Joni Ernst said she has "a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes with me virtually everywhere," -- meaning there's a scared campaign intern somewhere wondering whether she's getting college credit for carrying Joni Ernst's gun everywhere. Jason Chaffetz thinks the surgeon general should be given more responsibility in combating Ebola; also, Jason Chaffetz has an office building on J Street NW that he'd like to sell you. And the White House gate rusher attacked two police dogs who tried to subdue him. Now that guy has to deal with both the justice system AND the ghost of Robert Byrd haunting him. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, October 23rd, 2014:
SENATE TORTURE REPORT STILL A TOTAL CLUSTER-F - Things at the agency really went downhill after *John Yoo*. Ali Watkins and Ryan Grim: "A Senate Sergeant-at-Arms investigation into a dispute between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee has ended without firm conclusions after failing to examine crucial computer records that investigators said were erased by the agency, sources familiar with the inquiry told The Huffington Post. CIA officials, however, told The Huffington Post that the computer records not only exist, but were provided to Senate investigators, leaving the dispute's final inquiry shrouded in questions. The probe by the Senate’s chief law enforcer was the last running investigation into competing allegations of wrongdoing lobbed between the CIA and its oversight committee. The tussle involved the Senate panel’s investigation into the agency’s post-9/11 torture program, with the CIA accusing the Senate staff of mishandling classified information. The completion of the Sergeant-at-Arms review marks an apparent, albeit ambiguous, conclusion, with no more investigations currently in the works." [HuffPost]
AMERICANS DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT EBOLA - "Hi, Ebola hotline? I recently watched 'Invictus.' Do I have Ebola?" Amanda Terkel: "Kenya is one of Africa's tourism hot spots, and it's been suffering from geographic ignorance during the Ebola outbreak. Blake Fleetwood, of Cook Travel in New York, told the Associated Press in September that he has had 14 groups cancel their safaris in Kenya or South Africa. Some of his clients, he said, 'figure somebody from Sierra Leone is going to go to Morocco and the infection is going to spread through the continent.' ... Two students who had moved from Rwanda and were ready for a fresh start at their new school in Maple Shade, New Jersey, are now being kept home due to parents' fears about Ebola. ... A North Carolina teacher who recently returned from a mission trip in South Africa is being barred from coming back to work for three weeks because people are afraid she may have Ebola." [HuffPost]
Congress doesn't know much about Ebola, either: "Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) says Ron Klain is 'off to a bad start' in his new role as the president's Ebola response coordinator, and that the U.S. Surgeon General should be the one leading the effort. But what Chaffetz doesn't seem to realize is that there hasn't been a surgeon general for more than a year. 'Why not have the surgeon general head this up?' Chaffetz asked in a Wednesday appearance on Fox News. 'I think that’s a very legitimate question. At least you have somebody who has a medical background whose been confirmed by the United States Senate.' 'It begs the question, what does the surgeon general do?' he added. 'Why aren’t we empowering that person?'" [HuffPost's Amber Ferguson]
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JONI ERNST GOING FULL SHARRON ANGLE - So, who exactly would collect America's guns in the scenarios envisioned by conservatives? In our mind, it'll be perky college students needing summer jobs ("Hi! I'm Jaylyn! I'm here for your firearms.") Sam Levine: "Joni Ernst, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, said during an NRA event in 2012 that she would use a gun to defend herself from the government. 'I have a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes with me virtually everywhere,' Ernst said at the NRA and Iowa Firearms Coalition Second Amendment Rally in Searsboro, Iowa. 'But I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family -- whether it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.' Ernst made the remark a little more than a month after gunman James Holmes allegedly killed 12 people and injured 58 in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Ernst’s campaign did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment about the remark on Wednesday evening." [HuffPost]
Epic flyover state-'splaining: "According to Iowa Senate candidate Bruce Braley, nobody outside of the Midwest is aware of what a potluck is. The Democratic congressman told the New York Times this week that if only members of Congress partook in a unique Iowa tradition called a 'potluck,' the historic levels of paralysis and gridlock in Washington would be a thing of the past." [HuffPost's Igor Bobic]
NC OFFICIALS MOVE VOTING STATIONS AWAY FROM STUDENTS - Because EVERYONE knows college students don't need any prodding about not consuming communal punch, wearing protection and voting. Dana Liebelson: "Early voting starts Thursday in North Carolina, even as the state has pushed to move early voting sites farther away from college campuses. The Republican-dominated North Carolina State Board of Elections, among other efforts, has sought to remove an early voting location from the campus of Appalachian State University, which has about 18,000 students, many of whom lean Democratic. Last week, the board filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to stay a judge's ruling in favor of the site. On Wednesday afternoon, not having heard from the high court and with the start of early voting looming, the elections board hastily voted to keep the site on campus. Soon after, the state Supreme Court announced that it was staying the judge's ruling and sending the case back to the North Carolina Court of Appeals." [HuffPost]
We say the same thing in protest when we have to wait in line at Disney World: "A reporter for the conservative website Breitbart News claims he was kicked out of an event organized by the campaign of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is locked in a heated race against former Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown. Matthew Boyle wrote Wednesday evening that the Shaheen campaign asked the owner of Revision Energy in Exeter, New Hampshire, to tell him that 'this was a private event and you’re not welcome here.' Boyle said that 'the owner of the business and a Shaheen staffer approached this reporter and asked this reporter to leave the event.' 'I'm a congressionally credentialed Capitol Hill reporter, credentialed by the U.S. Senate press gallery,' Boyle protested in response." [HuffPost's Igor Bobic]
Courtesy of America's Greatest World Wide Web destintion, The Free Beacon, "21 Chyrons You Only See On MSNBC."
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's an affectionatete fox.
DOGS TAKE BITE OUT OF CRIME - Sorry, we had to. "The apprehension of a man who jumped the White House fence Wednesday night and was bitten by a guard dog highlighted one of the Secret Service’s most effective weapons: its canines ...The two animals were taken to a veterinarian and treated for minor bruising they suffered during the incident, according to agency spokesman Edwin Donovan, while Adesanya was taken to a hospital with injuries from a dog bite and is now in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. 'Both K-9s were cleared for duty by the veterinarian,' Donovan wrote in an e-mail...Adesanya has been charged with two counts of assault on a police officer -- a charge that stems from the attack on the dogs -- along with one count of making threats and four counts of resisting and unlawful entry, Donovan added." [WaPo]
COMFORT FOOD
- The latest installment of "Between Two Ferns" features "Bradley Pitts," a former bassooner.
- An artist is trolling Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook's campus.
- Vice examines a strongman's 20,000-calorie diet.
- Air New Zealand has an epic, "Lord of the Rings"-themed pre-flight safety video.
TWITTERAMA
@BrettLoGiurato: Uber but for Ebola http://bit.ly/1wgDDsa
@BCAppelbaum: Uber, but for people with Ebola http://bit.ly/1sdXYGQ
@brfreed: Uber, but for Ebola. http://bit.ly/1wgDDsa
@Atrios: uber, but for ebola delivery
@daveweigel Uber, but for Ebola.
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