Daily Kos

The Republican decision to go full Willie Horton in Nebraska may not be having the intended effect. It was a calculated risk to begin with, showing just how shaky Republican Rep. Lee Terry (NE-02)'s campaign has been. It's a winnable race for the Democrats, and it may have just gotten more winnable.

Brad Ashford, the Democratic state senator seeking to upset Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb), has raised more than $20,500 from 434 online donations since national Republicans released an ad Friday that aimed to tie Ashford to a convicted murderer, the campaign said Monday.

“Rather than do the respectable thing and denounce these racist, fear-mongering ads, Lee Terry has defended them,” Kurt Gonska, Ashford’s campaign manager, said in an email.  “It's hurting his campaign as we've seen a huge influx of individual online donations come in as a direct response to the outrage voters feel.” [...]

[T]he ad has angered many, including former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who called the ad “racist,” and Terry’s GOP primary opponent, Dan Frei (Jenkins is African-American.).

So perhaps the Republican ad juxtaposing Ashford with a Scary Black Man may play well with Terry's base, but it also has goosed state Democratic supporters into action and gotten Terry slammed by fellow Republicans.

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House Majority PAC has put up their own response ad (see above) slamming Terry, so this isn't going away. We'll see if it turns into a net negative for Terry in the voting booths, but it doesn't look to be doing him any favors so far.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Jed Lewison

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee believes Kentucky is in play:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee plans to go back on the air in Kentucky after the party has been encouraged by new polls suggesting the race against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is within reach.

The party committee is reserving $650,000 in airtime to boost Alison Lundergan Grimes after reviewing recent internal and public polling, a DSCC official told POLITICO. The polling, the source says, suggested that independent voters are moving in the Democrat’s direction.

The thing that makes this news is that a flurry of earlier reports suggested the DSCC was abandoning the state because they said they had no plans to purchase additional ads. Even though they were continuing GOTV and other efforts, that was interpreted as a signal of no confidence, but today's news turns that narrative on its head, because clearly the DSCC believes Kentucky is still within grasp.

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Meanwhile, the Grimes campaign itself is entering the final two weeks of the campaign with a tough new ad going after Mitch McConnell on raising the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits, and student loans. McConnell wants the campaign to be about Barack Obama, but even though Grimes has left some ammunition on the table—specifically, McConnell's contortions on Kynect—her message is focused like a laser on McConnell and his record, because at the end of the day the question Kentucky faces is simply this: Whether or not the people of the state want Mitch McConnell to represent them in the Senate for another six years.

• Today's comic by Matt Bors is Breast cancer awareness czar:
  
• Please chip in $3 to help us get out the vote for Daily Kos-endorsed candidates.
• Ben Bradlee, Washington Post icon, dead at 93:

  From the moment he took over The Post newsroom in 1965, Mr. Bradlee sought to create an important newspaper that would go far beyond the traditional model of a metropolitan daily. He achieved that goal by combining compelling news stories based on aggressive reporting with engaging feature pieces of a kind previously associated with the best magazines. His charm and gift for leadership helped him hire and inspire a talented staff and eventually made him the most celebrated newspaper editor of his era.

  The most compelling story of Mr. Bradlee’s tenure, almost certainly the one of greatest consequence, was Watergate, a political scandal touched off by The Post’s reporting that ended in the only resignation of a president in U.S. history.

• These Daily Kos community posts were the most shared on Facebook October 21:
  

  Really? Really?? They Just Sandblasted a Michael Brown Mural, by jpmassar

  Florida's Psychosis: Do You NOT Remember the Day When Rick Scott Showed He Was a Monster?, by SemDem

  He Goes Off For 6 Minutes On All The Politicians Sitting Right In Front Of Him. It's. Just. Great, by windsong01

• Check out Bristol Palin wailin' about brawlin' and name-callin': If you listen hard you can hear Sarah Palin telling her daughter not to cuss while talking to the cop. Bristol didn't hear that advice. Or just ignored it.
• Texas militia leader busted on weapons charge: Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives busted Kevin L. Massey Monday. He's the "commander" of the ragtag American Patriots "militia" that set up "Camp Lone Star" on private land near Brownsville, on the Texas border across from Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The militia's purpose was to block the flow of Central American refugees into the United States. Massey was charged with felony possession of a firearm. He was convicted of a burglary in 1988. Federal law prohibits unpardoned felons from possessing firearms. The sealed indictment includes other defendants. Family members say federal agents showed up at their North Texas home Monday and seized weapons.
• Report: Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan at all-time high: The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has released a report on cultivation of the opium poppy in that country. In an Oct. 14 cover letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, the special inspector general, John F. Sopko, writes:

