On Friday, Mitt Romney will make his closing argument on the economy in what his campaign is touting as a major address. The site Romney has chosen, however, exposes the hypocrisy and fallaciousness of one of Romney’s central economic arguments: the notion that government has no role in growing the private economy and helping businesses expand. Romney frequently mocks Obama’s “didn’t build it” remarks and routinely derides the 2009 Recovery Act as a failure that did nothing to create jobs.

But now, the GOP presidential candidate is delivering one of the last speeches of the campaign at Kinzler Construction Services in Ames, Iowa. A search of Recovery.gov shows that the firm benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts funded by the Recovery Act. Kinzler received $649,944 in contracts under stimulus-funded Department of Energy weatherization programs. The company also received $39,370 as a sub-contractor on a federal government contract to renovate a building owned by the federal government, making for a total of $689,314 in stimulus funds.

The firm’s website even includes a section touting its “featured projects.” Several of the projects appear to be publicly-funded renovation or construction projects, including public schools in Nebraska and Iowa, a community center in Iowa, and the new central station for Des Moines’ public transportation system:

This is not the first time that Romney has spoken at venues that undermine his economic claims. Earlier this week, Romney and his running mate campaigned at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, a national landmark built as a public works project during the New Deal. Ann Romney recently visited a Florida cancer center that received nearly $24 million in stimulus funds. And, among many other examples, Romney bashed the stimulus at a college that received stimulus funds for federal work-study programs that help make college more affordable.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which spent nearly $33 million in 2010 to elect a Republican Congress — strongly backed the 2011 Budget Control Act which averted a national debt default and instituted automatic cuts that will go into effect unless Congress reduces federal spending. But while the Chamber’s CEO Tom Donohue reportedly warned Congressional Republicans at the time “we’ll get rid of you,” if they did not agree to a debt ceiling increase, the group has spent millions supporting Republicans who voted against the bipartisan agreement:

1. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO). The Chamber spent more than $692,000 on “independent expenditures” helping Akin in his challenge to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), with ads attacking both McCaskill and his primary opponent former Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman (R). The group has not spent any money in support of Akin since his comments that victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant. Akin explained his opposition to the deal, saying it “fails to address the problem at hand, and it threatens to severely degrade our national defense with a trillion dollars in cuts to our military.”

2. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY). The Chamber has spent at least $185,000 in “independent expenditures” attacking her opponent, former Rep. Dan Maffei (D), and praising Buerkle. The freshman Congresswoman explained her vote against the deal in a statement, saying “There were some good aspects to the bill, but this version also creates several new problems. At the end of the day, I was not satisfied that all my questions and concerns had been answered as to potential negative effects of this bill on the people in my district.”

3. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV). The Chamber spent more than $489,000 on “independent expenditures” helping Heller in his re-election bid against Rep. Shelley Berkley (D), with ads endorsing his re-election and attacking her record. Heller said he saw “no strategy” in the compromise and would have preferred a “big deal.”

4. Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL). The Chamber spent over $3.8 million on “independent expenditures” helping Mack in his challenge to Sen. Bill Nelson (D), with ads attacking Nelson and urging voters to defeat him. Mack said he didn’t think the American people wanted a deal or “gimmicks.”

5. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT). The Chamber has spent more than $1.3 million on “independent expenditures” helping Rehberg in his challenge to Sen. Jon Tester (D), with ads attacking Tester and encouraging voters to defeat him. Rehberg called the deal “little more than business as usual for Washington.”

The Chamber has also spent at least $3.3 million on “independent expenditures” helping Mitt Romney by attacking Barack Obama. While Obama signed the compromise, Romney said he “thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it” and “a mistake for Republicans to go along with it.”

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is spending tens of millions of dollars on Republicans this election cycle — and now he’s adding Senate candidate George Allen (R-VA) to his list of beneficiaries. The casino mogul has donated $1.5 million to pro-Allen PAC Independence Virginia, becoming its biggest donor by half a million dollars.

