After Paul Ryan says Romney's a car guy, the attack is back.

"When Mr. Ryan said last night that Gov. Romney was a car guy, I thought, well, if having an elevator to stack them counts, I guess he was."

Source: youtube.com

Americans United For Change counts 22 times.

Source: youtube.com

The Vice President said Planned Parenthood under law couldn't perform abortions while campaigning in Wisconsin. A spokesperson says he was referring to federal funding, which the ban only applies to.

Source: youtube.com

Clinton gave her first major remarks on Libya since Oct. 3 this morning. House Republicans still not satisfied.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks Friday afternoon about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today gave her first comments in two weeks on the deaths of four Americans in Libya, saying that “no one wants to find out exactly what happens more than I do.”

Clinton's brief remarks on Libya — made, she said, "on a personal note" — came at the beginning of a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

Clinton has avoided most of the political heat aimed at the Obama Administration on security in the run-up to the attacks and explanations afterward. She did not testify at Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the attacks to the U.S. consulate in Libya. Clinton last addressed Benghazi at an Oct. 3 meeting with the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, when she noted — as an aside to her remarks about Kazakstan — that the State Department had formed an accountability review board to address Libya. “No one wants to detemine what happened that night in Benghazi more than the President and I do,” Clinton said then.

In line with the CSIS conference’s theme — North Africa and the Arab spring — Clinton warned that “we must not only focus on the headlines; we have to keep in mind the trendlines,” she said, referencing democratic transitions in the region. “It is important to look at the full picture — to weigh the violent acts of a small number of extremsists against the aspirations and actions of the region's people and governments.”

Clinton also condemned Thursday’s killing of Qassem Aqlan, a longtime employee of the U.S. embassay in Yemen. “We had another terrible attack yesterday,” said Clinton. “We are working with Yemeni authorities to investigate this attack and to bring those responsible to justice as well.”

Despite the building attention on Libya — with the high-profile House Oversight hearing Wednesday, followed by the emotional “Anderson 360’ interview with the mother of a Benghazi victim — Clinton has kept mostly out of view on the issue.

Obama campaign aide Stephanie Cutter did more press yesterday on Benghazi than Clinton has this month. In advance of the vice presidential debate Thursday, Cutter did four cable television hits — one on CNN, one on Fox News, and two on MSNBC — in which she was asked by hosts and pundits to defend the administration’s stance on Libya.

Cutter, the unlikely frontwoman for media attention on Benghazi, got heat for her comment that the “entire reason [Libya] has become the political topic it is, is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.” And shortly after the interviews, rumors of Cutter’s resignation cropped up on Twitter from conservative critics.

Whether or not the attacks on the consulate have been politized, those critical of the administration’s handling of Benghazi remain unsatisfied with the answers they’re getting.

Becca Watkins, Deputy Communications Director for the House Oversight Committee, told BuzzFeed that the committee members are unsure the State Department "has a plan to move forward based on the lessons learned from this tragedy.”

“So far, that hasn’t happened. We don’t have full information about what occured, and the committee is continuing to pursue multiple leads,” she said. “There is concern about the administration cherry-picking intelligence that suits a favored narrative.”

But in her remarks at CSIS this morning, Secretary Clinton said her newly-appointed accountability review board was still working "as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible," adding that "we cannot afford to sacrifice accuracy to speed."

The National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations is the first group to be tasked with addressing LGBT issues that arise in implementing the once-a-decade census. Could a “gay count” come in 2020?

Fifth Avenue during the New York City Gay Pride March on June 24, 2012.

Image by Michael Nagle / Getty Images

The U.S. Census Bureau announced Friday that it is seeking advice on how to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender populations in implementing the once-a-decade census.

The census, which has never counted LGBT people directly, has indirectly referenced gay people through its count of same-sex married couples and "unmarried partner" households in the past.

With the formation of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations, however, the Census Bureau today stated that it will be seeking advice from the 31-member committee "on topics such as housing, children, youth, poverty, privacy, race and ethnicity, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other populations." Specifically, the Bureau noted, the committee will provide advice on "a wide range of variables that affect the cost, accuracy and implementation of the Census Bureau's programs and surveys, including the once-a-decade census."

Although it is not clear whether a possibility of counting LGBT people directly through questions about sexual orientation or gender identity could be under consideration, LGBT advocates say this is the first Census Bureau advisory committee that specifically includes consideration of LGBT populations in its mission.

In addition, among the 31 members appointed to the committee is Shane Snowdon, who heads the LGBT Health and Aging Program of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT political organization. Also named was Charlotte Patterson, a professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Virginia. According to her UVA biography "she is best known for her studies of child development in the context of lesbian- and gay-parented families."

