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TOP NEWS: Democracy: May 23, 2012
Excerpts and more top stories
In One Corner, a Champion of Government. In the Other, Its Foe. – John Harwood, NY Times
The currency of political persuasion is emotion — and the way President Obama and Mitt Romney are spending it crystallizes their starkly contrasting appeals.
Facing Criticism, Obama Defends Ads Attacking Romney’s Record at Bain Capital
-Helene Cooper, NY Times
Responding to criticism from some Democratic supporters,President Obama said Monday that attacks on Mitt Romney’s experience at Bain Capital were fair game and that Mr. Romney’s years at the helm of a private equity firm were worthy of serious debate.
Biden revels in campaign attack dog role -Ros Krasny, Reuters
Touting his middle-class roots, Vice President Joe Biden took another swipe at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday as he reveled in his role as the president’s campaign attack dog. Biden blasted the presumptive Republican nominee Romney as failing to care about workers at companies acquired by his former investment firm Bain Capital.
After President Obama’s announcement, opposition to same-sex marriage hits record low -Scott Clement and Sandhya Somashekhar, Washington Post
Public opinion continues to shift in favor of same-sex marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, which also finds initial signs that President Obama’s support for the idea may have changed a few minds.
Supreme Court faces pressure to reconsider Citizens United ruling -Robert Barnes, Washington Post
In upholding a 100-year-old state law, the Montana justices seemed to be openly defying Citizens United’s holding that the First Amendment grants corporations, and by extension labor unions, the right to spend unlimited amounts of their treasuries to support or oppose candidates.
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Black Mormons and the Politics of Identity -Susan Saulny, NY Times
When Marguerite Driessen, entered Brigham Young University in the early 1980s, she was the first black person many Mormon students had ever met, and she spent a good bit of her college time debunking stereotypes about African-Americans. Then she converted to Mormonism herself, and went on to spend a good deal of her adult life correcting assumptions about Mormons. So this year’s presidential election comes as a watershed moment for her, symbolizing the hard-won acceptance of racial and religious minorities.
Colin Powell Trashes Mitt Romney’s Team Of Foreign Policy Advisers -Jennifer Bendery, The Huffington Post
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday questioned Mitt Romney’s choice in foreign policy advisers, saying that some are so right-wing that the advice they give deserves “second thought.” He gave the example of Romney recently saying that Russia is the “number one geopolitical foe” to the United States. “Come on Mitt, think,” Powell said. “That isn’t the case.”
The Emerging Democratic Divide – Josh Kraushaar, RealClearPolitics
The brouhaha over a moderate New Jersey mayor’s comments has [...] exposed a tension that’s developing between the Democratic Party’s centrist wing and its more-outspoken liberal base—one that threatens to fester more openly if President Obama fails to win a second term.
Court: No Benefits For Kids Conceived After Dad Died -Nina Totenberg, NPR
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that that a Florida man’s children, conceived after his death through in vitro fertilization, are not entitled to Social Security survivors benefits. More than 100 similar cases are pending before the Social Security Administration, but Monday’s ruling is unlikely to resolve most of them.
Google Privacy Inquiries Get Little Cooperation- David Streitfeld and Keven O’Brien, NY Times
After months of negotiation, Johannes Caspar, a German data protection official, forced Google to show him exactly what its Street View cars had been collecting from potentially millions of his fellow citizens. Snippets of e-mails, photographs, passwords, chat messages, postings on Web sites and social networks — all sorts of private Internet communications — were casually scooped up as the specially equipped cars photographed the world’s streets.