  According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghan farmers grew an unprecedented 209,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2013, surpassing the previous peak of 193,000 hectares in 2007. With deteriorating security in many parts of rural Afghanistan and low levels of eradication of poppy fields, further increases in cultivation are likely in 2014.

  As of June 30, 2014, the United States has spent approximately $7.6 billion on counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan. Multiple sources of funding support these efforts, including the Department of Defense (DOD) Afghan Security Forces Fund, the State Department's (State) International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement fund, the DOD Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities fund, financial support from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Economic Support Fund.

• Team Blackness discussed the case of Scott Panetti, the clearly disturbed man who wore a purple cowboy suit while representing himself at his trial for murdering his in-laws. He subpoenaed Jesus and called himself "Sarge" and was convicted and sentenced to death. Also discussed were the pumpkin riots in New Hampshire, how you can own your very own Hoverboard, and is Des Moines the next Brooklyn? Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS
• On today's Kagro in the Morning show: lots of discussion of the "Hitching Post" stunt, with Joan McCarter, Armando & Scott Wooledge. GOP healthcare flip-flops. David Perdue hates America. CIA vs. Senate: What if they gave a constitutional crisis and nobody came?

This has been brewing up in the Great White North:

A federal investigation into rape and fraud allegations in the Alaska National Guard has found shocking abuses. Two state officials have now resigned and the governor is on the defensive about what he knew with only a few weeks left before election day. Alaska Public Media's Alexandra Gutierrez reports.

ALEXANDRA GUTIERREZ: The findings were worse than expected. Sexual assault reports were mishandled. Recruiting officers took advantage of young women. Military helicopters were used for personal reasons. And money was embezzled from the Guard's family assistance programs. Now, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell is being questioned about why he took so long to investigate the Guard when he first received complaints four years ago.

SEAN PARNELL: I'm sorry it did. It's not - that's not acceptable.

Want more details? The Anchorage Dispatch News was happy to oblige with a front-page Sunday paper splash:

The Alaska Army National Guard’s Recruiting and Retention Battalion, a unit with access to high school students around the state and a budget to attend or sponsor popular outdoor events, has been, for years, a center of repeated sexual misconduct among its officers, according to investigative files.

The files describe a unit in which officers prowled the lists of new recruits for sex, routinely cheated on their wives, drank to excess, went to strip clubs, chiseled the government with their official credit cards and made a habit of making leering and demeaning comments about women, including their fellow soldiers. The files were prepared between 2010 and 2014 in a largely failed effort by a few officers to mark the leaders of the battalion with the stain of an other-than-honorable discharge.

Officers in the battalion had sex with other soldiers and civilians on the chairs and desks of their recruiting offices, in their government cars, in the woods near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and in the RVs they brought to official events, the reports say.

The files described bullying of civilians by guard officers. Four women said that when they attended Dimond High School in Anchorage, they resisted a guard recruiter who tried to give them alcohol. One former student described what sounded like an attempt by the officer to groom her for sex. She said she had to jump from the recruiter’s car when he tried to take her home, calling her father for help from a stranger’s phone.

The issue has blown up big in the state. Schools have banned Guard recruiters. Anchorage police are still opening up new investigations.

And while this has put the incumbent Republican governor on the defensive, in a race he already trails, it's now making the leap to the Senate race, where Republican Attorney General Dan Sullivan narrowly leads incumbent Democrat Mark Begich in recent polling. From last night's local news:

Did Senate candidate Dan Sullivan know about the allegations of sexual assault and fraud in the Alaska National Guard? Sullivan was attorney general at the time Governor Parnell found out about the problems within the guard. KTVA 11's Kate McPherson joins us with more. US Senate candidate Dan Sullivan won't answer our questions regarding the national guard and whether he was informed about the allegations.

