The White House says it prevented a cyber attack on its networks, so Joe Biden's cache of ZZ Top-related Google searches is safe for now. Nancy Pelosi's opponent ran an ad in which she tries to sacrifice a goat, which is silly because everyone knows Herb Kohl is the only member of Congress who sacrifices goats. And AFSCME released a video of MItt Romney's garbage man assailing the super wealthy candidate for being out of touch. We give it a week until Romney's mailman teases him about his subscription to Cat Fancy. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, October 1st, 2012:
RNC BEATING DNC IN RECOUNT PREPARATIONS - And we don't just mean that Republicans have come up with a snazzy new "Sore/Loserman" nameplay for Obama/Biden. Sam Stein and Paul Blumenthal: "The RNC has taken in a whopping $5.29 million in donations for a recount fund that could be accessed if the results in the Nov. 6 election are indecisive. In the committee's Federal Election Commission filings, the money is being counted among the $282,795,014 in total donations that it has received during the current electoral cycle... A DNC official said via email that the committee 'has approximately $54,000 in a recount account that has been held over since the 2010 cycle, which is counted in our cash on hand reporting.'" [HuffPost]
BANKERS TERRIFIED OF ELIZABETH WARREN, CAN'T GIVE SCOTT BROWN ENOUGH MONEY - Politico: "Scott Brown raked in more than $500,000 from employees and PACs in the financial sector in June, the most recent month of data available, a report compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics for POLITICO found. That's more than he's gotten from the industry in any month since the start of last year. Brown has already received more than $3.3 million from the finance, insurance and real estate industries this cycle, according to CRP, more than any other member of Congress or congressional candidate." [Politico]
SENATE DEBATES TONIGHT - Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown will square off in a contest of whose campaign has offended the noble Cherokee people the least. That starts at 7:00 pm EST and will be broadcast statewide. In Nebraska, Democrat Bob Kerrey and Republican Deb Fischer will grapple over whether Kerrey sat in on any drum circles while heading the New School. That begins at 7:00 pm CST.
PARANOID SELF-LOATHING GOP LOBBYIST: EVERYONE IS BOUGHT - HuffPost Hill's Paranoid Self-Loathing GOP Lobbyist, who has been calling in favors to his big pharma contacts to have everythingphobia included in the DSM V, sent us a potentially embarrassing Wall Street Journal piece on Elizabeth Warren's past work on behalf of controversial corporate clients, including the asbestos manufacturers. "I bet she was a self-loathing paranoid Native American corporate attorney before she became whatever she is today," PSLOGPL writes. Thanks, PSLGOPL!
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Max Roll: "It came as quite a shock to Glenda Wilbourn when she received a phone call July 25 from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development asking her to return unemployment insurance benefits she had received. Wilbourn, a bus driver for the Community Action Program of Evansville's preschool program for the last 28 years, said she was told the $1,700 she had collected in unemployment benefits was invalid and that she had to pay it back. 'That's the money I need to live on,' she said. 'We weren't on vacation; we were laid off.'" Turns out the statehouse last year passed a law denying benefits to people like Wilbourn who are seasonally laid off, but paid benefits to them anyway. Now Indiana wants its money back. Classy. [Evansville Courier & Press]
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REPUBLICAN DONORS DIVESTING FROM ROMNEY - This keeps up and Romney will be forced to promise Sheldon Adelson that he'll relocate the White House to the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas (the faux Rialto Bridge would make a fabulous setting for televised presidential addresses). Fox Business Network: "The Romney campaign is experiencing what some officials believe could be the beginning of a mass exodus of big money donors diverting their cash away from the Republican presidential hopeful and toward Republican candidates for the House and Senate races more likely to win in November, the FOX Business Network has learned... [A]nother person with direct knowledge of the matter says the trend, though nascent, is more geographically broad based, and reflects an increasing degree of anxiety both with what they believe is the tentative nature of the Romney campaign, and recent poll numbers that show President Obama with a lead, particularly in key battleground states, that some Republican contributors are starting to believe is insurmountable." [Fox Business Network]
This isn't going to help turn the tide: "The Republican National Committee ended efforts to sign up new voters before the deadline in key states for the presidential race because of questions raised over registration applications tied to the party. Republican parties in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia -- all states that both campaigns view as competitive -- fired Glen Allen, Virginia-based Strategic Allied Consulting, the company in charge of registrations, said Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. The national committee also canceled its contract with the company, its only vendor signing up new voters, Kukowski said." [Bloomberg]
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ROMNEY CAMPAIGN UNVEILS 305,813rd CAMPAIGN STRATEGY - After a certain point, they'll have used up all the politically viable ones and Romney will be forced to deliver all of his stump speeches in limericks ("There once was a man named Barack, whose policies I'm here to mock...). The Hill: "Mitt Romney's campaign said Monday it would look to emphasize a concrete choice between President Obama and the GOP nominee over the final five weeks of the election, hoping to depict a stark contrast that could woo swing voters that may not have fully committed to the president. 'This is something we're going to push all the way through Election Day, which is, we can't afford another four years like the last four years,' said Romney adviser Kevin Madden on a conference call with reporters. 'This is a theme we're going to integrate across every aspect of our campaign, and that includes the upcoming debates, that's going to include the governor's events in key battleground states, and will also be included in terms of paid advertising and be part of our message as volunteers fan out across the country.'" [The Hill]
