Today's edition of quick hits:
* The evolving situation in Syria just got more complicated: "Turkey's prime minister said Thursday that Russian military equipment and munitions bound for Syria's Defense Ministry had been confiscated from a Syrian civilian jetliner on a Moscow-to-Damascus flight, which was forced to land in Ankara on suspicion of illicitly carrying war material."
* Perhaps last week's debate was a wake-up call -- President Obama appeared to be fired up and ready to go at an event at the University of Miami today.
* Malala Yousafzai: "Doctors treating a 14-year-old girl shot in the head by Islamist militants because she dared to advocate schooling for girls said Wednesday that they hoped she would make a full recovery from her wounds after nightlong surgery to remove the bullet." The Taliban said Yousafzai's ideas made the assassination attempt "obligatory."
* Meningitis: "Federal health officials said they've tracked down more than 90 percent of the roughly 14,000 people who may have received contaminated steroid shots, urging anyone with early symptoms of potentially deadly meningitis to seek help fast."
* Housing: "U.S. foreclosure filings dropped to a five-year low in September as fewer homes were on track to be seized by lenders. It was the second-consecutive monthly decline in filings."
* Nobel: "Mo Yan, a wildly prolific and internationally renowned Chinese author who considers himself nonpolitical but whose embrace by the ruling Communist Party has drawn criticism from dissident writers, was on Thursday awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature."
* Whistleblowers: "President Obama has done what Congress has not -- extend whistleblower protections to national security and intelligence employees. A Presidential Policy Directive issued Wednesday says employees 'who are eligible for access to classified information can effectively report waste, fraud, and abuse while protecting classified national security information. It prohibits retaliation against employees for reporting waste, fraud, and abuse.'"
* And what would happen "if women at risk for unintended pregnancies received the birth control of their choice-- especially the more effective kinds -- at no cost?" We know exactly what would happen: the "national abortion rate would plummet."
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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Do I have anything to add? Sure! Mitt Romney is a douchebag! How 'bout that.
You definitely are an Obama voter.
At least Obama does not flip.flop.... say one thing and then another thing while he still make`s excuses for saying so..with a cheey smile
I second that, except I will always refer to that lying D-bag as "Rmoney".
Deregulate pharma to allow them to police themselves, sure… buy health care or keep going to E.R. for medical care. Just cut the 2% taxes and roll the dice if it trickles on you or if the anvil falls on your head.
Then cut lawsuit payouts so they won't have ANY consequences for their cost cutting to boost profit. Meningitis. I knew a guy that died from it.
I also lost my brother, who had no health insurance. He died in the E.R.
Got my ballot in the mail yesterday and dropped it off locally today. I even got the first "I voted" sticker off the roll. There is absolutely no way I will change my mind on the top ticket items. The wacky local ones might closer to November 6, but oh well. I wanted my vote to get logged now!
Me too!
I did it the Monday before the Obama/Romney debate and am still feeling good about it.
I'm in!
Just like he was fired up in Colorado the day after the debate. Despite the doom and gloom over a bad debate performance, he did not suddenly lose his ability to give a speech or lead a rally. It's pretty silly to act like he lost it until today.
Ammunition?
Syrian officials have confirmed there were "electrical components" on board and the Russians demonstrate knowledge of their existence, but state they were not produced by Russia.
The point is that Russia happens to have competent (and from personal experience) very thorough examination of technology items. It's hard to believe anything that had any potential use for weapons left Russia without explicit official approval.
NPR reported one Turkish government news story asserted there were components useful for rockets. I don't see that Putin has much cover if the components were not Russian. If Russian arms dealers are transshipping high tech arms components to the Syrians, he is not going to like.
As a KGB guy he is going to be particularly PO'd about the Turks knowing within hours what cargo is leaving Russia.
Gee, I wonder who told them.
The nicest thing I can say about Romney is that he is a spineless panderer. He would steal the pennies off of the eyes of the dead at a wake, get caught with the coins and say the dead man owed him the money. If he thought he could get a nickel for the shoes he'd take them as well. Free enterprise for those who have all the money while they spit on the rest of us.
I have always wondered why a party who wanted to stop abortions completely also wanted to limit or deny low-cost or free access to birth control. You really would think it was logical to reduce abortions simply by increasing the use of birth control in any way you can. If you alter society to the point where there are few unintended pregnancies, you would be pretty darn close to your goal.
And how sad is it that Republican candidates had to learn "no means no" again? Their momma and daddy should have taught them that highly valued "good character" and "good discipline." Just a thought.
I, too, have wondered why that was. And then I noticed that, while the anti-abortion movement included both genders about equally, the anti-contraception one was almost universally male. Women may be against abortion, and even against plan B (which they've been conned to think is an abortifacient), but they' tend not to be against prevention.