Allen’s PAC has spent about $2.3 million in an effort to defeat former governor Tim Kaine (D-VA), whose supporters have far less outside cash on hand. Adelson tops the list of campaign donors this election season, having pledged $100 million to Republicans.

If elected to the senate, Allen is likely to support Mitt Romney’s tax plan, which the Center for American Progress Action Fund estimated would save Adelson more than $2 billion in taxes. Allen has also advocated for a 20 percent corporate tax rate — even lower than Romney’s proposed 25 percent. During Allen’s last stint in the Senate, he proved to be very friendly to wealthy business owners and special interests, voting for the Bush tax cuts as well as tax cuts for oil and coal companies.

In 2006, Allen lost his Senate seat after he was caught on camera referring to an Indian American Democratic staffer by the racial slur “macaca.”

The National Federation of Independent Business is offering a seminar next week called “How to Speak With Your Employees About The Importance of the 2012 Elections,” for business owners who haven’t already tried to pressure employees into voting for their preferred candidate. The NFIB, officially nonpartisan, is a notoriously conservative organization that has donated millions to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads GPS Super PAC.

The 2-hour session will be held October 30 in Torrington, CT. The event description says:

Join other business owners and key personnel for an evening of networking and refreshments as part of NFIB’s continuing effort to ensure business owners have the resources to grow their business. Gather at West State Mechanical in Torrington and learn what you can do to prepare your employees for the crucial upcoming election.

Despite claims of nonpartisanship, the NFIB has spent nearly $2 million supporting Republicans and attacking Democrats this election cycle, even endorsing the embattled campaign of Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), ostracized by many conservatives after his “legitimate rape” debacle. NFIB also held a conference call earlier this year, during which Mitt Romney encouraged business owners to tell employees who to vote for based on “what you believe is best for the business.”

Before the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, employers were forbidden from speaking directly to employees about political preferences. However, the Supreme Court greatly expanded corporations’ and unions’ flexibility in political speech, setting the groundwork that allowed employers to compel employees to participate in political campaigns.

Conservatives are taking full advantage of these newfound abilities. Coal miners at Murray Energy in Ohio complained they were forced to attend a Romney rally, where they were filmed for a campaign ad. Murray Energy also apparently coerces employees into donating to Republicans. Another CEO, of ASG Software Solutions, told employees to donate up to $2500 each, explicitly saying “Please help ASG and yourself by contributing to the Romney/Ryan campaign.” Several other CEOs have threatened to fire employees if Obama wins the election.

The NFIB denies that the seminar is meant to show employers how to pressure their employees, telling the Huffington Post its political efforts are “driven strictly by the issues that impact small business — that’s the area where we really want our members to engage their employees in conversation.” Of course, the idea that Obama has an “anti-business” record is mythology; since he took office, corporate profits have soared, the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 67.9 percent, and small businesses have received several tax cuts.

After Senate nominee and U.S. Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) August comments that victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant, a wide array of leading Republicans called on him to withdraw from the race. When he refused, some outside groups cancelled their plans to run ads on Akin’s behalf. But, a ThinkProgress review of independent expenditures shows several groups have continued to spend in support of Akin.

Among those continuing to back Akin are:

1. Reinventing A New Direction PAC (Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) leadership PAC): This political action committee has spent at least $100,000 on its media efforts against incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D). The group’s ad attacks McCaskill for supporting foreign aid. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) denounced the spots — which are also being run against other Senate Democrats.

2. Faith Family Freedom Fund (the super PAC affiliated with the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group): This super PAC has reported spending more than $15,000 on radio ads attacking McCaskill for her support for Obamacare and the 2009 stimulus law — though it does not mention the social issues the group tends to focus on. One speaker in the ads argues “everyone’s talking about this so-called war on women, and it seems to me that McCaskill is the problem,” because she “made the economy worse.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins criticized the GOP’s abandonment as “suspect.”