We haven't endorsed in any Alaska races this cycle. You can donate to Mark Begich directly at his website. However, this is just one front in the GOP's effort to take the Senate. You can help fight back by contributing to at least one of our endorsed Senate candidates.

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Television ads don't much move the needle these days. Scandals like this one? All bets are off. Particularly when Republicans look the other way as children are targeted.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by David Nir

In a huge admission, former South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, the GOP nominee in this year's Senate race, acknowledged Tuesday that he did in fact know that a top former cabinet official, Richard Benda, was going to work for investors running a meatpacking concern called Northern Beef, right around the same time that Rounds signed off on a special $600,000 state loan package to the company that Benda had urged. That money went directly into Benda's pockets, as he paid himself $225,000 a year to oversee the now-failed plant.

Just before Rounds left office at the end of 2010, Benda, then the state's secretary of tourism, pressed for the extra loans for Northern Beef, and Rounds approved the funding. A state audit later found that Benda had a serious conflict of interest in requesting the loans—duh—but until now, we didn't know whether Rounds himself was aware of this glaring conflict. It turns out that he most certainly did:

At the time, though, Rounds didn't ask Benda for more details.

"I said 'Good, I'm glad to hear that he's going to be actively involved in the beef plant,'" Rounds said in a live interview on the Argus Leader's "100 Eyes" online show.

Rounds claimed he couldn't remember whether he learned of Benda's future employment plans before or after the Northern Beef loans went through, but even if he only found out about them after, he surely could have raised an alarm while he still had time. Instead, he went blithely silent.

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There's much more to this scandal, though. Head below the fold to learn more.

What a difference a tight poll in a general election makes. Case in point, Thom Tillis, the tea party Republican and state Speaker of the House in North Carolina, now running against Sen. Kay Hagan for the U.S. Senate. Back in April, during the primary, he ran this radio ad:

MAN: Thom Tillis has a proven record fighting against Obamacare.

WOMAN: Tillis stopped Obamacare's Medicaid expansion cold. It's not happening in North Carolina and it's because of Thom Tillis.

But that was way back in April, when he was fighting to prove his extremist credibility to Republican primary voters. Now? Now his tune has definitely changed.

Asked if he thought it would be likely that the state legislature would expand Medicaid coverage after refusing to do so previously, Tillis said it might make sense once the state has better control of the financing of the program, which is notorious for its cost overruns.

He said he didn’t have an ideological objection to expanding the coverage. But he said when the state auditor told the previous governor that money was being wasted on it, the appropriate response would not have been to make it bigger and more costly.

"I would encourage the state legislature and governor to consider it if they're completely convinced they now have the situation under control," Tillis said.

Oh no, he didn't have an ideological objection to Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, not at all. It was all about fiscal responsibility. Which was bullshit in April, too. Because, as it turns out, there was no crisis in Medicaid in North Carolina, ever. In fact, "data from the Kaiser Family Foundation have shown that North Carolina’s Medicaid program costs have increased at the slowest rate in the nation and per-capita costs are the lowest in the Southeast."

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Thom Tillis was full of shit when he "stopped Medicaid expansion cold," and he's full of shit now. But Tillis's contortions on the issue shows just how potent the issue is for Democrats, and what a flop Obamacare repeal has been for Republicans. It's definitely not 2010, anymore.

Karl Rove is raking in the commissions, with new ad buys like this one:

With the Senate race in Colorado tightening, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads groups have pummeled Senator Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent, with millions of dollars in negative ads. Crossroads begins its biggest assault on Wednesday: a $3.5 million barrage attacking Mr. Udall’s national security credentials.

The Kochs are getting in one last binge:

Freedom Partners Action Fund, a “super PAC” with ties to the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, will broadcast $6.5 million worth of advertising in six states in the closing days of the election campaign, officials there said.

But what exactly is this really buying Republicans? A lot less than what Democorats are getting. In fact, Republicans are spending $5 million more in the Senate battlegrounds these last two weeks, yet they're getting 10,000 fewer ad spots.

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If you want efficient spending, it's clear Republicans are the last place you want to look. On the other hand, all those commission fees will allow Rove to buy a new vacation home, so it's always nice to see Republican-style trickle-down economics in action.

