Duane Shank

[Editor's Note: Welcome to Sojourner's Truth and Civility Election Watch Honor Roll. This post is part of a series of submissions from our constituents that highlight organizations and individuals engaging in positive, honest discourse.]

Obama on the Daily Show. An appearance on "The Daily Show" offered President Obama little comic relief from the serious midterm election campaign, as he was peppered with tough questions rooted in whether he has lived up to the promise of his 2008 campaign.

Campaign Spending. The midterm numbers just keep piling up. In the latest sign of this year's record-breaking election season, an independent research group estimated Wednesday that candidates, parties, and outside interest groups together could spend up to $4 billion on the campaign.

U.S. Afghan Spending.The U.S. government spends billions of dollars helping Afghanistan rebuild but cannot easily show how the money was spent, a government watchdog says.

Quote of the Day. "This is what I feel. There's a lot of inequity. The rich are getting richer, and the middle class that has supported our country for so long has fallen apart. ... We need something that is accessible and reachable that we can grab onto. … I don't care what party line [politicians] stand on, just give us something to grasp onto.” Bonnie Murphy, Farmington Hills, Mich., with what she sees as the state of country, echoing the anxiety and fear felt by many. (Washington Post)

Campaign fundraising and spending. House and Senate candidates have already shattered fundraising records for a midterm election and are on their way to surpassing $2 billion in spending for the first time.

Haiti cholera epidemic. Tens of thousands of people in Haiti are still threatened by an outbreak of cholera despite some signs that the epidemic is stabilising.

Campaign politics. Two years after Republicans lost 21 seats in the House, the GOP is riding a wave of voter dissatisfaction — fueled by a down economy, unpopular Democratic policies and rising anger directed at Washington — that has put control of the chamber within the party's reach for the first time in four years.

Chechen Militant Resistance. At least six people are dead and 10 injured after militants attack parliament in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Education. D.C. public schools have started serving an early dinner to an estimated 10,000 students, many of whom are now receiving three meals a day from the system as it expands efforts to curb childhood hunger and poor nutrition.

French Pension Protests. Masked youths clashed with police officers and set fires in cities across France on Tuesday as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement took an increasingly radical turn.

Quote of the Day "There are a few of them who come in so broken and so sick that you're amazed that they're alive. They come to realize that it wasn't their fault that they were hurt. As that shame starts to come off, the confidence comes out." Nancy Chand, a deputy public defender who acts as the attorney for women in California’s Second Chance Women's Re-entry Court program, one of the first in the nation to focus on women facing a return to state prison for nonviolent felonies, who plead guilty to their crimes and enter treatment instead. (Los Angeles Times)

Chilean Miners Rescued. The first 12 of 33 miners trapped underground for more than two months in northern Chile have been winched to the surface amid scenes of jubilation.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. A federal judge ordered an immediate end Tuesday to the Pentagon's enforcement of its ban on openly gay service members, rejecting the Obama administration's argument that an injunction to stop the "don't ask, don't tell" policy might harm military readiness.”

Afghanistan. Six NATO troops were killed Wednesday, at least one in eastern Afghanistan in an insurgent attack and four others in a roadside bombing in the south.

Quote of the Day. “We ship large things, but I’ll say this is the first time that we have shipped cows.” Ronna Branch, a spokeswoman for UPS, on airlifting 162 cows from North Dakota to Kazakhstan, as that country tries to rebuild its livestock industry. (New York Times)

Guantanamo Witness. A federal judge barred prosecutors on Wednesday from using a crucial witness in the first trial of a former Guantánamo detainee, adding to the fierce debate over whether the government can successfully prosecute terrorist detainees in civilian court.

Deportations. The Obama administration announced Wednesday that in the past year it has deported a record number of unauthorized immigrants - more than 392,000, about half of whom were convicted criminals.

Global Hunger. UN food agencies said yesterday that 166 million people in 22 countries suffer chronic hunger or difficulty finding enough to eat as a result of what they called protracted food crises.

Quote of the Day. “This is something that can unite us. We have 11 different official languages but only one word for the wonderful institution of braai (barbecue): in Xhosa, English, Afrikaans, whatever." Desmond Tutu, September 2007 (BBC)

Drones Kill Germans. A suspected US drone strike has killed eight fighters in northwest Pakistan, with Pakistani intelligence officials saying that at least five of them were Germans.

Transportation System Failing. The United States is saddled with a rapidly decaying and woefully underfunded transportation system that will undermine its status in the global economy unless Congress and the public embrace innovative reforms, a bipartisan panel of experts concludes in a report released Monday.

Haiti. Increasingly, property owners here are seeking to dislodge tent camps, saying they are tired of waiting for the government to resettle the people or for the people to resettle themselves.

Quote of the day. "When you're in Taybeh, you understand God's sense of humor." Maria Khoury, organizer of an Oktoberfest celebration in Taybeh, West Bank, to promote Palestinian culture and commerce amid the Israeli occupation and to draw attention to the Palestinian Christian minority (Los Angeles Times)

One nation rally. Liberal groups hoping to revive enthusiasm before November's midterm elections are encouraging their members to come to the Mall on Saturday for a rally that they expect to draw tens of thousands of people.

Pakistan. Authorities in Pakistan claimed that NATO helicopters fired on a Pakistani security post near the Afghan border Thursday and killed three of its soldiers, an accusation that is likely to inflame tensions between Washington and Islamabad following other NATO aircraft incursions in recent days.

Biodiversity. Despite about two decades of conferences, conventions and commitments, the earth’s biological diversity — or biodiversity for short — steadily erodes as ecosystems suffer and species die out.

Quote of the day. "This is completely unacceptable. Sacrilege would not be too strong a word. It's loot, taken violently and inappropriately in the first place. A tabot is a very holy object; no one can see it apart from priests. Westminster Abbey is one of the most visited sites in London. To have it on public display there is an offence to Orthodox Ethiopian Christians. For one Christian church to refuse to return it to another seems profoundly wrong.” Rev John McLuckie, a British priest, on Westminster Abbey’s refusal to return a tabot, a small tablet that symbolises the Ark of the Covenant, taken by British troops in the 19^th century, to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. (Guardian/Observer)

Campaign finance.A new political weapon known as the "super PAC" has emerged in recent weeks, allowing independent groups to both raise and spend money at a pace that threatens to eclipse the efforts of political parties.

Israel-Palestine. Israel’s decision this weekend to end its freeze on West Bank Jewish settlement construction sent diplomats on three continents scurrying on Monday to keep the Middle East peace talks alive.

Pakistan. The C.I.A has drastically increased its bombing campaign in the mountains of Pakistan in recent weeks, American officials said. The strikes are part of an effort by military and intelligence operatives to try to cripple the Taliban in a stronghold being used to plan attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

Quote of the day. "You can look at the latest forms of life and the first evidence of life and all the way through the dinosaurs, all the way through the first emergence of hominids and our ancestors, right through to today. There's nowhere else in the world where you can find that," Andrea Leenen, head of the Paleontological Scientific Trust, a South Africa not-for-profit organization that sponsors paleontological research, on why South Africa is a “mecca for archaeologists.” (Los Angeles Times)