Allen West said he would summon the "Angel of Death" to defeat our enemies, though we think the technical term is "unmanned aerial drone." Harry Reid, the former Nevada Gaming Commission chairman, accused Mitt Romney of being a bad Mormon. And all the liquor in all the bars in Georgetown, McLean and on Wilson Boulevard couldn't drown the sorrow of the NRSC after Todd Akin's decision to stay in the Missouri Senate race. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, September 25th, 2012:
TODD AKIN STAYING IN, NRSC, CROSSROADS TEARS COMING OUT - Renowned scientist Todd Akin -- famous for his discovery that women can prevent pregnancies by using Jedi mind tricks on their uteri -- did not drop out of the Missouri Senate race during a press conference this afternoon. Laura Bassett: "Tuesday was the deadline for Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) to pull out of the Missouri Senate race, but the embattled candidate announced in a press conference that he is still in it to win. 'I have one purpose going into November, and that's defeating [Sen.] Claire McCaskill,' he said...Anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly, who has advocated against the Equal Rights Amendment and access to birth control, attended Akin's news conference and voiced her support. Schlafly has attended several Akin fundraisers and campaign events and joined him on Tuesday to launch a 'Common Sense' bus tour across Missouri." [HuffPost]
President Obama called for an end of the NFL referee *lockout* today. He tweeted about it, spoke to the press about it and even gave a nakedly political interview about it to a newspaper whose state doesn't even have an NFL team.
@jbendery: Here's pic of Obama stopping in his tracks when reporter shouted "Packers!" bit.ly/SwmarR
SHEILA BAIR: TIM GEITHNER SUCKS - Former FDIC honcho Sheila Bair's new book and Neil Barofsky's sorta-new book offer similar takes on the Treasury Department: to be inside the place is to be surrounded by assholes. Bair recounts how her own housing proposals were passed over in favor of a much weaker program, which she knew would never save 4 million homes. "At the Phoenix announcement, the president was masterful in announcing the program, though I cringed as he threw out what I considered to be wildly inflated numbers on the programs' impact," Bair wrote.... "Larry [Summers] and Tim [Geithner] didn't seem to care about the political beating the president took on the hundreds of billions of dollars thrown at the big-bank bailouts and AIG bonuses, but when it came to home owners, it was a very different story. I don't think helping home owners was ever a priority for them." [HuffPost]
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - DDD asked Cindy Nerger, the Georgia woman and kidney failure patient shamed for using food stamps at a local supermarket, for her thoughts on national politics and the right-wing notion that the safety net is a hammock. Nerger said she is sure there are some people on food stamps who are "just lazy," but she resents supermarket judgment no matter what. "I've seen some comments from people talking about how they hate standing in line with somebody who's got food stamps because they've got two carts full of food," Nerger said. "Did you not realize maybe this person is not able to get to the grocery store but once a month?" However much the campaign issues might resonate in her personal life, Nerger said she doesn't have cable and hasn't been following politics or the presidential election. Still, she doesn't think much of either Obama or his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. "They're all gonna kill us," she said. "Most of the people that we have to choose from -- Obama with his spending and his health care reform, and then Mitt Romney, he just wants to let poor people die, so either way we're doomed. So I don't see any point in voting." [HuffPost]
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GOP SENATORS WORRIED ABOUT HOW NO ONE LOOKS LIKE THEM ANYMORE - Republicans in the upper chamber are beginning to realize that no amount of Spanish-language ads, fake tanner or Marco Rubio can ward off the inevitable. Mike McAuliff: "Before U.S. senators fled the Capitol for the campaign trail early Saturday, members of each party made an unusual prediction: If this year's election changes nothing in the alignment of national elected offices, it will be a game-changer... On the Republican side, outspoken South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said that by every economic standard, Mitt Romney should be headed for a win over President Barack Obama, with coattails for down-ticket offices. But in acknowledging a trend in the polls against the GOP standard-bearer, Graham said it would show that America's demographics have so changed -- in Democrats' favor -- that a president's stewardship of the economy no longer is a deciding factor." [HuffPost]
OBAMA ADDRESSES UN, ALLEN WEST DISAPPOINTED - The president addressed the UN General Assembly today, strongly defending the universal right of free speech. "Those in power have to resist the temptation to crack down on dissent. In hard economic times, countries may be tempted to rally the people around perceived enemies, at home and abroad, rather than focusing on the painstaking work of reform," he said. Allen West thinks the president should have drafted his speech to the UN by putting the Book of Revelations and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" into a blender. "The future does not belong to those who attack our Embassies and Consulates and kill our Ambassadors," West wrote in a statement on Facebook, providing the text for what his statement to the United Nations "would have been." "The Angel of Death in the form of an American Bald Eagle will visit you and wreak havoc and destruction upon your existence." [HuffPost's Josh Hersh]
Allen West knows how to keep it classy: "Donald Trump, the businessman and television celebrity who flirted with a presidential run last year, is holding a fundraiser on Oct. 1 for Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), according to an invitation obtained by The Daily Caller. The event is a 'breakfast fundraiser' and will be held at Trump Tower, with the minimum donation set at $500 for a 'young professional.' A 'host level' gift will set donors back $2,500." [HuffPost's Daniel Lippman]
