I’m glad that no one was injured, but this is serious stuff.
• A gunshot was fired into President Barack Obama’s downtown Denver re-election headquarters on Friday while campaign workers were inside but no one was struck, police said. “Right now, no one is in custody and investigators are looking at surveillance video to see if a vehicle can be identified,” Lopez said. Lopez said it was a single shot and no one inside was physically injured.
• Right wing freakout: 1 week ago: President Obama is calm, unflustered, respectful and solid. Conservatives pan his performance, he was “destroyed” in the debate! Romney was aggressive, confident, energetic, forceful — he showed true leadership! 1 week later: Paul Ryan was calm, unflustered, respectful and solid. Conservatives say this is just what we need in a leader! Biden was far too aggressive, far too confident, too energetic and too forceful — not what America needs in a leader!
• In last night’s vice presidential debate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) made several incorrect claims about security in Benghazi, Libya at the time of last month’s assault on a U.S. diplomatic compound. In highly politicized hearings earlier this week, testimony was given on requests for additional resources to be sent to enhance security within Libya. Counter to Ryan’s claims, the main focus of the requests were for the U.S. Embassy located in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, opposed to the outpost in Benghazi, Foreign Policy reports. According the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group’s website, the primary mission of deployed Marines is not personal security, but rather “to prevent the compromise of classified material vital to the national security of the United States.” Ryan also falsely claimedduring the debate last night that it took two weeks for President Obama to acknowledge the Libya assault was a terror attack. In fact, Obama acknowledged that the day after.
• Those “6 studies” that Romney/Ryan keep mentioning about their tax plan: Not so much. In using the word “studies”, there’s hope that authority can be led to the claim but 3 of those “studies” are blog posts, and none of the “studies” does what R/R says they do.
October 1 blog post from Alex Brill at the American Enterprise Institute.
August 9 blog post by Brill’s colleague, Matt Jensen.
Martin Feldstein: a Wall Street Journal blog post responding to criticism of that op-ed
a paper by Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation
Princeton’s Harvey Rosen, who ran his own score of Romney’s tax plan
• Mark Zandi, a former John McCain campaign adviser and Chief Economist at Moody’s Economy, speaking on CNN’s “Starting Point,” acknowledged a study by the Tax Policy Center that shows Romney’s plan to lower taxes by 20 percent across the board, while making up those losses in government revenue by closing loopholes on the wealthy, doesn’t add up: Yeah, I think the Tax Policy Center study is the definitive study. They’re non-partisan, they’re very good. They say given the numbers that they’ve been provided by the Romney campaign, no, it will not add up. Now, the Romney campaign could adjust their plan. They could say okay I’m not going to lower tax rates as much as I’m saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work. But under the current plan, with the current numbers, no it doesn’t. I’ll say one other thing, though. I think it is important that we do focus on the so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. Those are the deductions, and credits, and loopholes in the code. We need to reduce those, because if we do we’re going to make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and ultimately lead to stronger growth. So that’s the right place to focus. But, no, the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now.
• A new report from the Associated Press highlights almost 9,000 pages of correspondence between Ryan’s congressional office and dozens of federal agencies and departments in which Ryan repeatedly sought millions of dollars for his own constituents, often culled from programs that Ryan is now campaigning to reduce or eliminate entirely.
• White House spokesman Jay Carney Friday backed the vice president’s statement he and the president never were briefed about security at the Benghazi consulate. In his debate Thursday night with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, Vice President Joe Biden said, “We weren’t told they wanted more security” at the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others were killed in a Sept. 11 attack. “Matters of security personnel are appropriately discussed and decided upon at the State Department by those responsible for it,” Carney told reporters during the daily White House briefing.