3. Senate Conservatives Fund (Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) leadership PAC): This political action committee has spent more than $90,000 backing Akin, including e-mail list rental and on-line processing. The PAC’s website is collecting online contributions for Akin and says it has already raised more than $444,000 for his campaign. DeMint and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) endorsed Akin in September, saying, “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us so we can save our country from fiscal collapse.”

4. National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund and its NRA Institute for Legislative Action: The political and lobbying arms of the pro-gun group
have combined to spent more than $140,000 on flyers and postcard mailings. The group’s endorsement praised Akin for his “proven record of defending the Second Amendment.”

5. National Right to Life PAC: This anti-abortion group spent more than $30,000 on mailings backing Akin.

6. Freedom’s Defense Fund: This PAC, tied to birther and Swift Boat conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi has spent over $150,000 running TV ads in support of Akin. While one recent ad attacked McCaskill for her support of “socialism” and “the liberal assault on free markets and traditional values,” the group made the odd decision to run a pro-Akin ad that actually reminds voters of Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments.

Watch the spot:

7. Missouri Farm Bureau Federation Statewide Farm PAC: The group, which claims to support candidates who are pro-agriculture, has spent about $20,000 on radio ads supporting Akin.

8. National Federation of Independent Business: This pro-GOP trade association spent more than $10,000 on mailings against McCaskill. The group, which calls itself “the voice of small business,” endorsed Akin this month, noting his opposition to Obamacare, tax increases, and “the regulatory bureaucracies in Washington.”

In recent weeks, Akin has come under additional fire for repeatedly comparing McCaskill to a dog, claiming there is no “science” behind evolution, and arguing against equal pay laws.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the most prominent Republican to call on Indiana senate candidate Richard Mourdock to apologize for claiming, during a debate on Tuesday night, that pregnancies resulting from rape are a “gift from God.” The Arizona senator told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday night that he would withhold his support until Mourdock “apologizes and says he misspoke, and he was wrong and he asks the people to forgive him”:

Like Mitt Romney, McCain endorsed and campaigned for Mourdock, though the GOP presidential candidate has yet to pull his ad touting the Indiana state treasurer or explicitly renounce him.

Mourdock refused to apologize for his comments in a press conference earlier today.

Polls show President Obama leading Romney among women by an average of 9 points.

Will Rogers reportedly once said “politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.” Between his campaign — which has raised at least $283 million to date — and the more than $90 million raised for his “independent” super PAC, calling the amount going to elect Mitt Romney “a lot” would be an understatement. While Romney will owe the top donors and bundlers to his campaign a great personal debt of gratitude even if he loses in November, should he win, those who bankrolled his campaign will likely expect access and influence.

A ThinkProgress review of the top donors to Restore Our Future Inc. and top “bundlers” (supporters who volunteer to collect large bundles of campaign contributions for the former Massachusetts governor) identified by USA Today and the Sunlight Foundation, finds eight have done the most for Romney’s campaign. Each has raised large sums for the campaign and also contributed at least $500,000 to the pro-Romney super PAC.

They are:

1. Ed Conard of New York, NY. Romney’s former partner at Bain Capital, Conard headed Bain’s New York office and led the firm’s controversial acquisitions of large industrial companies. Conard is perhaps best known for his 2012 book Unintended Consequence:Why Everything You’ve Been Told About The Economy Is Wrong in which actually makes the case that American needs more income inequality and defends off-shoring of American jobs. He has claimed that “predatory lending and Wall Street greed did not cause the collapse of the housing market.” He has donated at least $1 million, to date, to Restore Our Future.

2. John A. Paulson of New York, NY. The billionaire founder of Paulson and Co., among the world’s largest hedge funds, gained about $4 billion as the subprime mortgage market melted down in 2007. While he earns more in an hour than the average American earns in a year, he pays a lower tax rate, thanks in part to the hedge fund “carried interest” loophole. He has donated at least $1 million, to date, to Restore Our Future and let the Romney campaign hold an April fundraiser at his Manhattan townhouse.

