Will Benghazi Retraction Be Rather-Level?

CBS’ erroneous Benghazi debacle explodes - Salon.com:

...We initially covered the questions about the 60 Minutes report last week, after Media Matters for America’s David Brock, author of the book, The Benghazi Hoax, penned a letter to CBS demanding a retraction of the story and a full investigation into what appeared to be a fabricated story by Davies.

Brock cited CBS’ response to questions about 60 Minutes‘ 2004 story on questions about George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service (which turned out to be true, though the provenance of one of the documents used in the report was never able to be verified as authentic.) Following that report by Dan Rather, CBS quickly launched a full investigation into the matter. “Similar standards must be applied in this case,” Brock said in his letter last week to CBS News chairman Jeff Fager and its president David Rhodes...

Lying Benghazi Liars Lying Lies Exposed

CBS Admits Error in Benghazi '60 Minutes' Story - ABC News:

CBS News said Friday that it was misled by a "60 Minutes" source who claimed he was on the on the scene of a 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya when it now turns out there are serious doubts about whether he was...

Ask The Headhunter Hits E$con Homer

Ask The Headhunter: Unemployment -- Made in America by Employers | The Business Desk with Paul Solman | PBS NewsHour | PBS:

... Human resources executives run around in their corporate offices with their eyes closed, throwing billions of dollars at applicant tracking systems (ATSes) and job boards like Taleo, Monster.com and LinkedIn, and they pretend no one can see they are dancing in circles buck naked. HR keeps talking about a talent shortage, but the only talent shortage is in the HR offices. HR executives need to learn how to match up the 3.9 million vacancies with some of the 25 million under-employed.

What's going on? The economy is certainly one factor, but businesses, the media and the federal government continue to ignore the structural problems in our employment system. I'll tell you what I think the main problems are...

Another highlight (but read the post, too):

On A Lighter Note

Who We Are

Tufts Magazine / fall 2013:

THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL, STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE-RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERS

Cruz Doesn't Want President In Texas

Cruz To Obama: Don't Promote Obamacare In Texas:

Cruz added, “President Obama should take his broken promises tour elsewhere so Texans can continue focusing on the solutions that have allowed our state to become and remain the nation’s economic and job creation powerhouse."

In a kinder, gentler time, one NC bigot opined:

...In 1994, Helms created a sensation when he told broadcasters Rowland Evans and Robert Novak that Clinton was "not up" to the tasks of being commander-in-chief, and suggested two days later, on the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, that Clinton "better not show up around here [Fort Bragg] without a bodyguard".^[233] Helms said Clinton was so unpopular and said he had not meant it as a threat...

Another Police Execution

Cop Caught On Tape Shooting Unarmed Man Won't Be Charged With A Crime | ThinkProgress:

...In the prosecutors’ defense, putting a cop in prison is remarkably difficult. Police officers are allowed to shoot if they fear for their lives, and proving that use of force was “unreasonable” sets a very high bar. Few police who have used force under suspicious circumstances ever face a judge. A 2007 study by UChicago law professor Craig Futterman found that just 19 of 10,149 complains of excessive force, illegal searches, racial abuse, sexual abuse, and false arrests led to a police suspension of a week or more. Individual police officers are also largely protected from damages claims in civil court through “qualified immunity...”

Good Labor News For A Change

Cincinnati Pension Overhaul Voted Down - Organized Labor Was The Real Winner This Election - Esquire:

All right, so I've been the skunk at the garden party long enough today. If you want to find a clear -- if largely unacknowledged -- winner in last night's electoral shindig, take a look at organized labor. In Boston, where John Connolly attached himself to the Rhee-ite school "reform" movement and criticized Martin Walsh for being a tool of big labor -- In other words, this was a race between Democrats in which union support was an actually an issue. Never thought I'd live to see that in Boston. -- Walsh beat Connolly fairly handily. And in Cincinnati, a bastion of hard-bar Republicanism in Ohio, a really remarkable thing happened...

The Most Amazing Abuse Of Authority Ever

David Eckert: Colonoscopy, Enema, X-Ray By Cops For Drugs (VIDEO):

David Eckert went shopping at a Wal-Mart in Deming NM on January 2nd, 2013. He then got into his car to leave the parking lot. David Eckert was then stopped by Officer Chavez for allegedly not yielding at a stop sign. Officer Chavez ordered David Eckert out of his car. Things went downhill after that...

VA Gov Race Analysis

Why Did the Polls Miss McAuliffe's Margin of Victory? | Kristen Soltis Anderson

With public polling averages indicating Terry McAuliffe would win yesterday's gubernatorial election in Virginia by at least a touchdown, many were surprised to see his Republican challenger Ken Cuccinelli come within three points of the win.

So... what happened? Twitter is abuzz with theories on what went wrong, ranging from a late-breaking Cuccinelli surge fueled by the rocky rollout of Obamacare's exchanges, to complications stemming from polling with a third-party candidate, to the difficulty of nailing the makeup of an off-year electorate...

Finally, A Good Idea On SS

Dem Senators: We're Doing It Wrong, Let's Expand Social Security:

In a town consumed by how quickly and how deeply to cut Social Security, a handful of Democratic senators have a different idea: expand it.

Their pitch is to grow Social Security benefits by attaching it to a new formula, known as CPI-E (Consumer Price Index for the Elderly), which is based on the theory that seniors face higher-than-average price increases, such as on health care and housing. It would be paid for by phasing out the cap on wages subject to the payroll tax, which is currently $113,700. Supporters say this would raise Social Security compensation for all beneficiaries by $70 per month.

