CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a rousing double-header, Democratic delegates heard Barack Obama and Joe Biden both accept renomination on their convention’s final night. And we heard some facts being spun.

• President Obama boasted that his plan would cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, citing “independent experts.” But one such analyst called a key element of the plan a “gimmick.”
• Vice President Biden quoted GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney as saying “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth” to catch Osama bin Laden. Actually, Romney said he’d target more than just “one person.”
• The president said U.S. automakers are “back on top of the world.” Nope. GM has slipped back to No. 2 and is headed for third place in global sales this year, behind Toyota and Volkswagen.
• Biden said “the experts” concluded Romney’s corporate tax plan would create 800,000 jobs in other countries. One expert said that. She also said the number depends on the details, and foreign jobs could grow without costing U.S. jobs.
• Obama quoted Romney as saying it was “tragic” to “end the war in Iraq.” What Romney was criticizing was the pace of Obama’s troop withdrawal, not ending a war.
• Biden claimed Romney “believes it’s OK to raise taxes on middle classes by $2,000.” Romney actually promises to lower middle-class taxes.
• Biden said Romney and running mate Paul Ryan “are not for preserving Medicare at all.” Actually, the plan they endorse would offer traditional Medicare as one option among many.
• Obama said his tax plan would restore “the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president” for upper-income taxpayers. Not quite. New taxes to finance the health care law also kick in next year, further burdening those same taxpayers.

$4 Trillion Deficit Reduction?

Obama exaggerated when he claimed “independent experts” say his deficit-reduction plan would reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years. Actually, one independent analysis criticized a central part of the president’s plan as a “gimmick.”

In September of last year, Obama released “The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction.” The plan purports to generate $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years — including “more than $1 trillion in savings over the next 10 years from our drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

In February, when Obama released his fiscal year 2013 budget, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget criticized the president’s plan for relying on savings from winding down the two wars. Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan group, called it a “gimmick.”

“There are a number of good policies in this budget, but the use of this war gimmick is quite troubling,” said MacGuineas. “Drawing down spending on wars that were already set to wind down and that were deficit financed in the first place should not be considered savings. When you finish college, you don’t suddenly have thousands of dollars a year to spend elsewhere — in fact, you have to find a way to pay back your loans.”

In addition, the president’s plan includes another $1 trillion in savings from the Budget Control Act that had been agreed to as part of the deal with Congress to raise the debt ceiling. That’s not new savings, but accounts for already agreed-upon savings.

Biden’s bin Laden Baloney

Biden repeated the Obama campaign’s claim — previously made in a Web ad — that Romney said that “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth, and spending billions of dollars” to catch Osama bin Laden.

The claim, which Republicans disputed, fails to include the rest of Romney’s quote from an Associated Press story. Romney said the country’s focus should not be on one person, but it should be a “broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.”

Biden: Folks, Governor Romney didn’t see things that way. When he was asked about bin Laden in 2007, here’s what he said. He said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just to catch one person.”

Romney’s quote comes from an interview with the AP in April 2007 — when bin Laden was still alive.

AP: [Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said. Instead, he said he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.

A transcript of Romney’s 2007 interview, which the conservative website Townhall obtained from the Romney campaign, offers more context:

[AP reporter ] Liz Sidoti: Why haven’t we caught bin Laden in your opinion?

Romney: I think, I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort.

He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world.

It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that.

Not Quite ‘on Top’

The president overstated the strength of the U.S. automotive industry when he said that “we reinvented a dying auto industry that’s back on top of the world.” Not quite. General Motors has currently slipped back to No. 2 in world auto sales, based on sales for the first six months of the year, and Volkswagen is expected to push GM into third place for the full year.

GM has indeed made a comeback: It took back the top spot in global sales in 2011 after being surpassed by Toyota in 2008. Prior to that, GM had been No. 1 for more than 70 years. But for the first six months of 2012, Toyota, with 4.97 million vehicle sales, regained the lead from GM, with 4.67 million sales, for first place in worldwide auto sales. GM is expected to drop to third for all of 2012.

A Disputed Jobs Figure

Biden used a disputed figure to attack Romney’s proposal to overhaul the taxation of multinational corporations:

Biden: It’s called a territorial tax, which the experts have looked at, and they acknowledge it will create 800,000 new jobs — all of them overseas, all of them.

It’s true that one expert — Kimberly Clausing, a professor of economics at Reed College in Portland, Oregon — recently published a study calculating that a “pure” territorial system of international taxation would increase employment in low-tax countries by about 800,000 jobs. But that’s not necessarily what Romney is proposing. The foreign job growth could be smaller, wouldn’t necessarily come at the expense of U.S. workers, and doesn’t take account of any offsetting job gains in the U.S.

Romney has proposed switching taxation of U.S.-based multinational corporations to a territorial system — in which earnings are taxed only in the countries where they are generated — similar to the system used by most other industrial nations. But Romney has not specified details, so we don’t know if his would be a “pure” territorial system or not. Clausing herself said in a recent interview that the actual effect “depends on the details of the territorial system that is adopted.”

She notes in her study that “jobs abroad need not displace jobs at home” — that is, provided that the present economy improves, and U.S. unemployment drops to a low level. So depending on the economic circumstances, creating jobs overseas doesn’t necessarily mean losing jobs in the U.S., as Biden’s listeners might have assumed.

Furthermore, a critique of Clausing’s figure by the Tax Foundation (a group supported in part by corporate donations) says that she based it on current corporate tax rates — not on the lower 25 percent rate that Romney proposes. The lower rate, it is argued, would attract foreign investment and lead to importing jobs.

We won’t attempt to resolve here the merits or demerits of Romney’s embryonic corporate tax plan. The fact is that Biden quoted one study from one expert, but “experts” in general disagree.

Twisting a ‘Tragic’ Quote

Making the case that Romney lacks foreign policy chops, Obama twisted Romney’s words, claiming, “My opponent said it was ‘tragic’ to end the war in Iraq.”

But that’s not quite what Romney said. He was speaking of the speed with which Obama was withdrawing troops, not to ending the war in general.

During a veterans roundtable in South Carolina on Nov. 11, 2011, Romney criticized Obama’s plan to remove troops from Iraq by the end of that year. Here’s the fuller context of his comments, as reported by the New York Times:

Romney, Nov. 11, 2011: It is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake, and failing by the Obama administration. The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate — it’s more than unfortunate, I think it’s tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard won by the men and women who served there.

A month earlier, when Obama formally announced the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops from Iraq by year’s end, Romney released a similar statement:

Romney, Oct. 21, 2011: President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women. The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government. The American people deserve to hear the recommendations that were made by our military commanders in Iraq.

In December, Romney argued that Obama “has pulled our troops out in a precipitous way” and that he ought to have left a residual force of  “10-, 20-, 30-thousand personnel there to help transition to the Iraqi’s own military capabilities.”

Criticizing the “precipitous” pace of withdrawal and the president’s failure to leave a residual force in Iraq is a far cry from calling the end of the war in Iraq “tragic.”

Middle-Class Taxes

Biden joined the chorus of off-key convention speakers who have attacked Romney for wanting to raise taxes on the middle class, even though Romney says he won’t do that.

Biden: Folks, Governor Romney believes it’s OK to raise taxes on middle classes by $2,000 in order to pay for … another trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy.

That’s exactly the opposite of what Romney actually says. In his speech accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, he said:

Romney, Aug. 30: I will not raise taxes on the middle class.

Biden refers to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center of a plan that, as Romney also promises, cuts income tax rates across the board by 20 percent and pays for it by eliminating and reducing tax deductions and credits. TPC found that such a plan would “increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.” Under one scenario, it said that “taxpayers with children who make less than $200,000 would pay, on average, $2,000 more in taxes.”

But that’s not evidence that Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class. It only proves Romney “can’t accomplish all his stated objectives,” according to the Tax Policy Center’s director, Donald Marron.

Biden Distorts Romney’s Medicare Plan

Biden took aim at Romney’s Medicare plan, saying it would “immediately cut benefits for more than 30 million seniors” and “cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016.” In fact, he said, “They’re not for preserving Medicare at all.” All of those claims are misleading.

Biden: You heard them talk so much about how they cared so much about Medicare, how much they wanted to preserve it. That’s what they told you.

But let’s look at what they didn’t tell you. What they didn’t tell you is that the plan they have already put down on paper would immediately cut benefits for more than 30 million seniors already on Medicare. What they didn’t tell you — what they didn’t tell you is the plan they’re proposing would cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016. And what they really didn’t tell you is they — if you want to know — if you want to know — they’re not for preserving Medicare at all. They’re for a new plan. It’s called “Vouchercare.”

Let’s unpack these claims one by one. When Biden says the Romney plan “would immediately cut benefits for more than 30 million seniors already on Medicare,” he’s referring to Romney’s promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. As part of the health care law, seniors on Medicare are entitled to free annual preventive care and increased  prescription drug coverage. But Romney has not advocated cutting any of the traditional benefits provided by Medicare.

And as we wrote Sept. 6 after former President Bill Clinton made a similar claim, the Romney plan will not “cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016. ” But a part of Medicare — the hospital insurance trust fund — would not be able to pay full benefits for hospital services if the growth in Medicare spending is not cut, as the health care law prescribes. Physician and prescription drug benefits, financed separately out of general tax revenues and premiums, wouldn’t be affected.

As we explained in our Aug. 22 article, “A Campaign Full of Mediscare,” the Medicare hospital trust fund is on pace to be exhausted by 2024 — or by 2016 if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. But trustees estimate Medicare would still collect enough payroll taxes to fund 87 percent of the cost of hospital bills that would come due. The funding gap would  continue to grow, and by 2050 the fund could cover only 67 percent of its bills. But that doesn’t mean Medicare would be “bankrupt”and would suddenly halt all payments. And if it wished, the government could make up the shortfall with tax dollars.

Biden’s claim that “they’re not for preserving Medicare at all,” is also misleading. Under the Romney/Ryan plan, those 55 and older would remain in traditional Medicare. For those currently under 55, the Romney-Ryan plan would institute a new premium-support plan beginning with new beneficiaries in 2023. Seniors would pick from private plans, or could choose traditional Medicare, all of which would be offered on a new Medicare exchange. So, those 55 and over would still get Medicare, and those under 55 could opt for traditional Medicare.

Not the Same as Clinton

Obama said he proposed a return to the same tax rate on upper-income households that prevailed during the booming economy of the 1990s. But that’s not quite accurate.

Obama: I want to reform the tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 – the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs.

Obama refers to his wish to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for families with over $250,000 annual income, or for individuals with over $200,000. The top marginal income tax rate would return to 39.6 percent, where it was set by Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, up from 35 percent, where it has been since 2003.

But that’s not the whole story. Obama has signed some new taxes to help finance the Affordable Care Act, increasing the burden on those upper-income taxpayers. Starting Jan. 1 next year, they will pay an additional 0.9 percent of wages for Medicare payroll taxes.  And they will also be subject to a 3.8 percent tax on investment income from such things as stocks, bonds and sale of real estate. Those are taxes that didn’t exist when Clinton was president. If Obama succeeds in raising the top income tax rates to Clinton-era levels, total taxes on those making over $250,000 family income are thus likely to be higher than they were under Clinton. (They’ll still benefit from the Bush cuts on their income below $250,000, because Obama wouldn’t restore those lower-bracket rates to Clinton levels. So some upper-income taxpayers could still end up paying less federal tax than they paid under Clinton, depending.)

