@ron_fournier I was at work next to a colleague whose brother worked at the towers, watching on TV as they fell. #wherewereyou
— @DemFromCT
NBC:
After President Barack Obama addressed the nation about Syria Tuesday night, supporters pledged to cautiously back his pursuit of a new Russian-led diplomatic solution while critics panned what they called a "haphazard" response.
In a primetime address from the White House, Obama described the potential diplomatic path proposed by Russian officials, saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad's possible surrender of chemical weapons to international control could provide a solution to the standoff without U.S. military intervention. But, he added, the United States must remain prepared to use military force if the diplomatic effort fails.
Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two Republicans who supported Obama's call for the use of military force, said in a joint statement that the president should have laid out more specific criteria for assessing the Russian proposal.
It is unclear why anyone pays attention to McCain and Graham, who have been wrong about everything and no longer can hide behind Joe Lieberman and claim bipartisanship. But I expect they'll be on Meet the Press again because my god that show sucks.
Kos has the round-up on the Colorado recalls, but that's a small battle in a larger struggle:
Reuters:
New sales of semi-automatic rifles with removable magazines would be banned in California under a bill passed by the Democratic-led state legislature on Tuesday, and those who already own such weapons would have to register them.
Ana Marie Cox:
The cover of the recent Children's Defense Fund report (pdf) on gun violence in the United States carries a single statistic:
The number of children and teens killed by guns in one year would fill 134 classrooms of 20 students each.
That's just a more dramatic way of stating an already staggering figure – 2,694 in 2010. Most of the report's 73 following pages are devoted to restating it.
More politics and policy below the fold.
WSJ:
The National Security Agency's searches of a database containing the phone records of nearly all Americans violated privacy protections for three years by failing to meet a court-ordered standard, according to court documents released Tuesday.
The documents showed the violations continued until a judge ordered an overhaul of the program in 2009.
NY Times:
Bill de Blasio, whose campaign for mayor of New York tapped into a city’s deepening unease with income inequality and aggressive police practices, captured far more votes than any of his rivals in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.
But as Mr. de Blasio, an activist-turned-operative and now the city’s public advocate, celebrated a remarkable come-from-behind surge, it was not clear if he had won the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff election on Oct. 1 with William C. Thompson Jr., who finished second. At night’s end, he had won just over 40 percent of the ballots counted; thousands of paper ballots had yet to be tallied, which could take days.
Days? It's already been going on forever. Bill Thompson was 2nd at 26, Christine Quinn (who ran an awful campaign) at 15.5. Anthony Wiener finished behind John Liu (7) with not quite 5. Who are the 4.9% who voted for him?
Pollster, in two parts, reviews the Syria polls. They are all prior to Obama's address to the nation, but they are here in Part I (7 of them) and Pert II (another 5).