Post Debate Slice n Dice

Posted: October 3, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: | 31 Comments

Wow.  What a really weird debate.  My dad the consummate Republican basically thought it was one of the worst debates he’d ever seen.  I have to agree with him on that one.    Here’s some post debate analysis, but of course, our own counts much more!!

Mitt Romney’s Five Biggest Lies of the First Half of the Presidential Debate

1). Mitt Romney claims he is not cutting taxes for the wealthy

Romney actually began the debate completely reinventing his tax plan. Romney claimed that his tax plan isn’t a $5 trillion tax cut. However, yesterday his own running mate Paul Ryan touted Romney’s 20% tax cut across the board.

Ryan said, “And so what we’re saying is, we’re going to lower tax rates for everybody across the board by 20%, and we can pay for that without losing revenue by closing loopholes for people at the top end of the income scale. Everybody gets lower tax rates as a result. And you can keep these preferences for middle class taxpayers and have 20% lower tax rates.”

2). Romney claimed his tax plan doesn’t raise taxes on the middle class

Mitt Romney used some funny math to claim that his plan doesn’t raise taxes on middle class. However, the Tax Policy Center found that Romney’s plan, “The report by the centrist Tax Policy Center found that Romney’s tax cuts would boost after-tax income by an average of 4.1 percent for those earning more than $1 million a year, while reducing by an average of 1.2 percent the after-tax income of individuals earning less than $200,000.”

3). Romney claimed that Obama would increase taxes on the top 3% of “small businesses.”

Romney used some dubious statistics to claim that Obama would raise taxes on small businesses. What Romney didn’t tell the voters is that he and the Republican Party have a unique definition of small business.Washington Monthly explored the GOP definition of small business, “Many of those 750,000 small businesses aren’t small at all. Some, like Bechtel Corporation, are positively enormous. The Democratic and Republican figures come from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation. But numerous think tanks and government organizations have examined the data and come to similar conclusions: First, that letting the Bush tax cuts on the top two brackets of “small-business” income would impact a tiny percentage of those businesses; and second, that many of the “small businesses” that would be impacted are actually giant companies — which explains why such a tiny fraction of them can account for half of small business income.”
The biggest losers of the debate all work for PBS; namely Jim Lehrer and Big Bird. I’m actually of the opinion that all the Big Bird and Bert n Ernie jokes will be the lasting thang in this debate.
“I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I like you too,” Romney said.
More Fact Checks:

President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney spun one-sided stories in their first presidential debate, not necessarily bogus, but not the whole truth.

They made some flat-out flubs, too. The rise in health insurance premiums has not been the slowest in 50 years, as Obama stated. Far from it. And there are not 23 million unemployed, as Romney asserted.

Here’s a look at some of their claims and how they stack up with the facts:

OBAMA: “I’ve proposed a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. … The way we do it is $2.50 for every cut, we ask for $1 in additional revenue.”

THE FACTS: In promising $4 trillion, Obama is already banking more than $2 trillion from legislation enacted along with Republicans last year that cut agency operating budgets and capped them for 10 years. He also claims more than $800 billion in war savings that would occur anyway. And he uses creative bookkeeping to hide spending on Medicare reimbursements to doctors. Take those “cuts” away and Obama’s $2.50/$1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases shifts significantly more in the direction of tax increases.

Obama’s February budget offered proposals that would cut deficits over the coming decade by $2 trillion instead of $4 trillion. Of that deficit reduction, tax increases accounted for $1.6 trillion. He promises relatively small spending cuts of $597 billion from big federal benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid. He also proposed higher spending on infrastructure projects.

—

ROMNEY: Obama’s health care plan “puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.”

THE FACTS: Romney is referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of experts that would have the power to force Medicare cuts if costs rise beyond certain levels and Congress fails to act. But Obama’s health care law explicitly prohibits the board from rationing care, shifting costs to retirees, restricting benefits or raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the board doesn’t have the power to dictate to doctors what treatments they can prescribe.

Romney seems to be resurrecting the assertion that Obama’s law would lead to rationing, made famous by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s widely debunked allegation that it would create “death panels.”

