Cholera outbreak spreads in Haiti

How much worse can the situation get in Haiti? BBC:

Five cases of cholera have been detected in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, the UN says, amid an outbreak that has killed more than 200 people.

UN spokeswoman Imogen Wall told the Reuters news agency the patients had been quickly diagnosed and isolated.

She said they had been infected in the main outbreak zone - the Artibonite region - and had subsequently travelled to the capital, where they fell ill.

This meant Port-au-Prince was "not a new location of infection", she noted.

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Oil spill patches showing up in Gulf of Mexico

Most of us knew it didn't go anywhere.

Just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard admiral in charge of the BP oil spill cleanup declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana fishers Friday found miles-long strings of weathered oil floating toward fragile marshes on the Mississippi River delta.

The discovery, which comes as millions of birds begin moving toward the region in the fall migration, gave ammunition to groups that have insisted the government has overstated clean-up progress, and could force reclosure of key fishing areas only recently reopened.

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Is there an abortion-provider murder conspiracy in the U.S.?

As part of the promo for her October 25 special "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller", Rachel Maddow presented a series of Wanted posters on abortion providers who were subsequently murdered in the early Clinton years. At one point she asks, "Do you want to see the Wanted poster the movement put out for John Britton?" The poster "the movement" put out. Prima facie evidence of a conspiracy?

This is a striking segment. After showing the Clinton-era posters and murders, she notes that following the 2009 murder of Dr. George Tiller, the posters started turning up again, in North Carolina. Watch:



In the segment, Maddow notes that a grand jury is now investigating whether the Tiller killing "was connected to a broader case involving radical anti-abortion activists." She adds that many abortion providers believe there is "a network of anti-abortion extremists at work."

Regarding the Tiller murder, here are two stories from McClatchy. First from the time of the 2009 killing (my emphasis):

The suspect in custody for the slaying of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller was a member of an anti-government group in the 1990s and a staunch opponent of abortion.

Scott P. Roeder, 51, of Merriam, Kan., a Kansas City suburb, was arrested on Interstate 35 near Gardner in suburban Johnson County, Kan., about three hours after the shooting. ... In the rear window of the 1993 blue Ford Taurus that he was driving was a red rose, a symbol often used by abortion opponents. On the rear of his car was a Christian fish symbol with the word "Jesus" inside.

Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide.

And now McClatchy offers this, from the recent Grand Jury investigation:

Tim Parks, a friend and former roommate of Roeder, said he appeared last week before a grand jury in Kansas City.

“Based on the questions they asked, they are looking into whether others were involved,” Parks said. “It appeared to me that they are trying to find or fabricate a conspiracy.” ... Parks said he and six others appeared before the grand jury last week. All of them, he said, had been part of a Bible study group that Roeder attended, and several were former roommates of Roeder.

Three points:

1. What are the odds there is a conspiracy of abortion-provider killers and their support groups operating in the U.S.? Evidence of this goes back to the early 1990s. The posters themselves are indications of a conspiracy.
2. Does the right-wing's renewed interest in gun violence under Democratic administrations encourage this violence? Note the timing — early Clinton-era; early Obama-era.
3. Does fear of right-wing propaganda attack mitigate conspiracy investigations in cases like these? Look at the Conservative reaction to the DHS report on right-wing terrorism, and the subsequent spineless government response.

Good questions all. And good for Ms. Maddow for producing her special.

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More on Clarence Thomas from Lillian McEwen, who dated him for 'six or seven years'

As you no doubt know, Virginia Thomas, wife of ultra–right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, recently left a voice mail for Anita Hill, asking that she apologize for "what you did with [sic] my husband."

Since Hill did nothing "with" Clarence Thomas, Mrs. Thomas most likely meant "what you did to my husband" — and in fact, what Hill did was accuse Thomas, under oath, of sexual harassment at his 1991 Supreme Court congressional confirmation hearing.

