Chris Christie tweets about ‘bongs’ and then quickly erases the tweet.
We may not have captured this completely in our coverage, but the brouhaha over the political science research project gone so wrong in Montana (and now in California) has been a very big deal in political science circles since the news broke late last week. I know some readers will be amused that anything could be buzzy in the cloistered poli sci world. But this has really captured the attention of everyone in the profession, and reignited some long running debates about field research, the proper ethical lines to draw during research, and a host of related issues.
We’ve mostly avoided going too far into that part of the story because, let’s face it, poli sci research dos and don’ts are pretty damn weedy and matter only to those who do it for a living. But TPM Reader Dan Carpenter, a professor of government at Harvard, wrote in with his insights on the mess, and I think it gives you a good sense of how big a deal some of these issues are within the academy and why this episode has received so much attention. And it’s just plain thoughtful and interesting. Here’s Carpenter:
As we noted here, an Atlantic article by Jeff Goldberg has reignited the smoldering war of words and emotion between Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration. Capturing most of the attention is an unnamed administration official calling Netanyahu, among other things, a “chickenshit.” It’s important to understand the aim of the barb – namely that Netanyahu is too scared of losing power in Israel to take the steps necessary to achieve a settlement or even a substantial improvement of relations with the Palestinians.
TPM has obtained the mailer that Dartmouth and Stanford researchers sent to California voters. It’s very similar to the mailer they sent in Montana that’s caused so much trouble, right down to the use of the state seal, in this case California’s. The California secretary of state’s office hadn’t seen the mailer until we showed it them. Unauthorized use of the state seal is a violation of state law, so now the state is looking into the matter.
Stanford and Dartmouth to Montana Voters: Please disregard those weird voter guides our professors sent you.
Department of Homeland Security investigator who probed the Secret Service prostitution scandal got booted out of his job for using a prostitute.
A pretty disturbing incident from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
What was purportedly a Halloween display on the front lawn of a residence at Fort Campbell was not surprisingly deemed “offensive in nature” by base officials who requested that the resident remove the display. As you can see in the picture, the display appears to depict an African-American family, with each member being hanged from a tree. The child in the display has a knife in its back.
Newspaper publisher having rough day dealing with the fallout from hard-right columnist saying Michael Brown was an “animal” who unfortunately had to be “put down.”
Pope Francis Tuesday on the rights of the poor: “If I talk about this, some will think that the pope is communist. They don’t understand that love for the poor is at the center of the Gospel. Demanding this isn’t unusual, it’s the social doctrine of the church.”
Botched game of “gun tag” leads to 3 year old boy’s death at the hands of “buzzed” 26 year old.