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Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown just can’t seem to let Elizabeth Warren’s disputed Native American ancestry go.

During the second, testy debate in their hotly contested Senate race on Monday night, the GOP senator went on defense after being questioned by NBC’s David Gregory.

Gregory pressed Brown to say whether there was any evidence to suggest Warren had benefited or was hired because she had previously claimed that she was Native American.

“The real issue, David, is what she’s telling the people," Brown replied, later adding that “the best way for her to do that is for her to release her personnel records.”

Warren, a progressive hero, once claimed on a Harvard job application that she was part Cherokee. She later clarified that she was 1/32 Native American, saying she had been told as much by her mother, and had taken that fact at face value. 

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

California Gov. Jerry Brown looks on during a news conference at Google headquarters on September 25, 2012 in Mountain View, California.

The domestic workers rights movement suffered a significant legislative defeat on Sunday when California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed that state's proposed Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. The law would have mandated that all of California's estimated 200,000 domestic cleaners, health care workers, private cooks and child care professionals receive regular meal breaks and pay for overtime.

Brown indicated his support for domestic worker protections in general, but said the bill left "unanswered questions" about enforcement and a potential increase in the cost of domestic labor. Jill Shenker, field director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), dismissed those concerns. "We've been working with the families and employers of domestic workers all along the way, who feel there are absolutely solutions to the affordability question and ways to make the bill work," she told Lean Forward.

The New York legislation, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. David Paterson in November 2010, mandates that employers pay overtime to workers who have worked more than 40 hours in a week and institutes a number of protections against unfair labor practices like withheld pay or sexual harassment. "In short," wrote Demos fellow Sharon Lerner, "people who hire domestic workers now have to behave like regular employers."

While Shenker said the NDWA was "very disappointed," with Brown's veto, "organizing over the long haul is nothing new for domestic work."

Indeed, many of the NDWA's 35 nationwide affiliates are continuing to organize around local concerns. Domestic worker groups in San Francisco and Houston, Texas are organizing around allegations of employee wage theft, and their New York City migrant workers center affiliate is running a campaign against domestic worker trafficking. Affiliates in Illinois and Massachusetts, Shenker said, are contemplating state-level campaigns for a New York-style bill of rights, but "there are so many factors around organizing sponsors, and all kinds of things, so I don't want to say for sure that something's happening."

Republicans are hoping for a game changer with Wednesday's debate in Denver, but The Republican ticket can't even get Fox News on board with their vision for America.

Tonight, Ed (who is live from Denver tonight and tomorrow night!) welcomes Howard Fineman, NBC News Political Analyst and Editorial Director of the Huffington Post Media Group, for the latest from the Republican "rolling calamity."

Then, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie predicts Mitt Romney will turn the presidential race "upside down" with his debate performance.  Susan Del Percio, Republican Strategist and MSNBC Contributor, and Chris Kofinis, Former Edwards Campaign Comm Director, will join Ed for a preview.

Its debate night (click here to watch them live until 8pET) in Massachusetts and Virginia and Democrats have Scott Brown and  Eric Cantor on the ropes.  

LIVE VIDEO — NBC's David Gregory moderates the Massachusetts Senate debate between U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Tsongas Center.

You can also click here watch a debate (which also starts at 7pET) between House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his Democratic challenger Wayne Powell at CarMax headquarters in Goochland County, Virginia.

Both debates are scheduled to last an hour.  

We will have reaction and analysis of BOTH debates tonight on The Ed Show at 8pET on MSNBC!  

Every modern presidential campaign has had a "moment of impact."  The candidate says something or does something that makes a lasting impression.  And sometimes the moment of impact can kill a campaign.

There’s new evidence Mitt Romney’s suffering after his own "moment of impact."  These words could follow him for the rest of his life:

"There 47 percent of the people who vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about those people. I`ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 percent to 10 percent in the center that are independents."

In fact, The New York Times crunched the poll data to find out if the "47 percent" comment is hurting Romney:

The poll numbers are pretty steady until Romney’s "47 percent" comments hit the news.  The president is holding on to all of his post-convention gains and keeps gaining.  Romney is barely holding on or he's losing likely voters as a result of the hidden camera comments.

Romney’s got another problem. 

MSNBC announced today it's going to host a presidential debate-eve watch party in Denver tomorrow night (Oct. 2) and Ed wants you to join him! 

Please come to Govnrs Park Tavern at 672 Logan St. starting at 4pMT for the live 6pMT broadcast of The Ed Show (don’t forget it’s first come, first served so we cannot guarantee everyone will get in).

Be sure to stick around as Ed will stop by after the show (he will be doing the actual show from a studio at another location, both tonight and Tuesday night; the actual Obama-Romney debate is Wednesday night). 

See you there! 

Somebody had to do it.  

The self-described job creators who feel entitled now have a voice, thanks to Steve Pearlstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning business and economics columnist for The Washington Post.

Steve Pearlstein, Washington Post columnist

On Saturday, Steve published a column titled "I am a job creator: A manifesto for the entitled."  In it, he plays a corporate chief executive/business owner/private-equity fund manager-type, a "misunderstood superhero of American capitalism, single-handedly creating wealth and prosperity despite all the obstacles put in my way by employees, government and the media."

Here's just three examples:

I am entitled to complain bitterly about taxes that are always too high, even when they are at record lows. 

I am entitled to provide political support to radical, uncompromising politicians and then complain about how dysfunctional Washington has become.

I am entitled to load companies up with debt in order to pay myself and investors big dividends — and then blame any bankruptcy on over-compensated workers. 

Click here to read the full article.  It's that good! 