So I had to conclude that it's not about the sacredness of human life; it's about the sacredness of male seed, though it would be impolitic to say so out loud. Once they manage to get that seed -- by hook, by crook, even by violence -- into a warm womb, they want to assure that it has every possible chance of replicating the implanter.
These men seem to think they are God given dominators taking charge over women. They have not one iota of thought about the method of conception being any issue, nor the possibility of a woman having a high chance of death if they give birth. Not even if there was sexual abuse by relative ending up with a very young female (who could be a child herself). No, no no way of sacrificing that sperm that found its way and staked its claim. Yes, it's oogie to think, but that is apparently the way some of these male dominators think. It is repugnant to say a woman has no say over getting pregnant or giving birth, They tip their hand when they say forcible or legitimate rape, the easy rape.
They think birth control is the woman says no, yet they say they were "easy". They just hate women or see them as sperm receptacles.
I am sorry about the ickiness of this, but this is truly a problem with many men. Fortunately, the number seems to be dwindling. Don't vote for these men and give them any legitimacy. They feel entitled to order women to have ultra sounds, give birth after being raped or abused and Limpy has no problem calling them sluts.
Actually the reasoning is more crass than you can imagine. Back in my youth I interned at RNC headquarters in DC and I asked a now very high ranking operative, whose name you would recognize if I told you, why the RNC was anti-abortion when on principle they were for individual freedoms. He told me that it's all about the votes. They figure that any baby born who otherwise might have been aborted was told that they arrived because of the Republican an anti-abortion stance would be soooo thankful they would always vote Republican. That response is the sole reason why I will never vote Republican again and I will no longer contribute to the internship program that allowed me to be in DC for a summer.
Perhaps Romney was right. Let the market correct. We don't need govt interference.
Huh?
You gotta admire somebody like Tom! Able to sleep through the last 30+ years, especially the last 13 when all the deregulation and non-enforcement took place to cause a financial crisis is a pretty remarkable trick.
Now that you're awake again, Tom, step away from the Fox.
I got something to add.
Kick some Ryan ass tonight, Joe. Don't let him squirm away. Don't fall for his strawmen. Ram his complex question informal fallacies up his sphincter. Call that lying sack of shhit a lying sack of shhit.
Do you think THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS would check these machines????What do you think about this investigative news owners Of Electronic Voting Machine Company Are Romney Super-Fans
Photo: Roger Barone/flickr
We’re not really into conspiracy theories here, so let us just say this upfront: we are not presenting the following article as any kind of conspiracy theory. We will say, though, that the people who own voting machines in some important swing states have a pretty remarkable bias toward Mitt Romney and, you know, someone should probably keep an eye on this, no?
Okay, so here’s what we know:
Hart InterCivic is a national provider of election voting systems that are used in swing-states Ohio and Colorado, as well as in states we don’t really care about so much because we already know how they’ll turn out (e.g., Texas, Oklahoma, and Hawaii). Private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, LLC bought out a “significant” portion of Hart in July of 2011, and now the majority of Hart’s board directors are employees of H.I.G. (It’s not entirely clear how much of the voting machine company H.I.G. owns, but the financial advisors responsible for the transaction state that “Hart Intercivic was acquired by HIG Capital.”)
H.I.G., in turn, has ties to Bain & Co. and Mitt Romney directly:
H.I.G. was founded by Tony Tamer, a former Bain employee and bundler for Mitt Romney’s campaign.
Of H.I.G.’s 22 American directors, 21 donated to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. One person made no political donations at all; one person donated to both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama; the remaining 20 directors donated exclusively to Mitt Romney in 2012. (See below for links to donations.)
Of these 22 American directors, seven of them (nearly one-third) are former Bain employees. Now, we should note (as a reader helpfully pointed out), this is Bain & Co., where Mitt Romney used to work way back when and then left in order to start the affiliated Bain Capital. The connection is therefore a little more tenuous, but we still find H.I.G.’s overwhelming allegiance and financial support of the Romney campaign surprising (not that it’s surprising that a private equity company would lean Republican, but this level of support is pretty unusual).
Four of H.I.G.’s directors, Tony Tamer, John Bolduc, Douglas Berman, and Brian D. Schwartz, are Romney bundlers along with former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve.
Two of H.I.G.’s managing directors, Douglas F. Berman and Brian D. Schwartz, were present at the $50,000 per plate fundraiser where Mitt Romney made his notorious ”47%” comments.
H.I.G. employees currently make up the majority of the Hart InterCivic’s five-member board of directors. Two of these three directors of the voting machine company, Neil Tuch and Jeff Bohl, have donated directly to Mitt Romney’s campaign.
H.I.G. is the 11th largest donor to Mitt Romney’s campaign. H.I.G. employees have given $338,000 to the Romney campaign, outpacing even Bain Capital itself, which gave $268,000.