The board has yet to be named, and its members would ultimately have to be confirmed by the Senate. Health care inflation has been modest in the last few years, so cuts would be unlikely for most of the rest of this decade.

Here are all of the NYT’s fact-checks from the first Obama-Romney debate. I find this one particularly interesting.

Mr. Romney promised to create 12 million jobs over the next four years if he is elected president. That is actually about as many jobs as the economy is already expected to create, according to some economic forecasters.

So, continue discussing!!!

Know your Right Wing Christofascists!

Posted: October 3, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, religious extremists, right wing hate grouups, VAGINA Ralph Reed, VAGINA Rick Santorum, War on Women | Tags: , , , , , , | 64 Comments

Here’s a list of the 10 Most Dangerous Religious Right Organizations in the country.  These folks are determined to undermine the US constitution that prevents mixing of specific religious doctrines with US law.  These people don’t want freedom for their religious practices.  They want the US government to enshrine their petty theocratic agendas into law and to persecute the unbelievers.

1. Jerry Falwell Ministries/ Liberty University/Liberty Counsel

Revenue: $522,784,095

2. Pat Robertson Empire

Revenue: $434,971,231

3. Focus on the Family (includes its 501(c)(4) political affiliate CitizenLink)

Revenue: $104,463,950

4. Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund)

Revenue: $35,145,644 

5. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Lobbying Expenditures: $26,662,111 

6. American Family

Association

Revenue: $17,955,438

7. Family Research Council

Revenue: $14,840,036  (includes 501­(c)(4) affiliate FRC Action)

8. Concerned Women for

America

Revenue: $10,352,628  (includes 501­(c)­(4) affiliate CWA Legislative Action Committee)

9. Faith & Freedom Coalition

Revenue: $5,494,640

10. Council for National Policy

Revenue: $1,976,747

The Christian Right has basically infiltrated the Republican Party and is most evident as “Teavanagelicals”.

ON AN INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL, the merger of Christian Right and Tea Party interests is remarkably advanced. The alliance has served as the very foundation stone of theFaith and Freedom Coalition, the latest venture of that intrepid politico-religious entrepreneur, Ralph Reed, which has sprouted chapters in many states, most prominently Iowa, where it sponsored the first candidate forum of the 2012 cycle. There is even a term to describe this new strain of conservatism: the “Teavangelicals,” a subject of a recent broadcast by Christian Right journalist David Brody, which, among other things, examined the conservative evangelical roots of major Tea Party leaders. Most recently, a host of organizations closely connected with the Christian Right and “social issues” causes have signed onto the “Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge,” the Tea Party-inspired oath that demands a position on the debt limit vote that is incompatible with any bipartisan negotiations.

But this convergence between the two groups goes well beyond coalition politics and reflects a radicalization of conservative evangelical elites that is just as striking as the rise of the Tea Party itself. Indeed, the worldview of many Christian Right leaders has evolved into an understanding of government (at least under secularist management) as a satanic presence that seeks to displace God and the churches through social programs, to practice infanticide and euthanasia, to destroy parental control of children, to reward vice and punish virtue, and to thwart America’s divinely appointed destiny as a redeemer nation fighting for Christ against the world’s many infidels.

As an illustration of this phenomenon, it’s worth unpacking a few lines from a recent missive by televangelist James Robison, the convener of two recent meetings of Christian Right leaders in Texas to ponder their role in 2012, and also of a similar session back in 1979 that helped pave the way for Reagan’s conquest of conservative evangelicals. Says Robison:

There are moral absolutes . No person’s failure reduces or redefines the standards carved in stone by the finger of God and revealed in His Word. We must find a way to stop judges and courts from misinterpreting the Constitution and writing their own laws.

“Activist judges” who have developed and applied protections for abortion rights, non-discrimination, and church-state separation have long been a bugaboo for the Christian Right. But Robison appears to be extending this traditional list of evangelical grievances, adding his blessing to the Tea Party’s objection to the string of Supreme Court decisions that enabled the federal government to enact New Deal programs like Social Security that protect people afflicted by personal “failure” from the consequences of their actions.

