The Anti-Defamation League has compiled newspaper cartoons depicting what they describe as “the Arab media's demonization of the 2012 presidential election and the US-Israeli relationship.”

Sept. 10 cartoon from Saudi Arabia's Al-Watan paper.

Via: adl.org

Oct. 10 cartoon from an Oman paper. The cartoon's headline: "American Presidential Debates."

Via: adl.org

Aug. 3 cartoon from Al-'Arab, a paper in Qatar. Written in Arabic: "Israel."

Via: adl.org

Aug. 1 cartoon from The Alghad, an Arabic daily national newspaper in Jordan. The cartoon's headline: "'Romeo' of the US Elections!"

Via: adl.org

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“If Claire McCaskill were a dog, she'd be a 'Bullshitsu,'” campaign adviser tweets.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A top campaign adviser to Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, compared Akin's opponent to a dog via Twitter on Monday, apparently running with a remark made by the candidate over the weekend.

"If Claire McCaskill were a dog, she'd be a 'Bullshitsu,'" Rick Tyler tweeted Monday.

When BuzzFeed asked Tyler, via email, whether the tweet was a joke, he responded, "Yes. It was a joke. Get it?"

On Saturday, Akin remarked at a fundraising event that his opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, "fetches" government from Washington, like "one of those dogs."

The remark drew criticism, particularly in light of some of Akin's earlier comments, including one in which he said women's bodies can prevent pregnancies in the event of "legitimate rape."

Harsh words from the 2008 Republican nominee.

Image by Northwest Florida Daily News, Nick Tomecek / AP

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Sen. John McCain said Monday that if President Barack Obama is to take credit for killing Osama bin Laden in tonight's debate, he must also bear the responsibility for the turmoil in the Middle East.

Speaking to reporters in the spin room hours before the third and final presidential debate, McCain slammed Obama for conveying a sense of "weakness" to allies and foes across the globe.

"I think that all Americans give the president credit for the elimination of OBL," McCain said. "And then he should take credit for the abject failure throughout the Middle East. Al Qaeda is resurgent throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, all of North Africa, Libya, Mali. They’re returning because we’re weak."

"I don’t think he let off of al Qaeda," McCain added, answering a reporter's question. "I think that he has projected a position of weakness and a position of lack of leadership —as he calls it leading from behind."

McCain also laid into Obama for silence on Syria, saying his failure to take a more forceful position risks a regional crisis.

"How do justify over 30,000 people being massacred in Syria and I’ve heard him speak out on their behalf once — once — while arms are pouring in from the Russians, Iranians are there on the ground. And what has this administration done? Absolutely nothing. And just as many of us have predicted, it’s beginning to spill over in to Lebanon, into Jordan, into the other countries in the region, and we are on the verge of a serious crisis."

The 2008 Republican nominee also had harsh words to say about Obama's handling of the Benghazi attack, saying the administration is either incompetent or lying to the American people.

"And on the Libya thing, it’s either absolute and total incompetence, or willfully deceiving the American people. We know that this was no a spontaneous demonstration. We know that it was not fueled by a hateful video. It was an al Qaeda affiliated group that had attacked our consulate twice before. How he thinks he can fool the American people on this one, I don’t know."

This is it people, the last live-GIF'd debate until 2016!

Tonight was the last presidential debate.

Source: gifwich.com

Source: jestcomedy

The subject was foreign policy.

Source: gifwich.com

President Obama was in good spirits

Source: theatlantic

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Or anyone else for that matter.

Source: @glennbeck

George W. Who? Forgetting the neocons, Romney slides to the center in the final debate.

Supporters of Pakistan's religious political party Sunni Tehreek hold banner and party flags during an anti-U.S. rally in Lahore October 17, 2012. About 500 hundred supporters took part in a protest rally on Wednesday against an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. mocking Prophet Mohammad. The placard reads in Urdu "Front for the protection of the honor of the prophet".

Image by Mohsin Raza / Reuters

BOCA RATON, Fla. — At the final presidential debate at Lynn University, President Barack Obama didn’t allow Mitt Romney to turn as smoothly to the center as the former Massachusetts governor did earlier this month in Denver.

