So big gaffes from both tonight--Grimes' idiotic nondisclosure of who she voted for for POTUS--McConnell calling OCare KY xchange "fine"
— @LukeRussert
@LukeRussert @mmurraypolitics you think those are of equal import?
— @DemFromCT
Brian Beutler:
The Media Is Ignoring McConnell's Obamacare Waffling Because They Don't Understand It
Danny Vinik:
McConnell's Obamacare Lie Is Worse Than Grimes's Voting Gaffe
Ron Fournier:
Does Calling Kentucky's Obamacare 'Fine' Disqualify McConnell?
David Uberti:
Political coverage falls short in Kentucky senate debate
Kentucky's U.S. Senate race:
Coverage roundup: good debate, lots of weaseling; nationals fixate on Obama-vote flap, locals don't
More politics and policy below the fold.
TPM:
A Republican Missouri lawmaker said that she meant "no ill intent" toward President Obama when she asked on her Facebook page if the U.S. military was able to oust the president.
In a Facebook post last week, Jefferson County Recorder of Deeds Debbie Dunnegan referred to Obama as "our domestic enemy," according to a screenshot published by Progress Missouri.
"I have a question for all my friends who have served or are currently serving in our military … having not put on a uniform nor taken any type military oath, there has to be something that I am just not aware of. But I cannot and do not understand why no action is being taken against our domestic enemy. I know he is supposedly the commander in chief, but the constitution gives you the authority," she wrote in the post. "What am I missing? Thank you for your bravery and may God keep you safe."
Dunnegan, who is up for re-election in November, said that her question was taken out of context, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Michael Knights:
In truth, the threat posed to Baghdad this autumn is emerging less because ISIL is winning the war in Iraq and more because it might be slowly but steadily losing it. All across north-central Iraq, ISIL is being challenged by joint forces comprised of Sunni tribes, Shia militias, Iraqi soldiers, Iranian advisors and U.S. airpower. ISIL is struggling to maintain its grip on this battlefield of strange bedfellows, and it could be moving on Baghdad now out of a desperate need for a big victory more than anything else. Even as ISIL appears to be making progress in marginal places like Kobane, the Syrian Kurdish border town, inside Iraq the group has been faltering and needs a new front to rejuvenate its campaign.
NY Times:
Health officials authorities in Texas said on Wednesday that a second health care worker involved in the treatment of a patient who died of the Ebola virus had tested positive for the disease after developing a fever.
The worker, who was not identified by name, had been “among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan after he was diagnosed with Ebola,” at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, a statement from the Texas Department of State Health Services said.
Mr. Duncan, a citizen of Liberia, one of the three West African nations most stricken with the disease, died a week ago. The World Health Organization in Geneva said Tuesday that almost 4,500 people had died of the virus, most of them in West Africa, where the mortality rate had risen to 70 percent of people infected with the illness from 50 percent.
One nurse at the hospital, Nina Pham, 26, who also helped look after Mr. Duncan, is already being treated for Ebola. On Tuesday, a nurses’ union released a statement, which it said had been composed by Presbyterian Hospital nurses, denouncing what it called “confusion and frequently changing policies and protocols,” inadequate protection against contamination and insufficient training.
WaPo:
The hospital that treated Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan had to learn on the fly how to control the deadly virus, adding new layers of protective gear for workers in what became a losing battle to keep the contagion from spreading, a top official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
“They kept adding more protective equipment as the patient [Duncan] deteriorated. They had masks first, then face shields, then the positive-pressure respirator. They added a second pair of gloves,” said Pierre Rollin, a CDC epidemiologist.
More is not always better. Major lessons will need to be not just learned here but to CDC and rest of medical profession, once the investigation is complete. This is a systems issue, no blame to any individual, especially the heroic nurses.
Marin News:
In a sign that hysteria over the Ebola virus is growing in the U.S., Marin General Hospital went into an Ebola protocol Monday, isolating a patient who came in with a respiratory issue after some recent travels.
Only thing is, the patient hadn't been anywhere near the West African nations at the center of the epidemic.
Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis said the patient's recent travel history, which was what triggered the concern, was to the Middle East — thousands of miles away from the West African nations affected by the epidemic.
WaPo:
The incinerated belongings of Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan were bound for a Louisiana hazardous waste landfill — until the state's attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, raised concerns that the ashes could pose a danger to Louisiana's population.
Caldwell's office said in an e-mailed statement Monday afternoon that a Louisiana judge granted its request for a temporary restraining order blocking the transportation of Duncan's belongings into the state from Texas, where they were destroyed.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines saying that "Ebola-associated waste that has been appropriately inactivated or incinerated is no longer infectious," Caldwell said in an earlier statement that "there are too many unknowns at this point" for the ashes of Duncan's belongings to cross into his state.
Peter Apps:
For all the focus on the international institutional response, the main lesson I took away from my time in northern Angola was simple. Governments don't stop outbreaks like this, people do. And they do it through changing behaviour.
No one ever formally quarantined Uige, the northern Angola province and city of the same name where most of the cases took place. They didn't need to. Taxi, bus and truck operators from the rest of Angola essentially boycotted the place anyway. Only a couple of hundred kilometres from the capital but already hard to travel to after decades of war destroyed national infrastructure, it became almost unreachable.
Within the town itself, behaviour changed. Some of it was very minor. No more handshakes and hugs. Local children have what they call the "Marburg handshake", touching their shoes together rather than their hands.
There was discussion over closing the schools but with those kind of coping strategies, it never seemed needed.
Read of the day.