Rep. Don Young of Alaska reminding us once again just how classy Alaska Republicans can be during a question and answer session at—where else?—Wasilla High School:

... teacher Carla Swick posed a question about Alaska’s high suicide and domestic violence rates and asked what Young's office is doing about it.

Young started talking about suicide, mentioning the role played by alcohol and depression, several witnesses said. The school didn’t record the assembly.

But then, witnesses say, Young said suicide shows a lack of support from friends and family.

That comment stunned students and staff still mourning the loss of a student who died Thursday, staffers say.

The school's principal, Amy Spargo, said she was taken aback:

"When I heard 'a lack of support from family' and I heard 'a lack of support from friends,' I felt the oxygen go out of the room, but I gasped as well," Spargo said. "It just isn't true in these situations. It's just such a hurtful thing to say."

Young's office issued a statement saying the Congressman's comments blaming the students were "well-intentioned." According to the statement, Young felt he merely "shared some suggestions for helping family members and friends who are dealing with suicidal thoughts."

Well, Congressman Young, here's a suggestion for you: The next time someone asks you about dealing with the suicide of someone close to them, don't blame them for it. And if you do, apologize—don't defend it.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by David Nir

We've already made a pretty compelling case that Glenn Grothman is the craziest Republican running for Congress this year, but here's another strong piece of evidence for our argument: Retiring Rep. Tom Petri, a fellow member of the GOP who represents Wisconsin's 6th District, is refusing to endorse Grothman to succeed him. Could it be because Grothman took a huge dump on Petri?

"Why would I endorse a person who has said that if in two years people said he was 'just like Petri' he would be insulted?" Petri said. "I don't want to smother him with love or anything like that."

Yep, probably! Petri was one of the last remaining moderates (or at least, what passes for a moderate these days) in the Republican caucus; Grothman, on the other hand, would probably make Louie Gohmert look reasonable at least one day a week. Probably Saturdays: Grothman is famous for wanting to eliminate weekends, and I'm going to guess that even the nuttiest teanut in Congress still enjoys those.

Petri, meanwhile, clings to a bygone sense of bipartisanship, do you can understand why Grothman wants nothing to do with Petri—and why the feeling is mutual. Indeed, Petri complimented Grothman's Democratic opponent, Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris, saying he'd done "a fine job" in his current post. Petri also took a back-handed jab at Grothman by encouraging his constituents to attend debates—which Harris has happily participated in but Grothman has refused to attend.

That's because Grothman's handlers know that his incendiary mouth can only get him in trouble. In fact, they've insisted that reporters only send questions to the campaign by email!

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But no matter how hard Grothman tries to hide, he can't erase his lunacy from the public record: Harris is running strong ads that showcase Grothman's most bizarre rantings. As the saying goes, crazy will out, but Harris needs our help to make that happen.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

Florida Gov. Rick Scott really had a bang-up debate Tuesday. In addition to energetically dodging the question of whether he knew that he delayed an execution so that Attorney General Pam Bondi could attend a political fundraiser, he showed off his concern for low-wage workers and in-depth knowledge of economic issues. Or, more specifically, he showed off his total lack of concern and in-depth knowledge.

The question was "Do you support the concept of a minimum wage?" Which is a question that has to be asked of Republican politicians, since many of them don't. Scott's answer was a glib "sure." It looked like he was ready to keep talking, but the follow-up question beat him to the punch: "What should it be?"

How would I know? I mean, the private sector decides wages.

Answering this, Scott briefly let his debate face drop in his sheer irritation at being asked what the minimum wage should be. "How would I know?" Gosh, I don't know, you're the governor, you do have a say in these things. It's not crazy to expect you to have an opinion, possibly even an informed one.

Also, "sure," Scott supports the concept of a minimum wage, but the reason he doesn't know what the minimum wage should be is that "the private sector decides wages." Except that in the case of the minimum wage, the private sector does not decide, so it seems like Scott may have been missing the point here. Or, more likely, was knocked off his talking points by an unexpected framing of the minimum wage question, and didn't bother making a whole lot of sense as he scrambled to get back to the talking points.