(Sidenote: Are we the only ones to notice that every single one of H.I.G.’s 22 American directors is white and male? Not related to the Mitt Romney issue, but sheesh.)
Now, to be fair, besides the fact that H.I.G. employees make up the majority of Hart’s board of directors, we don’t know exactly how much control H.I.G. is able to exert over the voting machine company’s day-to-day operations. Plus, it seems like it would be pretty difficult to mess with the software without anyone finding out about it. Moreover, just from a cost-benefit standpoint, it doesn’t really make sense that these H.I.G. directors would commit a felony and risk their super-lucrative careers just to get their Bain bro elected.
But that said, this still makes us a little… uncomfortable. For instance, what if irregularities or honest mistakes are suspected (and this is a real possibility: Hart InterCivic has previously had some pretty major malfunctions in its voting systems)? The documentation will then be in the hands of Hart/H.I.G.
*Obligatory Amazon.com plug: Need to buy something on Amazon? Why not be awesome and buy it through this super helpful link we are providing right here?
Links to H.I.G.’s American directors:
Tony Tamer – Bain alum; Romney bundler; donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
Sami Mnaymneh – donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign as well as Barack Obama’s campaign
Douglas Berman – Bain alum; Romney bundler; donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
John Bolduc – Bain alum; Romney bundler; donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
Rick Rosen – donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
Brian Schwartz – bundler for the Romney campaign; donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
Timothy Armstrong – donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
John Black – donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign
Re: * Whistleblowers: "President Obama has done what Congress has not -- extend whistleblower protections to national security and intelligence employees."
Good. Now if there only some way to get the GOP in Congress to comply with national security priorities, instead of spilling the secrets of the CIA to make phony political points. If not, maybe someone will be a whistleblower on Issa and his made up outrage.
What do you think of Romney's ties to voting machines??
Where there is money to be made, Mitt will be there.
I have something to add that I am curious about.
My mother, who's a republican, received an Absentee ballot in the mail recently. We live in Nevada and with a quick glance it looks like one has to request Absentee ballots. I don't think she requested it and on it in at least two places it suggests the receiver vote republican. With all the "voter fraud" issues that some other states are dealing with, I was curious if this was normal.
Wow, having suffered viral meningitis twice, I can assure anyone that it is no understated picnic.. The New England Compounding Center is in a heap of duty over that mess and I do not envy whomever has been infected via the steroid mixture. Unfortunately, lawyers will be reaping the quiet lion's share of any money made from other people's misfortune and will not have to suffer the blinding headache and painful misery of meningitis (which they rightfully should). I didn't even @!$%#ing know you could get a fungal version though I'm familiar with the bacterial and viral "flavors". Pray to whatever you like that you never are!
The Rom created the 47 or 46 percent of unemployment by out soucing jobs and now he wants to tell the people he took jobs from to just get over it. Lets see the senior citizens including my mom did not do their part so lets take from them so that the top 1% can get more tax breaks to do what with their money buy another 3,000.00 shower curtin, by the way that is more money then I make working as a civil servant in Texas. Texas what a lost cause. Why are we a RED state other than these idiots have actually convince the idiots in Texas to vote for them. Rep are the biggest dumb a-- in the world. The math never worked not even for Reagan. Does anyone remember he introduced the financial problem dealing with loan companies. Please stop using Reagan as an example of success. He was a product of elephants. The elephants have just gotten smaller..
Certainly an open thread. How can ANYONE take CNBC and Rachel Maddow seriously when the Reverend Al Sharpton is their primary guest, like tonight? It is great to see Democrats embracing Christianity and Rev. Al's abortion stance.
See this is your problem, you're presenting yoursef as an idiotic @!$%#. You've failed to understand a very simple statement of reality concerning the Democratic Party, we don't demand ideological purity. You can be a Democrat and be pro-life and not be treated as a pariah. You can be a Christian and be a Democrat. At least as long as you don't pay any attention to the left wingnuts around here who hate science, logic, and reason by proclaiming that disbelief in God without evidence is somehow different than belief in God without evidence.
Uh, sorry Beahmont, but choosing not to believe in god because there is no evidence is different than believing in god when there is no evidence. I would have thought any educated person would know that.
Try to answer why that is the case. It is related to having to prove a negative. What is the consequence of having to accept as possible any premise for which there is no evidence? What are the consequences of actually accepting a premise for which there is no evidence?
You are wrong on this one thing. You are not wrong in the rest of your post.
President Obama on "fire" in Florida speech !!!
The zealots who claim, to be pro-life do not care that the contraceptions may save lives. After all their whole position is one of anti-abortion rights period! They have no problem with the death penalty or with "castle keeper" laws that allow a jerk to chase a skittles toting teen down and kill him.