3. Paul E. Singer of New York, NY. The billionaire manager of Elliott Management Corp., another major hedge fund, has been a persistent critic of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms and Federal Reserve Bank monetary policy. A major funder for right-wing media, the mainstream press has dubbed him a “vulture capitalist” for his controversial record of buying up debt from developing nations at a discounted price and then suing for full repayment. Fortune called him “a passionate defender of the 1%” and noted that he is viewed by many as “an intellectual with the tenacious spirit necessary to help them turn back the clock on regulation and resist higher taxes on the wealthy.” Singer is chairman of the the anti-regulation Manhattan Institute and has donated heavily to the Club for Growth. In one regard, his support for Romney is ironic, given that Singer is a strong supporter of marriage equality and his openly gay son married in Massachusetts in 2010 — despite Romney’s unyielding attempts to revoke that right from same-sex couples. He has donated at least $1 million, to date, to Restore Our Future.

4. Joseph W. Craft III of Tulsa, OK. The billionaire head of Alliance Resource Partners LP, a major coal producer, is the lone person on this list who did not make his or her fortune in investment banking or hedge-fund management. The coal industry has strongly opposed environmental protection standards that would hurt coal companies’ bottom lines and the pro-deregulation Romney campaign has hit the Obama administration repeatedly for what it calls a “war on coal.” Romney has proposed increasing production and consumption of dirty energy sources. Alliance owns and operates the Dotiki Mine in Providence, Kentucky, where two miners were killed in a roof collapse in April 2010. Alliance had been cited for 840 safety violations in the 16 months preceding the Dotiki collapse. He has donated at least $1,000,000, to date, to Restore Our Future and also has given $1,250,000 to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads.

5. William Laverack, Jr. of New Canaan, CT. The chairman and chief executive officer of Laverack Capital Partners, a privately-held investment firm, is also a senior advisor to Tiger Infrastructure, another private equity group known for investing sectors like power and natural resource infrastructure. The New York Times reported in February that his initial contributions to Restore Our Future appeared to hidden from public view. Tiger Infrastructure’s website highlights its investment priorities including “monopolies with sustainable competitive advantage underpinned by regulation, contracted revenues or barriers to entry.” He has donated at least $750,00 to Restore Our Future, to date.

6. Kelly Loeffler of Atlanta, GA. The vice president of investor relations and corporate communications at IntercontinentalExchange, she helps lead a company that provides online marketplaces for investors to trade futures, energy contracts, and financial derivatives. The company has lobbied extensively on Dodd-Frank implementation, focusing on derivative rules. Before that, she held a similar position for Crossroads Investment Advisers, a private equity firm. She co-owns and co-chairs the Atlanta Dream, a WNBA franchise. Should Romney win Georgia, Loeffler will also serve as a Romney elector from that state. She has donated at least $500,000 to Restore Our Future, to date.

7. Warren A. Stephens of Little Rock, AR. The billionaire head of Stephens Inc., an investment banking firm, has been an outspoken opponent of government regulation of business and Wall Street. He has complained that “CEOs literally cannot keep up with the changes in regulation and the behavior of the regulators” and has endorsed legislation to make it harder for government to regulate industry. He has called proposed increased taxes for billionaires like himself “just not a good idea,” putting him in line with Romney, who has proposed lower taxes for the richest Americans. He has donated at least $500,000, to date, to Restore Our Future.

8. Stephen M. Zide of Old Greenwich, CT. The Bain Capital Private Equity managing director, is another former colleague of Romney’s. Zide reportedly is on the board of a Bain-purchased company that is laying off 170 employees and off-shoring jobs to China. He has donated at least $500,000, to date, to Restore Our Future.

The bundler data is based on a USA Today review of political fundraiser invitations. The Romney campaign has, steadfastly refused to disclose the identities of its campaign bundlers — except for a small list of registered lobbyists who bundle, as required by federal law. President Obama, on the other hand, voluntarily discloses all of its major bundlers, as did President George W. Bush (R) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and in their 2000, 2004, and 2008 races.

Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock ignited a media firestorm Wednesday after he called pregnancies that result from rape “a gift from God.” Mourdock stood by his comments during a press conference Wednesday morning. The outcry has elicited defenses from the Romney campaign and the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, while other Republicans including Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Indiana gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence distanced themselves from Mourdock. Yet, amidst the hubbub, Fox News has chosen to stay silent on the controversy.

As of 1:30 pm, Fox News had not mentioned Richard Mourdock or the word “rape” in connection to Mourdock even once. In comparison, other cable networks are covering Mourdock and the fallout from his comments exhaustively. MSNBC mentioned “rape” in 15 segments about Mourdock, while CNN mentioned it 22 times.

Silence seems to be Fox’s favored tactic for dealing with stories that may be unpalatable for conservatives. When Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) made his highly-covered blunder, claiming that women could not get pregnant from “legitimate rape,” Fox barely mentioned his name. Though Fox may continue to ignore these controversies, stories of Republican candidates’ extreme positions on abortion and contraception are becoming all too common in the news cycle.

Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has a new Facebook post out, accusing President Obama of lying to the American people, using language deeply entwined with America’s Jim Crow past.

Titled “Obama’s Shuck and Jive Ends With Benghazi Lies,” Palin’s piece lays out how in her mind newly revealed emails concretely prove that the Obama administration has lied about the Sept. 11 attack against a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya:

We now know that the State Department sent an email to the White House, the Pentagon, the FBI and others in the intelligence community about this Islamist group claiming responsibility. And yet for days afterwards the White House and State Department led everyone to believe that the attack was the result of a spontaneous protest over an obscure YouTube video that had been uploaded months prior. Anywhere from 300 to 400 people from the administration and our intelligence community would have seen that email. Why the lies? Why the cover up? Why the dissembling about the cause of the murder of our ambassador on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil? We deserve answers to this. President Obama’s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end.

Palin’s title and final sentence show an extreme insensitivity to the racial history of the phrase. The concept of “shuck and jive” originated in the Deep South, as a term that referred to the overly subservient language that African-Americans used towards whites. Blacks, during the time of slavery or the Jim Crow segregation period, could shuck and jive to either put on the illusion of doing work when being watched or to feign obedience to those in power. While the phrase has morphed over the years to mean something more bland, akin to “acting facetiously,” the connection between the President’s race and Palin’s phrasing can’t be overlooked.

U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (R-IN) refused to apologize for suggesting that pregnancies that result from rapes are a “gift from God,” during a press conference on Wednesday morning. Instead, he doubled down, claiming that while God would not condone rape, life that results from the violent act is a gift: “Life is precious, I believe it is a gift from God, I believe that God would never want anyone harmed, sexually abused, raped.” Watch it:

Mourdock made the initial controversial remarks at a debate on Tuesday evening, causing some prominent Republicans to distance themselves from the candidate.

“I spoke from my heart…when speaking from the deepest level of my faith, I cannot apologize,” Mourdock explained, though he expressed regret that some people misunderstood what he said and claimed that the controversy demonstrates “what’s wrong with Washington today.” He also reiterated that he still does not believe that women should be able to obtain abortions in cases of rape.

“The one exception I see for abortion is for that choice when the doctor realizes that the woman’s life is in danger,” he said. “I said life is precious. I believe life is precious. I believe rape is a brutal act. It is something that I abhore and that anyone can come away with any meaning with what I just said is regrettable and for that I apologize. I know the reverence I have for life.”

At Tuesday’s debate, Mourdock said: “I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.”

CONWAY, New Hampshire — Pressed to name even one policy difference between House Republicans and a future President Romney, a Tea Party congressman conceded that he couldn’t foresee any.

ThinkProgress spoke with Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH), who was elected to Congress in the 2010 Tea Party wave, at a debate late last week. We asked five separate times whether there were any policy areas of disagreement, but Guinta couldn’t name a single difference. He ultimately said that he couldn’t foresee any policy disagreements, but offered that “I’m sure there’ll be differences.”

KEYES: Are there any policy differences you see between House GOP and a future President Romney?

GUINTA: Oh sure, a President Romney would bring his own ideas to the table. [...]

