Mittens' Son compares Obama in debate to ‘obstinate child’

The Grio

Mitt Romney’s sons have reportedly taken greater control of his campaign. And they’ve also begun to speak up more on the stump. In fact, Josh Romney had quite a bit to say about his father’s recent debate, which continues to thrill the GOP base.

Here’s what Josh Romney told a crowd in Iowa on Tuesday:

“I don’t know if you guys saw the debate last week,” Josh Romney said, as the crowd cheered and applauded. “I take a lot of pride in that, because — I don’t know if you noticed, but I was — me and my brothers were responsible for my dad doing so well. We were the ones, as kids, that kept saying the same thing over and over. And we’d say the same lie over and over. And my dad learned then, not to believe it. While we didn’t go to any of the formal debate preparation, we did the real hard stuff.

“So as a father, he learned how to debate an obstinate child. We had a lot of fun, we had a lot of fun watching the debate.”

As Talking Points Memo points out, Mitt Romney took a similar swipe at the president during the debate.

Read more at TPM.

Ann Coulter: "The Worst Thing That Was Done To Black People Since Slavery Was The Great Society Programs"

Media Matters

Fox Attacks White House For Same Response to Venezuela Presidential Election As Bush (racism)

Media Matters

Fox's Neil Cavuto attacked President Obama for "congratulating" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on winning the recent presidential election. But the White House did not congratulate Chavez at all; rather they congratulated the Venezuelan people for a high participation and a "peaceful election process," a response nearly identical to the one issued by President Bush in 2006.

During the October 9 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked reacted to a statement by White House press secretary Jay Carney on the Venezuelan election by asking if the White House gave "its blessings to a dictator critics say is muscling into his job for life?" When asked for commentary on the White House's response, Fox News contributor John Bolton suggested it "was a big mistake" and "very sad commentary" by the White House. Bolton went on to attack Obama, claiming "it may have been Chicago-style politics that attracted the approval" of the White House [VIDEO] 

However, the White House statement never congratulated Hugo Chavez on his victory. In a press gaggle en route to Bakersfield, California, press secretary Jay Carney told reporters pointed out "differences with President Chavez" but congratulated Venezuela on "a high level of participation" and a "relatively peaceful election process":

Walmart Worker Strike Spreads to Maryland, Texas

Colorlines

Walmart workers are not done striking. Today in just the second time in Walmart history, the mega retailer's workers are walking out of work to protest their treatment on the job, Salon reported. In Laurel, Maryland and Dallas, Texas, Walmart workers are following up on a worker walkout that took place last Thursday, when Los Angeles area workers took to the streets to protest what they say are Walmart's intimidation tactics blocking their organizing efforts.

Walmart workers are shining a light on their plight ahead of the company's annual investor meeting tomorrow in Bentonville, Alabama. Walmart wages aren't enough to cover the basics like rent, or health care premiums, or even lunch, workers say, and some have been forced to turn to public assistance to make ends meet. From Salon:

"A lot of associates, we have to use somewhat of a buddy system," Dallas worker Colby Harris said last night. "We loan each other money during non-paycheck weeks just to make it through to the next week when we get paid. Because we don't have enough money after paying bills to even eat lunch." Harris, who's now on strike, said that after three years at Walmart, he makes $8.90 an hour in the produce department, and workers at his store have faced "constant retaliation" for speaking up.

Dorian Warren, professor at Columbia University and board member of the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com, called the walkouts a pivotal moment in Walmart workers' efforts to organize the staunchly union-free corporation.

Before these work stoppages, "the other stuff had been so predictable from Walmart's point of view," Columbia University political scientist Dorian Warren said yesterday. They've always had activists coming to Bentonville. They've never had a disruption in their supply chain." Warren, who's co-writing a book on Walmart, said the strikes by warehouse workers and store employees are a game-changer: "There was 'Before,' and there was 'After,' and we just crossed that line."

OUR Walmart, the national Walmart worker organization active in 43 states and backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, has promised more actions ahead.

Ohio Appealing to US Supreme Court To Block Weekend Early Voting

ColorLines

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, dissatisfied with a federal appeals court ruling just four days ago denying his attempt to delete the weekend before Election Day for early voting, is now turning to the US Supreme Court to get his way.

Said Husted in a statement released today:

"This is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections and because of its impact on all 50 states as to who and how elections will be run in America we are asking the Supreme Court to step in and allow Ohioans to run Ohio elections. ...

"As a swing state, we in Ohio expect to be held to a high standard and level of scrutiny when it comes to elections. However, it's troubling that the federal courts have failed to recognize that there isn't another state in the union which can claim Ohio's broad menu of voting options and opportunity to vote. In Ohio, ALL voters already have at least 230 hours available to vote in person prior to Election Day, ALL registered voters received an application to vote by mail and ALL voters still have the ability to vote during the 13-hour window on Election Day itself."

Ohio's early voting window in 2008 included the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before Election Day, which many African-American churches took advantage of in their "souls to the polls" campaigns when they bussed black voters to the polls after church service that Sunday. This boosted black voter turnout, something that upset Doug Priesse, a GOP county election board member, who said "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban -- read African-American -- voter-turnout machine."