The announcement stated the members were chosen "based on expertise and knowledge of the cultural patterns, issues and/or statistical needs of hard-to-count populations." In a statement announcing the committee's formation, Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau's acting director, said, "We expect that the expertise of this committee will help us meet emerging challenges the Census Bureau faces in producing statistics about our diverse nation."

Of Snowdon's appointment, HRC's vice president of communications, Fred Sainz, told BuzzFeed today, "Shane Snowdon’s experience with data collection and engaging the LGBT community will make her a valuable asset to the Census Bureau. We are proud that she will be serving on this committee and ensuring that our families are counted."

Gary Gates, a prominent scholar on LGBT populations with UCLA's Williams Institute, was named to the Census Bureau's Scientific Advisory Committee in 2011, but that committee's mission includes no specific inclusion of LGBT issues.

“The odds favor Obama, but just very slightly. I'm voting for Romney,” says Miller. The view from the track.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The day after the vice-presidential debate in nearby Danville, hundreds of Kentuckians gathered at the Keeneland track in Lexington to watch thoroughbreds race, a hobby that consumed the locals much more than any political happening.

People who bet on horses in Kentucky are well-versed in the ins and outs of racing: the trainers, the owners, each horse's history of wins (or losses), everything down to the soil on the track. If pressed, bettors can also come up with a pretty good idea of who might win the presidential race.

"If I was betting, I would bet on Obama," said one of the Keeneland track doctors, who didn't want to be named. He wore a pair of small binoculars around his neck and explained his series of complicated bets that day to BuzzFeed ("I've been doing this for 35 years," he said. "Overall, I've come out ahead.")

"When I bet on a horse, I bet on who I think will be the winner," the doctor said. "But I'll be rooting for Romney. It's a close race, though. It's close and getting closer."

The doctor had watched the debate and thought Biden was much too "hot under the collar."

"He humiliated his opponent by laughing at him," he said.

A middle-aged Lexington man named Will Miller, like the track doctor, was standing near the TVs with a betting sheet in hand, like a number of other people — mostly middle-aged men — who were very serious about their betting.

"The odds favor Obama, but just very slightly," Miller said. "I'm voting for Romney."

Miller said he thought the odds could easily change, but his specialty was horses: "I study this stuff every day," he said.

Outside, where you could actually see the horses, the less serious bettors gathered.

One of them, a former teacher named Mary Barrett, was actually a resident of Westchester, New York in town to see the racing with her husband.

Asked who she'd bet on, Barrett said "I'm going with my heart but I'm going with Obama."

She "switched back and forth between the Yankees and the debate," so didn't catch all of it, but said she was impressed by Biden's performance. She'd been very disappointed by Obama last week, she said: "He didn't do it this time."

Shelby St. John, a physical therapist originally from Alabama who works with children and horses, was at the track by herself, having gotten a surprise half-day off from work. She's a horse lover, and explained some of the details of racing to BuzzFeed

"I don't know, because they seem even," St. John said. "I would vote for Romney, but..." St. John trailed off.

She didn't watch the debate.

"I didn't get to watch it," she said. "I was riding horses."

The court has placed the case on an expedited schedule.

President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks at a campaign event at The Ohio State University Oval, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio.

Image by Carolyn Kaster / AP

The Obama campaign on Friday night filed a brief in the Supreme Court, arguing that Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's reasons for asking the court to stop implementation of equal weekend early voting rules for all Ohio voters in a county are "simply not credible."

Earlier this week, Husted appealed a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that would permit counties to allow early voting on the weekend before next month's election for all voters in the county. Prior to the court battle, Ohio law allowed a small group of voters subject to a federal law regarding some military voters and their families to cast an early in-person ballot on the weekend before the election. Other voters, however, would be unable to do so.

In the Friday night filing, obtained by BuzzFeed, the Obama campaign and the Ohio Democratic Party argue that the case does not merit Supreme Court review and that, accordingly, the appeals court ruling should not be put on hold in the meantime. In part, they write:

[Husted and other defendants] seek an emergency stay of that injunction, but have utterly failed to carry their burden of showing that a stay is warranted, because they have satisfied none of the equitable factors required to justify such extraordinary relief—applicants have not demonstrated that they would suffer any irreparable harm if the injunction remains in place, any possible injury to applicants would be vastly outweighed by the substantial harm to the voting public occasioned by the State’s inequitable regime, and this Court is in any event unlikely to grant certiorari or reverse the court below. The application should be denied.

Additionally, several other states' attorneys general and military groups weighed in in support of Ohio's appeal today.