KEYES: Are there any major policy differences you can think of though between House GOP and a President Romney?

GUINTA: I think candidate Romney is talking about fueling the economy through predictability, through tax reform, through spending modifications.

KEYES: Is that different than the House GOP?

GUINTA: We’ve done a lot of that. We’ve done a lot of that. And a lot of it we’ve done bipartisanly.

KEYES: But any difference I guess between the House GOP and a President Romney?

GUINTA: I’m sure there’ll be differences. There’s always differences within parties and across parties.

KEYES: But none that you can foresee at the moment?

GUINTA: No.

Listen to it:

Recent polls have shown poor approval numbers for House Republicans over the past few years. An AP poll from August found just 31 percent of respondents approved of Republicans in Congress, compared to 66 percent who disapproved. Just 6 percent said they strongly approved, compared to 36 percent who strongly disapproved.

A major cable provider is offering a notorious anti-Obama movie to all its subscribers for free. The company, Armstrong Cable, operates in six states including Pennsylvania and the critical swing state of Ohio. The move comes just days after the Armstrong’s Chairman of the Board donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee.

The film, “2016: Obama’s America,” has been widely panned by fact checkers. Written and narrated by conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, it claims Obama’s “worldview…was largely shaped by the anti-colonalist, anti-white and anti-Christian politics of Obama’s supposedly radical Kenyan father,” who was largely absent from his life. The point of the movie, according to a review in the Washington Post, is to convince viewers “that Obama hates America.” It was panned as “fear-mongering of the worst kind.”

Armstrong recently started offering the movie for free, on demand, to all of its subscribers.

An Armstrong executive confirmed to the Pittsburgh City Paper that “this is the first time the cable provider has offered such a deal for a recently released feature film.” Armstrong claims it will offer a free recently released film each month to encourage use of its premium on-demand offerings. But the company acknowledges no other recent releases are currently available without charge.

On September 21, just days before the promotion began, Armstrong Chairman Of The Board Jay Sedwick gave the maximum $5,000 to Mitt Romney’s campaign and an additional $25,000 to the Republican National Committee.

Armstrong cable is available in over 50 cities and towns in 10 Ohio counties. Analysts believe the outcome in Ohio may determine the outcome of the election. Most current polls in the state are within the margin of error.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has enthusiastically embraced the Romney campaign myth that Obama attributes businesses’ success to government, exemplified by the RNC slogan “We Built It.” When it comes to his own construction business, however, it seems that King did not in fact build it. Salon reports that the construction company King prides himself on building “up from one bulldozer” was in fact sustained by more than $1.66 million in government contracts between 1994 and 2011:

But, as King now acknowledges, government contracts were a key part of his business going back some time. In 1987, he sued a client who had not paid him. An affidavit King filed includes a letter the future congressman sent to a customer in 1985 requesting payment. Explaining his urgency, King wrote at the time, “as you are aware, we are in a very depressed farm economy and my only other market for my works is contract work from various government agencies.”

Documents show that King’s company worked regularly for various local governments throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In 1994, he demolished a firehouse for the City of Odebolt for $15,500. In 1998, he took about $82,000 from the same city for a memorial walk. In 2002, the company made $64,000 from Crawford County to stabilize a building, followed a few months later by a $141,000 contract with the City of Battle Creek for wastewater treatment improvements.

The next year, King was elected to Congress and his son took over the company, taking in at least 10 other municipal contracts through 2011 worth up to $200,000 each for everything from road construction to water treatment improvements. Altogether, from the firehouse demolition in 1994 to through a grading job for a local utility last year, King Construction made at least $1,665,000 in government contracts.

When asked about his company and its substantial government assistance, King told Salon, “I built it. I built it on low-bid — both private and public — contracts. I created jobs and saved the taxpayers money on every road I built.”

King is just the latest Republican whose anti-government rhetoric is tripped up by a personal experience of how important government assistance can be to business owners. Even vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) family business relied on government contracts, while almost every small business featured by the Romney campaign has had some financial help from the government.