A survivor of the mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater in July appears in a new ad calling on the public to push the presidential candidates for stronger gun control.

Stephen Barton, a young man shot in the face and neck less during the Aurora, Colo., shooting that left 12 dead and dozens injured, stars in the ad, which takes place in an empty theater setting.

"I was lucky," Barton says in the ad. "In the next four years, 48,000 Americans won't be so lucky, because they'll be murdered with guns in the next president's term—enough to fill over 200 theaters. So when you watch the presidential debates, ask yourself, 'Who has a plan to stop gun violence?'"

The first presidential debate takes place on Wednesday in Denver.

Produced by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition of mayors led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston's Thomas Menino, the ad is expected to air nationally.

The 30-second spot pushes viewers to the website DemandAPlan.org where the public can gain more information on gun violence and the mayors' ongoing campaign for greater attention to this issue. It includes a petition asking President Obama and Republican nominee for president Mitt Romney for a "plan to end gun violence."

"What we need from our nation’s leaders is more than just a moment of silence -- we need a moment of courage," reads the petition.

The group released a similar ad last month featuring survivors of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting in which former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survived being shot in the head.

The Tea Party’s crusade against voter fraud by way of suppression and intimidation was flipped on its head earlier this week as election officials in six Florida counties launched an investigation into potentially hundreds of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that was paid almost $3 million by the RNC to register Republican voters in swing states.

There’s been lots of talk from GOPers about cracking down on voter fraud, and now Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wants to make sure equal attention is paid to the crime of voter intimidation. Boxer stopped by The Ed Show on Friday to discuss a letter she recently wrote to the State Department inquiring about their handling of voter intimidation. She told Ed Schultz:

“I know everyone’s paying attention, I know the Obama campaign is ready to act on this. But I realized that there are two important federal laws, the Voting Rights Act, passed in the 60s, and Voter Registration Act passed in the 90s, that have criminal and civil penalties for people who try to intimidate a voter. And I wanted to make sure that the Justice Department is moving on these cases. So I did hear from them today, and although they can’t confirm or deny any particular case because I wrote about Ohio, they did say that they had opened up 42 investigations this year, which is good to know.

They are pursuing, enforcing these laws, and they said I could say that anyone within the sound of my voice, anyone in this country who feels they’re being intimidated can call their nearest FBI office because it is a federal offense to harass someone, to intimidate someone. Think about all the people that worked so hard and struggled and went to prison and put their life on the line for the right to vote.”

Schultz asked Boxer to comment on a video that surfaced on Wednesday of a young girl in Colorado registering people to vote – but only if they were voting for Mitt Romney. The girl said she was being paid by the County Clerk’s office.

Boxer said it’s very simple, black and white: “That’s against the law.”

We've finally got a real case of voter fraud: Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee have been funneling money to an organization suspected of voter fraud!

Are Republicans trying to steal the election?  Tonight, Ed will ask U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Allen Raymond, author of "How to Rig an Election."

Then, do Republicans want to cheat because they have a candidate who is losing?  Democratic Strategist Bob Shrum joins Ed for Romney's bad week that just got worse today.

Is Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remark the biggest game changer in the history of presidential politics?  The Nation’s John Nichols has the answer.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus flip-flops on supporting Todd "forcible rape" Akin.  Michelle Goldberg, Senior Contributing Writer for Newsweek and the Daily Beast, and Ari Melber, Correspondent for The Nation, join Ed for that.

Iowa kicked off the presidential election yesterday, becoming the first state where voters could cast their votes in person for the general election.

27 states and Washington, D.C., will have early in-person voting prior to Election Day.  The campaigns estimate that two out of every five ballots will be filled out before November 6, Election Day.

And one presidential candidate is in much better position to take advantage of the new voting in this dynamic thing we call American democracy.

Here's a look at Mitt Romney's field offices in Iowa. The Romney camp has 12 outposts across the Hawkeye State:

Now take a look at President Obama's operation, his field operation in Iowa.  The Obama campaign has 66 of these outpost offices, a 5.5-1 advantage over Romney:

When Mitt Romney talked to "60 Minutes" last week, he said President Obama has "repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for the truth." If there's ever been a more blatant example of political "projection," I can't think of it.

And yet, Romney is increasingly invested in this. This week, several reports noted that Romney intends to use next week's debate to "fact check" the president. The Obama campaign, unimpressed, released a video this morning on the subject.

Of course, if the 2012 presidential race comes down to which candidate is more dishonest, Romney's in trouble. Consider, for example, the 36th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. Romney argued just yesterday that the crisis of military suicides would be made worse by looming cuts to the defense budget.

That's plainly untrue.

2. In same speech, Romney said, "You realize we have fewer ships in the Navy than any time since 1917."

This one again? Romney dropped this lie a while ago, but it's apparently back.

3. Romney went on to say, in reference to the president, "[H]is plan also calls for trillion dollar deficits."

Obama's plan calls for trillions in deficit reduction.

4. Romney added, "It is the same series of policies he's put in place over the last four years and they have not worked. And if you don't, why, look at the price of gasoline."

To blame gas prices on the president's policies is ridiculously untrue.

5. Romney also said in reference to Obama, "He's put us on a road to Europe."

The irony is, Europe is trying to grow through austerity, just as Romney intends to do here. He's lying in a self-refuting sort of way.

6. In a speech at Westerville, Ohio, Romney boasted, "We got unemployment down [in Massachusetts] to 4.7 percent."

Well, in reality, the unemployment rate in Massachusetts dropped because so many people dropped out of the state's workforce. The fact of the matter is Massachusetts' job creation record during Romney's term was "one of the worst in the country," ranking 47th out of 50 states.