Obama Campaign Supreme Court Brief

State Attorneys General Brief

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The Getty Images photo was taken at a Romney/Ryan campaign event in Lancaster, Ohio on Friday. A Romney spokesperson commented that the shirt was “reprehensible and has no place in this election.”

(Getty)

Source: cache.daylife.com

BuzzFeed's resident web pioneer, Ze Frank, tackles the important questions like “whose ears are bigger?” Period. Period.

Source: youtube.com

The Republican vice presidential nominee attacks the Treasury Department for delaying a key report on currency manipulation until after the election. Ryan attacks even though he voted against bill to toughen sanctions on manipulators.

Image by Paul Vernon / AP

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, seeing an opening in a manufacturing-heavy swing state, attacked the Obama administration today for delaying a report on Chinese currency manipulation until after the election.

"The administration had their eighth chance to label china a currency manipulator," Ryan told an audience of several hundred at his town hall meeting at Youngstown State University, ascribing political motivation to the decision. "It's due in two days. They say they are going to push this deadline off until after the election."

On Friday the Treasury Department announced that it will delay publishing the semi-annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies to include the results of next month's G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers. The report, which can label trading partners as "currency manipulators," has been a focal point for Republican criticism of the Obama administration, as Mitt Romney and his running mate have pledged a tougher stance on Chinese intellectual property theft and unfair monetary policy.

"That's eight opportunities they had to say: You know what? Play fair with us — trade with us fairly," Ryan said. "We've lost hundreds of thousands of jobs according to one study because of just this problem. 2 million jobs we've lost, according to the International trade Commission, because of one country — China — taking our intellectual property rights."

"That's not correct, that's not right," Ryan added. "That's cheating."

The Treasury report has been frequently delayed to accomodate international meetings. The last one was held until May 25, 2012, and found significant intervention on the part of Chinese authorities to control their currency.

The issue is of particular importance in manufacturing areas, who are hard hit by Chinese imports made cheaper by Chinese efforts to keep the value of their currency low. And if the report were to label china as a manipulator, U.S. officials would be able to place duties on Chinese imports.

“Congressman Ryan’s tough rhetoric can’t hide the fact that Mitt Romney will never crack down on China’s cheating – just look at his record," said Obama spokesman Danny Kanner, who added that Romney's tax plan would create jobs overseas.

Ryan himself has wavered on the issue. In 2010, he voted against the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act which allows the federal government to impose penalties on manipulators.

"The administration doesn't need more tools, it needs leadership," said Ryan spokesman Michael Steel.

The U.S. Department of State released this transcript of a senior State Department Official's background briefing on the attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

September 12, 2012. A U.S. flag is seen at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

"All right. Let me proceed. I’m going to give you as much information as possible about the events of that night, but I am going to start with a scene-setter.

So let me set the stage. On April 5th, 2011, a small Department of State team headed by Chris Stevens arrives by chartered boat in Benghazi. They set up shop in a hotel. This is at a time when Benghazi was liberated, Qadhafi was still in power in Tripoli, the war was going on, our Ambassador had been expelled from Tripoli by Qadhafi, the Embassy staff had been evacuated because it was unsafe. So Chris Stevens coming back into Benghazi – coming into Benghazi on April 5th, 2011, is the only U.S. Government people in Libya at this time.

They set up shop in a hotel, as I mentioned. A few weeks later in June, a bomb explodes in the parking lot in front of the hotel. The group in Benghazi makes a decision to move to a new location. They move to a couple of places, and by August they settle on a large compound which is where the actual activity on 9/11 took place. So they’re in a large compound, where they remain.

The compound is roughly 300 yards long – that’s three football fields long – and a hundred yards wide. We need that much room to provide the best possible setback against car bombs. Over the next few months, physical security at the compound is strengthened. The outer wall is upgraded, its height is increased to nine feet.It is topped by three feet of barbed wire and concertina wire all around the huge property. External lighting is increased. Jersey barriers, which are big concrete blocks, are installed outside and inside the gate. Steel drop bars are added at the gates to control vehicle access and to provide some anti-ram protection. The buildings on the compound itself were strengthened.

The compound has four buildings on it, and you guys are going to have to get used to this, because I refer them to – as Building C, Building B, Tactical Operations Center, and a barracks. So Building C is a building that is essentially a large residence. It has numerous bedrooms and it is – it has a safe haven installed in it, and I’ll talk more about that in a minute. Building C ultimately is the building that the Ambassador was in, so keep that in your heads.