– Lori Robertson, with Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley and Ben Finley

What happened to almost $475 million worth of oil destined for the Afghan National Army – that’s what the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) would like to know. 

Unfortunately, the inspectors may never find out.  According to the report released Monday, more than four years of financial records that the Department of Defense was supposed to keep to track this spending are either missing or so poorly kept that even gathering basic information, such as the location and size of fuel sites, was not possible.

The report concludes that the Department of Defense agency in charge of tracking the oil “does not have accurate or supportable information on how much U.S. funds are needed for [Army] fuel, where and how the fuel is actually used, or how much fuel has been lost or stolen.” 

Inspectors found that records from October 2006 to March 2011 were shredded improperly, a violation of DOD policies that made it impossible for auditors to track what happened to the hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil.  DOD also “could not provide more than half” of the documents requested from March 2011 onward.

“The destruction of records and the unexplained failure to provide other records violate DOD and Department of the Army policies,” wrote SIGAR head John Sopko in a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and others that accompanied the report. Sopko, an experienced watchdog appointed in May, noted that he has opened an investigation into the destruction of the older records.

The Combined Security Transition Command, a multi-national agency run out of Kabul, has spent $1.1 billion since 2007 in fuel for the Afghan army. A large chunk of that funding comes from the United States— the 2012 budget alone included $429 million for the program. As with other projects in Afghanistan, the program is slated to be handed over to Afghan control in 2013, but funding would continue with projected spending raises of $555 million in 2014.

As a result of its findings, SIGAR recommended that future oil funding for the Afghan army be kept frozen at current 2012 levels until improvements are made to how DOD is accounting and tracking fuel.  SIGAR also recommended that the fuel agency “implement a comprehensive action plan” to improve accountability on fuel deliveries and purchases.

In a response included with the SIGAR report, an official of from DOD’s Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan promised to implement a new fuel database, and track invoices better. The response did not directly address the SIGAR charge that documents were improperly shredded, but contained promises that the Army will improve compliance on future reports.

The transition command protested a potential funding freeze, however, arguing that it would impinge on military operations. According to the transition office, the amount spent on fuel needs to keep rising, because Afghani forces are using more fuel every year — the result of increased numbers of vehicles provided by coalition forces.  Funding recommendations should be based on military requirements, according to DOD.

However, SIGAR’s report says this response ignores the need to develop a better method and process for creating their cost projections. Because DOD did not provide documentation to back up their claim that oil budgets need to continue to rise, SIGAR stands by their request to cap funding levels. 

Commander Bill Speaks, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said the transition office’s comments “speak for themselves.”  He added that the field team provided information requested for the post March 2011 audit and that they will continue to cooperate with SIGAR’s audit. Speaks could not offer a comment on Spoko’s letter by press time.

Although SIGAR’s report didn’t uncover any specific examples of waste, fraud and abuse, investigators said that changes must be made to “mitigate” the risk of fraud. That’s something SIGAR has written about in the past: In May, SIGAR released a report warning of concerns over stolen cash and fuel. “Corruption remains a major threat to the reconstruction effort,” Steven Trent, the acting head of SIGAR at the time, wrote in his introduction to the 176-page report. He added that the problem may worsen as the United States heads for the door: “Afghan reconstruction has reached a critical turning point. The shift in strategy, decline in funding, and persistent violence and corruption underscore the need for aggressive oversight.”

The interim report came from an audit of the overall logistics of the Afghan army, which is due sometime later this year. But the lost data was alarming enough to SIGAR that it merited “immediate attention.”

Super PAC Prosperity First, which is bankrolled by wealthy hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer, is attempting to oust Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop in New York’s 1st Congressional District. In less than a week, the super PAC has spent more than $294,000 on ads.

Prosperity First reported its first buy to the tune of $273,000 on Friday, followed by an additional $21,000 on Monday, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The ads support Randy Altschuler, a wealthy Republican businessman running for Congress against Bishop in Mercer’s home district of eastern Long Island.

Altschuler and Bishop first went head-to-head in 2010 in one of the tightest races in the country. Both campaigns challenged the results, and three weeks after the election, just 16 votes separated the candidates, The Hill reported. Eventually, Altschuler, who funded his own campaign, conceded. The final tally gave Bishop a margin of victory of less than 600 votes in a race where about 200,000 votes were cast.

New York’s 1st District is considered a tossup again this year, but Bishop may receive a bump from increased Democratic turnout for the presidential election.

Super donor Mercer, co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies Corp., gave Prosperity First $500,000 in April. This accounts for nearly 80 percent of the $635,500 it reported raising through June, according to the group's most recent campaign finance filing. Mercer made the contribution three days after Prosperity First was founded.

Altschuler’s position on Wall Street reform aligns with that of Mercer and Renaissance Technologies.

The hedge fund giant lobbied extensively against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which tightens regulations on hedge funds, among other things. Altschuler opposes the law, and he has called it “flawed" and a “job killer for New York,” local news site Smithtown Matters reported in 2010.

Bishop voted in favor of Dodd-Frank, which is named for its chief congressional sponsors, former Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Other contributors to Prosperity First include:

• JL Holdings — $50,000.  Brothers John and Lawrence Rutigliano own this private real estate company based in the Bronx. This appears to be the brothers’ first major political contribution.
• Sumir Chadha —$25,000. Chadha is the founder of WestBridge Capital, where he specializes in private equity and venture capital investments.
• Andrew Sabin —$25,000. Sabin owns Sabin Commodities, a privately owned precious metals brokerage firm.
• HJ Kalikow LLC, owned by Peter Kalikow — $20,000. Kalikow was a top donor to Cain Connections, a super PAC that supported conservative businessman Herman Cain's failed presidential bid last year.
• A1 Suites LLC — $10,000. A1 has a New York address but is registered in Delaware . The state is a popular choice for corporate filers thanks to its low taxes, anonymity of owners and ease of incorporation. The New York address is for an office building home to dozens of businesses.

In other outside spending news:

• The National Republican Congressional Committee reported spending more than $187,000 on ads opposing Democrats in three House races: David Gill in Illinois’ 13th District, which is held by Republican Rep. Judy Biggert; Gary McDowell in Michigan’s 1st District, which is held by Republican Rep. Dan Benishek; and Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., who is being challenged by Republican attorney Andy Barr.
   
• The NRCC’s “This Is Our America” shows historic moments like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream speech” and the moon landing, while adding, “We’re ready for a comeback.” The ad mentions no candidates, but the RNC has dubbed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., America's “Comeback Team.”
   
• The Republican National Committee’s ad “We’ve Heard It All Before (2012 DNC Edition)” shows the similarities between President Barack Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention and his 2012 speech last week in Charlotte.
   
• Super PAC Planned Parenthood Votes released a new ad saying GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would “turn back the clock on women’s health.”
   
• “Obama’s Blunders,” a short web video from conservative nonprofit Americans for Limited Government, opens with clips of Obama tripping and knocking his head, then goes on to talk about the “failed” auto industry bailout, a contention strongly disputed by the Obama administration and backed up by Politifact.
   
• A new ad from super PAC Freedom PAC supports Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who is challenging popular incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat. Notably, the ad uses Mack campaign footage, but this may circumvent federal rules barring illegal coordination because the Mack campaign made the footage publicly available online.  
   
• New committees: Republicans for a Prosperous America in Washington, D.C., Citizens for a Sustainable North Hawaii in Kapaau, Hawaii, and Media Fund Super PAC in Beachwood, Ohio.

A new Romney ad would have viewers believe that former President Bill Clinton was commenting on President Obama’s handling of the economy when he said, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” That’s false. Clinton’s 2008 comment was aimed at Obama’s portrayal of Hillary Clinton as supporting Iraq war policies.

The ad comes on the heels of Clinton’s rousing endorsement of Obama during the Democratic National Convention, a speech more people considered to be the highlight of the Democratic convention than Obama’s own speech. The Romney ad seeks to remind voters that Clinton hasn’t always been so effusive in his praise of Obama — at least not when Obama was locked in a heated Democratic presidential primary battle with Clinton’s wife, Hillary.

The ad focuses on the economy — arguing that under Obama it has gotten worse — and then says Obama has called on Bill Clinton “to help his failing campaign.” The ad then borrows a clip from a recent Obama campaign ad in which Clinton says, “This election, to me, is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment.” Clinton then goes on to endorse Obama.

The Romney ad’s narrator says Clinton is a “good soldier, helping his party’s president,” but adds, “What did Bill Clinton say about Barack Obama in 2008?”

The ad then shows a clip of Clinton saying, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

The narrator then follows up with two economic statistics. The first is that there are “23 million Americans struggling for work.” According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, that’s an accurate count of the number of unemployed (12.5 million) plus those working part time who would like to be working full time (8 million) and those “marginally attached” to the workforce (2.6 million), which includes workers so discouraged by the bad economy that they have stopped looking for work. The ad’s narrator also states that the  “middle class [is] falling further behind,” a statement from a CNN Money story about a Pew Research Center report that talks about the “lost decade of the middle class” and spans the presidencies of both Obama and George W. Bush. (In fact, the people surveyed blamed Bush more than Obama for the downturn.)

The ad then follows up with Clinton repeating, “Give me a break.”

Given the context of the ad and its focus on the economy, viewers might assume Clinton was talking about something to do with Obama’s economic policy. He wasn’t.

Rather, while stumping for his wife in 2008, Clinton expressed his frustration with what he viewed as the media giving Obama a free pass regarding Obama’s position on the war in Iraq.

Here’s the fuller quote — you can view it here — in which Clinton takes a moment to talk about Obama’s Iraq war stance:

Clinton, Jan. 8, 2008: It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution, you said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war. And you took that speech you’re now running on off your website in 2004. And there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since. Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

Foreign Policy provides a fuller explanation of the issues at play in Clinton’s 2008 remarks, but as is clear from the passage above, his comments had nothing to do with Obama’s economic policy, as the Romney ad implies.

So why do Republicans even care what Clinton thinks of Obama? At least one poll shows that independent voters rated Clinton’s convention speech significantly more positively than Obama’s, leading a Washington Post columnist to opine that “whatever nudge Obama might have gotten [in daily tracking polls] could very well be the Clinton bump, not his own.”

– Robert Farley

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Barack Obama urged delegates at the Democratic National Convention to beware “the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election” in his acceptance speech Thursday night.

“If you reject the notion that our government is forever beholden to the highest bidder, you need to stand up in this election,” Obama said to a roaring crowd in the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.

The impassioned speech came the same week that the main pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, said it raised $10 million in August, a record for the group, and enlisted the aid of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s campaign co-chairman, to help it raise money.

Democrats staked out positions against secret election spending, big-money politics and the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision throughout the convention.

The party is being seriously outraised by Republican super PACs and nonprofits, and its position is in stark contrast to Republicans, whose party platform opposes efforts to undo the high court’s decision.

The 2010 Citizens United ruling overturned an existing ban on corporate- and union-funded advertisements that advocate for the election or defeat of federal candidates.

It further said that independent political ads — even those funded with unlimited corporate cash — do not pose a threat of corruption. That’s a point that campaign finance reformers have disputed.

In other speeches, Democratic officials, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, also criticized special interest groups and their outsized influence in Washington.

“We believe in government of the many, not the privileged few,” said Pelosi, who added that Democrats will “work to overturn Citizens United.”

Warren said the “system is rigged,” and she argued that Obama would fight for a “level playing field.”

The Democratic Party’s platform supports “campaign finance reform, by constitutional amendment if necessary,” as well as legislation to “require greater disclosure of campaign spending.”