Husted decided in August this year that there will be no early voting on weekends, except for military voters, who could vote on the weekend before. That move is easily viewed as a strike against black church voters, who tend to vote Democratic, while biasing military voters, who often vote Republican. The Obama campaign recognized this and sued to have weekend voting available to all voters. Two federal courts ruled in all voters favor by reinstating the weekend before Election Day for early voting.

Husted has also made the news for fighting to have provisional ballots thrown away if a voter is sent by an elections official to the wrong district to vote -- this in a state that leads the nation in trashed provisional ballots. He has denounced voter suppression groups like True the Vote, but his other calls to restrict voting access have landed him in bad company with other state secretaries who've been doing the same.

3/4 of African, Arab countries in danger of food crisis: Survey

PressTV

Three-quarters of African countries and several Arab nations are at a high or extreme risk of a food crisis, according to a new report.

In a survey of 197 countries, published by the global risk and strategic consulting firm Maplecroft on Wednesday, 59 countries are most at risk of food insecurity. 

The analysis added that out of the eleven countries that are in the “extreme risk” category, nine are in Africa. The other two are Haiti and Afghanistan.

Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are ranked first, followed by Haiti, Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, the Comoros, and Sierra Leone, respectively. 

"Although a food crisis has not emerged yet, there is potential for food-related upheaval across the most vulnerable regions," Helen Hodge from Maplecroft said. 

Sources of food insecurity range from conflict and instability to rising prices for corn, and declining production in former Soviet countries. 

"The drivers of the Arab Awakening were varied and complex and included long standing public anger at high levels of governmental corruption and oppressive tactics against populations and political opposition," Maplecroft announced, adding, "When these factors combine with food insecurity, sparked by rising global prices, it can create an environment for social unrest and regime change." 

Important changes compared to last year's rankings were North Korea (from 19th to 35th), Egypt (from 88th to 71st) and Syria (from 89th to 16th). 

Father of Danroy Henry Releases Video Statement: Pleasantville Police Lied about Fatal Shooting of Black College Student

New Cameras Installed in East Haven Police Cruisers Aim to Prevent Racial Profiling

LatinoFox

The East Haven police department, currently under federal investigation for racial profiling, particularly against Latinos, has installed new dashboard cameras in its cruisers in an attempt to catch any wrongdoing.

The federal investigation has led to criminal charges against four officers.

The New Haven Register reports that the Town Council recently approved spending $115,000 to install cameras in 16 police cars now, and two more in the future.

The chairman of the town's Board of Police Commissioners, Joe Civitello, says cameras can help show what really happened in the event officers are sued or questioned over their actions.

Interim Police Chief Brent Larrabee says local officers wanted cameras to rebut allegations and complaints against them. He says that's unusual because many police departments fight to keep cameras out of cruisers.

Four town officers were charged in January with abusing and harassing Latino residents and business owners in East Haven.

The National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators called for an investigation of the mayor for what the group alleges was his role in creating anti-Latino hostility in the community.

The group’s call followed the arrests of the four town officers who have been accused of waging a campaign against Latinos that included beatings and false arrests. The officers have pleaded not guilty.

The legislators’ caucus said the mayor also had to be made accountable for the alleged conspiracy to violate the rights of Latinos. The mayor, Joseph Maturo, Jr., further fueled the outrage in the local Latino community when, answering a reporter’s question about what he would do for local Latinos to make up for the scandal, he said he "might have tacos."

Attorneys says Feds Should Take Over Oakland PD - Chronic Failure to Comply with Settlement

BaltimoreSun

The U.S. government should take over the Oakland Police Department — the California agency led for two years by Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts — because of a chronic failure to comply with a decade-old reform settlement, attorneys overseeing the case said in court papers last week.

The document cites remarks made by Batts early in his tenure that "there shouldn't be any excuse" for not meeting the terms of the settlement, and again a year later when he said the agency had "dropped the ball."

"If past is prologue, and it surely will be, the current monitoring model without the appointment of a receiver will undoubtedly result in more failed promises, more lives destroyed, and the continued waste of taxpayer money by the city and the [Oakland Police Department]," the lawyers' motion reads.

Batts, who spent 27 years with the Long Beach Police Department, was hired to lead the Oakland force in late 2009 and stepped down in late 2011, saying his hands had been tied by bureaucracy and a lack of resources.

He left shortly before the agency's clash with Occupy Oakland protesters, which is also heavily criticized in the court filing, quoting from a report prepared for the city by former Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier's consulting group.

Batts took the helm of the Baltimore Police Department two weeks ago, though he has stayed behind the scenes with an Oct. 17 City Council confirmation hearing looming.

The Oakland lawsuit stems from a scandal in which several rogue officers were charged with beating or framing drug suspects in 2000 along with other claims that resulted in nearly $11 million in payments to 119 plaintiffs and attorneys.

In January, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson said he "remains in disbelief" that the police department has failed to adopt the reforms and threatened federal takeover of the agency.

The city's current chief, Howard Jordan, and Mayor Jean Quan said last week they both believe the department is making progress with the reforms. They said the city is in compliance with 85 percent of the 52 mandated changes.