In other news
• Russia says the Syria-bound plane intercepted by Turkey amid reports it was carrying cargo which could aid government war efforts was transporting a legal shipment of radar equipment. “There were no weapons on the plane,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
• US President Barack Obama quipped Thursday that Mitt Romney must be “severely kidding” if he thought Americans would fall for his sudden “makeover” designed to hide extreme conservatism. “He’s trying to go through an extreme makeover. After running for more than a year in which he called himself severely conservative, Mitt Romney’s trying to convince you that he was severely kidding,” Obama told a 9,200-strong crowd.
• A man registering voters in Nevada may have implicated the Republican Party in a felony when was caught on video recently telling potential voters to register “non-partisan” because “I don’t get credit for Democrats.” Nevada television station KOLO obtained cell phone video of a man, who claimed he worked for the Republican Party, revealing that he was paid by the number of voters he registers, but only if they were not Democrats. “Could you do me a favor?” the man asked a potential voter. “Mark non-partisan on there. I’ll get credit for it. I don’t get credit for Democrats.” “I am a Democrat,” he added. “So I still do Democrats if I have to, but I’m working for the Republican Party. I have to get two an hour and I don’t get credit for Democrats.” According to the Nevada Revised Statutes, “It is unlawful for a person to provide compensation for registering voters that is based upon: (a) The total number of voters a person registers; or (b) The total number of voters a person registers in a particular political party.”
• Friday Night Lights franchise creator Peter Berg is taking serious issue with the Romney campaign’s re-purposing of his show’s signature quote, “Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t Lose.” The GOP nominee has uttered the phrase several times in stump speeches and it also appears, at the time of writing, in the banner image on his official Facebook page. In a letter sent to the Romney campaign [pdf], Berg says Romney’s incorporation of Coach Taylor’s immortal words into his rhetoric “falsely and inappropriately associates Friday Night Lights with the Romney/Ryan campaign.”
• Todd Akin said Thursday at a Tea Party meeting in Jefferson City, Missouri, that there’s no science behind evolution: “I don’t see it as even a matter of science because I don’t know that you can prove one or the other. That’s one of those things. We can talk about theology and all of those other things but I’m basically concerned about, you’ve got a choice between Claire McCaskill and myself. My job is to make the thing there. If we want to do theoretical stuff, we can do that, but I think I better stay on topic.”
• More than 100 people were injured in Egypt Friday as demonstrations both supporting and opposing President Mohamed Morsi converged and battled one another across Tahrir Square. According to Russia Today, the violent clashes between liberal groups and supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood started following the acquittal Wednesday of 25 officials in his predecessor Hosni Mubarak’s administration, who were accused of ordering authorities to use camels against protesters during the demonstrations last year that led to Mubarak’s resignation.
• Pakistani police have arrested a number of suspects in the case of a 14-year-old girl shot and wounded by the Taliban for promoting education for girls and criticizing the fundamentalist Islamic movement, officials said Friday. The shooting of Malala Yousufzai along with two classmates while they were on their way home from school Tuesday horrified people in Pakistan and internationally.
• 47%: During remarks at a fundraiser outside of Seattle, Republican congressional candidate John Koster derided people who had yet to achieve financial success, saying the government rewarded their “slothfulness and laziness.”
• A spokeswoman for U.S. pastor Terry Jones said Thursday that Canada has denied entry to the preacher, whose congregation held a Quran burning in March 2011 that triggered deadly protests in Afghanistan. Stephanie Sapp said fellow pastor and her husband Wayne Sapp, along with Jones, were turned back at the Michigan-Ontario border after being detained for several hours.
• The U.S. Secret Service arrested a Michigan man they allege stole a truck carrying equipment for Vice President Joe Biden’s security detail. Charles Rumbley, 45, of Detroit, could be sentenced to 10 years in prison if he’s convicted of stealing government property, charges filed Wednesday indicate. Authorities allege Rumbley stole a U-Haul truck parked outside a Detroit hotel Sept. 2. It contained $150,000 in metal detectors agents were going to use to screen people attending Biden’s campaign rally, the Detroit Free Press reported. Police recovered the truck the following day.