Building B is another residence on the compound. It has bedrooms and it has a cantina. That’s where the folks dine. The Tactical Operations Center, which is just across the way from Building B, has offices and a bedroom. That’s where the security officers had their main setup, that’s where the security cameras are, a lot of the phones – it’s basically their operations center. So I’ll call it the TOC from now on.

And then there was a barracks. The barracks is a small house by the front gate, the main gate of the compound. In that barracks is a Libyan security force which I’ll describe in a minute. Security on the compound consists of five Diplomatic Security special agents and four members of the Libyan Government security force, which I will henceforth call the 17th February Brigade. It is a militia, a friendly militia, which has basically been deputized by the Libyan Government to serve as our security, our host government security. In addition to all those, there is an additional security force at another U.S. compound two kilometers away. It serves as a rapid reaction force, a quick reaction security team – a quick reaction security team, okay?

Now we’re on the day of, and before I go into this discussion of the day of the events of 9/11, I’m going to be – I want to be clear to you all. I am giving you this – you my best shot on this one. I am giving you what I know. I am giving it to you in as much granularity as I possibly can. This is still, however, under investigation. There are other facts to be known, but I think I’m going to be able to give you quite a lot, as far as I know it. I have talked to the – to almost all the agents that were involved, as well as other people."

September 11, 2012. The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames.

"Okay. The Ambassador has arrived in Benghazi on the 10th of September. He does meetings both on the compound and off the compound on that day, spends the night. The next day is 9/11. He has all his – because it is 9/11, out of prudence, he has all his meetings on the compound. He receives a succession of visitors during the day.

About 7:30 in the evening, he has his last meeting. It is with a Turkish diplomat. And at – when the meeting is over, at 8:30 – he has all these meetings, by the way, in what I call Building C – when the meeting is over, he escorts the Turkish diplomat to the main gate. There is an agent there with them. They say goodbye. They’re out in a street in front of the compound. Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There’s nothing unusual. There has been nothing unusual during the day at all outside.

After he sees the Turkish diplomat off, the Ambassador returns to Building C, where the information management officer – his name is Sean Smith, and who is one of the victims – the information management officer – I’ll just call him Sean from now on, on this call – and four other – four Diplomatic Security agents are all at Building C. One Diplomatic Security agent is in the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center. All of these agents have their side arms."

View Entire List ›

Source: state.gov  /  via: @BuzzFeedBen

Once a month, congregants from Akin's church gather to protest abortion and emergency contraception. “He's gospel-driven, that's the bottom line. And he's not afraid to speak his mind.”

Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church in Ballwin, Mo.

BALLWIN, Mo. — On a clear, quiet autumn morning roughly half an hour outside of St. Louis, a handful of men and one woman gathered Saturday morning to protest at a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Holding signs that read, "THE PILL KILLS," "Planned Parenthood Kills Children" and — in honor of baseball season — "Support the Cards and unborn babies," the small gaggle of protestors was nearly indistinguishable from those that post up at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide.

But this protest offers a particular glimpse into one of the key stories in American politics this year. Three of the protestors had come on behalf of Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church, where Rep. Todd Akin — the embattled, conservative candidate for Senate here, who has turned an easy win for Republicans into an almost sure loser with comments on abortion and rape — and his family are among the congregants, and have known Akin for years. Akin, they said, has been a regular at their protests for years, and their memories offered a glimpse at the political roots of a man who burst onto the national stage as a pure caricature — the man who popularized the phrase "legitimate rape" and made clear that even members of Congress can have views of the human reproductive system that are at odds with modern science.

Here is the countervailing view of Akin: A devoted leader of the anti-abortion movement whose allies are more than willing to forgive him the occasional misstep.

"He's a humble, gentle, caring family man," said Kerry Brown, 52, who said he met Akin through church, where Akin at one time served among a select group of elders in the roughly 500-person congregation. "He's gospel-driven, that's the bottom line. And he's not afraid to speak his mind."

Just behind Brown, the church's steeple jutted out above lower-profile buildings, separated by just a small highway from the strip mall that houses Ballwin's Planned Parenthood clinic. The clinic, which does not perform abortions, isn't visible from the church steps, but the church can be seen from Planned Parenthood's front door. So the protestors weren't entirely in enemy territory.

Within a few minutes of each other, two drivers honked and waved affably. "Thank you!" one yelled out his car window.

The church's "Life Team" gathers here once a month, for an hour or so, to protest and to speak with those people coming and going from the clinic.

Akin hasn't joined in the monthly protests, the church congregants said, but has religiously attended the church's annual anti-abortion "Life Chain" events — until the one this year, roughly one week ago.

Rod Cunningham, one among the protesters, said he met Akin at the first Life Chain event at their previous church, Covenant Presbyterian Church, roughly 18 years ago, when Akin's youngest daughter "was still in the womb."

