Source: NBC

More Democrats say they do not want to see Joe Biden enter the 2016 presidential race than those who want to see him take the plunge, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.

Thirty percent of Democratic primary voters say they want to see Biden run, versus 38 percent who say they would prefer that the vice president stay out of the 2016 contest.

Thirty-one percent say they do not have an opinion on a potential Biden campaign.

Biden gets 15 percent support in the latest survey out Tuesday morning, while Sanders receives the backing of 29 percent of Democratic primary voters. Clinton leads the pack, winning 49 percent support in the hypothetical matchup when Biden is included.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/democrats-divided-whether-joe-biden-should-enter-2016-race-n447436

---

Vice President Joe Biden:

We have a strong establishment candidate and an incredibly strong progressive alternative. Please

Source: Politicususa.com

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, issued the following statement in response to a New York Times report that a Republican investigator was fired in part because he would not go along with Republican plans to target Secretary Clinton:

These are extremely serious whistleblower charges by one of Chairman Gowdy’s own handpicked investigators who reports that he was fired in part for not going along with the Republican leadership’s plan to use the Select Committee to target Hillary Clinton, and they show, from the inside, that Kevin McCarthy’s stark admission was true: Republicans have been abusing millions of taxpayer dollars for the illegitimate purpose of damaging Hillary Clinton’s bid for president.

The investigator in question, Bradley F. Podliska, is a major in the Air Force Reserve, and he ... began working for the Benghazi committee in September 2014. He is no slouch. The Times details that he is “a lifelong Republican, holds a doctorate in political science from Texas A&M University.” According to the committee, he was “terminated for cause…in part, because he himself manifested improper partiality and animus in his investigative work.”

Read more: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/10/10/gop-whistleblower-fired-refusing-target-clinton-benghazi-investigation.html

---

Here is a link to the DU Latest Breaking News post on the NYT article that Rep. Elijah E. Cummings was responding to. Here is an excerpt from the NYT article:

WASHINGTON — The Republican leaders of a House committee who have been in a bitter partisan battle with Democrats are enmeshed in a new fight with one of the committee’s former staff members.

A former investigator for the Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi plans to file a complaint in federal court next month alleging that he was fired unlawfully in part because his superiors opposed his efforts to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in the Libyan city. Instead, they focused primarily on the role of the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, he said.
...
The House committee is under increasing criticism for what critics say is the partisan nature of its investigation. In late September, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, rekindled these suspicions when he suggested that damaging Mrs. Clinton’s presidential prospects was a welcome byproduct of the committee’s investigation.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” Mr. McCarthy said on Fox News. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)Republican front-runner Donald Trump has a message for his naysayers: "I'm never getting out."
...
Trump also brushed off the idea that the Republican mainstream could find a way to take him out of contention late in the game if his poll numbers don't start to ebb on their own.

"I just think it's very hard, and maybe I'm naïve to say this, but if I go around and win Iowa and win New Hampshire and win South Carolina and just keep winning, I don't see how they could do much," Trump said. "There'd be a revolution in the Republican Party if that (winning streak) happened."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/politics/donald-trump-never-getting-out/index.html?sr=fbpol100915Donald%20Trump1243PMStoryLink&linkId=17817697

Source: New York magazine

Ben Carson ... literally does not know what the debt limit is. Kai Ryssdal has a harrowing interview with him, in which his lack of familiarity with the debt limit comes through clearly:

Ryssdal: All right, so let's talk about debt then and the budget. As you know, Treasury Secretary Lew has come out in the last couple of days and said, "We're gonna run out of money, we're gonna run out of borrowing authority, on the fifth of November." Should the Congress then and the president not raise the debt limit? Should we default on our debt?
Carson: Let me put it this way: if I were the president, I would not sign an increased budget. Absolutely would not do it. They would have to find a place to cut.
Ryssdal: To be clear, it's increasing the debt limit, not the budget, but I want to make sure I understand you. You'd let the United States default rather than raise the debt limit.
Carson: No, I would provide the kind of leadership that says, "Get on the stick guys, and stop messing around, and cut where you need to cut, because we're not raising any spending limits, period."
Ryssdal: I'm gonna try one more time, sir. This is debt that's already obligated. Would you not favor increasing the debt limit to pay the debts already incurred?
Carson: What I'm saying is what we have to do is restructure the way that we create debt. I mean if we continue along this, where does it stop? It never stops. You're always gonna ask the same question every year. And we're just gonna keep going down that pathway. That's one of the things I think that the people are tired of.

Read more: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/ben-carson-has-no-idea-what-the-debt-limit-is.html#

---

WOW!

Source: Mother Jones

From former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, in his new memoir, The Courage To Act:

I lost patience with Republicans’ susceptibility to the know-nothing-ism of the far right. I didn’t leave the Republican Party. I felt that the party left me.

This is, of course, a deliberate echo of Ronald Reagan's famous line about the Democratic Party leaving him. And it's hard to blame Bernanke. The know-nothing wing of the Republican Party rebelled against the TARP rescue package at the height of the economic meltdown. They howled that low interest rates would lead to imminent hyperinflation. They resolutely refused to consider fiscal stimulus despite Bernanke's repeated pleas (see helpful illustration below from 2011). They wanted to audit the Fed. They wanted to end the Fed. They wanted to put us back on the gold standard. When Bernanke told them that spending cuts would lead to higher unemployment, Rep. Kevin McCarthy refused to believe him. Now he's about to become Speaker of the House.



Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/quote-day-republican-party-left-me

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) - The budding tension between the two Floridians running for president escalated on Tuesday as Marco Rubio defended his Senate record amid new attacks by Jeb Bush.... Bush aides and allies have increasingly been highlighting Rubio's poor attendance for votes in Washington -- a tally that has also been fodder for another new Rubio agitator, Donald Trump.
...
"We are not going to fix a dysfunctional Washington, D.C., by electing a celebrity entertainer or D.C. senator who is either part of the problem or has proven incapable of fixing it," the former Florida governor wrote.

Later that night, he grew forceful in Bettendorf, Iowa, saying, "We should cut the pay of elected officials that don't show up to work."... "I don't know about you, but this idea this idea that somehow voting isn't important, I mean what are they supposed to do? They should go to the committee hearings, they should vote," he said, lightly pounding his first on the podium at a Scott County GOP dinner.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/06/politics/marco-rubio-jeb-bush-attendance/index.html

---

This is so enjoyable.

Source: CNN

Donald Trump ... tops his closest challenger Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, by five percentage points -- 21% to 16%, the poll by Texas Lyceum found.

Ben Carson would receive 12%, Jeb Bush gets 10% and Carly Fiorina would take 6% of the vote, according to the poll.

The poll also showed that in a general election match-up, Clinton would narrowly lose Texas to Bush, Cruz and Trump by single digits.

"Mrs. Clinton actually polls better in Texas right now than one might have expected," said Professor Daron Shaw, who oversees the Lyceum Poll. ... The survey shows Clinton leading by double digits in the Democratic primary. Clinton would win 36% of the vote, while Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont takes 24%.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/01/politics/trump-clinton-texas-poll/

---

So which part of this is most awesome:

Cruz cannot even lead in Texas?

Bush name doesn't even help Jeb! do better than 4th place in Texas?

Clinton kicking Rubio's ass head-to-head in Texas?

Sanders within striking distance of Clinton in Texas?