F.D.Brightly
Gunshot fired at Obama Denver HQ
Shorter Question Everything
I’m glad that no one was injured, but this is serious stuff.
• A gunshot was fired into President Barack Obama’s downtown Denver re-election headquarters on Friday while campaign workers were inside but no one was struck, police said. “Right now, no one is in custody and investigators are looking at surveillance video to see if a vehicle can be identified,” Lopez said. Lopez said it was a single shot and no one inside was physically injured.
• Right wing freakout: 1 week ago: President Obama is calm, unflustered, respectful and solid. Conservatives pan his performance, he was “destroyed” in the debate! Romney was aggressive, confident, energetic, forceful — he showed true leadership! 1 week later: Paul Ryan was calm, unflustered, respectful and solid. Conservatives say this is just what we need in a leader! Biden was far too aggressive, far too confident, too energetic and too forceful — not what America needs in a leader!
• Why Would a ‘Serious’ VP Candidate Release Beefcake Shots the Day of His Debate?: Who does this? No, really, I don’t get this. Why would a supposedly Very. Serious. Policy. Wonk. let Time Magazine release photos like this on the day of his one and only vice presidential debate?
• 10 Reasons You Should Have Watched the Vice Presidential Debate Last Night
• In last night’s vice presidential debate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) made several incorrect claims about security in Benghazi, Libya at the time of last month’s assault on a U.S. diplomatic compound. In highly politicized hearings earlier this week, testimony was given on requests for additional resources to be sent to enhance security within Libya. Counter to Ryan’s claims, the main focus of the requests were for the U.S. Embassy located in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, opposed to the outpost in Benghazi, Foreign Policy reports. According the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group’s website, the primary mission of deployed Marines is not personal security, but rather “to prevent the compromise of classified material vital to the national security of the United States.” Ryan also falsely claimedduring the debate last night that it took two weeks for President Obama to acknowledge the Libya assault was a terror attack. In fact, Obama acknowledged that the day after.
• Those “6 studies” that Romney/Ryan keep mentioning about their tax plan: Not so much. In using the word “studies”, there’s hope that authority can be led to the claim but 3 of those “studies” are blog posts, and none of the “studies” does what R/R says they do.
• Mark Zandi, a former John McCain campaign adviser and Chief Economist at Moody’s Economy, speaking on CNN’s “Starting Point,” acknowledged a study by the Tax Policy Center that shows Romney’s plan to lower taxes by 20 percent across the board, while making up those losses in government revenue by closing loopholes on the wealthy, doesn’t add up: Yeah, I think the Tax Policy Center study is the definitive study. They’re non-partisan, they’re very good. They say given the numbers that they’ve been provided by the Romney campaign, no, it will not add up. Now, the Romney campaign could adjust their plan. They could say okay I’m not going to lower tax rates as much as I’m saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work. But under the current plan, with the current numbers, no it doesn’t. I’ll say one other thing, though. I think it is important that we do focus on the so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. Those are the deductions, and credits, and loopholes in the code. We need to reduce those, because if we do we’re going to make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and ultimately lead to stronger growth. So that’s the right place to focus. But, no, the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now.
• A new report from the Associated Press highlights almost 9,000 pages of correspondence between Ryan’s congressional office and dozens of federal agencies and departments in which Ryan repeatedly sought millions of dollars for his own constituents, often culled from programs that Ryan is now campaigning to reduce or eliminate entirely.
• White House spokesman Jay Carney Friday backed the vice president’s statement he and the president never were briefed about security at the Benghazi consulate. In his debate Thursday night with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, Vice President Joe Biden said, “We weren’t told they wanted more security” at the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others were killed in a Sept. 11 attack. “Matters of security personnel are appropriately discussed and decided upon at the State Department by those responsible for it,” Carney told reporters during the daily White House briefing.