The Republican Party platform calls for repealing the campaign finance reform law authored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis. and opposes the DISCLOSE Act, which seeks to institute new disclosure requirements for groups that run political ads.

The DISCLOSE Act was thwarted by Republican opposition in both this Congress and the previous one.

Republicans frame the debate as a First Amendment issue.

“The GOP will defend freedom of speech, and it does not view citizens’ political speech and involvement as a bad thing for democracy,” said Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Those sentiments are echoed by Republican Dan Backer, an attorney at DB Capitol Strategies.

“The GOP has consistently stood up against the over-reaching, over-intrusiveness of the federal government in all aspects of our lives,” Backer said. “Here they are standing up against the notion that the government gets to dictate what speech is permissible.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has endorsed the notion of unlimited campaign contributions to political candidates. He opposes a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Last week Obama endorsed the idea of a constitutional amendment to override Citizens United during an online chat on the popular website Reddit.com.

In the Reddit chat, Obama criticized the “no-holds barred flow of seven- and eight- figure checks, most undisclosed, into super PACs.”

Obama’s statement confused super PACs with nonprofit spending groups.

Super PACs are permitted to accept unlimited contributions but are legally required to disclose their donors — that’s how casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Texas homebuilder Bob Perry and Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner have become headline fodder.

Nonprofits, organized under section 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) of the U.S. tax code, can make the same types of expenditures but are not required to publicly disclose their donors.

Despite the banner month for Priorities USA Action, the GOP super PACs have raised and spent far more.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-Romney super PAC has raised nearly $90 million so far this election, though much of that was used to fight off opponents in the GOP primary. Conservative super PAC American Crossroads has raised more than $47 million.

And that does not include tens of millions more raised by conservative nonprofits like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, which do not reveal their donors.

Priorities USA Action, not including the August amount, has raised $25.5 million.

Days before Citgo Petroleum Corp. faces its long-awaited sentencing for criminal Clean Air Act violations at its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, a Justice Department court filing alleges that a “wide range” of environmental and worker safety violations continue to plague the plant.

Citgo was convicted in June 2007 of two criminal counts stemming from 10 years of toxic emissions from two massive, uncovered storage tanks. Such convictions are rare: The Center for Public Integrity reported last year that Clean Air Act cases have been prosecuted at a far lower rate than Clean Water Act or solid waste cases.

In its filing this week, the Justice Department asks a federal judge to fine Citgo $2,090,000, the maximum allowed under the statute, and put the company on five years’ probation — also the maximum — for illegal emissions of benzene and other hazardous chemicals from the tanks between 1994 and 2004.

The department says the refinery made almost $1.16 billion in profits during that period.

Citgo’s sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Corpus Christi and could last several days. In an e-mailed statement Friday morning, the company said it “embraces a culture of safety that is reflected in everything we and our employees do. We are proud of our record and of the important role our refineries play in providing good jobs and much needed tax revenue for the communities they serve, including Corpus Christi.”

The Justice Department document alleges that Citgo “has violated a wide range of environmental and worker safety regulations” — as recently as this year in some cases.

An inspector with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, found that the refinery had five releases of hydrofluoric acid (HF), a potentially lethal gas, between Feb. 11 and March 20, 2012. As reported last year by the Center and ABC News, the refinery had a major HF release in July 2009 that severely injured a worker and put the nearby Hillcrest neighborhood at risk.

Citgo told state regulators that only 30 pounds of the acid escaped plant boundaries. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board later estimated, however, that at least 4,000 pounds left the refinery and concluded that failures in a Citgo water system meant to contain HF had nearly led to a bigger release.

The 2012 HF releases occurred “because equipment deficiencies are not repaired in a safe and timely manner” and are evidence of “systemic failure,” the Justice Department document says. The document also cites incidents such as the “preventable” release of more than 142,000 pounds of pollutants into the atmosphere on Dec. 25 and 30, 2009.

On Thursday, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed fines totaling $66,500 against Citgo for five alleged violations related to an HF leak. “The employer did not have proper safeguards in place to protect employees from the release of toxic chemicals,” Michael Rivera, OSHA’s area director in Corpus Christi, said in a written statement.

Suzie Canales, executive director of Citizens for Environmental Justice in Corpus Christi, said she is disappointed that Citgo faces, at most, a fine of slightly more than $2 million for the 2007 Clean Air Act conviction. “It’s pocket change to them,” she said.

She also doesn’t understand why it’s taken more than five years for the company to be sentenced. “When you go that long, it sends a message to Citgo and others that it doesn’t matter if you violated the Clean Air Act — you’re going to get away with it,” Canales said.

In a related development Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans granted a petition seeking crime-victim status for 14 people who live near the refinery. The trial judge in the Citgo case, John D. Rainey, ruled last year that the residents didn’t qualify as victims under the Crime Victim’s Rights Act and therefore couldn’t testify at the company’s sentencing hearing because they hadn’t proven that emissions from the Citgo tanks were the “specific cause” of their alleged health problems, including shortness of breath, vomiting and dizziness.

The Fifth Circuit instructed Rainey to consider new arguments raised by the petition. “The judge needs to hear from these people to determine an appropriate sentence in the case,” said law professor Paul Cassell, who is representing the residents pro bono through the Appellate Clinic at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.

It's not yet clear, however, whether the residents will speak at next week's hearing.

One of the biggest players in the global trade in human tissue has suspended its partnership with suppliers in Ukraine, where authorities have carried out multiple investigations over allegations of illegal tissue recovery.

RTI Biologics, a Florida-based manufacturer of medical implants made from skin, bone and other human parts, "made a decision to voluntarily suspend import of tissues from Ukrainian institutions," the company said in a statement Thursday.  

Congressional staffers and the Pentagon announced this week they were reviewing contracts the government holds with RTI and its German subsidiary Tutogen Medical. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported in July on RTI's relationship with morgues under investigation for allegedly forging documents or bullying families into signing donor consent forms. 

"We comply with comprehensive regulations, both from U.S. regulatory authorities and those of other countries, that govern each and every activity performed by tissue banks," RTI said.

Ukrainian law, like U.S. law, requires donors or their loved ones give express consent before tissue can be recovered. 

The trade in human parts is a billion-dollar industry that is growing and changing so rapidly, legislation has a hard time keeping pace. It is illegal in most countries to buy or sell human parts, but companies can charge fees for handling the tissue. RTI is a publicly-traded company that warns its stockholders, "the supply of human tissue has at times limited our growth, and may not be sufficient to meet our future needs."

RTI obtains tissue from more than 30 procurement agencies in the United States as well as in places such as Ukraine. The company supplies hospitals in more than 30 countries and in all fifty states. Records show the company has offered Ukrainian tissue to hospitals in New York. 

German officials had planned a September inspection of 10 Ukrainian morgues that supply Tutogen, according to Ines Schantz, a spokeswoman for the Upper Bavarian government in Germany. But the company withdrew its licenses to import tissue from Ukraine into Germany on August 20.

The German government subsequently cancelled its plans to inspect the foreign tissue agencies. "After the removal of all the institutes from the import license, there was no legal basis any longer to perform the planned inspection," Schantz said. 

She said German authorities continue to investigate human tissues already imported from the Ukraine.

ICIJ's eight-month investigation revealed that Tutogen, which was acquired by RTI in early 2008, has for years relied on its Ukrainian suppliers for a significant amount of human tissue in spite of concerns raised within the company more than a decade ago and a series of subsequent investigations.

Read the rest of the story.

What happened in Maine is a sobering reality check on the oft-repeated myth that getting rid of ObamaCare and other consumer protections is the answer to our health care problems. If the government will just get out of the way, the myth-makers would have us believe, the free market will magically transform our dysfunctional health care systems into one of the world’s very best.

The voters in Maine fell for magical thinking in 2010 when they turned over control of the legislature and governor’s office to candidates who promised to block ObamaCare and implement what they called “common sense” free-market solutions. Once they did, they assured voters, insurance premiums would fall and more people would have access to affordable care.

Sure enough, soon after being sworn in, lawmakers passed legislation that in many ways took Maine in the opposite direction of where President Obama wanted to go. When newly elected Republican Governor Paul LePage signed the bill into law —a bill enthusiastically endorsed by insurance companies — many consumer protections enacted over two decades disappeared. Especially hard hit: people living in rural areas and folks over 40.  

Among other things, the new law abolished protections for rural families that had required insurers to have at least one doctor in their provider networks within 30 miles of where those families lived and at least one hospital within 60 miles. The law also allows insurance companies to effectively double rates for older residents. That provision is affecting not only individuals and families, but also small businesses that employ older workers. Within months of the bill’s passage, insurers began jacking up the rates they charged businesses with older workers by 90 percent or more.

Even so, backers of the new law continued to insist that after it had been in effect for awhile, the measure would help a majority of Mainers.

But those promises have turned out to be empty, as Consumers for Affordable Health Care, a statewide advocacy group, found following a review of company reports filed with the Maine Bureau of Insurance since the law was enacted. What they found should dash the hopes of even the most ardent free-market supporters.

The group found that more than half of individual policyholders saw their rates go up, not down. It was even worse for small businesses: 90 percent of them got rate increases instead of decreases. And, as consumer advocates had feared, hardest hit were indeed older workers and people living in rural areas, most of whom saw good coverage options previously available to them disappear.

In response to the group’s report, backers of the law said they still expect rates will eventually go down for many people as more young folks start buying policies. Their optimism is based on the theory that as insurers charge older people more, they can charge younger people less. If the theory holds, previously uninsured young people will begin signing up for coverage in droves. Once that happens, the pool of insured residents will increase and insurers, being good corporate citizens, will then lower premiums for everybody else.

The problem is that, in the absence of subsidies and a requirement that they buy insurance, some young people are still deciding to remain uninsured. Not so much because they want to be uninsured, but because they just don’t make enough money to pay for health insurance on their own. And many who do consider buying a policy undoubtedly are being turned off by just how inadequate the policies with relatively low premiums really are. Most of the policies marketed to young people have either limited benefits or very high deductibles — or both — meaning that they do not represent good value for consumers. What they do represent are big profits for insurance firms.

As Joseph Ditré, executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, said, "The promise of new young, healthy uninsureds returning to the health insurance market and thereby lowering prices for everyone is just not happening.”

And small businesses are not seeing better deals, either, as a result of the law. On the contrary, insurance companies are raising premiums on small businesses in all geographic areas, not just in remote areas. Especially hard hit are businesses with older workers.

Ditré worries that because of the sharp premium increases that are going into effect throughout the state, not only will the number of uninsured Mainers increase but those who are most likely to drop their coverage as it becomes increasingly unaffordable are those who need it most: older people.

So much for magical thinking and the fantastical free-market ideas to fix health care.

Facing the end of an era of untrammeled growth in defense spending, officials at the Pentagon have spent most of 2012 telling anyone who will listen how potential budget cuts will put national security in jeopardy. While funds for big ticket military items are under new pressure, however, there’s one thing the Pentagon still has pocket change for: its well-groomed chauffeurs.

On Friday, the Army formally solicited new bids to make the grey uniforms used by chauffeurs.  The request was first uncovered by our friend Mark Thompson, who closely tracks such bids for his entertaining Battleland blog at TIME.

The bid makes clear that even though the Pentagon has plenty to worry about these days — the threat of war with Iran, the chaos in Syria, and the continued conflict in Afghanistan, to name a few — someone there still has time to worry about the fine details of how the drivers of top generals and assistant secdefs are to be dressed.