"We're all working to move in the same direction, which is full compliance," Jordan said in a statement. "It's not been easy. It's been challenging. But no one here [is] ducking from the responsibilities we have.

"We all want the same thing. Judge Henderson wants the same thing, and I want the same thing: constitutional policing in Oakland."

Similar reports critical of the agency have been issued over the years, and attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin wrote that the city and police department suffered from a culture of "repeated empty promises."

"In the wake of the city's inability to change the culture of the OPD and to fully embrace these reforms, citizens continue to be victimized and subjected to civil rights violations, supervisors allows misconduct to continue unabated, and millions of dollars have been paid out on police misconduct claims since 2003," the attorneys wrote.

Henderson increased the oversight authority of a court-appointed monitor. Jordan now must consult with the monitor before making important department decisions such as promoting and disciplining officers and changing policing policy and tactics.

In an interview last month, Batts said the court monitor was counterproductive. "I had to call the monitor twice a week, and I had to ask permission and he had to say, 'OK'" before moves could be made, Batts said.

"I do think we had progress there," he said when asked about Oakland during his introduction at Baltimore City Hall in August.

Batts' supporters in Oakland have said he was stymied by a lack of resources and meddling from City Hall. Geoff Collins, a businessman who led Oakland's Police Foundation when Batts was chief, said the court monitors have been "out of control."

The monitors "want to take over the department," Collins said. "Tony got caught in that grinder."

Quan testified, according to the motion filed last week, that she did not believe Batts devoted much "hands on involvement to the NSA reforms and spent a considerable amount of time looking for another job while he worked for the city." Halfway through his tenure, it was reported that Batts was a finalist to become chief of the San Jose Police Department.

In a Sept. 25 deposition, Quan said Batts was "not truthful to me" about seeking out the San Jose job and that she "probably mistakenly gave him a second chance."

"It was my sense during the first six months that I was mayor that [Batts] was not in town a lot and was not committed to just the overall role, much less the [settlement reforms]," she said in the deposition, according to a transcript.

The report cites the agency's clash with Occupy Oakland protesters, which occurred about two weeks after Batts stepped down. The city hired the Frazier Group, led by former Baltimore and San Jose chief Thomas Frazier, to review the department's response and to independently investigate some of the misconduct claims stemming from it.

The Frazier Group's report, according to the attorneys, cited "command turnover," staffing cuts, and a lack of "succession planning" for future leaders.

Wrongful death suit promised in shooting of Unarmed Latino Woman by Border Patrol

UPI

A wrongful death suit will be filed in the death of a woman shot in an incident with U.S. Border Patrol agents in California, her family's lawyer said.

Attorney Eugene Iredale spoke after a memorial service in Chula Vista Sunday for Valeria Tachiquin Alvarado, 32, who died Sept. 28.

An initial police report said Alvarado struck a Border Patrol agent twice as she pulled away in her car, and the unnamed agent fired his weapon at her from the car's hood.

Police said she was in an apartment known for drug activity prior to the fatal incident, where the agents were attempting to arrest a felon. Alvarado had been on probation for a 2011 drug-related conviction.

Iredale said she was shot nine times as an agent "marched forward shooting time and time again into the body of an unarmed woman."

Chula Vista police are investigating the shootings and the U.S. attorney's office will review the findings, U-T San Diego reported Monday.

Official Public Statement Regarding the Investigation of the Homicide of Darius Simmons on May 31, 2012

Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission

Majority Of Americans Say Israeli Attack on Iran Would Worsen U.S. Position In Middle East

ThinkProgress

A new survey by the University of Maryland’s Anwar Sadat Chair and the Program on International Policy Attitudes found that a majority of Americans (55 percent) said an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would worsen the U.S.’s strategic postion in the Middle East. The poll also found that 29 percent said the U.S. should discourage Israel from attacking Iran while 53 percent said the U.S. should remain neutral:

Impediments keep Black men from the polls in Georgia

Sentencing Project

Black men vote at sharply lower rates than other groups in Georgia.

Only 63 percent of eligible black men in Georgia are registered to vote, compared to 76 percent of black women and 75 percent of whites;

Of those registered to vote, 70 percent of black men actually cast a ballot in the 2008 general election, compared to 80 percent of black women, 78 percent of white women and 76 percent of white men.

The difference in educational attainment between black men and black women is one reason, said Nancy Flake Johnson, president of the Urban League of Greater Atlanta, but another obstacle is the “disproportionately high” incarceration rates among black men.

The Sentencing Project’s 2004 report, The Vanishing Black Electorate: Felony Disenfranchisement in Atlanta, Georgia, supports that contention, showing  a  substantial portion of the lower African American male rate of participation was, in fact, a result of felony disenfranchisement policies.

Blacks in Georgia are 3.3 times as likely as whites to end up behind bars and those convicted of felonies lose their right to vote until they have completed their entire sentences, including probation or parole. Of the more than 275,000 disenfranchised felons in Georgia, nearly 160,000 are black, according to the report State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 2010, also from The Sentencing Project.