No real movement thus far today on talks to avoid a government shutdown, but there is one piece of good news: the water works are functioning again.

It’s all very neat, how an attack on one of Afghanistan’s safest cities coupled with Karzai’s insistence for big payments–called taxes–on the contractors that keep humanitarian agencies safe would contribute to aide agencies withdrawing from Afghanistan.

SEC enforcement is pathetic. As if you didn’t already know that.

JoAnne Kloppenburg, the unheralded Assistant US Attorney who just a few weeks ago didn’t seem to have much of a chance in a state Supreme Court election against a longtime Republican stalwart, declared victory today in the election, after all precincts on an initial count showed her leading by 204 votes out of 1.5 million cast.

The Obama Adminstration announced today it intends to move to Congress a NAFTA-style trade deal with Colombia (better known as Colombian “Free Trade”). The hold up for the last five years has been the little issue of union members being assassinated in Colombia. Specifically, 2,850 trade unionists have been assassinated in Colombia in the last 25 years, including 52 murdered in 2009.

Good news! The Obama Administration and Colombia have agreed to an “Action Plan” to reduce those assassinations in the next 3 months before Congress ratifies the NAFTA-style trade deal. As Marcy Wheeler noted, those checkpoints are essentially “assassination stress tests” – a meaningless series of goals without real enforcement, and without a requirement that the number of murders is actually, you know, reduced.

That radioactive water was leaking from a crack in a pit attached to the No. 2 nuclear reactor. Keep that in mind when you read this horrifying statement from an open Congressional testimony just this morning. . . .

This wouldn’t be the first time networks’ relationships with “consultants” has compromised their reporting.

French officials and Ouattara spokesmen maintain that the resolution will come within hours, but we heard that yesterday. I’ve read more reports that he has surrendered, and certainly negotiations continue, with Gbagbo primarily concerned with his protection and that of his family. But we’re not quite done here yet. The TV station controlled by Ouattara showed the movie “Downfall” last night.

Paul Ryan’s Republican budget plan would privatize Medicare and dramatically slash Medicaid over time. The result: senior citizens, poor children and the disabled paying dramatically more for care, getting worse health insurance coverage and/or losing coverage altogether.

There’s going to be a recount, that much is certain. Prosser’s campaign told supporters to be ready for one last night. But going into that recount, it looks like Kloppenburg will have the lead. And it’s amazing that this relative unknown had that opportunity, considering that in the primary just a month or so ago, she had the support of only 25% of the electorate, and Prosser had 55% support.