Morning Reads: Last Minute Explosion of Negative Campaign $$

Good morning — Fifty years ago today, Washington, DC, residents voted in a presidential election for the first time. Passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 gave DC the right to vote for a commander-in-chief and vice president. They voted overwhelmingly for Democratic incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson against Republican Barry Goldwater, part of LBJ’s 1964 landslide.

And a Happy 60th Birthday to Godzilla! (Be careful blowing out those candles, big guy…)

One day to go…

Nicholas Confessore and Derek Willis write in The New York Times that at the last minute, tens of millions of dollars have poured into the midterm elections, much of it for negative campaigning and “timed to ensure that no voter will know who is paying for it until after the election on Tuesday.”
In an interview with WaPo’s Sebastian Payne and Robert Costa, Texas Senator Ted Cruz would not pledge support for Sen. Mitch McConnell as the new majority leader if the GOP takes control of the US Senate. Further, Cruz said he would push even harder for repeal of Obamacare and demand a series of hearings “looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration.”
At Mother Jones, Erika Eichelberger reports that despite suppression efforts in North Carolina, an effective get out the vote campaign is turning out thousands more African-American voters than during the 2010 midterms.
Misunderstood youth. Stephen Lurie writes that the millennial vote is crucial on Tuesday but that strategists have failed to understand that, like everybody else, the key issue for 18-24-year-olds is the economy, not marijuana reform, reproductive rights or climate change.
Peter Rothberg at The Nation rounds up the 10 best GOTV videos, including a wild variety of celebrity guest cameos. Share them with your friends — with fair warning for a bit of adult language in #1 and #3.

Stark –> Frightening new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that if we don’t take action immediately, climate disruption “could threaten society with food shortages, refugee crises, the flooding of major cities and entire island nations, the mass extinction of plants and animals, and a climate so drastically altered it might become dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year.” AND: Blue marble “running out of chances.” Esquire’s Charlie Pierce comments on the UN report from the political hustings in Iowa.

Danger at the mountaintop –> Mary Anne Hilt at EcoWatch details “shocking news” from Appalachia, including a new West Virginia University study that for the first time demonstrates “a direct link between the dust from mountaintop removal coal mines and lung cancer.”

“Operation Halfhearted Effort” –> Historian and frequent Moyers & Company guest Andrew Bacevich writes in The Los Angeles Times that the US refuses to accept the vast mobilization that would be needed for a successful military operation in the Middle East. “Is victory, however defined, worth a vastly greater expenditure of lives and treasure?” he asks. “If the answer is yes, then it’s time to let out the stops. If the answer is no, then continuing on our present course is foolish, immoral and constitutes a betrayal of those sent to fight a war that we have no hope of actually winning.”

“Why Innocent People Plead Guilty” –> In The New York Review of Books, Jed S. Rakoff chronicles the history of plea bargaining in the American criminal justice system, “negotiated behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight.” ALSO: As of Saturday, “federal judges can begin reviewing the cases of tens of thousands of federal prisoners who may be eligible for a reduced sentence.” Joe Palazollo at the WSJ law blog writes, “The U.S. Sentencing Commission estimates that more than 46,000 inmates could receive a shorter sentence — an average of about two years off their total — following a tweak to the sentencing guidelines that altered the formula for calculating penalties for drug-trafficking offenses.”

O Jerusalem –> SCOTUS hears arguments today in the complicated case of Menachem Zivotofsky, who was issued a US passport with his place of birth listed as Israel. The ensuing legal entanglements have dragged on for 11 years with foreign policy ramifications and serious implications for the president’s right to issue “signing statements” overruling provisions of acts of Congress. David G. Savage explains it all at the Los Angeles Times.

Fateful elevator ride –> Kenneth Tate was the CDC security guard who rode in an elevator with President Obama and unwittingly became part of the Secret Service scandal. He lost his job — the best he ever had, he says – and wants to know why. Michael S. Schmidt has the story in The New York Times.

No-Fly Zone –> AP reports that, contrary to claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, their request to restrict airspace over Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting of Michael Brown was not out of concern for security and safety but to keep news helicopters from covering demonstrations — some violent — and the response of law enforcement. The audio recordings tell the tale.

“They work toward a time after Ebola.” –> Remarkable and moving NYT photo essay by Daniel Berehulak on workers and survivors at a health care clinic in Liberia.

ICYMI –> If you’ve wondered what “GamerGate” is all about, Christopher Zumski Finke at Yes! Magazine has this backgrounder on the battle raging between men and women in the parallel universe of video games.

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