In the solicitation, the fabrics of the uniforms are spelled out with precision:  coats and trousers must be 55 percent polyester and 45 percent wool, while shirts should be 65 percent polyester and 35 percent cotton. The cotton tie must be burgundy. Anticipating a rough winter, the solicitation included an order for 68 black V-neck sweaters. 

As Thompson points out, the details suggest the chauffeur force is heavily male.  The Army wants 203 men’s coats and 16 women’s coats, along with 408 men’s shirts and only 24 for women.  Nothing but the best will do: “new Equipment ONLY; NO remanufactured or ‘gray market’ items,” and all items must be covered by a warranty.  Sizes aren’t specified, apparently because there will be a personal fitting in the autumn. The solicitation does not specify how much the Army is prepared to spend.

According to the solicitation, the Army chauffeur corps transports “Senior Executive Staffs of the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Under Secretaries of Army and Air Force, Vice Chiefs of Staff Army and Air Force, Assistant Secretaries, and other Principal Officials of Headquarters Department of Defense (DoD).” 

What kind of cars will the Pentagon’s best and brightest be riding in? The solicitation doesn’t say, but it’s worth noting the Army has previously asked for bids to make four large SUVs — two 2011 Lincoln Navigators L 4X4 and two Ford Expedition XLT vehicles, all meant to seat seven passengers.

Only a few lawmakers have tried to make political hay by complaining about the Pentagon’s chauffeur system. In 1973, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., called it “outrageous.” But judging from the Pentagon’s new order, even in a time of relative austerity, this is one expense the top brass feels it cannot do without.

Requests for comment to the Army and the contracting officer listed in the solicitation were not immediately returned. The Office of the Secretary of Defense referred questions to the Army.

The YG Action Fund, a super PAC associated with the conservative “Young Guns” movement led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, reported spending nearly $2 million on ads in three Democrat-held congressional districts.

While the Young Guns is associated with the National Republican Congressional Committee, YG Action Fund is independently managed and independently financially backed, with support coming from super donor Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam, who gave it $5 million in April, and by a handful of smaller donors, including Cantor’s leadership PAC, Every Republican Is Crucial (ERICPAC).

The new ads oppose Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., Maj. Gen. Bill Enyart, the Democrat running in Illinois’ 12th District, and Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass.

McIntrye faces Republican state Sen. David Rouzer in North Carolina’s 7th District, one of the more expensive House races in the country. The district has attracted $1.6 million in outside spending so far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“Two Mikes” says McIntyre “talks like a conservative” but has voted like a liberal.

Enyart, a retired general who until recently headed Illinois’ National Guard, faces Republican businessman Jason Plummer for retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Costello’s seat in Illinois’ 12th District.

“Something New” paints Enyart as out-of-touch and reminds voters he was appointed by disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Tierney is challenged by former state Sen. Richard Tisei, a Republican, for his seat representing Massachusetts’ 6th District. Tierney has been embroiled in scandal since it was discovered his brothers-in-law were running an illegal offshore gambling operation. The seat could be an easy pickup for Republicans, making Tisei the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress, National Public Radio reported.

The anti-Tierney ad centers around the scandal (his wife is serving jail time) and says it’s “time for John Tierney to man up and tell the truth — the whole truth.”

The Young Guns movement, which started with a Weekly Standard magazine cover five years ago, was founded by Cantor, Ryan and Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. After its launch, the NRCC folded it in as part of its fundraising program.

The YG Action Fund was created in October 2011, a Federal Election Commission report shows. Cantor has denied control over the super PAC.

Cantor’s deputy chief of staff, John Murray, founded the super PAC and serves as its treasurer. Murray also founded and runs YG Network, an affiliated, non-disclosing 501(c)(4) nonprofit that can produce and air political ads, and YG Policy Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that generates studies and educational programs.

YG Network, which is not required to reveal its donors, went after longtime Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., in April during state’s first contested GOP primary in decades, which resulted in the moderate Lugar being ousted in favor of tea partier Richard Mourdock.

YG Action Fund’s new ads appear to be the super PAC’s first major campaign since it helped former congressional aide Richard Hudson win a tight GOP runoff in North Carolina against Rep. Scott Keadle in July.

In other outside spending news:

• Conservative Campaign for Working Families takes out of context a noisy vote among delegates at the Democratic National Convention about whether or not to amend the platform to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and to add back the word “God.” The ad suggests the acrimony among delegates was attributable to the “God” clause, not the Jerusalem assertion.
• The NRCC spent almost $4.1 million opposing Democrats and Republicans in 21 congressional districts.
• The National Republican Senatorial Committee spent $971,000 supporting Rep. Rick Berg, R-N.D., in his race for U.S. Senate in the state and opposing former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat. The buy also opposes Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who faces a challenge by Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont.
• Pro-President Barack Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action launched “We the People,” an ad targeted at middle-class voters opposing Romney. The group reported spending $750,000 on new ad buys.
• Center Forward, which supports moderate Democrats and Republicans, released “Struggle,” which opposes Georgia state Rep. Lee Anderson, the Republican candidate for U.S. House in Georgia’s 12th District.
• The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released “Enough” opposing Rodney Davis, the Republican candidate for Congress is Illinois’ 13th District. The DCCC also released “Out for Himself” opposing Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, and “Shanghai” opposing Keith Rothfus, the Republican candidate for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s 12th District. The group also reported spending more than $890,000 and $1.1 million in two separate waves of ads.
• The Service Employees International Union PEA, the union’s super PAC, spent almost $1.1 million supporting the re-elections of Obama, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio; the Senate bids of former Democratic Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; and the U.S. House bid of Manny Yevancy, a Democrat running in Florida’s 27th District. The group’s July quarterly report showed a $550,000 contribution from the SEIU’s general fund.
• Crossroads Generation, a conservative super PAC aimed at young voters, debuted “Not Working,” opposing Obama.
• Club for Growth Action, a conservative super PAC, reported $792,000 in new ads supporting Richard Mourdock, the tea party Republican running against Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly for U.S. Senate in Indiana.
• The Safari Club International PAC spent $141,000 supporting 17 Republicans and four Democrats. Safari Club International is an international organization of hunters that also funds wildlife conservation programs.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a rousing double-header, Democratic delegates heard Barack Obama and Joe Biden both accept renomination on their convention’s final night. And we heard some facts being spun.

• President Obama boasted that his plan would cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, citing “independent experts.” But one such analyst called a key element of the plan a “gimmick.”
• Vice President Biden quoted GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney as saying “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth” to catch Osama bin Laden. Actually, Romney said he’d target more than just “one person.”
• The president said U.S. automakers are “back on top of the world.” Nope. GM has slipped back to No. 2 and is headed for third place in global sales this year, behind Toyota and Volkswagen.
• Biden said “the experts” concluded Romney’s corporate tax plan would create 800,000 jobs in other countries. One expert said that. She also said the number depends on the details, and foreign jobs could grow without costing U.S. jobs.
• Obama quoted Romney as saying it was “tragic” to “end the war in Iraq.” What Romney was criticizing was the pace of Obama’s troop withdrawal, not ending a war.
• Biden claimed Romney “believes it’s OK to raise taxes on middle classes by $2,000.” Romney actually promises to lower middle-class taxes.
• Biden said Romney and running mate Paul Ryan “are not for preserving Medicare at all.” Actually, the plan they endorse would offer traditional Medicare as one option among many.
• Obama said his tax plan would restore “the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president” for upper-income taxpayers. Not quite. New taxes to finance the health care law also kick in next year, further burdening those same taxpayers.

$4 Trillion Deficit Reduction?

Obama exaggerated when he claimed “independent experts” say his deficit-reduction plan would reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years. Actually, one independent analysis criticized a central part of the president’s plan as a “gimmick.”

In September of last year, Obama released “The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction.” The plan purports to generate $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years — including “more than $1 trillion in savings over the next 10 years from our drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

In February, when Obama released his fiscal year 2013 budget, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget criticized the president’s plan for relying on savings from winding down the two wars. Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan group, called it a “gimmick.”

“There are a number of good policies in this budget, but the use of this war gimmick is quite troubling,” said MacGuineas. “Drawing down spending on wars that were already set to wind down and that were deficit financed in the first place should not be considered savings. When you finish college, you don’t suddenly have thousands of dollars a year to spend elsewhere — in fact, you have to find a way to pay back your loans.”

In addition, the president’s plan includes another $1 trillion in savings from the Budget Control Act that had been agreed to as part of the deal with Congress to raise the debt ceiling. That’s not new savings, but accounts for already agreed-upon savings.

Biden’s bin Laden Baloney

Biden repeated the Obama campaign’s claim — previously made in a Web ad — that Romney said that “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth, and spending billions of dollars” to catch Osama bin Laden.

The claim, which Republicans disputed, fails to include the rest of Romney’s quote from an Associated Press story. Romney said the country’s focus should not be on one person, but it should be a “broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.”

Biden: Folks, Governor Romney didn’t see things that way. When he was asked about bin Laden in 2007, here’s what he said. He said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just to catch one person.”

Romney’s quote comes from an interview with the AP in April 2007 — when bin Laden was still alive.

AP: [Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said. Instead, he said he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.

A transcript of Romney’s 2007 interview, which the conservative website Townhall obtained from the Romney campaign, offers more context:

[AP reporter ] Liz Sidoti: Why haven’t we caught bin Laden in your opinion?

Romney: I think, I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort.

He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world.

It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that.

Not Quite ‘on Top’

The president overstated the strength of the U.S. automotive industry when he said that “we reinvented a dying auto industry that’s back on top of the world.” Not quite. General Motors has currently slipped back to No. 2 in world auto sales, based on sales for the first six months of the year, and Volkswagen is expected to push GM into third place for the full year.

GM has indeed made a comeback: It took back the top spot in global sales in 2011 after being surpassed by Toyota in 2008. Prior to that, GM had been No. 1 for more than 70 years. But for the first six months of 2012, Toyota, with 4.97 million vehicle sales, regained the lead from GM, with 4.67 million sales, for first place in worldwide auto sales. GM is expected to drop to third for all of 2012.

A Disputed Jobs Figure

Biden used a disputed figure to attack Romney’s proposal to overhaul the taxation of multinational corporations:

Biden: It’s called a territorial tax, which the experts have looked at, and they acknowledge it will create 800,000 new jobs — all of them overseas, all of them.

It’s true that one expert — Kimberly Clausing, a professor of economics at Reed College in Portland, Oregon — recently published a study calculating that a “pure” territorial system of international taxation would increase employment in low-tax countries by about 800,000 jobs. But that’s not necessarily what Romney is proposing. The foreign job growth could be smaller, wouldn’t necessarily come at the expense of U.S. workers, and doesn’t take account of any offsetting job gains in the U.S.

Romney has proposed switching taxation of U.S.-based multinational corporations to a territorial system — in which earnings are taxed only in the countries where they are generated — similar to the system used by most other industrial nations. But Romney has not specified details, so we don’t know if his would be a “pure” territorial system or not. Clausing herself said in a recent interview that the actual effect “depends on the details of the territorial system that is adopted.”

She notes in her study that “jobs abroad need not displace jobs at home” — that is, provided that the present economy improves, and U.S. unemployment drops to a low level. So depending on the economic circumstances, creating jobs overseas doesn’t necessarily mean losing jobs in the U.S., as Biden’s listeners might have assumed.

Furthermore, a critique of Clausing’s figure by the Tax Foundation (a group supported in part by corporate donations) says that she based it on current corporate tax rates — not on the lower 25 percent rate that Romney proposes. The lower rate, it is argued, would attract foreign investment and lead to importing jobs.