Legislation to this effect was introduced earlier this spring by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. The Strengthening Social Security Act of 2013 has since been co-sponsored by Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Mark Begich (D-AK) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who added his name this week...

No Tea GOP

Business interests line up against Tea Party candidate in Alabama - chicagotribune.com:

A tight primary election in an Alabama Republican stronghold has pitted a business-backed former state senator against a Tea Party movement favorite in a race highlighting tensions between the party's pragmatic and ideological wings over the recent government shutdown...

Voter Suppression, Texas Style

Former House Speaker denied voter ID card in Texas after voting since 1944 | FreakOutNation:

Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office and says, “Nobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn’t give me an ID.” Wright has voted in every election since 1944.

About ten days ago, a Texas district judge was almost barred from the polls. She has voted for the past 49 years without issue until now, courtesy of the state’s new voter ID law...

Rand The Swordsman

Move over, Ted Cruz: Rand Paul’s wacko public meltdown - Salon.com:

...Just when Sen. Ted Cruz’s self-promoting extremism seemed to create room for a far-right 2016 rival who wouldn’t scare children (and the donor class), Sen. Rand Paul is blowing his big chance.

Last week the New York Times reported that in the wake of Cruz’s implosion, Paul’s aides had taken to calling Cruz “the chief of the wacko birds,” using John McCain’s memorable epithet for the junior Texas senator. Paul himself, Jonathan Martin reported, “has quietly been reaching out to more establishment forces within the Republican Party, trying to prove to big donors and mainline Republican organizations that he is more than a Tea Party figure or a rerun of his father’s failed candidacies.” And establishment Republicans were beginning to use the word “grown” and “matured” to describe Paul.

That’s not the word they’re using today, on the heels of a crazy appearance on ABC’s “This Week” where he wished he could challenge the journalists who’ve accused him of plagiarism to a duel...

 Especially since she's a girl! Ewww!

Comment Of The Day: Benghazi Edition,3

David Brock to call on '60 Minutes' to retract Benghazi report - POLITICO.com

jaxas4

• 9 hours ago

Benghazi resonates with a very narrow slice of the American people primarily on the far right of the republican party. The vast majority of the public has rendered the correct verdict that Benghazi was a CIA-Military FUBAR project. Efforts to tie President Obama and Hillary Clinton to some sinister coverup are not very much different than the Vince Foster affair in the 1990s when investigation after investigation was executed at considerable cost in dollars and wasted time only to reach the same conclusion time after time. That is what is going on here. It is only being kept in the news by a mainstream media that wants to ingratiate itself to the far right and convince them that they are not all liberals in the tank for Obama and Clinton. The truth is most of the media carry water for the republican party.

Bad Words In The Airport

There's only one way to wipe out racism and that is to wipe out all racism. Please join me and remind people that bigotry extends beyond pigmentation.

When no one said anything: How racism goes unquestioned - Salon.com:

...Not one person said anything; I was surrounded by people...

Nor did you.

I've been called disparaging names to my face many times and routinely see offensively enraging terms used casually in the media. The Oneida don't like "Redskin" and I don't like: hick, hillbilly, cracker, or any of the other names used to insult rural Appalachian mountaineers. Every time I see or hear those racist insults I call the person out. If it's in my face, I usually say something like "I don't like being referred to that way." If it's on the Internet, I typically leave and an opinion that it is racist to refer to any group stereotypically, which sometimes sets off long and often vulgar retorts that nearly always contain the reminder that "we whipped your ass in the Civil War."

One of these days I'm really going to wind the stem on that watch. 

Crazy In NC: Getting Sane Through GOPer Switches Edition

Jason Thigpen, GOP Veteran Switches Party, A trickle Becoming A Stream:

...This is likely a difficult decision for Mr. Jason Thigpen. He must be applauded for the courage it took. He will be accepted into the Democratic Party with open arms. One can only hope that moderate Republicans take back their Party. America needs a multi-party system to force all politicians of every stripe to earn the votes of every American. The trickle of Republicans switching is bound to become a stream as the extremist continue to hold their party and the country hostage.

Elections Shall Have No Juducal Consequences, GOPers Think

The Politics of Petulance - NYTimes.com:

...The problem, as Senate Republicans now claim, is that the court’s workload is too light to justify filling its three vacant seats. This is a transparently bogus argument, and the Republicans know it. The D.C. Circuit’s caseload is essentially unchanged from 2005, when Senate Republicans voted to confirm two of President George Bush’s nominees to the court. But now they accuse President Obama of trying to “pack the court.”

Putting aside the flatly dishonest use of that term, the Republicans’ real concern, as the Senate minority whip, John Cornyn, told reporters this week, is that nominees like Ms. Millett will “tilt the court ideologically in a way that favors the big-government agenda of the Obama administration.” Many are responding to business lobbyists who do not want important commerce cases decided by a judge appointed by Mr. Obama...

GOP And ACA Sabotage

The Obamacare sabotage campaign - Todd S. Purdum - POLITICO.com:

...To the undisputed reasons for Obamacare’s rocky rollout — a balky website, muddied White House messaging and sudden sticker shock for individuals forced to buy more expensive health insurance — add a less acknowledged cause: calculated sabotage by Republicans at every step...

Bill Gives Political Lesson

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Prof. Clinton explains the far right - The Washington Post:

...Yet those inspired by passionate belief — people, Clinton says, with “steam coming out of their ears” — do have one important virtue: “They will show up and vote.” Offering a quick political science lecture about who votes when, Clinton explained that “in the non-presidential years, a whole different America shows up than in the presidential years.” The lesson to moderates and progressives: “You’ve got to care as much about this election as you did about the election in 2012...”