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Republican governors have really been on a minimum wage roll, from Scott Walker's "I don't think it serves a purpose" to Chris Christie's "I'm tired of hearing about the minimum wage," and Scott's "How should I know" certainly belongs on the greatest hits list.

Republican Gov. John Kasich got a lot of attention on Monday for acknowledging reality when he said that Obamacare repeal is "not gonna happen." Then he went even deeper, saying that the "political or ideological" opposition to Obamacare—and, in particular, Medicaid expansion—doesn't "hold water against real flesh and blood, and real improvements in people's lives." Two thoughts spring to mind reading that. Either John Kasich has given up any presidential aspirations or Kasich is seeing a shift in his party away from Obamacare insanity.

As it turns out, it's neither of those things, because Kasich immediately "clarified" his position.

"I don't back Obamacare. I never have. I want it to be repealed," he told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. "If the House and the Senate [are Republican-controlled] and we have a Republican president, Obamacare will be repealed flat out. Flat out. And it will be replaced."

So much for "real improvements in people's lives." But that's not the best part. He goes full McConnell in his backtracking talk with Politico.

"I have favored expanding Medicaid, but I don't really see expanding Medicaid as really connected to Obamacare,” he said.

If Republicans take the Senate, Kasich said, "you better believe they’re gonna repeal Obamacare and I agree with that.” But, he added, “there’s got to be an accommodation” for Medicaid expansion.

Just like if Obamacare is completely repealed Kentucky can still have Kynect. Maybe he figures of Mitch McConnell can try to get away with pretending like all the good stuff sticks around when the law that created it is destroyed, he can do it, too. Especially if he wants to be president someday.

Enough of the bullshit. Help elect some good Democrats to end it once and for all.

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Why Republicans—even Kasich, who clearly knows better—are still trying to keep one foot in repeal-land with the other foot in reality is all about the base. According to the latest Kaiser poll, 62 percent of the rabid, dead-ender Republican base cannot let go of repeal. Never mind that it's a shrinking subset of the voting population. It's the people who will turn out in a Republican primary. They're the only ones who matter, ultimately.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott may have had a death row inmate's execution delayed to accommodate a fundraiser for Attorney General Pam Bondi, but he'd really rather not talk about that right now, mmkay? Scott's in the middle of a close re-election campaign and this seems to be a topic he finds inconvenient, based on his evasion of Democratic opponent Charlie Crist's questions about it at Tuesday's debate.

Scott deployed a series of evasive maneuvers to get out of answering whether he knew, when he delayed the execution of Marshall Lee Gore, that it was for a political fundraiser. First, because Crist had the temerity to note that "it is the most solemn act a governor has to do as you're governor, knowing that your name on a piece of paper is going to result in the death of another human being," and because Crist acknowledged that he didn't have all the facts—which would be one of the reasons he was asking Scott for additional facts—Scott fell back on pieties about "the prayers that I do" and how "what I think about is those victims." As if the question had been "why did you execute a person," Scott said "you won't feel good about doing it, but it's my duty to do it as governor and I'll continue to do it."

But of course the question was not "why did you execute a person" in the abstract, it was "why did you delay this specific execution and did you know it was for Pam Bondi to attend a political fundraiser?" And that's a question Scott continued to evade. Crist pressed him: "Did the attorney general ask you to delay the execution so she could go forward with her political fundraiser?" That's where Scott started to really fall apart.

"See, the, it was, she asked me to delay it because it didn't work on the dates that she thought it was going to be on."

"Did you know it was for a political fundraiser?"

"Charlie, she apologized. She apologized. What would you like her to do? She apologized. She apologized, Charlie. What would you like her to do?"

See, Gov. Scott, it's not about what Bondi should do at this point. It's about whether you knew she wanted to delay the execution for a fundraiser, and aided her in doing that. She apologized—though it's not really clear what kind of apology wipes the slate clean after you toy with another person's life and death to raise some campaign cash—but voters need to know what and how much Rick Scott should be apologizing for. If Bondi lied to him about her reasons for wanting the execution delayed, that's something voters should know about Bondi. And if Scott knew that he was delaying an execution for partisan reasons, that's something voters should know about Scott.

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The funny thing is, Scott has previously denied knowing that the delay was for Bondi's fundraiser. So why is this such a hard question to answer now?