In other news
• Russia says the Syria-bound plane intercepted by Turkey amid reports it was carrying cargo which could aid government war efforts was transporting a legal shipment of radar equipment. “There were no weapons on the plane,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
• US President Barack Obama quipped Thursday that Mitt Romney must be “severely kidding” if he thought Americans would fall for his sudden “makeover” designed to hide extreme conservatism. “He’s trying to go through an extreme makeover. After running for more than a year in which he called himself severely conservative, Mitt Romney’s trying to convince you that he was severely kidding,” Obama told a 9,200-strong crowd.
• A man registering voters in Nevada may have implicated the Republican Party in a felony when was caught on video recently telling potential voters to register “non-partisan” because “I don’t get credit for Democrats.” Nevada television station KOLO obtained cell phone video of a man, who claimed he worked for the Republican Party, revealing that he was paid by the number of voters he registers, but only if they were not Democrats. “Could you do me a favor?” the man asked a potential voter. “Mark non-partisan on there. I’ll get credit for it. I don’t get credit for Democrats.” “I am a Democrat,” he added. “So I still do Democrats if I have to, but I’m working for the Republican Party. I have to get two an hour and I don’t get credit for Democrats.” According to the Nevada Revised Statutes, “It is unlawful for a person to provide compensation for registering voters that is based upon: (a) The total number of voters a person registers; or (b) The total number of voters a person registers in a particular political party.”
• Friday Night Lights franchise creator Peter Berg is taking serious issue with the Romney campaign’s re-purposing of his show’s signature quote, “Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t Lose.” The GOP nominee has uttered the phrase several times in stump speeches and it also appears, at the time of writing, in the banner image on his official Facebook page. In a letter sent to the Romney campaign [pdf], Berg says Romney’s incorporation of Coach Taylor’s immortal words into his rhetoric “falsely and inappropriately associates Friday Night Lights with the Romney/Ryan campaign.”
• Todd Akin said Thursday at a Tea Party meeting in Jefferson City, Missouri, that there’s no science behind evolution: “I don’t see it as even a matter of science because I don’t know that you can prove one or the other. That’s one of those things. We can talk about theology and all of those other things but I’m basically concerned about, you’ve got a choice between Claire McCaskill and myself. My job is to make the thing there. If we want to do theoretical stuff, we can do that, but I think I better stay on topic.”
• More than 100 people were injured in Egypt Friday as demonstrations both supporting and opposing President Mohamed Morsi converged and battled one another across Tahrir Square. According to Russia Today, the violent clashes between liberal groups and supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood started following the acquittal Wednesday of 25 officials in his predecessor Hosni Mubarak’s administration, who were accused of ordering authorities to use camels against protesters during the demonstrations last year that led to Mubarak’s resignation.
• Pakistani police have arrested a number of suspects in the case of a 14-year-old girl shot and wounded by the Taliban for promoting education for girls and criticizing the fundamentalist Islamic movement, officials said Friday. The shooting of Malala Yousufzai along with two classmates while they were on their way home from school Tuesday horrified people in Pakistan and internationally.
• 47%: During remarks at a fundraiser outside of Seattle, Republican congressional candidate John Koster derided people who had yet to achieve financial success, saying the government rewarded their “slothfulness and laziness.”
• A spokeswoman for U.S. pastor Terry Jones said Thursday that Canada has denied entry to the preacher, whose congregation held a Quran burning in March 2011 that triggered deadly protests in Afghanistan. Stephanie Sapp said fellow pastor and her husband Wayne Sapp, along with Jones, were turned back at the Michigan-Ontario border after being detained for several hours.
• The U.S. Secret Service arrested a Michigan man they allege stole a truck carrying equipment for Vice President Joe Biden’s security detail. Charles Rumbley, 45, of Detroit, could be sentenced to 10 years in prison if he’s convicted of stealing government property, charges filed Wednesday indicate. Authorities allege Rumbley stole a U-Haul truck parked outside a Detroit hotel Sept. 2. It contained $150,000 in metal detectors agents were going to use to screen people attending Biden’s campaign rally, the Detroit Free Press reported. Police recovered the truck the following day.