Instead, Obama quickly pointed out how Romney either agreed with the administration’s fundamental policy — on Iran, it “sounded like you thought that you'd do some things we did, but you'd say them louder and somehow that that would make a difference" — or offered a withering takedown of the governor’s plan: “Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets,” Obama said in response to Romney's demands for a larger Navy.

Still, Romney used the final debate to pivot to the center, embracing a host of foreign policy positions that fall squarely within Washington’s bipartisan national security consensus, while distancing himself from the Bush administration’s neoconservative record.

“We don't want another Iraq. We don't want another Afghanistan,” Romney said, sounding like a member of Obama’s National Security Council. “That's not the right course for us."

It was a somewhat awkward position for a candidate whose foreign policy team is largely made up of Bush era talent, including former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and Dan Senor, who played an intimate role in America’s bungled occupation of Iraq. But the list of policies where Romney now agreed with Obama was striking: that the president had been successful against Al Qaeda; that he would have supported the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; that he would not order a military invention in Syria; that he would hold talks with Iran, and would do everything to avoid a war; and even that the surge in Afghanistan was a “success.”

Obama didn’t let this shift go unnoticed, using a variation of these answers multiple times. “And you know, Governor Romney, I'm glad that you agree that we have been successful in going after al-Qaida,” Obama said in response to Romney’s praise of the Bin Laden hit. “And you know, I'm glad that Governor Romney agrees with the steps that we're taking,” Obama said later about Iran. And Romney let Obama off the hook, too. “And I — I don’t blame the administration for the fact that the relationship with Pakistan is strained,” and later saying, “I couldn’t agree more about going forward.”

(Weirdly, Afghanistan was one area where Romney could have made a clear case to show a major policy failure—the most recent report card from the military points out that there were more Taliban attacks in August 2012 than there was in August 2009. “And — and we're going to be able to make that transition by the end of — of 2014,” Romney said, in what was almost indentical language to Obama’s description of his Afghan policy. “So our troops'll come home at that point.”)

The exchange of the night, however, occurred over the proposed cuts in defense spending—not even cuts, actually, just maintaining the current 700 billion dollar a year Pentagon budget, which makes up close to 50 percent of federal spending.

“The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now down to 285,” Romney said, adding. “Our Air Force is older and smaller than any time since it was founded in 1947.”

“We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines,” Obama said. “And so the question is not a game of Battleship where we're counting ships. It's — it's what are our capabilities.”

It was a line that pleased Chicago, and the crowd, which erupted in laughter.

“It was an effective line, what the president was getting at [was] simply [that] counting the number of ships was not the primary or correct metric of judging America power,” Obama foreign policy advisor and former assistant secretary of defense Michele Flournoy told BuzzFeed. “This president has sustained our investment in our military he’s adapted it for the future.”

Obama also criticized Pakistan — a recipient of more than $1 billion in foreign aid a year — in quite strong language, saying that had he told Islambad about the May 2011 raid in Abottabad, the Pakistanis would have tipped off Bin Laden.

“And if we had asked Pakistan for permission, we would not have gotten him,” Obama said. His advisers, though, were quick to wave away any suggestion that Islamabad might interpret his comment as an insult.

“I certainly don’t believe so,” Flournoy said, adding that the Pakistanis had blown earlier operations. “I think that based on prior experience when there have been situations where information has been shared sometimes there have been compromises.”

The question that still lingers for Chicago: was this enough to regain the momentum? There are 14 days left to find out.

The best quips, 140 characters at a time.

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Another debate, another move to the middle — this time on foreign policy. “We can't kill our way out of this mess.”

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Mitt Romney strained Thursday to reassure voters that he won't rush America to war, a studied reversal from the unapologetically hawkish persona he has presented for much of the year.

It was a performance that served, in many ways, as the grand finale to his monthlong march to the middle: A foreign policy debate where Romney presented himself as a new kind of peace-and-love Republican, whose softened rhetoric appeared to be defined in opposition to the hawkish — and deeply unpopular — neoconservative policies of the Bush years.

Every answer he gave was infused with this new tone. Speaking of the Middle East, Romney declared, "We can't kill our way out of this mess." In Syria, he said he was committed to removing Assad from power, but definitively ruled out the use of military force. And on Iran — which Romney has repeatedly identified as the country's greatest threat — the Republican took pains to insist he had no interest in going to war with them, insisting he would "only consider it if all of the other avenues had been tried to their full extent." One of those potential avenues, he suggested for the first time in the debate, could be the United Nations indicting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Overall, Romney's decidedly dovish nods toward military restraint — his advisers in the spin room afterward preferred "peace through strength" — comprised an appeal to a war-weary country that still has tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan.