We won’t attempt to resolve here the merits or demerits of Romney’s embryonic corporate tax plan. The fact is that Biden quoted one study from one expert, but “experts” in general disagree.

Twisting a ‘Tragic’ Quote

Making the case that Romney lacks foreign policy chops, Obama twisted Romney’s words, claiming, “My opponent said it was ‘tragic’ to end the war in Iraq.”

But that’s not quite what Romney said. He was speaking of the speed with which Obama was withdrawing troops, not to ending the war in general.

During a veterans roundtable in South Carolina on Nov. 11, 2011, Romney criticized Obama’s plan to remove troops from Iraq by the end of that year. Here’s the fuller context of his comments, as reported by the New York Times:

Romney, Nov. 11, 2011: It is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake, and failing by the Obama administration. The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate — it’s more than unfortunate, I think it’s tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard won by the men and women who served there.

A month earlier, when Obama formally announced the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops from Iraq by year’s end, Romney released a similar statement:

Romney, Oct. 21, 2011: President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women. The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government. The American people deserve to hear the recommendations that were made by our military commanders in Iraq.

In December, Romney argued that Obama “has pulled our troops out in a precipitous way” and that he ought to have left a residual force of  “10-, 20-, 30-thousand personnel there to help transition to the Iraqi’s own military capabilities.”

Criticizing the “precipitous” pace of withdrawal and the president’s failure to leave a residual force in Iraq is a far cry from calling the end of the war in Iraq “tragic.”

Middle-Class Taxes

Biden joined the chorus of off-key convention speakers who have attacked Romney for wanting to raise taxes on the middle class, even though Romney says he won’t do that.

Biden: Folks, Governor Romney believes it’s OK to raise taxes on middle classes by $2,000 in order to pay for … another trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy.

That’s exactly the opposite of what Romney actually says. In his speech accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, he said:

Romney, Aug. 30: I will not raise taxes on the middle class.

Biden refers to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center of a plan that, as Romney also promises, cuts income tax rates across the board by 20 percent and pays for it by eliminating and reducing tax deductions and credits. TPC found that such a plan would “increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.” Under one scenario, it said that “taxpayers with children who make less than $200,000 would pay, on average, $2,000 more in taxes.”

But that’s not evidence that Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class. It only proves Romney “can’t accomplish all his stated objectives,” according to the Tax Policy Center’s director, Donald Marron.

Biden Distorts Romney’s Medicare Plan

Biden took aim at Romney’s Medicare plan, saying it would “immediately cut benefits for more than 30 million seniors” and “cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016.” In fact, he said, “They’re not for preserving Medicare at all.” All of those claims are misleading.

Biden: You heard them talk so much about how they cared so much about Medicare, how much they wanted to preserve it. That’s what they told you.

But let’s look at what they didn’t tell you. What they didn’t tell you is that the plan they have already put down on paper would immediately cut benefits for more than 30 million seniors already on Medicare. What they didn’t tell you — what they didn’t tell you is the plan they’re proposing would cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016. And what they really didn’t tell you is they — if you want to know — if you want to know — they’re not for preserving Medicare at all. They’re for a new plan. It’s called “Vouchercare.”

Let’s unpack these claims one by one. When Biden says the Romney plan “would immediately cut benefits for more than 30 million seniors already on Medicare,” he’s referring to Romney’s promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. As part of the health care law, seniors on Medicare are entitled to free annual preventive care and increased  prescription drug coverage. But Romney has not advocated cutting any of the traditional benefits provided by Medicare.

And as we wrote Sept. 6 after former President Bill Clinton made a similar claim, the Romney plan will not “cause Medicare to go bankrupt by 2016. ” But a part of Medicare — the hospital insurance trust fund — would not be able to pay full benefits for hospital services if the growth in Medicare spending is not cut, as the health care law prescribes. Physician and prescription drug benefits, financed separately out of general tax revenues and premiums, wouldn’t be affected.

As we explained in our Aug. 22 article, “A Campaign Full of Mediscare,” the Medicare hospital trust fund is on pace to be exhausted by 2024 — or by 2016 if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. But trustees estimate Medicare would still collect enough payroll taxes to fund 87 percent of the cost of hospital bills that would come due. The funding gap would  continue to grow, and by 2050 the fund could cover only 67 percent of its bills. But that doesn’t mean Medicare would be “bankrupt”and would suddenly halt all payments. And if it wished, the government could make up the shortfall with tax dollars.

Biden’s claim that “they’re not for preserving Medicare at all,” is also misleading. Under the Romney/Ryan plan, those 55 and older would remain in traditional Medicare. For those currently under 55, the Romney-Ryan plan would institute a new premium-support plan beginning with new beneficiaries in 2023. Seniors would pick from private plans, or could choose traditional Medicare, all of which would be offered on a new Medicare exchange. So, those 55 and over would still get Medicare, and those under 55 could opt for traditional Medicare.

Not the Same as Clinton

Obama said he proposed a return to the same tax rate on upper-income households that prevailed during the booming economy of the 1990s. But that’s not quite accurate.

Obama: I want to reform the tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 – the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs.

Obama refers to his wish to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for families with over $250,000 annual income, or for individuals with over $200,000. The top marginal income tax rate would return to 39.6 percent, where it was set by Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, up from 35 percent, where it has been since 2003.

But that’s not the whole story. Obama has signed some new taxes to help finance the Affordable Care Act, increasing the burden on those upper-income taxpayers. Starting Jan. 1 next year, they will pay an additional 0.9 percent of wages for Medicare payroll taxes.  And they will also be subject to a 3.8 percent tax on investment income from such things as stocks, bonds and sale of real estate. Those are taxes that didn’t exist when Clinton was president. If Obama succeeds in raising the top income tax rates to Clinton-era levels, total taxes on those making over $250,000 family income are thus likely to be higher than they were under Clinton. (They’ll still benefit from the Bush cuts on their income below $250,000, because Obama wouldn’t restore those lower-bracket rates to Clinton levels. So some upper-income taxpayers could still end up paying less federal tax than they paid under Clinton, depending.)

– Lori Robertson, with Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley and Ben Finley

What happened to almost $475 million worth of oil destined for the Afghan National Army – that’s what the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) would like to know. 

Unfortunately, the inspectors may never find out.  According to the report released Monday, more than four years of financial records that the Department of Defense was supposed to keep to track this spending are either missing or so poorly kept that even gathering basic information, such as the location and size of fuel sites, was not possible.

The report concludes that the Department of Defense agency in charge of tracking the oil “does not have accurate or supportable information on how much U.S. funds are needed for [Army] fuel, where and how the fuel is actually used, or how much fuel has been lost or stolen.” 

Inspectors found that records from October 2006 to March 2011 were shredded improperly, a violation of DOD policies that made it impossible for auditors to track what happened to the hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil.  DOD also “could not provide more than half” of the documents requested from March 2011 onward.

“The destruction of records and the unexplained failure to provide other records violate DOD and Department of the Army policies,” wrote SIGAR head John Sopko in a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and others that accompanied the report. Sopko, an experienced watchdog appointed in May, noted that he has opened an investigation into the destruction of the older records.

The Combined Security Transition Command, a multi-national agency run out of Kabul, has spent $1.1 billion since 2007 in fuel for the Afghan army. A large chunk of that funding comes from the United States— the 2012 budget alone included $429 million for the program. As with other projects in Afghanistan, the program is slated to be handed over to Afghan control in 2013, but funding would continue with projected spending raises of $555 million in 2014.

As a result of its findings, SIGAR recommended that future oil funding for the Afghan army be kept frozen at current 2012 levels until improvements are made to how DOD is accounting and tracking fuel.  SIGAR also recommended that the fuel agency “implement a comprehensive action plan” to improve accountability on fuel deliveries and purchases.

In a response included with the SIGAR report, an official of from DOD’s Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan promised to implement a new fuel database, and track invoices better. The response did not directly address the SIGAR charge that documents were improperly shredded, but contained promises that the Army will improve compliance on future reports.

The transition command protested a potential funding freeze, however, arguing that it would impinge on military operations. According to the transition office, the amount spent on fuel needs to keep rising, because Afghani forces are using more fuel every year — the result of increased numbers of vehicles provided by coalition forces.  Funding recommendations should be based on military requirements, according to DOD.

However, SIGAR’s report says this response ignores the need to develop a better method and process for creating their cost projections. Because DOD did not provide documentation to back up their claim that oil budgets need to continue to rise, SIGAR stands by their request to cap funding levels. 

Commander Bill Speaks, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said the transition office’s comments “speak for themselves.”  He added that the field team provided information requested for the post March 2011 audit and that they will continue to cooperate with SIGAR’s audit. Speaks could not offer a comment on Spoko’s letter by press time.

Although SIGAR’s report didn’t uncover any specific examples of waste, fraud and abuse, investigators said that changes must be made to “mitigate” the risk of fraud. That’s something SIGAR has written about in the past: In May, SIGAR released a report warning of concerns over stolen cash and fuel. “Corruption remains a major threat to the reconstruction effort,” Steven Trent, the acting head of SIGAR at the time, wrote in his introduction to the 176-page report. He added that the problem may worsen as the United States heads for the door: “Afghan reconstruction has reached a critical turning point. The shift in strategy, decline in funding, and persistent violence and corruption underscore the need for aggressive oversight.”

The interim report came from an audit of the overall logistics of the Afghan army, which is due sometime later this year. But the lost data was alarming enough to SIGAR that it merited “immediate attention.”

Super PAC Prosperity First, which is bankrolled by wealthy hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer, is attempting to oust Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop in New York’s 1st Congressional District. In less than a week, the super PAC has spent more than $294,000 on ads.

Prosperity First reported its first buy to the tune of $273,000 on Friday, followed by an additional $21,000 on Monday, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The ads support Randy Altschuler, a wealthy Republican businessman running for Congress against Bishop in Mercer’s home district of eastern Long Island.

Altschuler and Bishop first went head-to-head in 2010 in one of the tightest races in the country. Both campaigns challenged the results, and three weeks after the election, just 16 votes separated the candidates, The Hill reported. Eventually, Altschuler, who funded his own campaign, conceded. The final tally gave Bishop a margin of victory of less than 600 votes in a race where about 200,000 votes were cast.

New York’s 1st District is considered a tossup again this year, but Bishop may receive a bump from increased Democratic turnout for the presidential election.

Super donor Mercer, co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies Corp., gave Prosperity First $500,000 in April. This accounts for nearly 80 percent of the $635,500 it reported raising through June, according to the group's most recent campaign finance filing. Mercer made the contribution three days after Prosperity First was founded.

Altschuler’s position on Wall Street reform aligns with that of Mercer and Renaissance Technologies.

The hedge fund giant lobbied extensively against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which tightens regulations on hedge funds, among other things. Altschuler opposes the law, and he has called it “flawed" and a “job killer for New York,” local news site Smithtown Matters reported in 2010.

Bishop voted in favor of Dodd-Frank, which is named for its chief congressional sponsors, former Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Other contributors to Prosperity First include:

• JL Holdings — $50,000.  Brothers John and Lawrence Rutigliano own this private real estate company based in the Bronx. This appears to be the brothers’ first major political contribution.
• Sumir Chadha —$25,000. Chadha is the founder of WestBridge Capital, where he specializes in private equity and venture capital investments.
• Andrew Sabin —$25,000. Sabin owns Sabin Commodities, a privately owned precious metals brokerage firm.
• HJ Kalikow LLC, owned by Peter Kalikow — $20,000. Kalikow was a top donor to Cain Connections, a super PAC that supported conservative businessman Herman Cain's failed presidential bid last year.
• A1 Suites LLC — $10,000. A1 has a New York address but is registered in Delaware . The state is a popular choice for corporate filers thanks to its low taxes, anonymity of owners and ease of incorporation. The New York address is for an office building home to dozens of businesses.