Monday night’s Middle East-heavy question lineup angered a number of observers of international politics concerned that significant issues in the rest of the world won’t get the attention it deserves. ThinkProgress has previously highlighted five international issues — the India/Pakistan conflict, global disease and malnutrition, overfishing, America’s shadow war on terrorism, and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — that were getting short shrift in the campaign debate. Given that last night’s debate failed to expand menu of topics beyond expectations, we’re picking out four more issues outside of the Middle East that the Presidential candidates should have discussed, but didn’t.

GENOCIDE PREVENTION

The Atrocities Prevention Board is one of the Obama Administration’s least well known, yet potentially most far reaching, policy initiatives. The Board’s goal is exceedingly ambitious – developing an effective system for predicting when an episode of mass killing might be about to escalate and then head it off, ideally without using American military force. This idea has come under fire from hawks who argue it’s a bureaucratic roadblock to effective preventative action. Whether Romney agrees with this critique, and whether Obama was willing to and capable defend his policy, would have been valuable topics of conversation given the legion of 20th and 21st century victims of mass murder.

THE END OF THE DRUG WAR IN LATIN AMERICA

A cornerstone of America’s Latin America policy for the past forty years has been drug eradication, partnering with and supporting local governments willing to use harsh tactics in an attempt to limit the spread of drugs in the United States. While President Obama laughs off the idea of changing American policy, Latin American countries are increasingly taking the issue into their own hands. Colombia and Peru are taking the lead on relaxing drug enforcement. A recent Summit of the Americas historically declared the War on Drugs a failure and pledged to look for alternatives, while new Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has called for a debate about legalization.

CLIMATE CHANGE

While it’s commonly lamented that this issue has been missing from the Presidential campaign, its absence is especially acute in a foreign policy debate, as the nature of the problem is intrinsically global and its victims will disproportionately be the world’s poor. A recent study found that the climate change could kill 100 million people, mostly residents of the developing world, by 2030. This is in part a consequence of geography and topography, but also the fact that the massive wealth of the First World gives it many more resources to prepare for the changing climate than poorer nations, despite the fact that the wealthy were responsible for most of the emissions causing the problem in the first place. Any effective solution to this nightmare will require international cooperation, so the question of how best to get that agreement would, in an alternative world, have been an important topic in Monday’s debate.

THE RISE OF THE EUROPEAN FAR RIGHT

Reactionary racists in France. Neo-Nazis in Greece. Around Europe, the economic crisis appears to be fueling a resurgence of right-wing populism. Many of these groups have harsh anti-European Union views which could potentially complicate Europe’s attempt to put its economic house in order down the line, to say nothing of the consequences for the immigrant and minority groups against which they direct their anger. Moreover, the right-wing surge in Europe isn’t necessarily temporary: according to Matt Goodwin, an expert at the London thinktank Chatham House, “the big challenge that we’re going to see over the next 10 years is the rise of far-right groups and networks in Central and Eastern Europe.”

Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) isn’t backing away from his unflattering comparison of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to a dog. On Monday, Akin campaign spokesperson Rick Tyler tweeted that “If Claire McCaskill were a dog, she’d be a ‘Bullshitsu’”:

Tyler tried to explain away Akin’s comments in Monday’s New York Times, telling the paper that McCaskill’s objection to the comparison is an effort to “distract from the important issues. “ Akin “made an analogy — probably could have made a better one. Everybody’s going to find a reason to get their feelings hurt and get bent out of shape,” he added.

During a fundraiser over the weekend, Akin said, “[McCaskill] goes to Washington, D.C., it’s a little bit like one of those dogs, you know ‘fetch.’ She goes to Washington, D.C., and get all of these taxes and red tape and bureaucracy and executive orders and agencies and she brings all of this stuff and dumps it on us in Missouri.”