"We want people to be able to enjoy their lives, and know they're going to have a bright and prosperous future, not be at war," Romney said. "That's our purpose."

After the debate, Romney's aides and surrogates insisted this philosophy had been at the center of his foreign policy all along. And if the tone seemed noticably softer since the tough talk of the primaries, it was only because he was trying to fight an unfair caricature, drawn by the Democrats, that he was a Republican warmonger, surrogates said.

"The Democrats are trying to push this idea that's false. I even heard it here in the spin room before the debate, this idea that, 'Oh, we can't go to war, that can't be our answer' — as if that's Mitt Romney's answer!" intoned campaign adviser Bay Buchanan. "It's not! It never has been.They've been misleading people into believing it."

President Obama himself alternated throughout the debate between casting his opponent as a neophyte, and as an extremist hawk, arguing that Romney has "often talked as if we should take premature military action."

Buchanan offered a full-throated rejection of the notion. On the question of a Syria intervention, for instance, she said, "I think what Mitt Romney made extremely clear was war is not the answer. We're not going to take military into Syria. That would be foolhardy."

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus similarly suggested that Romney had to use Monday night to push back against a false narrative that he would be a reckless, trigger-happy commander-in-chief.

"He used 90 minutes of unfiltered debate time to show Mitt Romney is not who President Obama has been trying to portray," said Priebus. "That in fact Mitt Romney is intelligent, reasonable, and presidential."

Senator Kelly Ayotte, an increasingly visible surrogate for Romney on foreign affairs, added, "The president would like to tie Mitt Romney to every single policy of the Bush administration. Mitt Romney is going to be his own man."

One Republican close to the campaign said the appeal to peace-making on display Monday night was part of a larger message they've been crafting since August.

"It's just like the convention," the Republican said. "It's the 'we're not Bush, we're not crazy' argument."

But as Romney continues to see his polls climb as he sashays toward the political center, Obama's campaign has grown increasingly vocal in calling him out on perceived flip-flops. Monday night was no exception.

"His previous rhetoric has been full of bluster, been full of taking tooth," said Michele Flournoy, a foreign policy adviser to the president. "His criticism has implied that he would be quicker to use force. You saw him backpedal. A picture of a constantly changing position... That doesn't cut it as commander."

By the Republican outside group Crossroads Generation.

Source: youtube.com

“Make or break.”

Supporters of U.S. President Barack Obama take photographs with their cameras during his campaign rally at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, October 17.

Image by Jason Reed / Reuters

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Monday night’s debate may have centered on foreign policy, but the topic of discussion in the spin room — and the center of the campaign for the next 14 days — was halfway across the country in the state that both campaigns have concluded will likely decide the election.

Ohio, which saved George W. Bush's presidency in the last hard-fought re-election campaign, has become pivotal again in this election, offering President Obama a bulwark against his Republican foe and Mitt Romney his only shot at the White House.

And so both candidates Monday stressed that they would fight China tooth and nail for the manufacturing jobs that have fled the Midwest. President Obama, in a foreign policy debate, welcomed a detour into a debate over the car industry. And in the debate's final moments, Obama went out of his way to cite the importance of Ohio.

Despite a recent spate of national polling showing the Republican leading nationally, Ohio has remained blue, with a modest, but sustained, move in Romney’s direction. And in the crucial electoral college, both parties agree Romney’s path to the White House is nearly nonexistent without Ohio, while Obama’s options would be severely complicated.

“Romney virtually has no path to 270 without Ohio, and we’ve always had additional paths,” maintained DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse. “He hasn’t broken the code in Ohio — he’s been behind the whole time.”

“I think Ohio is a make or break state for Romney, and it is a critical state for us,” he added.

"You can probably win the presidency without Ohio but I wouldn't want to take the risk, and no Republican has," said Ohio Senator Rob Portman.