They have more impact than just trying to deny the civil rights of GLBT, the reproductive rights of women, and the suppression of religious minorities in the US.  They have a global agenda  that is as much of a terrorist movement as any religious extremist movement abroad.  They support governments that believe in not only persecuting but killing GLBT citizens with money and other resources.  They actively support militia’s that kill and maim GLBT citizens and non-believers and work to keep women’s status as property and breeding chattel.

In recent weeks, police have descended on the Harare offices of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), seizing the group’s publications and computers as evidence, they claimed, in an ongoing investigation. The police sought to also arrest staff, but the organization’s lawyer has kept them free for now.

The gay rights activist organization is — absurdly — accused of seeking to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government and teaching people to commit acts of sodomy.

This police activity underscores the effort of the Mugabe-led ZANU-PF ruling political party to incite anti-LGBT hatred in mobilizing its base for elections next year. Mugabe faces a challenge from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirayi, who recently adopted a pro-LGBT rights position.

In one raid, police forcibly entered GALZ premises and began arresting advocates gathered to discuss the draft constitution under debate. The draft includes anti-gay provisions shaped with help from the US-based Christian right group American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) through its Zimbabwe office. The proposed provisions explicitly prohibit homosexuality and, mimicking American efforts, define marriage as between a man and woman.

Some activists were injured trying to escape over a security fence armed with an electric razor wire. Those caught — 31 men and 13 women — were arrested, bundled into police vehicles, and kept in filthy cells for what GALZ staffer Miles Rutendo remembers as “a night in hell.” Police beat and stomped on the backs of gay rights advocates forced to lie on the wet floor. One victim passed out and was rushed to the hospital.

The physical and mental abuse did not end with their release. In a country where LGBT people suffer brutal harassment, these activists’ sexual preference was exposed to neighbors, families, and workplaces. Their families forced some from their homes. Whether any lose their jobs remains to be seen.

Additional, rallies have been held through out the US that are well within in the boundaries of first amendment free speech rights but definitely fall into the hate speech realm.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins topped a full day of speakers at “The America for Jesus 2012” prayer rally.

Robertson, a former Republican candidate for president, called the election important, but didn’t mention either major political party or candidate by name.

“I don’t care what the ACLU says or any atheists say. This nation belongs to Jesus, and we’re here today to reclaim his sovereignty,” said Robertson, 82, who founded the Christian Coalition and Christian Broadcasting Network, and ran for president in 1988.

Organizers plan another prayer rally Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C., two weeks before President Barack Obama faces Republican Mitt Romney in the presidential election.

Perkins asked the crowd to pray for elected officials including Obama.

“We pray that his eyes will be open to the truth,” Perkins said.

A number of event organizers, though, have been vocal critics of the Democratic president.

Steve Strang, the influential Pentecostal publisher of Charisma magazine, which was distributed at the rally, recently wrote in a blog post that America is under threat from a “radical homosexual agenda.” He also said Obama “seems to be moving toward some form of European socialism. Speaker Cindy Jacobs has blamed a mysterious Arkansas bird-kill last year on Obama’s repeal of the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which allows gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Speakers throughout the day condemned abortion, gay marriage and population control as practiced by Planned Parenthood. Christian rock music filled the historic mall as speakers challenged the crowd to overcome the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and slothfulness.

Yup, these are the same folks we’ve been fighting since the 1980s.  It’s going to be a continual fight to keep theocracy out of our state, local, and federal government and to stop the hate-filled agendas of  these religious extremists.

Live Blog: Elizabeth Warren vs. Scott Brown, Massachusetts Senate Debate, Round 2

Posted: October 1, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 81 Comments

Good Evening!! The second debate between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown will take place tonight from 7-8PM at the Tsongas Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. There will be a live audience of more than 5,000 people. Unfortunately, the debated will be moderated by Dancin’ Dave Gregory.

The debate will air live on C-span and will be live streamed at a number of sites, including C-Span and Mass Live.

Mass Live sees audience reaction as one of the five things to watch for in the debate. The first debate was held in a studio without a live audience. How will that affect the debaters? The audience will be told not to react, but they probably will anyway. The other four things to watch for (supposedly) are (commentary is mine):

(1) How will the candidates deal with the endless, boring Native American “issue”? Will Brown continue to claim he can psychically determine another person’s ethnic heritage? Will Warren find a way to smack him down for good? Maybe she should try raising her voice.