"This last week was the first time he hasn't been to Life Chain," Cunningham, 57, said of Akin," because of concerns for his safety and the safety of his family."

Those threats have come largely in response to Akin's remark that women's bodies can "shut down" a pregnancy in the case of "legitimate rape."

Kerry Brown said that comment was certainly a misstatement by Akin. "I know he wasn't intending to hurt anyone," Brown said. "That's just not the way he is."

He added, "He's very intelligent, and he knows what he's talking about."

It was at a protest such as this one, according to public remarks by Akin and his campaign, where Akin was arrested approximately 25 years ago. In a speech in 2011 Akin joked, "Don't tell anybody I'm a jail bird."

Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Akin, told the Associated Press last week that Akin had not been formally charged and the campaign would not be releasing further information about the incident.

Rod Cunningham said he was not aware of that incident, but had known other protestors whom had been arrested when the police had wanted to "make an example."

"The police need to be educated sometimes, too," Cunningham said.

One woman at Saturday's protest, who knows Akin from church but insisted on speaking off the record because she was disheartened by the media's treatment of Akin, had been arrested at a similar event before, Cunningham said. On this day, she was the target of vitriol.

As we conversed, a twenty-something man and his female companion left the clinic.

"You're not doing anything effective," the man shouted at the woman with whom I spoke, and the group at large. "You're just making a stupid point."

As his companion laughed and hopped into their car, the man continued, "You're just going to stand there and take it? Bend over and take it."

The protestors held their signs calmly, quietly, and the pair drove away.

“Really not the best plan,” Lynn Vincent tells The New Yorker .

Palin ghostwriter Lynn Vincent.

Via: lynnvincent.com

Add the ghostwriter of Sarah Palin's 2009 memoir, "Going Rogue" to the already swollen ranks of conservatives still shaking their heads over Palin's vice presidential nomination.

"Whatever anyone's opinion of her faults and failings, to tap someone to be a Veep candidate a few days before the Convention was really not the best plan," Lynn Vincent, a veteran ghostwriter of Christian memoirs who is credited as a collaborator on Palin's book, told The New Yorker in this week's issue.

Vincent's comment came in the course of a profile of the ghostwriter, a wildly successful author who is almost unknown in literary circles, but who is the master of the genre of inspirational narrative.

Vincent has been credited as co-author on several bestselling memoirs, but has no formal acknowledgement in Palin's book, and sources told the magazine's Ariel Levy that Palin and her team had "reworked" Vincent's draft because Palin felt it was "too down-homey."

Vincent, who is prevented by a non-disclosure agreement from discussing her collaboration with the former Alaska governor, is thanked on the second page of the book's acknowledgements for "her indispensible help in getting words on paper."

This appears not to have gone down well with Vincent.

"With Sarah Palin, it was, like, 'Thanks, Lynn Vincent, for taking out the trash,'" she said.

Ryan congratulated on his survival. “We were really impressed that you kept your composure,” the Republican is told.

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio. — Joe Biden's laughs have legs.

The dismissive and derisive side of the vice president is the image that is sticking around in the minds of many voters in Ohio after last week's debate with Paul Ryan.

At a stop at Bowling Green State University on Saturday, Ryan was repeatedly stopped and congratulated — not for winning the debate, but for putting up with his sparring partner.

Greeting a group of three class of ‘92 BGSU football players at a tailgate, Ryan quipped to one particularly large man, “Let me guess, you were the place kicker right?

"Defensive end, or tackle?” Ryan asked seriously. “Defensive end,” the man responded, before congratulating Ryan on keeping his cool against Biden.

“We were really impressed that you kept your composure,” he said. “We collectively could not have kept our composure. That was awesome.”

“You smoked Biden! You smoked him,” another man shouted from the bleachers as Ryan walked the sidelines.

Biden's laughing was instantly seized upon by Republicans as their way to claim victory on a night that what was for them, at best, a tie. Within two hours the Republican National Committee released a web video collecting the grins, smirks, and chuckles to portray the vice president as, in the words of Ryan aides, "rude" and disrespectful. And the Romney campaign followed up on Sunday with an ad contrasting Biden's guffaws with Ryan's policy talk.

Democrats adopted a similar strategy to less success the week before, trying to portray Romney as "testy," throughout the first presidential debate, but it was Obama's absence from the conversation that broke through. In the more muddled VP debate, Republicans — and even some independents — see a win for Ryan in Biden's attitude. (Various polls have suggested a tie or an advantage to Biden.)