Democrats are quick to cite their impressive ground game in the state, and their lead in the early vote, as reasons they believe they are winning in Ohio. Republicans admit they are playing catch-up, but say the momentum is on their side. The campaigns have traded dueling memos on the early vote in Ohio in recent days, with each side claiming the numbers are on their side.

“If you look at the early vote, that’s the best intensity measure,” Messina said when asked about a persistent lack of enthusiasm seen among Democratic voters in polls across the country. “And we are 2-1 leading in Ohio.”

“They always win the early vote,” said RNC communications director Sean Spicer. “What’s happening is they are winning the early vote by a smaller margin than 2008 and we’re performing better.”

Romney and the RNC are poised to make their six millionth voter contact this election cycle in Ohio this coming week as well as their 2 millionth door knock.

“There is just no comparison to the ground game four years ago,” Ohio state director Scott Jennings told BuzzFeed.

Romney aides also emphasize that they are only now out-spending Obama in the state in combined Romney, RNC, and outside group spending. Just Monday the RNC’s independent expenditure arm increased its buy in Ohio by $3 million.

The Obama campaign is wary of showing any sign of weakness in the Buckeye state. Campaign manager Jim Messina declared on Tuesday that the state is not, as Republicans claim, a “dead heat.”

“We have a lead in Ohio. We’re going to win Ohio,” he told reporters after the debate.

The Obama campaign has dwelled, in particular, on the strength of a field organizing program that they began building for the 2007 Democratic Primary and never really switched off.

“The next 15 days are about two things, and two things only: persuading the undecided and turning out your vote,” Messina said. “And we have the ground operation in Ohio and they don’t.”

“We think we have a good lead in Ohio,” echoed senior adviser David Plouffe minutes later. “If [Romney] loses Ohio, if he loses Florida, obviously his task becomes monumental again. We still think from an Electoral College standpoint that we have a lot more ways to put our Rubik’s cube together.”

Romney aides confirmed that he will spend Thursday and Friday in the state, while Paul Ryan will be there Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Jennings said Romney and Ryan will be in Ohio “a bushel- or a bucket-load,” from now to election day, adding “but I’m not sure which.”

Jennings dismissed a Quinnipiac University poll conducted for The New York Times and CBS News and released Monday showing Obama up by five points in the state, arguing that it had a Democrat-heavy sample, pointing to an array of other polls showing a tighter race.

“But even the bad polls show that we’re overwhelmingly winning independents,” Jennings said. “We’re steadily tracking in the right direction, and momentum means a lot in politics. We’re on a path to overtake these guys and win this state.”

Republicans maintain that Obama is underperforming in in the counties encompassing Columbus and Toledo — both strongholds — while they are surpassing 2008 totals particularly around Cincinnati. Plouffe said the Obama campaign has its hopes hanging on Toledo, Canton, and Akron — cities benefiting from the auto-bailout.

With both campaigns flush with cash, neither side will have to alter TV buying habits in the final two weeks in Ohio, where they’ve each bought nearly as much airtime as is available.

“We’re just not forced to make decisions about resources,” Woodhouse said in an sentiment echoed by his counterparts across the aisle. “At some point you have to make a decision about where to send principles in the final days — sending them to Ohio or elsewhere. One thing we don’t have to decide is where to spend money.”

Two moderators provoked lively, interesting debates this cycle. Two did not.

Image by Pool / Reuters

BOCA RATON, Fla. — "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer, the moderator of the foreign policy presidential debate, did a fine job of staying out of the way and not becoming the story. But Schieffer let both candidates ramble about domestic policy for large portions without an effort to steer them back to the subject at hand, leading some on Twitter to inquire about his health. At one point the candidates were talking about class sizes.

The performance brought uncomfortable comparisons to Jim Lehrer, moderator of the first debate, who was panned by his TV rivals for letting the candidates walk all over his attempts to enforce time limits and topic changes. 2012 was a fraught year of intense scrutiny for the moderators, but if anyone remembers who moderated at all, they'll remember that the fiery debates were stoked by Martha Raddatz and Candy Crowley — not the ponderous ones shepherded by the two more expected older male moderators.

In a year where it seemed impossible that a moderator could do their job without an explosion of criticism in the online media and on Twitter, Raddatz and Crowley got the best reception — though Crowley did catch some flak for disobeying the Commission on Presidential Debates' rules and asking the candidates follow-up questions. Raddatz was almost a universal hit; some people half-jokingly even wanted to vote for her for president.