(2) “Brown’s perceived aggressiveness”: He has been criticized quite a bit for his boorish behavior in the first debate, but will he tone it down? I’m betting no, because he just can’t stand losing to a girl.

(3) Will Dancin’ Dave allow any actual issues to be addressed, like maybe foreign policy? I sure hope so, because I think it would be a hoot to see Brown try to talk about something complex and still make sense. And maybe he’ll tell us more about those meetings with kings and queens and how he talks to Hillary Clinton on the phone all the time.

(4) The last “issue” is Scott Brown’s trumped-up attacks on Warren for doing legal work for some corporations, including Travelers’ Insurance. Brown has demanded that Warren release the names of all the clients she has worked for. But Brown refuses to release his client list, because he’s a man and Warren is just some female who is inexplicably trying to take his Senate seat away.

I’ll add one more thing to watch for: Will Warren explicitly tie Brown to Mitt Romney and the Republican Party? In the last debate, she repeatedly said that she supports President Obama but she didn’t confront Brown on whom he is supporting. She needs to do that, repeatedly and explicitly.

The latest polls by The Boston Globe and Boston University’s NPR station WBUR both show Warren still ahead of Scott Brown by 43-38 and 46-44 respectively.

Just a couple of links on the Native American “controversy.” The Washington Post did a fact check last week in which they found Scott Brown guilty of two Pinocchios. Only two?

Brown said that Warren “checked the box claiming she was Native American” when she applied to Harvard and Penn, suggesting the Democratic candidate somehow gained an unfair advantage because of an iffy ethnic background. But there is no proof that she ever marked a form to tell the schools about her heritage, nor is there any public evidence that the universities knew about her lineage before hiring her.

The senator’s debate comments also suggest Warren actively applied for positions with Harvard and Penn, but the evidence suggests the schools recruited her because of her groundbreaking research and writings on bankruptcy. Harvard, in fact, did not give up on her after she first turned down a tenured position with the university.

Some might assume that Warren listed herself as a minority in the law school directories to attract offers from top schools, which would be a pro-active measure. The explanation that she was reaching out to other Native Americans — when she was merely listed as a “minority” — certainly appears suspicious, but there is no conclusive evidence that she used her status in the listing to land a job.

But Warren appears to have been well-qualified for the teaching positions and excelled once she was hired.

Gee, no kidding. I think the problem Brown is having is that Warren is far more intelligent, educated, and professionally accomplished than he is. But she’s a girl! So it doesn’t count.

Today the WaPo published an article on Why the Native American heritage fight isn’t hurting Elizabeth Warren. Because it’s idiotic? The article doesn’t really answer the question in the headline–just provides poll results that demonstrate that Massachusetts voters aren’t a moronic as Scott Brown.

A Boston Globe poll released Sunday showed Warren leading Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) 43 percent to 38 percent. A deeper dive into the survey’s crosstabs reveals that most voters aren’t swayed by the tussle over Warren’s ancestry….

More than eight-in-ten likely voters (86 percent) have at least some familiarity with the Native American heritage story. Of those with at least some knowledge of it, about seven in ten (71 percent) said the story would have no impact on their vote for Warren, while 24 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee.

Among voters who are undecided about whether they support Brown or Warren – a crucial subset of the electorate — nearly three-in-four (74 percent) said the story would have no impact on their vote for Warren, while nearly one-in-five (19 percent) said it would make them less likely to vote for her.

It is that 19 percent of voters that Brown is playing for.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino has released a video ad supporting Elizabeth Warren. Menino isn’t much of a public speaker, but he controls a powerful political machine.

I hope at least some Sky Dancers will be watching the debate. I won’t be able to comment for the first half, but I’ll be watching on C-span and will join in for the second half. Please give your reactions in the comments if you’re watching! The results of this race will affect all of us, whether we live in Massachusetts or not.

A Fresh Hell: Hyping an Angry Base with Lies

Posted: September 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, religious extremists, right wing hate grouups | Tags: , , | 71 Comments

We’ve seen an incredible amount of lies, distortion, and bigoted memes aimed at the most frustrated and ugly part of the Republican base.  These racist dog whistles (see the am post by BB) have been so bad that I can’t believe that any dog in america has been sleeping.  Ralph Reed’s group has been trotting out its usual set of  over-the-top rhetoric too. The Romney camp is desperate, and desperate angry people do desperate angry things.

