Week In The News: Campaign Barbs, Killer Drought, Syria Blast

Romney’s tax storm. Killer drought deepens. Syria “spinning out of control.” Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Batman and death last night in Colorado.  A dozen dead, fifty wounded in the cinema shooting spree.  A ghoulish, terrible opening night.  In Damascus this week, blows to the heart of the Assad regime.  Fighting goes on.  Across the Midwest and beyond, punishing drought.  Crops hit.  We will pay.

In politics, Mitt Romney says no, no, no to releasing more than two years’ tax returns.  But the pressure’s still on.  Romney’s surrogate says President Obama needs to “learn to be an American.”  The campaigns debate what that means.

This hour, On Point:  our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-Tom Ashbrook

John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and a columnist at the New York Times.

Diane Brady, senior editor for Bloomberg/Businessweek.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

National Review " If he releases more returns, Romney will be in a better position to resist the inevitable demands for even more disclosures. More important, he will be in a better position to pivot his campaign to what should be its focus — telling a story, through a series of detailed, substantive speeches, about where he wants to take the country."

 The Washington Post "The attack seemed to mark a pivotal moment in the revolt, the first time that the regime’s tightly controlled and fiercely loyal inner circle has been punctured since Syrians first took to the streets to demand reforms in March 2011 and, later, took up arms. "

Reuters "As the drought, rated the worst since 1956, expands to the northern and western Midwest, areas that had previously been spared, analysts were slashing corn yield estimates by the hour. Some were also starting to cut their forecasts on the number of acres that will be harvested as farmers opt to plow under some of their parched fields to claim insurance."