In the spin room after the debate, some surrogates were careful not to pick favorites when it came to surrogates.

"It's like picking amongst your children," said Obama campaign press secretary Jen Psaki. "I'll never do it."

She was echoed by deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, who said, "I love them all."

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the debate "90 minutes of pure gold."

He defended the fact that the candidates often strayed from foreign policy, saying "Obviously they were both looking to find ways to bring it back to domestic policy. I think it's important to talk about and clear why we would pivot to the economy, and a strong economy is important to having a strong presence around the world."

"I don't really get into the judging games with the moderators, but I like Bob Schieffer a whole lot, I think he's a good man. I don't have a problem with Candy either," Priebus said. "I haven't really dealt with Jim or Martha Raddatz."

The candidates on Monday seemed often to agree and weren't pressed to outline their differences, leading to 90 minutes of amiable, bad television. Raddatz, who pressured the vice presidential candidates for specifics and got them going against each other, or Crowley, who forced the candidates to clarify their positions with follow-ups and enforced time rules, managed to keep their debates moving quickly and on the topics prompted by the questions.

It's not as if the CPD chose totally out-of-the-box people to moderate the debates in any case. There's little room for innovation in something as codified as a presidential debate. But the fact that both of the really interesting debates were moderated by women emphasizes the staleness of the traditional model, represented by Lehrer and Schieffer.

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Despite delay, despite Romney's support for a federal marriage amendment, and despite saying other races will be their priority, the group of gay Republicans backs Romney's presidential bid.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney got the backing of the Log Cabin Republicans today.

Image by Pool / Reuters

After much delay, Log Cabin Republicans — an organization of gay Republicans — announced today that it has issued a "qualified endorsement" of Mitt Romney for president. The organization did so despite Romney's recently renewed support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex couples from marrying.

In explaining the move, the organization states in its full endorsement statement, "The qualified nature of this endorsement means that Log Cabin Republicans will be most active in our support for House and Senate candidates. ... While many of our members will also be working hard on behalf of Governor Romney, growing the pro-equality Republican presence in the House and Senate is our highest electoral priority this year."

In its broad news release, however, it did not note the endorsement as "qualified," saying only "the National Board of Directors of the Log Cabin Republicans has elected to endorse Governor Romney for president."

R. Clarke Cooper, the group's executive director, defended the endorsement in a statement, saying "Despite our disagreement with Governor Romney on the issue of marriage, on balance it is clear that in today's economic climate, concern for the future of our country must be the highest priority. We are Republicans, and we agree with Governor Romney's vision for America in which success is a virtue, equal opportunity is ensured, and leaders recognize that it is the American people, not government, that build our nation and fuel its prosperity."

Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams told BuzzFeed, "Governor Romney welcomes the endorsement of the Log Cabin Republicans and appreciates their support."

Ted Olson, the former George W. Bush administration lawyer who is now one of the lead lawyers challenging Proposition 8, is in a similar position — fighting for marriage equality for same-sex couples and supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket.

"Like the Log Cabin Republicans, I am proud to support Governor Romney for president, and I am proud to be an advocate for the freedom to marry," Olson said in the LCR statement. "This endorsement speaks to Log Cabin's principled belief in equality for all Americans, and the pragmatic recognition that our nation is in need of new leadership. Getting our fiscal house in order is more than an economic imperative - it's a moral imperative. Gay or straight, Americans deserve a president who will secure a future for our children that doesn't leave them buried in debt."

The NOM Pledge

Regarding the National Organization for Marriage pledge that Romney signed in 2011, the LCR full statement notes, "From the day Governor Romney signed this pledge, Log Cabin has been outspoken in our opposition to this exercise in an outdated politics of division. Even with this endorsement, we will continue to voice our disagreement with any call for a constitutional amendment federalizing a definition of marriage that excludes LGBT families."

"While even the suggestion of enshrining discrimination in our nation's most precious document is deeply offensive, there is a significant difference between a valid threat and an empty promise made to a vocal but shrinking constituency. In our judgment, the NOM pledge is ultimately merely symbolic and thus should not be the basis of a decision to withhold an endorsement from an otherwise qualified candidate, particularly given the gravity of the economic and national security issues currently at stake."