A mailer blasted out by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a nonprofit group spending millions of dollars to mobilize evangelical voters this November to help Mitt Romney’s campaign, compares President Barack Obama’s policies to the threat posed by Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II. It also says that Obama has “Communist beliefs.” A copy of this so-called “Voter Registration Confirmation Survey” was obtained by Mother Jones after it was sent to the home of a registered Republican voter.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition is the brainchild of Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition who was once hailed as “the right hand of God” and who is now tasked with getting out the evangelical vote for Romney. In the mid-2000s, Reed was ensnared in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Reed was a longtime friend of Abramoff’s, and he took payments from Abramoff to lobby against certain American Indian casinos. Reed once ran a religious-themed anti-gambling campaign at the behest of an Abramoff-connected Native American tribe to try to prevent another tribe from opening a competitor casino. His current efforts for Romney are something of a political rehabilitation for Reed.

We’ve seen the President of the United States called “foreign”, “not really American”, and deemed an apologist for radical Islamists and communists.  We’ve now got conspiracy theories about his birth, his education, and the mainstream public polls. What positive outcomes can come from hyping up a base that tends to be filled with militia groups, dooms day-oriented religious followers, and old school, KKK-like racists?  What possible outcomes might happen if these groups decide they should save their country from the outrageous stereotypes built around a democratically elected leader? This is a questions explored by Josh Holland at Alternet.

It’s an exceptionally dangerous game that the right-wing media are playing. If Obama wins – and according to polling guru Nate Silver, he’d have a 95 percent chance of doing so if the vote were held today – there’s a very real danger that this spin — combined with other campaign narratives that are popular among the far-right — could create a post-election environment so toxic that it yields an outburst of politically motivated violence.

A strategy that began with a series of rather silly columns comparing 2012 with 1980, and assuring jittery conservatives that a huge mass of independents was sure to break for Romney late and deliver Obama the crushing defeat he so richly deserves, entered new territory with the bizarre belief that all the polls are wrong. And not only wrong, butintentionally rigged by “biased pollsters” – including those at Fox News – in the tank for Obama. (See Alex Pareene’s piece for more on the right’s new theory that the polls are being systematically “skewed.”)

Consider how a loosely-hinged member of the right-wing fringe – an unstable individual among the third of conservative Republicans who believe Obama’s a Muslim or the almost two-thirds who think he was born in another country – expecting a landslide victory for the Republican might process an Obama victory. This is a group that has also been told, again and again, that Democrats engage in widespread voter fraud – that there are legions of undocumented immigrants, dead people and  ineligible felons voting in this election ( with the help of zombie ACORN ). They’ve been told that Democrats are buying the election with promises of “free stuff” offered to the slothful and unproductive half of the population that pays no federal income taxes and refuses to “take responsibility for their lives” – Romney’s 47 percent.

They’ve also been told – by everyone from NRA president Wayne LaPierre to Mitt Romney himself – that Obama plans to ban gun ownership in his second term. (Two elaborate conspiracy theories have blossomed around this point. One holds that Fast and Furious – which, in reality, is much ado about very little – was designed to elevate gun violence to a point where seizing Americans’ firearms would become politically popular. The second holds that a United Nations treaty on small arms transfers (from which the United States has withdrawn) is in fact a stealthy workaround for the Second Amendment.)

And they’ve been warned in grim, often apocalyptic terms of what’s to come in a second term. The film, “2016: Obama’s America,” offers a dystopian vision of a third-world America gutted by Obama’s supposed obsession with global wealth redistribution. His re-election would bring something far worse than mere socialism – it would be marked by Kenyan anti-colonialism, in which America’s wealth is bled off as a form of reparations for centuries of inequities between the global North and South.