In other outside spending news:

• The National Republican Congressional Committee reported spending more than $187,000 on ads opposing Democrats in three House races: David Gill in Illinois’ 13th District, which is held by Republican Rep. Judy Biggert; Gary McDowell in Michigan’s 1st District, which is held by Republican Rep. Dan Benishek; and Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., who is being challenged by Republican attorney Andy Barr.
   
• The NRCC’s “This Is Our America” shows historic moments like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream speech” and the moon landing, while adding, “We’re ready for a comeback.” The ad mentions no candidates, but the RNC has dubbed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., America's “Comeback Team.”
   
• The Republican National Committee’s ad “We’ve Heard It All Before (2012 DNC Edition)” shows the similarities between President Barack Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention and his 2012 speech last week in Charlotte.
   
• Super PAC Planned Parenthood Votes released a new ad saying GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would “turn back the clock on women’s health.”
   
• “Obama’s Blunders,” a short web video from conservative nonprofit Americans for Limited Government, opens with clips of Obama tripping and knocking his head, then goes on to talk about the “failed” auto industry bailout, a contention strongly disputed by the Obama administration and backed up by Politifact.
   
• A new ad from super PAC Freedom PAC supports Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who is challenging popular incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat. Notably, the ad uses Mack campaign footage, but this may circumvent federal rules barring illegal coordination because the Mack campaign made the footage publicly available online.  
   
• New committees: Republicans for a Prosperous America in Washington, D.C., Citizens for a Sustainable North Hawaii in Kapaau, Hawaii, and Media Fund Super PAC in Beachwood, Ohio.

A new Romney ad would have viewers believe that former President Bill Clinton was commenting on President Obama’s handling of the economy when he said, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” That’s false. Clinton’s 2008 comment was aimed at Obama’s portrayal of Hillary Clinton as supporting Iraq war policies.

The ad comes on the heels of Clinton’s rousing endorsement of Obama during the Democratic National Convention, a speech more people considered to be the highlight of the Democratic convention than Obama’s own speech. The Romney ad seeks to remind voters that Clinton hasn’t always been so effusive in his praise of Obama — at least not when Obama was locked in a heated Democratic presidential primary battle with Clinton’s wife, Hillary.

The ad focuses on the economy — arguing that under Obama it has gotten worse — and then says Obama has called on Bill Clinton “to help his failing campaign.” The ad then borrows a clip from a recent Obama campaign ad in which Clinton says, “This election, to me, is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment.” Clinton then goes on to endorse Obama.

The Romney ad’s narrator says Clinton is a “good soldier, helping his party’s president,” but adds, “What did Bill Clinton say about Barack Obama in 2008?”

The ad then shows a clip of Clinton saying, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

The narrator then follows up with two economic statistics. The first is that there are “23 million Americans struggling for work.” According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, that’s an accurate count of the number of unemployed (12.5 million) plus those working part time who would like to be working full time (8 million) and those “marginally attached” to the workforce (2.6 million), which includes workers so discouraged by the bad economy that they have stopped looking for work. The ad’s narrator also states that the  “middle class [is] falling further behind,” a statement from a CNN Money story about a Pew Research Center report that talks about the “lost decade of the middle class” and spans the presidencies of both Obama and George W. Bush. (In fact, the people surveyed blamed Bush more than Obama for the downturn.)

The ad then follows up with Clinton repeating, “Give me a break.”

Given the context of the ad and its focus on the economy, viewers might assume Clinton was talking about something to do with Obama’s economic policy. He wasn’t.

Rather, while stumping for his wife in 2008, Clinton expressed his frustration with what he viewed as the media giving Obama a free pass regarding Obama’s position on the war in Iraq.

Here’s the fuller quote — you can view it here — in which Clinton takes a moment to talk about Obama’s Iraq war stance:

Clinton, Jan. 8, 2008: It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution, you said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war. And you took that speech you’re now running on off your website in 2004. And there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since. Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

Foreign Policy provides a fuller explanation of the issues at play in Clinton’s 2008 remarks, but as is clear from the passage above, his comments had nothing to do with Obama’s economic policy, as the Romney ad implies.

So why do Republicans even care what Clinton thinks of Obama? At least one poll shows that independent voters rated Clinton’s convention speech significantly more positively than Obama’s, leading a Washington Post columnist to opine that “whatever nudge Obama might have gotten [in daily tracking polls] could very well be the Clinton bump, not his own.”

– Robert Farley

The hammering on the wall of America’s premier storage vault for nuclear-weapons grade uranium in pitch-darkness six weeks ago was loud enough to be heard by security guards. But they assumed incorrectly that workmen were making an after-hours repair, and blithely ignored it.

Minutes earlier, a perimeter camera had caught an image of intruders — not workmen — breaching an eight-foot high security fence around the sensitive facility outside Knoxville, Tenn. But the guard operating the camera had missed it. A different camera stationed over another fence — also breached by the intruders — was out of service, a defect the protective force had ignored for 6 months.

In theory, the pounding might have been the work of a squad of terrorists preparing to plant a powerful explosive in the wall of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF), a half-billion dollar vault that stores the makings of more than 10,000 nuclear bombs. Instead, it was a group of three peace activists, including an 82-year old nun, armed only with flashlights, binoculars, bolt cutters, bread, flowers, a Bible, and several hammers.

The casual and relatively swift penetration of the site’s defenses on July 28 by the activists has provoked their felony indictment on federal charges. But it has also provoked new troubles for nuclear weapons contractors that have until recently had large influence in Washington, and for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the increasingly embattled steward of America’s dwindling but still fearsome arsenal of nuclear weaponry.

“This incident raises important questions about the security of Category I nuclear materials across the complex,” NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino, a Bush administration holdover, said on Aug. 28. He promised to hold “our team” accountable for making the reforms necessary to assure such materials are adequately protected. Since the break-in, five senior officials at security contractor WSI-Oak Ridge and the main contractor responsible for HEUMF operations — Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, LLC — have been reassigned by the contractors or have retired.

But two congressional hearings this week will probe the event more deeply, one Wednesday morning by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee and one Thursday afternoon by a House Armed Services subcommittee. A key issue at the hearings, at which D’Agostino is to be a key witness, will be whether the NNSA and its bureaucratic parent, the Energy Department, have been too lax in their oversight of the contractors that operate most of the facilities in the nuclear weapons enterprise.

That notion is embarrassing to both the Obama administration and Republican lawmakers, which until now have supported an increasingly laissez-faire approach to the contractors’ work and performance. In fact, when the NNSA was created twelve years ago, it was given a semi-independent status within the Department of Energy, to ensure that Washington’s heavy bureaucratic hand did not interfere with the independent scientific traditions at its nine nuclear weapons facilities, on which the government annually spends more than $7 billion.

But NNSA’s work has lately been heavily criticized from all sides: Many nuclear weapons scientists revile it for imposing expensive safety and security rules they consider needless, while employee unions and government watchdogs say its managers have largely been asleep at the wheel — allowing waste, safety defects, and other problems to persist or even flourish.

The intrusion of the three activists has now bolstered the watchdogs’ campaign for a tighter leash from Washington. "I suspect any belief we should loosen oversight of the weapons complex is extinguished by the latest break-in of our 'Fort Knox of Uranium' by an octogenarian nun," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonprofit watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight.

The NNSA, in an Aug. 10 letter, gave the contractor that has run the Tennessee site for the past 12 years thirty days to show why it should not be dumped. It cited the fact that no guards tried to intervene while the nun — Megan Rice, from the international ministry Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus — and her colleagues were using their bolt cutters. It also said the patrol force took too long to arrive after the three triggered numerous alarms.

Department of Energy Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman, an increasingly caustic critic of the NNSA, said in an Aug. 29 report that the episode was marked by “troubling displays of ineptitude” not only in responding to alarms, but in failing to keep critical security equipment running, misunderstanding security procedures, using poor communications, and exhibiting management “weaknesses.”

Evidence has emerged in the past two weeks that the contract guard force at the facility — previously considered so excellent that the site hosted experts from 20 countries this summer at a conference on “best security practices” — may have been cheating on its counterterror exams. Some written test materials were found after the break-in in a vehicle used by the guards.

That discovery lends a new meaning to a boast videotaped by the NNSA of Justen Parker, a senior guard force trainer at the site who won the 2010 Energy Department Security Professional of the Year Award, that “at the end of the day, I guarantee that every person out here would win if a fight should come to their site.”

Parker has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, but as it turns out, test-rigging is actually not a new concern at the Tennessee site:  Friedman wrote a blistering report in 2004 about the same guard force contractor rigging assault tests by sharing mock attack scenarios with guards in advance and disabling their laser tag detection gear to avoid having them “killed” in the fight. The guard force also bulked up before mock attacks and stationed its personnel around the buildings that it knew were the targets.

Friedman said guards reported that these practices had gone on for 20 years, under various contractors, but focused on the current one, formerly called Wackenhut and today known as WSI-Oak Ridge. Its personnel “participated in the detailed planning and development of the tests,” at the same time it fielded the protective force, Friedman wrote then, adding that DOE should “examine the extent to which” a security contractor should assume both roles.

Babcock and Wilcox executive Charles G. Spencer, in a prepared statement on Sept. 4, said “we’ve taken dramatic actions and are making major security improvements at the site.” One of the steps was to cancel a planned reduction in the site’s guard force of 70 people. A Babcock & Wilcox spokeswoman at the site, Ellen Boatner, said she did not have approval to answer other questions about the incident and the company’s role.

At the hearings, the lawmakers may ask why Babcock & Wilcox — which has been paid more than $5 billion to operate and maintain the Tennessee site since 2000, according to federal contractor records — and WSI have each won high fees this year and last year from the NNSA for “good” or “excellent” performance.

The sessions will provide a forum for Republican lawmakers to renew their accusations that the Obama administration has neglected the U.S. nuclear weapons effort, an accusation that appears in the Republican Party’s presidential election platform. But the moment could be uncomfortable for some of them, since the House Republican majority voted for budget bills this summer meant to weaken Washington’s regulatory oversight over the weapons enterprise, by reducing the Energy Department’s jurisdiction over health and safety issues and giving contractors an explicit backchannel for complaining to Congress.

The Republicans’ proposals, all still pending, have been cheered by the private firms, such as Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, and Babcock & Wilcox, that now run the nuclear weapons labs and related facilities. In the current election cycle, Babcock & Wilcox’s political action committee alone has so far given $142,000 to House members, including 11 members of the Armed Services Committee; of the total amount, 70 percent has gone to Republicans, according to data from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.

Democrats have not been particularly friendly to officials at NNSA, however.  In its April budget bill report, the Democrat-controlled Senate Energy and Water Committee expressed renewed concern about NNSA’s record of  "inadequate project management and oversight,” and it warned that giving the agency additional funds could only make it  “more vulnerable to waste, abuse, duplication, and mismanagement.”

Those accusations, ironically, have long enveloped the HEUMF facility itself, where the activists spilled blood and read their own “indictment” of the government’s nuclear work while waiting 15 minutes or so for the Mayberry-style guards to make an appearance.

A tall, bright white, windowless blockhouse longer than a football field with a guard tower on each corner, the building was designed to be the most secure location for weapons-grade uranium (of the type that Iran is trying to create) harvested not only from U.S. warheads but from foreign governments that Washington does not trust to guard it well enough themselves.