The statement did not address the other portions of the NOM pledge.

Over the weekend, however, Romney campaign senior adviser Bay Buchanan reiterated Romney's support for the amendment, telling BuzzFeed, "Governor Romney supports a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. Governor Romney also believes, consistent with the 10th Amendment, that it should be left to states to decide whether to grant same-sex couples certain benefits, such as hospital visitation rights and the ability to adopt children. I referred to the Tenth Amendment only when speaking about these kinds of benefits — not marriage."

The Romney campaign has not responded to a request for comment about whether that comment means that a Romney presidency would attempt to roll back Obama administration rules requiring the availability of hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples.

In the past, Log Cabin held back its endorsement from President George W. Bush in 2004 for coming out in support of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.

GOProud, another group for gay conservatives, endorsed Romney earlier this year.

GOProud's co-founder, Chris Barron, told BuzzFeed this morning, "We are disappointed that they have offered only a qualified endorsement and made it clear they won't work to elect Governor Romney. We need all hands on deck and every vote we can get right now to help defeat Barack Obama."

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ObamaCare. Duh.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally in Delray, Florida October 23, 2012.

Image by Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — President Obama appeared at a packed tennis stadium Tuesday morning on his first campaign stop following last night’s final presidential debate, continuing his aggressive attack on what the campaign views as Mitt Romney’s seemingly shifting positions, or "Romnesia."

“We’re breaking down the symptoms here if you’ve come down with a case of Romensia. If you can’t seem to remember the policies on your website or the promises you’ve been making over the six years that you’ve been running for president, if you can’t even remember what you said last week,” Obama told the crowd of approximately 11,000. “Don’t worry, ObamaCare covers pre-existing conditions!"

The campaign is hoping that last night’s strong debate performance, coupled with an intense 48 hour swing state tour of five states, can help regain the momentum lost at the first debate in Denver earlier this month.

“I need you to vote,” Obama urged the Florida crowd in a state that has been slipping out of the campaign’s grasp according to post-Denver polls. “There are still folks out there who are still making up their minds…I ask folks to compare my [economic] plan to governor Romney’s.”

According to the campaign, Obama has traveled to Florida 13 times and held 25 political events and 7 official events in 2012.

Obama also continued his attack on Romney’s foreign policy chops, calling the former Massachusetts governor’s ideas “reckless and wrong” and “all over the map.”

Obama hit on another theme Chicago revived last night: Romney’s failure to name check veterans in RNC convention speech, which the campaign claimed he did again in the final debate.

“By the way, I just want to point out in the same way Governor Romney didn’t even mention the Afghan war or our troops in his convention speech, Governor Romney didn’t even mention our veterans last night,” Obama said. “He didn’t say a word about it.”

With only two weeks left, the Obama campaign distributed a 19 page booklet Tuesday morning called “The New economic Patriotism,” outlining the president’s plan for jobs and what they've dubbed “middle class security.”

Obama was introduced in Delray by Scott Van Duzer, the man responsible for one of the most viral moments of the election, a picture of him bear-hugging Obama.

“A few weeks ago, president Obama, stopped by my pizza shop to say hi, you and the Secret Service might remember from the bear hug I gave him,” Van Duzer said to cheers. “We’ve made a lot of progress, my business is better off than four years ago.”

“One very frightened little girl.”

Image by Sarah Conard / Reuters

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an official letter penned roughly two decades ago, Rep. Todd Akin used his office to defend a friend convicted of battery at an abortion protest.

The letter, provided to BuzzFeed by a Democratic source, offers a further glimpse into the anti-abortion community in St. Louis, of which Akin has been an active member for decades, as well as the role Akin has held within government as a voice on the movement's behalf.

On July 29, 1989, Teresa Frank pushed a woman to the ground during a protest at an abortion clinic in Granite City, Ill., across the Mississippi River from St. Louis County.

When Frank, then 41, was convicted of battery and criminal trespass, Akin, now the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri and then a state representative, came to her defense in a signed note printed on official state letterhead.

"I have known Teresa and her family for six years, and Teresa and her children for about three years," Akin wrote to Judge Robert Hennessey. "Teresa has visited with my wife on numerous occasions, and her children have also played with my own children throughout the past years."