Lillian McEwen, who had a late-80s "six or seven year" relationship with Thomas, has recently come forward in the Washington Post to back up Hill's side of the story, saying Hill's testimony is "totally consistent with the way he [Thomas] lived" and that "he [Thomas] was obsessed with porn".

McEwen just gave another, longer interview to the New York Times, and several things emerged. The wide-ranging article is an excellent read. About Thomas:

Ms. McEwen said that pornography for Justice Thomas was “just a part of his personality structure.” She said he kept a stack of pornographic magazines, “frequented a store on Dupont Circle that catered to his needs,” and allowed his interest in pornography to bleed into his professional relationships.

“It starts inside,” she said, tapping her head during a 30-minute interview inside her three-story condominium in Southwest Washington. “And then your behavior flows from what it is that’s important to you. That’s what happened with him, certainly.”

She said she ended the relationship, in part because Thomas was "changing" — becoming "obsessed with campaigning for the president," for example. She describes this later Thomas as "obsessed, ambitious, irritable and bullying." Not the best combo for a happy life together, so she left the relationship.

This certainly sounds like the Thomas of Anita Hill's testimony at the hearings.

About the hearings themselves, she says she was surprised she wasn't called, since she had written to the man running the hearings, Sen. Joseph Biden, with whom she had worked, saying she knew Thomas well:

She said she never received a response from a note she wrote to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was running the hearings and with whom she had worked as a lawyer for the Judiciary Committee. ... “The hearings themselves were so constrained — the questioning, the subject matter — the scope of the hearings didn’t really allow for any kind of treatment of the issues that had been raised,” she said. “The kind of Clarence I knew at the time that these events occurred is the kind of Clarence that did not emerge from the hearings, I’ll say that. It was not him, and he probably would not have been on the court if the real Clarence had actually been revealed.”

Seems like a bad decision; the Dems may have blown their chances by not calling McEwen when her testimony was current.

Ms. McEwen has a book in the works, the writing of which she describes as "therapeutic." Surprisingly, however, she's having a hard time getting it published. I guess in a tell-all world, some things still can't be told (or maybe, some people may still not be told about).

Stay tuned; this may not be the end of this hard story.

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2010 elections 'a blurry contest between the party of big corporations and the party of business as usual'

Definitely read the entire column. It sounds like much of what our Chris in Paris has been writing for the past twenty months.

Rich's concluding paragraph perfectly capture the current situation:

Even as the G.O.P. benefits from unlimited corporate campaign money, it’s pulling off the remarkable feat of persuading a large swath of anxious voters that it will lead a populist charge against the rulers of our economic pyramid — the banks, energy companies, insurance giants and other special interests underwriting its own candidates. Should those forces prevail, an America that still hasn’t remotely recovered from the worst hard times in 70 years will end up handing over even more power to those who greased the skids.

We can blame much of this turn of events on the deep pockets of oil billionaires like the Koch brothers and on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which freed corporations to try to buy any election they choose. But the Obama White House is hardly innocent. Its failure to hold the bust’s malefactors accountable has helped turn what should have been a clear-cut choice on Nov. 2 into a blurry contest between the party of big corporations and the party of business as usual.

It's astounding, really, that the Republicans are pulling this off. Read More......

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President and Veep have no public events on their schedules today. But, they're about the only politicos not doing some kind of campaigning today.

The Sunday shows are chock full of campaign talk. The chairs of each party are making appearances. The DNC's Kaine is on "This Week" while RNC's Steele is on "Meet." Karl Rove, who has been busily buying the elections for the GOP with corporate money, is on "Face the Nation." CNN is hosting a debate among the three Florida Senate candidates. That should have some good fireworks. FOX is hosting one GOP Senate candidate (Toomey PA) and one Democrat who is campaigning like a Republican (Manchin WV). Full lineup of guests here. One bright spot is that Rachel Maddow is doing the panel on Meet the Press. She's on that panel with the ever painful Harold Ford and ranting Rick Santelli.

It's the final stretch -- nine days to go.

I really liked this web ad from Illinois Governor Pat Quinn:
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