ROMNEY PENS BOLD SEQUENCE OF PLATITUDES - The Republican presidential candidate published an Op-Ed in this morning's Wall Street Journal that bravely proposes an American foreign policy centered on America's abundance of stuff and its ability to deploy things when it is something something by people. Great stuff. Here's a sample: "This means restoring our credibility with Iran. When we say an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability -- and the regional instability that comes with it -- is unacceptable, the ayatollahs must be made to believe us. It means placing no daylight between the United States and Israel. And it means using the full spectrum of our soft power to encourage liberty and opportunity for those who have for too long known only corruption and oppression. The dignity of work and the ability to steer the course of their lives are the best alternatives to extremism." [WSJ]
LABOR GROUP GOES THROUGH ROMNEY'S TRASH (NOT REALLY) - AFSCME is definitely today's winner of the Lee Atwater Award for Achievements in Hitting 'Em Where It Hurts. Amanda Terkel: "The labor union AFSCME is out with a new video featuring Richard Hayes, the man who picks up Mitt Romney's trash at his ocean-front mansion in La Jolla, Calif. In the spot, Hayes talks about how hard he works in his job each day and criticizes Romney's comments about the 47 percent: 'When I'm 55, 60 years old, I know my body's gonna be break down [sic]. Mitt Romney doesn't care about that.' According to Politico's Morning Score, the Hayes video is the first in a series of interviews with workers intended to be 'part campaign attack, part online testimonial, part survey tool and part recruiting tool.' Romney's campaign did not return a request for comment." [HuffPost]
WHITE HOUSE NERDS FEND OFF CYBERATTACK - In what we can only imagine was a scenario semi-reminiscent of WarGames, the White House was the target of hackers recently. AP: "A White House official said the attack targeted an unclassified network. He said the attack was identified and that the system was isolated to prevent spread. He said there was no indication that any data was removed. The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the attack, said there was no attempted breach of classified systems. The official described such 'spear phishing' attacks as 'not infrequent.' Last year, Google Inc. blamed computer hackers in China for a phishing effort against Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials and military personnel. Last November, senior U.S. intelligence officials for the first time publicly accused China of systematically stealing American high-tech data for its own national economic gain. The White House would not say whether the recent attack was linked to China." [AP]
If you're going to lose, might as well have fun with it: "The Republican challenger to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may not stand a chance of defeating her in November, but his campaign certainly gets points for creativity. John Dennis, the House Republican candidate hoping to unseat Pelosi, released a new ad on Monday that depicts her as the leader of a zombie army preparing to sacrifice a lamb that, according to Dennis, is a metaphor for his candidacy." [HuffPost's Jen Bendery]
MICHELE BACHMANN NOT A MENSCH, CHICAGO SYNAGOGUE CONGREGANTS CONCLUDE - Tribune: "During a worship service Tuesday on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, Rabbi Michael Siegel of Anshe Emet Synagogue offered what he called a customary greeting to a public official in the audience -- U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R.-Minn. The greeting follows a synagogue policy to acknowledge the office rather than the individual or his or her politics, he said. But the formality enraged more than a few congregants, prompting some to walk out and one to start a campaign of his own in support of Bachmann's opponent in the race for her congressional seat, Jim Graves. " [Chicago Tribune]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - When cats finally take over the world, these waltzing cats will be the toast of cat society.
DON'T DUMP HERE! - HuffPost DC: "A local construction company improperly dumped a bunch of stuff on a noted neighborhood blogger's property. A Twitter tirade ensued and -- surprise! -- the D.C. government responded!" [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- Two very focused dogs make sure a balloon never touches the ground.[http://bit.ly/UC4R4M]
- Person scares away a black bear by screaming. And by person we mean the next secretary of defense. [http://bit.ly/Pn5Kft]
- What happens when you shoot a gun underwater? Something beautiful... and possibly deadly. [http://bit.ly/Suv5F8]
- In case you're in need of a little Bieberfraude, here's the teen sensation barfing on stage. [http://bit.ly/SxDgA0]
- This one goes out to all the Trekkies: "Klingon Style," a short musical number in the style of "Gangnam Style." [http://bit.ly/P0CUHa]
- And this one goes out to the Star Wars nerds: "Gangnam Han Solo Style." [http://bit.ly/UC4VS9]
- Kitten bends like an action figure. [http://chzb.gr/SY54Op]
TWITTERAMA
@pourmecoffee: Today in 1867 Marx published "Das Kapital," a critique of unpaid work which he would probably blog about today for free on HuffPo.
@JeffreyYoung_HC: Ugh. Just realized we're going to be subjected to crowd shots of awful politicos during broadcasts of Nats playoff games.
@delrayser: Big day: SCOTUS back from summer vacation. Everyone wears new robes. Scalia defaces Roberts' portrait. Breyer gets stuffed in a locker.
ON TAP
TONIGHT
Ann Romney kisses the ring, so to speak, when she attends a fundraiser for her husband's campaign at Sheldon Adelson's house. Good lord, can you imagine the number of taxidermied leopards in that place? [Las Vegas, NV]
7:00 pm: Cory Booker, whose gubernatorial debates with Chris Christie we anticipate like Christmas morning, crosses the Hudson (and the East River) for a fundraiser in Brooklyn for the president's reelection campaign. [Brooklyn, NY]
TOMORROW
Michelle Obama hangs out with a bunch of well-off crunchy types at the Seattle Westin for a campaign function. [The Westin Seattle - 1900 5th Avenue, Seattle]
5:30 pm: George Allen gets a little help from his friends from the upper chamber at an event so crammed with Republicans you'd think it was Smith Point. Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor and a whole bunch of Republican senators help raise funds for the once and future (?) senator. [Hill Country, 410 7th Street NW]
7:00 pm: Scott Brown is just a regular guy. Scott Brown drives a truck. Scott Brown wears dad jackets. Scott Brown attends baseball games. Attend a baseball game with Scott Brown, regular guy. [Nationals Park]
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