michael Beckel of the Center for Public Integrity: "The most mysterious force in Kentucky's pivotal U.S. Senate race is a ghost that dwells in a hole in a wall. Hunt for the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, and one finds no grassroots army, no canvassing operation, no office or headquarters at all -- just a scuffed U.S. Postal Service box nestled inside a suburban shopping plaza about 10 miles from downtown Louisville.... Corporeal or not, the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition has ... haunt[ed] Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in her increasingly unlikely bid to unseat incumbent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky." Via Charles Pierce.

Maine. Darren Fishell of the Bangor Daily News: "Wondering how to blow $1.2 million in two days? Try a whole lot of TV ads. At least, that's how seven political action committees spent their $1.2 million over the last two days, according to the latest filings with the Maine Ethics Commission. Most of that spending -- about $852,000 -- went to benefit the campaign of Democrat Mike Michaud, who is locked in a dead heat against incumbent Republican Gov. Paul LePage, according to a BDN/Ipsos poll released today."

Massachusetts. Fish Story. Nestor Ramos & Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe: "Some of the details of Charlie Baker's emotional 2009 encounter with a soulful fisherman may have been lost at sea. Baker on Thursday acknowledged that he may have misstated some of the particulars of the story he told tearfully during a debate this week. That, in turn, has complicated efforts to locate the man whose hardships, in Baker's retelling, produced one of the most remarkable moments in this year's race for governor.... Despite searches mounted by both campaigns, several media outlets, and various New Bedford fishing industry lifers, no one has been able to find the massive man whose embrace Baker described as 'like hugging a mountain.'" Via Charles Pierce. ...

... Justin Snow of Metro Weekly: "Responding to calls from the National Organization for Marriage for social conservatives to vote for pro-LGBT Democrat Seth Moulton over his openly gay Republican opponent, Richard Tisei, Moulton's campaign refused such support Thursday." ...

... As Charles Pierce reminded us yesterday, vote for Moulton.

Texas. Joshua Fechter of the San Antonio Express-News: "Four days before federal authorities arrested him on federal weapons charges and found ammonium nitrate in his South Texas hotel room, border militia leader Kevin Lyndel 'K.C.' Massey chatted and posed for a photo with Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott at a campaign event in Brownsville.... Video footage captured by Fox 2 News in Brownsville also shows Massey taking photos of Abbott while wearing a GoPro camera on his head, which was later confiscated during the raid.... Abbott deputy communications director Amelia Chasse ... declined to say whether Abbott supports the [militia] group." Via TPM. CW: Your next governor of Texas is a guy who can't decide whether or not he supports a group that the feds suspect of planning to bomb something.

Beyond the Beltway

Sari Horwitz & Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post: "Justice Department investigators have all but concluded they do not have a strong enough case to bring civil rights charges against Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., law enforcement officials said."

Free to Be My Congressman Again. AP: "Former Florida Congressman Trey Radel, who resigned in January after pleading guilty to cocaine possession, has had his record expunged.... U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman William Miller said Friday that Radel completed all the conditions of his probation and was granted an early termination of it in July. Miller said Radel then asked to have his case dismissed and his record expunged, and prosecutors agreed with the request."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Doctors have upgraded the condition of New York City's first Ebola patient [Craig Spencer] to stable, health officials said on Saturday."

Guardian: "US fighter and bomber planes have launched five attacks against Islamic State militants near Kobani, Syria, and five in Iraq since Friday, Central Command said on Saturday. The Kobani strikes 'suppressed or destroyed' nine Islamic State fighting positions and a building. In Iraq, air strikes destroyed an Islamic State vehicle south-west of Mosul dam and hit four vehicles and four buildings used by militants near Al-Qaim, the US military said in a statement."

AP: "With a malevolent laugh, the leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremists tells the world that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off, dashing hopes for their freedom.... In a new video released late Friday night, the Boko Haram leader also denies there is a cease-fire with the Nigerian government and threatens to kill an unidentified German hostage."

Guardian: "Sir Richard Branson acknowledged on Saturday that his dream of commercial space tourism may have ended in the explosion that consumed Virgin Galactic's test craft SpaceShipTwo in the skies above California's Mojave desert."