Good Evening, all.

Breaking News

❖ Another mass shooting, this one “near a suburban Milwaukee shopping mall.” 3 people have been killed and another 4 wounded. Manhunt is ongoing.

International Developments

❖ Argentina’s president has ordered all 326 sailors aboard to evacuate the Argentina ship seized by Ghana in the port of Tema. NML Capital Ltd claims Argentina owes it $300 million on defaulted bonds and warns it won’t release the ship until Argentina coughs up $20 million.

❖ Shameful: Yet another female reporter has been sexually assaulted by a mob in Tahrir Square.

❖ A poll of Egyptians last month shows they are “increasingly positive” towards Iran, want nuclear weapons and hold “their military” in highest trust.

❖ “International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has met Syria’s embattled president Bashar al-Assad.” A car bomb exploded in Damascus during Brahimi’s visit, killing “at least” 10.

❖ Jordan has “arrested 11 militants alleged to have planned attacks on western diplomats and shopping centres in the capital.” They claim weapons were brought in from Syria, and Al-Qaeda members in Iraq aided in making explosives.

International Finance

❖ Such timing: elections are taking place in Spain’s Basque and Galicia regions just as the bailout fund runs dry.

❖ Thousands marched in London yesterday, protesting Austerity. Meanwhile, some conservatives are being exposed–one for calling police “plebs” (“a class-laden insult for working people”), another for sitting in first class though he’d paid for a standard train ticket, etc.

❖ Signs of neo-nazism in Greece have been disturbing. Here’s more.

Money Matters USA

❖Yay! It can happen here: “Ex-GE Bankers Get Prison Sentences For Rigging Muni Bonds”. An appeal is underway, of course, but the three “former bankers” were found guilty of “conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to defraud the United States”. Prosecutors wanted pretty stiff sentences, but the judge gave one banker 4 years, and the other two 3 years in prison.

Politics USA

❖ FL Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair of the Democratic National Convention, goes all clueless when asked a question about Obama’s “kill list”. Video.

❖ Teevee host David Gregory says he’s talked to Simpson and Bowles “and they say [Romney's tax reform proposal] simply doesn’t work–that either the middle class will have to pay more in taxes or you have to blow up the deficit.” It’s that bad.

❖ Insightful article on “The Failure of the Liberal Idea Machine” to enable the public to understand that economic stimulus is in the best interests of most of us. (Also contains an excellent quote from DDay, so do check it out.)

❖ Careful analysis shows “no link between income tax cuts for the top 5 percent and subsequent job creation.” Careful analysis also shows a “positive relationship between tax cuts for the bottom 95 percent and job growth at both the national and state levels”–which in turns stimulates more demand for goods and services, thus stimulating more jobs creation, and the economy moves along.

❖ Some Bain gains of relocating Sensata from Il to China: 12 capital funds set up in the Cayman Islands (tax avoidance), tax-payer funded retraining for some IL workers ($780,000), laying off 170 workers making $14 – $17/hour (Chinese workers make $0.99 – $1.35/hour).

❖ We learned about it last week, and it’s now being explored by Forbes. Those Hart Intercivic voting machines, with a record of problems, are owned “in large part” by H.I.G. Capital which has deep pocket Romney donors and which is partnered with Solamere Capital, Romney son Tagg’s venture.

❖ OH’s Secretary of State, Republican John Husted, whose stubborn efforts to stop early voting have been blocked by the courts, is saying those “intrusions” by the courts are an “un-American approach to voting”.

❖ PA’s voter ID requirement was suspended earlier this month, but misinforming voters about ID requirements continues to such an extent that another motion has been filed to bring it to a halt.

❖ Some of the ‘Wingers have their panties in a bunch over a rumor they’re spreading that Gloria Allred has an “October Surprise” to spring on us soon.

❖ Staggering dollar amounts being raised and spent in the quest for power and control. And their goal is to continue ad nauseum beyond the November elections. Here’re some of the top contributors and totals by candidate and super PAC.

❖ In a full frontal display of charm, Republican Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin has now compared his opponent for the MO Senate seat, Democrat Claire McCaskill to a dog.

❖ Democrats running for office this year are making hay out of the new health care law provision that “members of Congress must get their health benefits through new insurance exchanges” just like everybody else. Since Republicans want to repeal the law, Democrats are accusing them of wanting health care for themselves for life while denying health care for millions of Americans.

❖ The FL death row inmate with schizophrenia has been granted a temporary stay of execution by a federal judge. Differing state and federal definitions of “competency” are of judicial concern.

❖ The fallout from CA Republican Representative, and House Oversight Chairman, Darrell Issa’s releasing the State Department cables with names “of people on the ground in Libya” continues.

Women & Children

❖ One Billion Rising

❖ “Draw the Line – Sign the Bill”

Health, Homelessness & Hunger

❖ To their utter surprise, Medicaid patients in St. Johns County, FL are being turned away by their providers “because the state Agency for Health Care Administration . . . failed to inform patients it was changing their HMOs.” Huge intolerable mess, leading one county assistant administrator to say, “I am horrified that any government agency would show such indifference . . .. These are cancer patients with their treatments interrupted.”

Planet Earth News

❖ The impact of climate change on lobsters in the Atlantic: warmer temperatures seem to be making the lobsters molt earlier, “revealing a more vulnerable soft shell lobster that’s susceptible to disease.”

❖ Wheat shipments from Turkey to Indonesia are likely to decline by almost 40% due to production shortfalls, a result of climate change.

Mixed Bag

❖ RIP, George McGovern. One of the very few who stood up publicly against the war in Vietnam, and consistent supporter of civil rights and what we now call the “safety net”. A brave and good man. Many pictures here. Solid tribute to McGovern from Rick Perlstein, in the form of the poignant question, “Is Decency in Politics Always Doomed?” Prescient HST comment here.

❖ Didn’t know he’s an expert on such matters, and the controversy will surely continue regardless, but US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced that Sir Francis Drake first landed at Point Reyes, CA

Break Time

❖ Stairs or escalator?