"I don't know how he did it," said one older woman at a Ryan town hall in Youngstown earlier in the day who said she was an undecided voter, but is leaning Republican. "Ryan was so calm. Biden kept cutting him off."

Retired Paychex vice president Bob Sebo, a university benefactor and a GOP contributor, told BuzzFeed that Ryan won the debate just by being there.

"All Paul Ryan had to do was just sit there and do what he did," he said. "I thought he was excellent — what he had to say. The vice president was a major disappointment. He was rude, he came off like a buffoon. Actually he was a disgrace."

Source: youtube.com

Specter was first elected to the Senate in 1980 and served as a moderate Republican until he left the GOP in 2009, and lost his seat in 2010. He was 82 years old.

1965.

Image by File / AP

WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Arlen Specter, a one time Republican moderate who ultimately abandoned the GOP in the face of the growing Tea Party movement, passed away Sunday, according to the Associated Press.

1981. C. Everett Koop with U.S. Senators Arlen Specter and Orrin Hatch.

Source: Courtesy of C. Everett Koop.  /  via: profiles.nlm.nih.gov

Specter, 82, died after a long battle with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

A former prosecutor, Specter was elected to the Senate in 1980 and quickly made a name for himself on the Judiciary Committee.

Although often viewed as prickly and gruff, Specter had a dry sense of humor and developed close personal relationships with many of his colleagues. And while he also had a reputation in the halls of Congress as a task master, many of his staff remained fiercely loyal him, moving parties with him when he changed allegiances in 2009.

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David Rivera claims a source is colluding with a Miami Herald reporter to attack him, but doesn't offer proof.

Source: youtube.com

Nobody's talking about “this whole thing with Todd,” and a supporter notes that “some rapes are very legitimate. ” “We're praying for you hard.”

Akin's "Show Me Courage" benefit dinner in Kansas City.

RAYTOWN, Mo. — Rep. Todd Akin's campaign is praying for a miracle.

Outspent by Sen. Claire McCaskill and abandoned by most of the Republican Party, the Akin campaign is unambiguously seeking to rally the conservative, religious right during the final weeks before the election.

This weekend, that dynamic played out in the Kansas City metropolitan area, where Akin hosted a closed-door fundraiser and attended church.

"Lord, he is on assignment directly for you," Pastor Sharon Allen said of Akin during her benediction at the fundraiser, held in a half-full Marriott ballroom Saturday evening in downtown Kansas City.

The dinner felt closer to a church service than a fundraiser for a U.S. Senate candidate. At the end of the evening, volunteers milled about the room with wicker baskets, soliciting donations.

Only the heads of tables had paid for their seats, according to guests at the event. In all, roughly 360 people filled 37 tables; two tables were empty. "We wanted fifty tables," one Akin aide said, "but it became clear that wasn't going to happen."

Jack Cashill, a Republican writer who has publicly theorized that Bill Ayers ghostwrote President Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, emceed the event; Rep. J.C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican, attended, as did Bill Randles, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor this year.

Among the supporters at the event, many expressed fear for the future of the Republican Party, which they perceive as listing to a dangerous degree, here and nationwide.

"The closer we get to losing our nation and our republic, the more vital his election is," said Jinny Walz, a Missouri native who lives now in Hutchinson, Kan., and attended Akin's fundraiser Saturday.

That the GOP had largely disowned Akin had only inspired Walz to support Akin more fervently. When asked whether she thought Akin had been treated unfairly by his party, she said, "Oh my goodness, that's why I'm here. I'm just sickened by it."

"They treat conservatives as they would prostitutes," said Walz, whose business card described her simply as a "Conservative." "They need them and they use them at night, for the vote, when no one's looking. Then, in the morning, after the election, they pretend they don't know us."

Todd Isaac Skelton, of Lebanon, Mo., who lost in a primary this year for a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives, agreed that his party's treatment of Akin has been "unfortunate."

"It almost looks like they would be all right with Claire McCaskill winning instead of Todd Akin," Skelton said.

Few people spoke explicitly about Akin's now-infamous remark that women's bodies can prevent pregnancy in the case of "legitimate rape"; most referred to the controversy simply as "this whole thing with Todd." But donors were quick to defend the candidate.

"Some rapes are very legitimate. Some are not," said Steven Athans, of Columbia, Mo. "He was just clarifying whether or not it was truly a rape. It was blown way out of propotion."

Athans, a field missionary who earns money working part-time at Macy's, insisted that whether Akin wins could decide the future of the Republican Party.

"I don't want to move to the center and leave my core behind," Athans said.

The next morning, Akin attended church as he does each week; on this Sunday, his campaign had organized a stop at First Baptist Church in Raytown, Mo., approximately 15 minutes south of Kansas City.