We’ve seen undercurrents of this already in the Tea Party Movement.  We’ve also seen actual acts of terrorism–like the bomb found along a parade route in Washington State–that indicate that many elements of the right are taking these things seriously.  We also see that legitimately elected politicians  repeat and spin these same paranoid memes.  Republican Reps Steve King (R-Iowa), Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Allen West (R-Florida), and others have been repeating complete nonsense and legitimizing it by asking for congressional investigations.  The media also gives these folks air time to spew what amounts to tin foil hat hypotheses.  Remember the judge in Texas that was preparing for all out civil war based on an Obama re-election? Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Brown Finally Takes Some Responsibility for His Staff Members’ Racist Behavior

Posted: September 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, open thread, racism, Scott Brown, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 32 Comments

This morning, Principal Chief Bill John Baker of the Cherokee Nation released the following statement in response to the Scott Brown staffers who attacked Brown’s opponent in the Massachusetts Senate race, Elizabeth Warren, with racist “war whoops” and “tomahawk chops” in Boston last weekend.

The Cherokee Nation is disappointed in and denounces the disrespectful actions of staffers and supporters of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. The conduct of these individuals goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse. The use of stereotypical “war whoop chants” and “tomahawk chops” are offensive and downright racist. It is those types of actions that perpetuate negative stereotypes and continue to minimize and degrade all native peoples.

The individuals involved in this unfortunate incident are high ranking staffers in both the senate office and the Brown campaign. A campaign that would allow and condone such offensive and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions.

The Cherokee Nation is a modern, productive society, and I am blessed to be their chief. I will not be silent when individuals mock and insult our people and our great nation.

We need individuals in the United States Senate who respect Native Americans and have an understanding of tribal issues. For that reason, I call upon Sen. Brown to apologize for the offensive actions of his staff and their uneducated, unenlightened and racist portrayal of native peoples.

Brown first responded by simply releasing a statement George Thomas, a member of the Pequot nation in Massachusetts.

“Being of Native American and African American ancestry, I find it insulting and wrong for Professor Elizabeth Warren to claim minority status as a Native American at Harvard,” Thomas said in the statement. “Professor Warren has never reached out to the Native American community within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to offer an explanation or an apology.”

Thomas said Warren should receive two ‘F’s: one for her failure to apologize, and one for fraudulently presenting herself to Harvard as a Native American.

I believe that Thomas made this statement some time ago–before the racist demonstration last Saturday. In addition, there is no evidence that Warren used her Native American ancestry for personal gain.

In any case, someone must have put heavy pressure on Brown, because this evening he released another statement that called the behavior of his staff “unacceptable.”

After a second day in which a video of racist behavior by his staff members threatened to overwhelm his re-election bid, Senator Scott P. Brown’s campaign issued a statement Wednesday evening saying he “regrets” what he called “unacceptable” behavior.

He also issued a verbal warning to his staff members who participated in the tomahawk chops and Indian war whoops — and to all of his staff — that such conduct would not be tolerated, according to a statement from his office.

The statement, from his spokeswoman, Alleigh Marre, follows:

“Senator Brown has spoken to his entire staff – including the individuals involved in this unacceptable behavior – and issued them their one and only warning that this type of conduct will not be tolerated. As we enter the final stretch of this campaign, emotions are running high, and while Senator Brown can’t control everyone, he is encouraging both sides to act with respect. He regrets that members of his staff did not live up to the high standards that the people of Massachusetts expect and deserve.”

I doubt that Brown wanted to do this, and he sure didn’t have the guts to stand up and say it himself. If he does ever appear in public again, perhaps a member of the press could ask him where he got the psychic power to determine an individual’s ethnic heritage by simply looking at him or her. I’m not sure how George Thomas does it either.

Meanwhile, Warren received the endorsement of the Firefighters’ Union today.

Flanked by firefighters in front of a station in South Boston, Elizabeth Warren accepted the endorsement of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts and said she would stand by them if elected to the U.S. Senate.

“This race is not about what kind of truck you drive. It’s not about what jacket you wear. It’s about how you vote, and Scott Brown has turned his back on firefighters,” Warren told the crowd on Wednesday morning.

In the 2010 special election, there was some opposition within the organization to supporting Brown’s opponent, Attorney General Martha Coakley. The endorsement of Warren was unanimous, according to PFFM President Ed Kelly, whose union represents 12,000 firefighters.

Go, Liz, Go!!!

This is an open thread.

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