A new conspiracy theory being floated around the liberal blogosphere claims that a voting machine company with distant ties to Bain and Company is planning to fix the election for Mitt Romney before the ballots are even cast. The theory, circulated by Truthout, BradBlog, and others, suggests that Hart Intercivic, a company that owns electronic voting machines in Ohio, will program the machines to tally the votes for Romney. Their motivation for committing this serious crime stems from a sort of investment capital telephone game: Hart Intercivic is partially owned by HIG Capital, an investment company that has business ties to Solamere Capital, Tagg Romney’s equity firm. They also note that four HIG Capital directors have helped raise money for Mitt Romney. Based on these connections, these theorists are concerned that the potential conflict of interest could lead the e-voting machine company to tamper with the election results.

Watch it:

This rigged machine theory is based on actual reporting on Tagg Romney’s Solamere and its cozy relationships with many businesses interested in lobbying the government. However, there is absolutely no evidence that this crony capitalist network extends to interference with voting machines. Furthermore, Hart Intercivic machines are only being used in two counties in Ohio. Though it is not implausible that the election could come down to two Ohio counties, it seems like quite a gamble to plant these supposedly rigged machines so sparsely.

Dwelling on the possibility that a company tangentially related to the Romney family may tamper with their own product distracts from the very real and far more insidious ways that conservatives are trying to manipulate the election. For starters, the Republican National Committee and state-level Republican parties hired a voter registration firm that is openly fabricating and even destroying voter registration forms. Though the Republican Party has attempted to cut ties with this firm, its operatives are still hard at work on its behalf. Besides these operations, Tea Party group True the Vote plans to dispatch hundreds of volunteer poll watchers whose only role is to try to discredit voters before they cast their ballots. Some local classes have been caught instructing these volunteers to challenge legal voters. If they could simply flip a switch on a machine to negate a voter’s choice, there would be no reason to push voter ID laws, purge voter rolls, disseminate misleading information, or threaten to fire employees if they don’t vote for Romney.

The rigged machines myth is not only distracting, but harms the effort to get out the vote. Conservative groups have been promoting vote suppression tactics for a reason: votes count. In Ohio, for instance, despite the Republican Party’s best efforts to restrict early voting hours, voter turnout is on pace to surpass 2008, with Obama leading among people who have already voted. Spreading the myth that the system is so corrupt that these votes don’t matter tells voters they may as well sit out the election.

Iowa Congressman Steve King (R) pointedly refused to say whether he believes contraception should be sold legally in the United States. King, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, criticized the seminal Supreme Court decision of Griswold v. Connecticut, which overturned a state ban on the sale of contraception.

As to whether he was “personally against” the sale of contraception, King said “I’ve not taken a position on the sale of contraceptives at all.”

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In August, responding to controversial comments by his college Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), King said he’d never heard of a case of a woman getting pregnant from rape.

Mitt Romney’s campaign won’t say if the GOP presidential candidate would have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, but on Sunday Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — a top campaign surrogate — disparaged the measure as a giveaway to trail lawyers.

“I think that anyone who’s working out there and making a living, if you’re the most qualified person for the job, you should be able to get paid,” Rubio said. “You should get paid as much as your male counterpart, everyone agrees with that principle”:

RUBIO: But just because they call a piece of legislation an equal pay bill doesn’t make it so. In fact, much of this legislation is in many respects nothing but an effort to help trial lawyers collect their fees and file lawsuits, which may have nothing to do whatsoever to increasing pay equity in the workplace.

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In 2009, Congress passed the measure, named after former Goodyear plant manager Lilly Ledbetter, to help ensure that women are not discriminated against in the workplace. After nearly 20 years of working at a plant in Alabama, Ledbetter found out she was being paid far less than her 15 male counterparts and sued. Eventually, the Supreme Court dismissed a jury award in her favor “because she had not initiated legal action within six months of the first instance of discrimination.”

Congress took up a bill to overturn the decision that workers must file a discrimination claim within 180 days of a pay violation, noting that many women don’t learn about the wage disparities for years.

The bill became the first piece of legislation President Obama signed into law. Romney claims to support pay equity, but won’t take a position on the legislation and has touted as model justices the four conservatives who voted against Lilly Ledbetter.