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Public Service Announcement
Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."
Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion —reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.
Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”
New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Here I am, a resident of Massachusetts listening to my former Governor speak convincingly and with seeming conviction at the Denver debate. I was startled by my Déjà vu experience and by the assumptions held by my out-of-town friends about Mr. Romney’s governorship. So, as an editor and author of articles and texts about social and political contexts, I wanted to ... share my understanding of Mr. Romney’s governorship and the implications for the Presidency. Massachusetts is known as a liberal state, but we often vote for Republican governors, and the three governors who immediately preceded Mr. Romney were Republicans. Mr. Romney was a one term governor who left office with a 31% approval rating, the 3rd lowest in the entire country. What does our experience in Massachusetts say to the country?
Mr. Romney claims to have experience reaching across the aisle. Maybe he did do some reaching, but not much of it went toward the Democrats. In his first two years of office, he vetoed legislation at more than twice the rate of Republican predecessor Governor Weld. Governor Romney had a record 800 vetoes (most of which were overturned, sometimes unanimously). One example is when the legislature provided a budget amendment to stop contracting with companies that outsource state work to other countries. Governor Romney vetoed the provision. This meant that he supported outsourcing jobs at the expense of U.S. workers. He also started a huge campaign to unseat Democratic legislators, but failed and ended up with even fewer Republican seats than before he took office.
Governor Romney correctly claims that Massachusetts rose to #1 in education—but it was based on former Governor Weld’s education reform plan. Governor Romney moved in the opposite direction--he vetoed bills that would have strengthened preschool education.
However, the issue is not so much how he voted, but that Mr. Romney won the governorship by presenting himself in one way, as a social and fiscal moderate (some saw him as a social progressive), and by the end of his single term, he had acted in an entirely different way. He said during his campaign that he favored stem cell research and then vetoed a bill to fund it. He argued for a lower minimum wage than the state legislature ended up passing (over his veto). He vetoed a bill funding hate crimes prevention, and took back money approved by a former Republican governor for a bullying prevention program. He denied all requests for commutations and pardons, including one from a soldier serving in Iraq whose was convicted at age 13 for a BB gun incident. He vetoed emergency contraception. He raised many fees in my state—even quadrupling the gasoline delivery fees.
Governor Romney certainly approved some pieces of legislation that I did support but that does not change a major problem: Mr. Romney re-created himself and changed his positions during the first Presidential debate in your city because he must sound more moderate in order to win the independent vote. After that, all bets are off. We in Massachusetts know all about that. We elected a governor expecting him to be one thing and then he did something totally different and got on the national stage. He entered the governorship with a 61% approval rating and left with an abysmal 31% and with many of us scratching our heads and wondering whom we elected. The difference between then and now is that you have Mr. Romney’s speeches and positions from this past year and the contradictions during the debate. You can get nonpartisan information from factcheck.org. And, you now know what he was like in Massachusetts. So, I hope the country doesn’t have to go through what Massachusetts went through. Regardless of your political beliefs, this constant turning into something we didn’t vote for is no way to run a state, never mind a country.
CW: Mirkin is a professor of psychology at Lasell College in Massachusetts. Contributor Julie obtained Mirkin's permission to publish her letter here. I have made one minor edit (noted at the ellipsis) with Mirkin's permission.
If you wish to comment on Mirkin's letter, which I found tremendously helpful, please do so in the Commentariat.
Jeff Mason & Steve Holland of the AP: "Facing a cliffhanger re-election attempt, President Barack Obamawill 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.) ...
... 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." ...
Alina Selyukhof, et al., of Reuters: "Mitt Romneyheld 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 TimesEditors: "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."
MoDodoesn't likeObama & 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.
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 Timesendorses Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) of New York for U.S. Senate.
The New York Timesendorses 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 Timesoutlines 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. ...
** 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 Beediscusses 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 capturedMuammar 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."
Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "Americans who report watching the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romneybelieve 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 TribuneEditors: "... 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 Benenchroniclesforty-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 TimesEditors: "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 RomneyIs Just LikeGeorge W. Bush" -- is mostly superficial, but the superficial parallels are still notable & form a cautionary tale.
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 Globehas 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.
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."
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