SCOTT WALKER SIDES WITH UNION - Yes, he may be a rabid anti-union crusader, but he's also a cheesehead. Now if only Wisconsin's teachers could find a way to make their work totally meaningless and yet have millions of people incensed by its outcomes. That's the American way. Dave Jamieson: "Once NFL owners have lost Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), perhaps it's safe to say they've lost the nation. After Walker's Green Bay Packers suffered a devastating loss on a controversial last-second play Monday night, the governor whom labor activists consider the most anti-union in the nation took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to call for an end to the lockout of the league's unionized referees. Walker's brief plea echoed the tweets of thousands of other exasperated fans over the preceding weeks. "After catching a few hours of sleep, the #Packers game is still just as painful," he wrote. The governor, who last year championed a law that stripped most public-sector workers of their collective-bargaining rights, ended his tweet with the hashtag '#Returntherealrefs.'" [HuffPost]
Walker's fellow Wisconsinite Paul Ryan came to the same conclusion. "You guys watch that Packers game last night?" the Republican vice presidential nominee asked an audience IN Cincinnati. "I mean, give me a break! It is time to get the real refs. And you know what it reminds me of? President Obama and the economy. If you can't get it right, it is time to get out." [HuffPost's Sam Stein]
N-F-aiL - Jason Linkins has a modest proposal: "Boycott the NFL, everyone. Do it now." [HuffPost]
BREAKING: CASUAL RACISM AND SPORTS COLLIDE IN MASSACHUSETTS - Dave Jamieson: "In a video posted online Tuesday, supporters of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown are seen at a rally doing tomahawk chops and war whoops in an apparent attempt to mock Democrat Elizabeth Warren, Brown's opponent in a closely watched Senate race. In the video, posted to YouTube by the BlueMassGroup2012 account, Brown supporters confront Warren backers at a rally near Eire Pub in Boston on Saturday, according to the video's caption. The Brown supporters laugh as they mimic Native American war cries and do the tomahawk chop in the face of Warren's crowd. Boston's WCVB identified three of the Brown supporters as Brown deputy chief of staff Greg Casey, constituent service counsel Jack Richard and Massachusetts GOP operative Brad Garrett." [HuffPost]
HARRY REID GOES THERE - Salt Lake Tribune: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he agrees with a fellow Mormon who wrote recently that Mitt Romney has 'sullied' the LDS faith and that the GOP presidential candidate is 'not the face of Mormonism.' Reid, a Mormon Democrat from Nevada, blasted Romney in a conference call for reporters over a litany of things the Republican nominee has said recently. And Reid added that Latter-day Saints aren't buying Romney's rhetoric. 'He's coming to a state where there are a lot of members of the LDS Church,' Reid said in advance of Romney's Friday visit to Nevada. 'They understand that he is not the face of Mormonism.'" [Salt Lake Tribune]
Whoops: "Congressman Michael Grimm and his campaign made a big deal about an alleged break-in at his headquarters last weekend, calling the incident 'politically motivated' and 'an assault on democracy,' claiming hard drives in the office were erased and comparing the situation to the deadly shooting that left former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords critically wounded last year...'Police say a teenager has admitted vandalizing the campaign office of New York Congressman Michael Grimm,' the AP report said. 'NYPD spokesman Paul Browne says the eighth grader told a school counselor that he and a friend had broken a window over the weekend at the office on Staten Island.'" [NY Observer]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Day or night, pit bull puppy cam is there. It's the hardest working puppy cam in show biz.
COMFORT FOOD
- The Macy's Day Parade needs more processions of marching bands and ducks. [http://bit.ly/VD0PM8]
- A trailer for The Avengers but... honest. [http://bit.ly/SPDhzI]
- The world's most unusual McDonald's locations... including but not limited to one on a river boat. [http://bit.ly/PjZB4Z]
- "Calvin & Hobbs" reimagined as meth dealers. Ten points if you can get through these without ruining your childhood. [http://bit.ly/UQccko]
- Life advice from William Faulkner. Sadly, the literary giant didn't touch upon your pitiful number of Twitter followers. [http://bit.ly/Ut5dL0]
- Russian truck driver escapes unscathed from a highway collision like a boss. [http://chzb.gr/Sk6iqZ]
- As this video demonstrates, this cat will likely never realize its dream of being a professional paperhanger. [http://bit.ly/QCii3S]
TWITTERAMA
@TonyRomm: BREAKING: Some random D.C. acronym ORGANIZES AN ONLINE PETITION and delivers it, CHANGING EVERYTHING EVER and we mean it this time guys.
@pareene: I see you, DC-area football team fans preparing to be outraged at Scott Brown's racist supporters
@dceiver: Ryan's call for a return of "the real refs." (SOME EXCEPTIONS APPLY: SEC, FINRA, OSHA, EPA, CFPB, CFTC, VA, FDA, OTS)
ON TAP
TONIGHT
6:00 pm: The Great Squeaky Clean One, Paul Ryan, heads down to Houston for a reception/photo-op/dinner with supporters. This being Houston, the photo-op probably comes with a bold-lettered "no backslapping" warning. [Houston, TX]
6:30 pm: Country music, the member of the musical family who gifts Ann Coulter books for Christmas, is the focus of Bob Corker's "Nashville songwriters." You won't know these songwriters. [Recording Industry Association of America, 1025 F Street NW]
TOMORROW
8:00 am: Chk Grssly & his suprters eat eggs & tost at Sen's brkfst fndrsr 4 his Hawkeye PAC. [The Monocle Restaurant, 107 D Street NE]
6:00 pm: Jim DeMint takes a break from making sure the Senate Republican conference doesn't run smoothly for that most Republican of meals: a steak dinner. [Ruth's Chris Steak House, 724 9th Street NW]
6:30 pm: Kelly Ayotte, though you might know her better as her anagram, Layette Yolk, is the guest of honor at a fundraising dinner. [330 Maryland Avenue NE, 330 Maryland Avenue NE]
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