Down the road from the megachurch, a large Akin yard sign that was missing its "T" read, "odd Akin." But, inside of the church, there was respect for the candidate: When he was introduced near the end of the morning worship, the congregation of more than 1,000 people applauded; a few rose to their feet. Akin and his wife, Lulli, stood and waved.

After the service, as most congregants filed out, some introduced themselves to Akin. "We're praying for you," one woman said seriously. "We're praying for you hard." Others echoed that refrain.

Todd and Lulli Akin joined with a handful of congregants in a circle, bowed their heads, and prayed along with them.

At one point, as a man talked to Todd Akin about his interview with Sean Hannity, another man asked Lulli Akin about Todd Akin's remark about "legitimate rape." They'd leave that to other people to argue over, Lulli Akin said. "But plenty of women are for Todd," she added.

One of the Akins' daughters, Abigail Akin, looked on as her parents mingled.

Abigail Akin had helped to organize the fundraiser Saturday evening, and she said she was in the process of planning the campaign's election-night party. Although she has traveled somewhat with the campaign, she's had to cut back—she kept getting sick, she said.

"I don't know how they do it," she said, looking to her parents. "I really think it is the Lord."

As Todd Akin and his wife filed out of their pew to leave, he looked at me and stopped. He smiled.

"Thank you for coming," he said, touching my arm. "God bless you."

Jason Thompson, the son of former Governor and Wisconson Senate candidate Tommy Thompson, speaking this morning at a brunch attended RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said that “we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago — or Kenya.” A woman in attendance then chimed in “we are taking donations for that Kenya trip.” A spokesman for Thompson did not immediately return a request for comment. Update The Thompson campaign emails: “The Governor has addressed this with his son, just like any father would do. Jason Thompson said something he should not have, and he apologizes.” The spokesperson added that Tommy Thompson himself was not in attendance at the event.

Source: youtube.com

“Actually…” is a new anti-Romney video series featuring monologues written and performed by celebrities, beginning with Rosie Perez addressing Romney's comments – from the 47% video – that he would have an easier time being elected if he was Latino. The group behind the series, the Jewish Council for Education and Research and the SuperPAC American Bridge, says the videos will address “Romney's most outrageous lies and most out-of-touch statements.”

Source: youtube.com  /  via: actually.org

The Republican nominee's father didn't walk out of the '64 convention. And George Romney didn't teach Mitt that you lose by being honest — he taught him that you change your positions to win.

Everyone agrees: Mitt Romney is not like his father.

The late Michigan governor and 1968 presidential candidate George Romney is remembered as a principled man of spontaneity and candor. His example is regularly invoked by both admirers of his son's disciplined campaign style and critics of Mitt's back-and-forth pandering. George, it is said, told the truth about the Vietnam War before it was popular to do so, with an unfortunately worded comment about “brainwashing” by U.S. government officials that cost him the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. “Mitt learned at an impressionable age that in politics, authenticity kills,” historian Rick Perlstein wrote in Rolling Stone earlier this year. “Heeding the lesson of his father's fall, he became a virtual parody of an inauthentic politician.”

This rejection of his father’s example, the thinking goes, is what has made Mitt a more successful presidential candidate — self-controlled but hard to pin down, flipping from moderate to conservative to moderate once again. It is observed that Mitt would never draw a line in the sand like his father did in 1964, when George dramatically "charged out of the 1964 Republican National Convention over the party's foot-dragging on civil rights," as the Boston Globe's authoritative biography, "The Real Romney," put it earlier this year. Outlets from the New York Times to the New Republic have recalled this story of the elder Romney's stand against Goldwater's hard-line conservatives. Frontline’s documentary “The Choice 2012” reported it as a formative event: “when Goldwater received the nomination, Mitt saw his father angrily storm out.” A Google search for the incident produces hundreds of pages of results. In August, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne cited the episode to write that Mitt “has seemed more a politician who would do whatever it took to close a deal than a leader driven by conviction and commitment. This is a problem George Romney never had.”

Only George Romney did not walk out of the 1964 Republican National Convention. He stayed until the very end, formally seconding Goldwater’s eventual nomination and later standing by while an actual walkout took place. He left the convention holding open the possibility of endorsing Goldwater and then, after a unity summit in Hershey, Pennsylvania, momentarily endorsed the Arizona senator. Then he changed his mind while his top aides polled “all-white and race-conscious” Michigan communities for a “secret” white backlash vote against LBJ’s civil rights advances — a backlash that might have made a Goldwater endorsement palatable at home. Finding the Republican label even more unpopular than civil rights in Michigan, Romney ultimately distanced himself from the entire party, including his own moderate Republican allies.