"The mature and responsible behavior of her children, bear testimony of a devoted, gentle, and affectionate mother," Akin continued. "It was probably these very instincts that prompted her unfortunate morning in Granite City."

Akin himself was once arrested during an abortion protest in 1987, just one month before he was elected to the statehouse. He has since remained an active opponent of abortion, protesting at annual Life Chain events in St. Louis and speaking out on the campaign trail against abortion as well as emergency contraception for women who have been raped.

In his 1989 letter, however, Akin did not mention his own views on abortion, but instead focused on Frank.

"Teresa is a deeply sensitive and caring person; but along with this, she is also one very frightened little girl," Akin wrote.

Ultimately, Frank was fined $300 and put on probation for one year, according to court files furnished by the same source.

Image by

More than $1 million this cycle. Refighting old battles over women's rights “is not only frustrating, it's demeaning,” she says.

Image by Jacquelyn Martin / AP

Over the weekend, Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand crossed the $1 million fundraising mark — not for her own cruising reelection campaign, but for female Senate and House candidates running races tighter than her own.

Gillibrand says that the push to raise cash for these women — in total, there will be 20 congressional candidates who will benefit, as well as five women running for Wisconsin State Senate — is a way of advancing "the women's movement as the solution."

"Whether you're looking at a tough economy or any problem, the solution is women," Sen. Gillibrand told BuzzFeed. "When we're electing fewer women, we're moving in the wrong direction."

Helping fellow party members ascend is a time-honored way of building your own power base in American politics, but Gillibrand's explicitly feminist approach marks a new twist on that project. She's become a kind of one-woman Emily's List, and appears likely to be in a position to collect on many debts of gratitude in the fall. But the junior senator from New York brushes off any connection to her own ambition, and argues that women's presence makes substantive changes to public life.

Gillibrand points, in particular, to the appointment of five women to the Armed Services Committee by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2006. "That changed the nature of the debate on the committee," said Gillibrand. "Gabby Giffords was the first person who said, you know, 70 percent of these men and women are coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder. She turned the focus toward the men and women fighting in these wars. It just creates a better outcome when woman are at the table."

Gillibrand has undeniably tapped into a rich and growing vein in American politics and campaign finance. Most of the money she's raised — $715,000 of the $1 million — has come from solicitations through emails alone, an aide said.

Gillibrand’s campaign has sent out twelve emails in the last month, and only two have focused on the Senator’s own record. More often, Gillibrand will ask her rolodex of supporters to donate directly to the campaigns of Senate candidates like North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, or to candidates running what Gillibrand called in an Oct. 14 email “super-tight House races against extreme Tea Party candidates.”

"This is an issue I've cared about for a long time," said Gillibrand, who started a campaign in 2010 called Off The Sidelines that encourages women to run for office. But the Senator has become increasingly frustrated with the debate this year over women's right to contraceptives and equal pay.

"We have a huge problem when the third bill that was introduced [in the Republican-led House] was a bill that redefined rape," said Gillibrand, "and when we have a Republican nominee whose 'hero' is [Wisconsin Governor] Scott Walker, who just got rid of equal pay for women."

Enjoying a wide lead in her own race against attorney and Romney legal advisor Wendy Long — the most recent Quinnipiac poll has Gillibrand up 37 points — the New York Senator has had enough political legroom to become an aggressive Democratic voice in 2012.

At the Oct. 18 Missouri Senate debate, Sen. Claire McCaskill made no mention of her opponent Todd Akin’s comments about “ legitimate rape,” but the following day, Gillibrand did.

“Akin is leading Claire by four points,” wrote Gillibrand on Oct. 19. “This is after Akin’s offensive remarks about everything from ‘legitimate rape’ to whether Claire is ‘ladylike’ enough to be a Senator. We absolutely have to do something about this.”

And indeed, it’s Gillibrand’s anger — her anger about Akin, about the debate over women’s health care, about the possibility Democrats won’t have a single female governor in office after November — that drives her fundraising for female candidates.

"I think Todd Akin takes the cake," said Gillibrand. "The way he has demeaned women through his statements, though his actions, is incredible. These are the types of people we have in Congress."

Despite speculation that Gillibrand’s fundraising efforts are part of a bid to head the the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2014 — and even make a run for the presidency in 2016 — Gillibrand says no to both.