Uranium is used in the U.S. arsenal to fuel the spark plugs of modern thermonuclear bombs and warheads, greatly boosting their explosive force, but it can also be used without difficulty to create a so-called “dirty bomb” capable of wreaking havoc simply by spreading dangerous radioactivity over a populated area. Inside the HEUMF, which the activists were able to deface, and pit with hammers — but not breach — the harvested material is stored in thousands of barrels and small casks placed on racks, in the open, according to an NNSA video tour of the inside.

Given the obvious risks, the HEUMF’s designers initially envisioned it buried underneath a large earth berm, a relatively cheap approach to nuclear security that has been zealously embraced by the nuclear mandarins in Tehran. But at the last moment before construction started, the NNSA reversed course and opted instead to build its aboveground “prison,” based on advice that doing so would be quicker and cheaper to build and easier to defend.

That advice came from Babcock & Wilcox, which had already secured the guard force contract, according to a 2004 DOE report. The cost savings claim was discredited at the time by security experts from Sandia National Laboratories and by Friedman’s Inspector General office; he concluded that constructing the aboveground version would cost an extra $25 million, and staffing it with a guardforce four times larger would cost taxpayers an extra $177 million over its lifespan. It would also need extra cooling.

NNSA allowed Babcock & Wilcox “to continue redesigning the facility even when initial attempts to reduce the cost and improve the security of the facility failed,” Friedman complained. Michael C. Kane, then an NNSA executive and now a top Energy Department official, told him in a letter, however, that NNSA and its local site managers were convinced an aboveground “Defense-in-Depth security design” was the best course.

Rice, the nun who is now awaiting trial for trespassing, describes a design that is more shallow than deep, however. She said in a telephone interview from a Catholic retreat in Washington DC that while it took a few hours to approach the site in darkness – skirting a stream, walking through tall grass, climbing a hill or two, ducking whenever a guard vehicle drove by – it took just 15 minutes or so to cut through four fences and reach the perimeter of the HEUMF.

Once there, she and two other peace activists had plenty of time to string a red “caution” tape (purchased at TrueValue hardware) around some pillars beneath one of the watchtowers, and light a few candles before the first guard showed up. They also had time to pour the blood — “very reverently,” she said — and knick the concrete in what she called a “symbolic cracking of the cornerstone.” The first guard said nothing directly, but told a supervisor that peace activists were on the scene and called for backup (he has since been fired, and filed a claim alleging scapegoating).

The second guard to arrive, several minutes later, was the first to draw a gun on the trio, and soon a string of eight guard vehicles stretched behind the first. Some of them conversed via cellphone, instead of using an encrypted radio system, yet another violation of the rules.

“We never expected to get that far,” Rice said. “We would have been happy to get to the first fence; we were ready to do that much” and leave some banners there, Rice said. The guards cuffed her hands and ankles and made her sit for hours on the ground but were “gentlemen,” she said. When the security chief finally arrived, she added, his first question was, “Are there any others besides you?”

Over the years, NNSA has steadily said less and less to Babcock & Wilcox about how to do its work. It eliminated its regional office in 2002 and turned oversight over to an office located on-site. The philosophy it has adopted recently — with the strong support of lawmakers on Capitol Hill — is called the Contractor Assurance System. It essentially means that the government cannot tell the company how to operate or guard the site; it can only hold the company responsible when it fails to accomplish its mission.

That system meant that the federal employees assigned to oversee the guard force “could take no action to prompt the contractor to complete needed repairs” to cameras or other defective equipment, according to Friedman’s August report. It’s an approach that allows the site operator to make its own calculation that repairs can be deferred because they cost more than temporary work-arounds.

The result, Friedman wrote, is that senior NNSA officials had little insight into which cameras were not functioning, how backlogged key maintenance was, or how ill-prepared the guard force was. They told him that “prior to the recent incident, the site was considered to be one of the most innovative and higher performing sites in the complex.”

On matters of nuclear security, it’s always better to be proved wrong by an 82-year old nun than by a squad of terrorists.

The anonymously funded Crossroads GPS released four new ads on Tuesday going after Senate seats in Nevada, Ohio and Virginia with ad buys worth $2.5 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

"Laughable," in Nevada, calls Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley “desperate.” Berkley is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Dean Heller, who was appointed to replace disgraced former Sen. John Ensign. Republicans are hoping an ethics probe exploring whether some of Berkley’s legislative actions benefited her physician-husband’s business could spoil her chances.

The ad focuses on Berkley’s support of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act., proposes $716 billion in cuts. Democrats, backed by Politifact, point out that Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan also cuts $700 billion. The difference is in where the savings come from, the Daily Disclosure reported on Sept. 5.

An FEC report shows the anti-Berkley ad cost $425,000.

In Ohio, a football-themed ad attacking Sen. Sherrod Brown says “Ohio just can’t compete while Brown is calling the plays.” Brown is challenged by state treasurer Josh Mandel, whose campaign has been buoyed by outside spending from fiscally conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Club for Growth.

The ad hits Brown on his support of the Affordable Care Act and other Obama proposals.

An FEC report shows the ad cost $1 million.

Two other ads, “Questionable” and “Teeth,” oppose former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who is running for Senate on the Democratic ticket. Separate versions of “Teeth,” which accuse him of cutting funds to education, are running in Northern Virginia and the rest of the state. “Questionable” criticizes Kaine for supporting the bipartisan debt deal that resulted in automatic defense cuts.

The retirement of Democratic Sen. Jim Webb leaves this race open to either party. Kaine faces former Republican Sen. George Allen in a race that has attracted the second-highest amount of outside spending in the country.

An FEC report shows the anti-Kaine buys cost $1.1 million.

Kaine’s campaign is expected to release a response to the ads today.

Crossroads GPS, co-founded by Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, has reported spending $5.9 million this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. It has focused on four key Senate races — Nevada, Ohio and Virginia races, as well as the North Dakota Senate race that pits former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, against Republican Rep. Rick Berg.

Because Crossroads GPS is a nonprofit, it is not required to publicly disclose its donors.

In other outside spending news:

• Freedom PAC, a super PAC supporting the Senate run of Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., reported spending $998,000 on ads. With funding from super donors Sheldon Adelson, Harold Simmons and Crow Holdings as well as from The Villages, a Florida retirement community run by Republican bundler Gary Morse, the super PAC is aiming to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
• House Majority PAC, which supports Democrats running for U.S. House, released a series of new ads in mostly Republican-held districts with a total $2.2 million price tag, according to a press release:

--“Pocket” opposes Republican Rep. Dan Lungren, who faces Dr. Ami Bera, a Democrat, in California’s 7th District. The district is considered a tossup. The cost of this ad was shared with the Service Employees International Union.

--“Cut” opposes Republican Rep. Bill Johnson, who faces former Democratic Rep. Charlie Wilson in Ohio’s 6th District. The district is also considered a tossup.

--“Babies” opposes Republican Rep. Steve King, who faces Democratic challenger Christie Vilsack in Iowa’s 4th District, which leans Republican.

--“Sitting Pretty” opposes Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, who faces former Democratic state Sen. Pat Kreitlow in Wisconsin’s 7th District. The district leans Republican.

--“Wrong Party” opposes Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth, who faces Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney in New York’s 18th District. The district leans Republican.

--“Stinks” opposes Republican state Sen. David Rouzer, who faces Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre in North Carolina’s 7th District. The district leans Democrat.

• A new Spanish-language ad from SEIU COPE, the PAC of the Service Employees International Union, shows Latinos telling why they are not voting for Romney.
• New super PACs: Urban Progress Political Action Committee in Waterboro, S.C.

On Wednesday morning, a House Republican lawmaker from Omaha looked directly at the 82-year old nun who broke into the site of America’s premier vault for nuclear weapons-grade uranium six weeks ago and said her act had done something rare in Washington: It united Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

At a hearing on the break-in by a House oversight and investigations subcommittee, that lawmaker — Rep. Lee Terry, R-Nebr., and other colleagues from both sides of the aisle excoriated the government contractors in charge of securing the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility in Tennessee and the Energy Department officials responsible for overseeing their work. The nun, Megan Rice, with two other peace activists, cut through a series of fences July 28 and used a small hammer to pit the side of the facility.

Two lawmakers used the word “appalling,” and one called the incident “mind-boggling.” Another, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Tex., demanded that top government officials be fired, citing the precedent set by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2008 when he fired the Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff over the mishandling of nuclear bombs and materials.

Appearing for the Obama administration, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman and National Nuclear Security Administrator Thomas D’Agostino were contrite, but neither indicated high-level departures were in the offing. D’Agostino, a Bush administration holdover, said he agreed it was inexcusable, and both promised that security reforms are now the department’s top priority.

Rice was in the audience during the hearing, but not invited to testify. She spoke up at one point to correct an Energy Department official who said the trio had cut through three fences, explaining that it was actually four.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex., told Rice, who faces a trial next Feb. on felony criminal charges, that “we want to thank you” for pointing out the security shortcomings. “If she had been a terrorist, the Lord only knows what would have happened,” he said. He joined at least five other members, including subcommittee chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., in stating that the incident demonstrated the need for much tighter oversight of the contractors that presently manage the Knoxville site and most U.S. nuclear weapons work.

Several from both parties criticized legislation passed by House Republicans earlier this year that would relax such oversight. Mark Gaffigan, managing director of the natural resources division at the Government Accountability Office, called the incident “all-too-familiar” because of persistent DoE safety and security shortcomings, and joined the calls for tighter oversight.

DoE Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman said he thought the guards, who Rice has said first appeared 30 minutes after the first fence was breached, were “numbed” by false security alarms provoked by animals. But DoE health and security chief Glenn S. Padonsky also revealed that two critical security cameras were malfunctioning at the site for six months; one needed only the flip of a circuit breaker switch, while the other required repairs that took only a day, once the break-in occurred, he said.

D’Agostino acknowledged it was his office that was responsible for overseeing camera repairs after a classified 2009 report — first mentioned by The Washington Post — depicted some as malfunctioning. “We had a breakdown up and down the chain, including a sense of complacency that something like this could not happen,” Poneman said. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., called the DoE response a “classic bureaucratic pass-the-buck,” adding that “you fixed them after you were embarrassed and you fixed them two years late.”

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, Americans have been haunted by the idea that terrorist groups around the world could set off a “dirty bomb” — a simple explosive device that would scatter radioactive material to the winds, devastating a city.

Thankfully, that threat has never materialized. But the government’s watchdog is sounding alarms that terrorists looking to acquire the radioactive materials for such an attack could find them easily and unsecured at hundreds of hospitals around the country.

A report released Tuesday by General Accountability Office has found that only one out of every five hospitals that use high-risk nuclear isotopes for diagnosis and treatment have the recommended safeguards needed to secure the materials.

Over 1,500 hospitals in the U.S. use radiological sources that could be turned into dirty bombs, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which shares purview over nuclear technologies with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  NNSA has spent $105 million to upgrade security at 321 hospitals, but the agency warns it will take until 2025 to upgrade all of the hospitals on their list.

“The longer it takes to implement the security upgrades,” warns the GAO report, “the greater the risk that potentially dangerous radiological sources remain unsecured and could be used as terrorist weapons.”

The improved security features, which include enhanced security doors, increased surveillance equipment and the installation of tamper alarms, have also been slowed by the voluntary nature of the upgrades.  Because the hospitals are not required to undergo these upgrades, facilities looking to cut costs can decide the security upgrades aren’t worth the expense.