Exactly where the 1964 myth entered the public consciousness is difficult to pinpoint, but it has been promoted by Mitt, who made one of its earliest print mentions in an interview during his 1994 U.S. Senate campaign. (Romney's longtime spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom did not respond to an inquiry about Mitt's recollection of the incident.) “[My father] walked out of the Republican National Convention in 1964, when Barry Goldwater said, 'Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,'" he told Bay Windows, a LGBT interest magazine in Boston.

"I don't remember him walking out, no,” Walt DeVries, a George Romney aide who was with him at the 1964 convention, told BuzzFeed in an interview this October 13. “Every time I see that quote from Mitt, I just don't remember.... I've searched my mind, and I think I would have."

The phrase “walk out” was first associated with Romney’s 1964 actions, ironically, when Barry Goldwater told Human Events magazine in August 1966 that Republicans wouldn’t nominate someone in 1968 who “took a walk-out in 1964.” After 1994, Mitt mentioned the alleged incident again to the Globe in 2005, ten years after the elder Romney’s death and late in Mitt’s single term as Massachusetts governor. The assertion was repeated later that year in an Atlantic profile. Soon after, Romney began seeking the presidency and realigning his views to match the conservative national Republican electorate. Thus, the myth he contributed to became a foil to his pandering.

This prevalence of this myth in the media over the last six years has led to a broader failure to capture the full portrait of George Romney’s political biography, and by proxy, the 2012 Republican nominee. The story of a son scarred by his father’s defeat and rebelling against his example is a compelling narrative, but such a narrative focuses only on the latter, losing half of George Romney’s career — a time, notably, when Mitt Romney wasn’t even around. (He was abroad for his church mission from July 1966 through December 1968.) But Mitt was there in 1962 and 1964 for his father’s winning Michigan campaigns.

In fact, it was at the very start of his 1962 campaign that George Romney became the first person to walk back a Mitt Romney statement. It was a February morning in Detroit, 1962, the day George revealed his candidacy for Michigan’s governorship after widely publicizing his deliberations. Fourteen-year-old Willard, who told reporters to “call me Mitt,” was the only one of the four Romney children present that day. Mitt’s sisters were married with children, living in other cities by then, and his older brother was abroad serving his church mission. Mitt was the only one at home in Michigan for the ’62 campaign, marching alongside his parents in parades, appearing as a star attraction at a “teenage Republicans” rally and ceremonially delivering nominating petition signatures to the statehouse in Lansing. In a way, Mitt Romney was a junior candidate that year, so it was only natural that he found himself talking to the press at the announcement, where he merely repeated what his father had told him: the day before, George Romney had woken at 3:30 a.m. and decided he would run for governor.

As innocent as that seemed, it was not what his father wanted the journalists to hear, for the day before George Romney had been on the clock as a delegate to the Michigan state constitutional convention. George believed the convention to be civic work that should not mix with politics (a ridiculous notion, since the convention was elected on an explicitly partisan basis and stocked with politicians). George insisted that Mitt was mistaken: his “final decision” had not come until later on his drive from Lansing, after a respectable distance between his ambition and the convention had been established.

This was George Romney as he was known in his day: a politician who held himself above politics with a stubborn, moralizing insistence that he was guided by principle and only by principle. These were not Republican principles or ideological principles, but his principles. He imbued his every action with “cosmic significance,” as journalist David Broder put it. Touched by God, he was assured that wherever he stood at the moment was the right and just place to be, no matter where he had stood before or how recently he had stood there. “He’ll take a position honestly, and if it doesn’t fit with something else he’s done, that doesn’t faze him,” an associate said at the start of Romney’s political career in 1962. By the time he set out for the presidency in 1967, Broder and Stephen Hess wrote that voters would find him a candidate of contradiction, “[f]or rarely have the words and deeds of a public man run on such separate tracks.”

Romney was blessed with good looks and astounding determination; a man who’d begun with nothing and earned a trophy chest of professional triumphs. He couldn’t be faulted for believing he was a superman. His family certainly seemed to think so — his youngest son Mitt most of all. Once, when Mitt’s mother Lenore Romney told him that they couldn’t take a certain route “because we can’t drive on water,” her son replied, “No, I guess not, since Dad’s not with us.”

This is the heroic, can-do figure Mitt Romney grew up watching. Mitt did not see his father lose the presidential race, but he was present for some big victories. To study that period of the Romney family's political history is to reveal a calculating, poll-driven politician. It is to reveal a profile strikingly similar to the opportunistic Romney we know today.

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