“She’s not trying to be a lone wolf here,” Communications Director Glen Caplin explained. “She’s trying to support [DSCC Chair] Patty Murray.”

Asked if she wants a greater leadership role in the Senate next year, she says simply, "No."

Gillibrand's campaign seems just as determined to deny the Senator has plans to take on more leadership. “She is very happy with the committee assignments she has,” says Caplin.

(And at 45 years old, Gillibrand is still young. After being apponted to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat in 2009, the former corporate lawyer hasn’t been in the Senate but four years.)

Gillibrand has even mentioned publicly that she would support Clinton were she decide to run in four years. But Caplin adds that “privately she says all the time she hopes Hillary runs. Hillary is such a singularly important figure for her.”

Gillibrand explained that those who speculate about her political ambition "may not know me well," she said. "This is just who I am. This has informed my life since I was a young woman. My whole life in politics has been defined by my grandmother."

Her grandmother, Polly Noonan, was a women's activist and mainstay in Albany politics under Mayor Erastus Corning. Noonan ran a grassroots organization whose mission was to engage women in the area.

"Women are tired of fighting the battles that they thought their mothers and grandfathers had won," said Gillibrand. "It's not only frustrating, it's demeaning."

Brown was endorsed by five-year-old Olivia, and responded by recording a thank-you video flanked by stuffed animals — a nice break from a toxic Senate campaign . “I'm asking you and all of your friends and parents and everybody you know to get out and vote on November 6th.”

Olivia's original video:

via Bostinno

GOP derides Obama's booklet.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney boards his campaign plane in West Palm Beach, Florida October 23, 2012.

Image by Brian Snyder / Reuters

LAS VEGAS — A top aide to Mitt Romney said President Barack Obama's new emphasis to describe his agenda for a second term is a sign of panic.

Briefing reporters aboard Romney's plane en route to Las Vegas where Romney is holding a campaign event, senior adviser Kevin Madden declared it a "glossy panic button."

“I would say that it is a glossy panic button," repeating the phrase for effect, when asked by reporters about the 20-page booklet released by the Obama campaign this morning with sections like "Building an Economy from the Middle Class Out" and "Moving America Forward."

Romney aides have grown more confident of victory in recent days, as recent polling has put the campaign on the rise in several must-win swing states, as well as nationally.

As for the Romney plan for the next 14 days, Madden said Romney would be visiting the key battleground states over and over again.

"You know where we feel like we've got some really great momentum and where you know we need to make sure we turn out as many voters as possible that are supporting the governor," he told reporters. “So we're going to be in places like Colorado, Nevada, Iowa. We'll be back to Florida I expect. Virginia. You know these next 14 days we're going to be very busy. We're going to be in multiple states in single days. I think the governor right now is really focused. I think he's really energized and he's looking forward to it.”

Asked about Florida turning in Romney's direction, Madden said the campaign believes it's theirs to stay.

“Florida’s one of those states, it’s like a freight liner, and once it turns – and I think it’s turned – it’s hard to turn back,” he said.

The President said China was an “adversary” during the foreign policy debate in Boca Raton, but contradicted his own Secretary of State who said China was not in a 2009 speech.

Obama at the foreign policy debate: China is an adversary.

Source: youtube.com

Hillary Clinton in 2009: China is not an adversary.

Source: youtube.com

h/t Foreign Policy

Lots of interest in Romney's Secret Service flag pin.

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In Monday's foreign policy debate, President Obama quipped to Romney that the Navy was not a simple “game of Battleship.” Hasbro is happy to be mentioned regardless of context.

Via: img1.etsystatic.com

While Republicans may not like President Obama’s pointed “game of Battleship” attack against Mitt Romney during Tuesday’s night’s debate, there’s one massive entity whose identity is built in part on military might — the Hasbro toy company.

In a statement to BuzzFeed, Hasbro spokesman Wayne Charness said, "Many of our brands including Battleship are household favorites that get mentioned in many settings. We are glad the President has played the game."

Although Obama’s “horses and bayonets” line has gotten much of the coverage, Obama also used the Hasbro’s classic Battleship game as a metaphor to attack Romney, saying, “the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships … It's what are our capabilities."