So far, 14 facilities, including four in “large urban areas,” have declined to take part in the security program. The facilities that have turned down the upgrades contain an estimated 41,000 curies, a standard unit of measurement for radioactive material, which is significantly more than would be needed for a terrorist attack.

GAO inspectors found several incidents where radioactive isotopes were left unsecured and would be easily accessible to terrorists. For example, inspectors found a machine containing 2,000 curies of cesium-137, used in cancer treatments, stored on a wheeled pallet next to the loading dock at one facility, where it could easily have been wheeled down the hall and out the door.  In another location, 1,500 curies of cesium-137 were kept behind a locked door — with the combination clearly written on the door frame.

As a result of the report, officials at GAO recommended that the government increase outreach to hospitals to raise awareness about the need for security upgrades, especially in highly populated urban areas.  They also called for stronger NRC requirements for security, including dictating the specific placements of cameras and alarms. The GAO’s report recommended increased training for NRC inspectors, some of whom told investigators that they felt ill prepared after a week-long training course.   

In a response included with the report, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed that expanding outreach to more hospitals would be a good idea. But while acknowledging GAO’s recommendation for strengthening security upgrades, the NRC said that its standards are in line with those of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and argued that the security protocols would be adequate if they were followed correctly. Despite this argument, GAO stood by its recommendations.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who requested the report, called the findings “troubling.”

“Delays in securing these materials on the mainland U.S. unnecessarily put the American people at risk,” wrote Akaka in a statement. “We must strengthen domestic radiological security requirements and accelerate efforts to secure all medical facilities with radiological materials."

Radioactive materials are used to help diagnose and treat a number of illnesses, including cardiac disease and cancer. Millions of procedures are performed around the country each year using nuclear medicine. 

Although no dirty bomb has been used in the U.S., GAO points to an accidental explosion in Brazil that occurred in 1987 when an abandoned teletherapy machine exploded, killing four people.  That device contained 1,400 curies of cesium-137. The accident and its aftermath caused about $36 million in damages to the region, according to Brazil’s government.

While acknowledging that all nuclear materials should be secured, some experts worry the focus on dirty bombs obscures the danger presented by the use of highly-enriched uranium in medical devices. Rather than a small improvised explosive, HEU could be used to make a bomb on the scale of those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Dirty bombs are weapons of mass distraction, not weapons of mass destruction,” says Alan J. Kupperman, who heads the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas.  “By contrast, a nuclear weapon from stolen HEU could kill tens of thousands of people.”

Kupperman and others have pushed Congress to move on the American Medical Isotopes Production Act, which was passed by the House in 2011. However, the House version leaves open a potentially dangerous loophole, as reported by the Center earlier this year. An international treaty, signed in April, has also been criticized for not going far enough to restrict the use of highly enriched uranium in medical isotopes.

On Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on security at nuclear power plants after a trio of activists, including an 82-year-old nun, broke into a sensitive facility outside Knoxville, Tenn.

A new super PAC, backed by a $500,000 contribution from a wealthy hedge fund manager, is aiming to knock off a Long Island congressman who doesn’t share the big donor’s views on reform of the finance industry.

Conservative super PAC Prosperity First is bankrolled by wealthy hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer, whose firm has lobbied against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed in the wake of the 2008 collapse of the banking and real estate industries.

Super PACs — which were made possible by the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision — have played pivotal roles in high-profile national and statewide races, but have the potential to make a far greater impact on House contests.

“Outside spending can certainly have more impact in House races than in Senate or presidential contests,” said Viveca Novak, communications director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. “It takes less money to make an impression.”

Congressional districts are smaller, and candidates don’t collect anywhere near the amounts seen in statewide and nationwide elections, she added.

Prosperity First wants to oust Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop, whose 1st Congressional District is located in eastern Long Island. According to Federal Election Commission records, in less than a week, the super PAC has spent more than $294,000 on ads supporting wealthy Republican businessman Randy Altschuler and opposing Bishop.

Super donor Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund giant Renaissance Technologies, gave Prosperity First $500,000 in April, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the $635,500 raised through June, according to the group's most recent filing. Mercer made the contribution three days after Prosperity First was founded.

Mercer has also given $5,000 to Altschuler’s 2012 campaign, as well as $1 million to the New York Conservative Party to oppose the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

Mercer, through a spokesman, decline to comment.

Altschuler’s position on Wall Street reform aligns with that of Mercer and Renaissance. The hedge fund lobbied against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which tightens regulations on hedge funds, among other things.

Altschuler opposes the law, which he has described as “flawed" and a “job killer for New York,” local news site Smithtown Matters reported in 2010, while Bishop voted in favor of the legislation.

Renaissance spent $740,000 on lobbying in 2011 and $310,000 during the first six months of 2012. Another of its targets is a bill that would tax investment interest paid to hedge fund managers as ordinary income, which is subjected to a much higher rate.

Altschuler, like GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, has pledged to maintain the current capital gains tax rates.

Altschuler and Bishop is a rematch from 2010, which was a nail biter. Both campaigns challenged the results, and three weeks after the election, just 16 votes separated the candidates, The Hill reported. Eventually, Altschuler, who primarily funded his own campaign, conceded. The final tally gave Bishop a margin of victory of less than 600 votes in a race where about 200,000 votes were cast.

The 1st District has seen $296,000 in reported outside spending this election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, with an undetermined amount spent on unreported “issue ads.” Prosperity First is responsible for 99 percent of the reported spending.

Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have also aired issue ads designed to help Altschuler’s campaign, according to Robert Pierce, Bishop’s communications director.

Prosperity First’s television spot encourages people to vote for Altschuler and attacks Bishop as a “pawn” of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

“Pelosi has one chess piece to always count on: Her bishop, Tim Bishop,” the ad states. The spot claims Bishop voted with Pelosi 97 percent of the time — a statistic backed up by the Washington Post, which calculated that Bishop voted 97 percent of the time with the Democratic Party while Pelosi was House Speaker during the 111th Congress.

Meanwhile the candidates themselves have been trading attack ads.

Bishop’s campaign has gone after Altschuler’s firm OfficeTiger, which outsources clerical business services to India. Altschuler sold it in 2006 to RR Donnelly for $250 million. Altschuler insists OfficeTiger’s outsourcing did not cost American jobs.

Altschuler has accused Bishop of misbehavior when he allegedly helped a constituent obtain fireworks permits for his son’s bar mitzvah in return for a campaign contribution, according to Long Island’s Newsday.

Bishop’s campaign says it did not solicit contributions in exchange for official action — it was merely following up on the constituent’s expressed interest to donate.

Prosperity First did not respond to a request for comment. Altschuler’s campaign manager Diane Weir said she was not aware of the ads beforehand, but she welcomed the support.

“It’s encouraging to know people support our agenda,” said Weir. “It’s an option people have … and I think that’s appropriate.”

Federal law prohibits a candidate from coordinating advertising activities with an outside spending group.

As in 2010, New York’s 1st District is considered a tossup this year, but Bishop may receive a bump from increased Democratic turnout for the presidential election.

While Bishop had a slight edge in the money race at the end of the second quarter — raising $1.85 million compared to Altschuler's $1.4 million — his campaign doubts the advantage will hold.

“No one in this campaign is under the impression that we won’t be outspent,” said Pierce of Bishop’s campaign. “Randy Altschuler made a career out of outsourcing American jobs to countries such as India, and now his fellow outsourcing pioneers are opening up their wallets for him.”

Sumir Chadha, another top donor to Prosperity First at $50,000, served on the board of directors of GlobalLogic with Altschuler, to whom he has given the legal maximum of $5,000 this election cycle.

GlobalLogic specializes in offshore software research and development.

For up-to-date news on outside money in the election, follow our Source2012 Tumblr and the hashtag #Source2012 on Twitter.

Planned Parenthood this week began its most extensive attack this election on Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, spending $1.8 million on a new television ad that’s part of a $3.2 million initiative.

The ad, called “Mitt Romney Would Turn Back the Clock on Women’s Health,” began airing in northern Virginia this week and is set to run throughout Virginia and Ohio in the coming weeks, according to a press release.

The ad buy comes via Planned Parenthood Votes, a super PAC that is allowed to accept contributions of unlimited size from individuals, unions and corporations. Planned Parenthood has also made campaign expenditures through its nonprofit, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which is not required to reveal its donors, as well as a handful of local affiliates.

The new ad shows clips of Romney saying he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, which protects a woman’s right to an abortion, as well as saying, “Planned Parenthood — we’re going to get rid of that.”

Women “should be making our personal medical decisions —not Mitt Romney,” the narrator says as the clips of Romney are played in black and white on a 1950s-era television.

Part of Romney’s plan to reduce government spending is to eliminate Title X funding, which provides government support for family planning services like Planned Parenthood.

Romney was not expressing his intent to close down the facilities, which, even as president, he cannot do since they are not federal entities, but rather he was referring to programs he would defund in order to save money, which also included Amtrak and the National Endowment for the Arts, he said during the CNN interview.

Planned Parenthood’s Title X funding cannot be used to provide abortions, which make up only a small percentage of services the women’s health organization provides: about 3 percent of services are directed toward abortions, according to FactCheck.org.

The other 97 percent are dedicated to contraception, treatment and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screenings, and other women’s health services, Factcheck.org says.

About 5 million people use its services every year, according to Planned Parenthood’s website.

In 2009, Planned Parenthood received about 6 percent of its funding from Title X, about $70 million, according to its annual report, and an additional 26 percent from state and federal Medicaid funding, FactCheck.org found. Health center income and private contributions make up the other two-thirds of its revenue.

Planned Parenthood’s politically active groups have reported $3.8 million in independent campaign  spending, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, with the bulk of that money going to opposing Romney.

EMILY’s List, another politically active group supporting abortion-rights candidates, has reported spending about $2.5 million this election, according to CRP, and NARAL Pro-Choice America has spent $606,000.

Abortion-rights groups are countered by anti-abortion organizations, including the Susan B. Anthony List, which has spent $1.3 million, and National Right to Life, which has spent about $1 million.

In other outside spending news:

• The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $2.1 million on ads opposing Republicans in 15 districts, including an ad opposing former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state. And "Joe Heck: Heck No" criticizes Nevada Republican Rep. Joe Heck for opposing funding for Planned Parenthood and the HPV vaccine.
• "Linda McMahon Puts Profits Before People" from the Democratic Senatorial Congressional Committee opposes the ex-wrestling executive running for U.S. Senate in Connecticut against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy. 
• “It’s Our Time” from the Republican National Committee supports Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan.
• The National Republican Senatorial Committee released an ad highlighting the House Ethics Committee probe of Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who is vying for the seat of Republican Sen. Dean Heller.
• The NRCC also added Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island’s 1st District to its list of 2012’s “most corrupt Democrats” in a new online ad.
• "Didn't Take Long" from AFSCME PEOPLE, a PAC of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, opposes the re-election of Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio.
• Conservative super PAC American Crossroads released “Words,” highlighting Obama’s alleged broken promises.
• SEIU COPE, the PAC of the Service Employees International Union, reported spending $148,000 on television ads opposing Keith Rothfus, the Republican candidate for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, where he hopes to unseat Democratic Rep. Mark Critz.
• Secure America Now, a conservative nonprofit focusing on national security, released an ad calling for senior Obama advisor David Plouffe to resign based on a tenuous connection to Iran.
• Conservative nonprofit American Future Fund spent $152,000 on more airtime for its ads “Heartbeat” and “Janesville,” which both premiered last week.
• New super PACs: Indian Americans for Freedom in Chicago, King of Il Super PAC NFP in Chicago and Extremely R Republicans in Kansas City, Mo.