Is Jamie Dimon a ruthless and intimidating banker, or are his suits made of Teflon? The chairman of JPMorgan Chase and his shareholders successfully killed an investors’ proposal to strip him of his title and split the job between two people, sources said Tuesday. While the final tally of the vote has yet to be released, several shareholders who have seen the total confirmed that Dimon did in fact defeat the campaign. It’s not the first time investor groups have tried to oust the silver-haired chief executive officer. A similar proposal was brought to the table in 2011, but failed to pass, garnering only 40 percent of the vote.

Dealbook:

Jamie Dimon and the 10 other directors of JPMorgan Chase were all re-elected at the bank’s annual shareholders meeting in Tampa, Fla., today.
...

Even if JPMorgan shareholders had accepted the proposal, the bank would not have been required to act. But the board will likely make changes to derail future calls for a shake-up. The possibilities include reshuffling the bank’s risk committee or giving its lead director more power.

Oh, yeah give him more power. That'll teach him to be more cautious with other people's money.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns today announced a new television ad holding Senator Jeff Flake accountable for not keeping his word to Arizonans Caren and Tom Teves, whose son Alex was killed in the Aurora theatre shooting while shielding his fiancée. The Teves, who voted for Senator Flake in 2012, sent a letter to their Senator asking him to vote for background check legislation and he responded that, "strengthening background checks is something we agree on." Just one month later, Senator Flake voted against bipartisan legislation proposed by NRA A-rated Senators Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin -- and supported by Senator John McCain -- that would have closed loopholes that make it easy for dangerous people to get guns.

As support for a background-check deal collapses in the Senate, Harry Reid broke with the National Rifle Association and declared his support for an assault-weapons ban. “We must strike a better balance between the right to defend ourselves and the right of every child in America to grow up safe from gun violence,” the A-rated Nevada Democrat said on the Senate floor. Unfortunately for him, the outlook for gun-control legislation looks bleak. A bipartisan amendment on background checks that is a vital ingredient in a passable gun bill appears to lack the necessary votes. Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the bill’s cosponsors, said on the floor that he knows they’re close but doesn’t know what the outcome will be.

Reid added “I’ll vote for the ban because maintaining the law and order is more important than satisfying conspiracy theorists who believe in black helicopters and false flags,” he said. “I’ll vote for the ban because saving the lives of police officers, young and old, and innocent civilians, young and old, is more important than preventing imagined tyranny.”

The Senate will vote Wednesday afternoon on gun measures that may determine the shape of legislation inspired by the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

We should thank our lucky stars that we have Bernie Sanders in the Senate. The Senate on Friday evening voted to block cuts in benefits for Social Security and disabled veterans.

The amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) put the Senate on record against changing how cost-of-living increases are calculated in a way that would result in significant cuts.

“The time has come for the Senate to send a very loud and clear message to the American people: We will not balance the budget on the backs of disabled veterans who have lost their arms, their legs and their eyesight defending our country. We will not balance the budget on the backs of the men and women who have already sacrificed for us in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor on the widows who have lost their husbands in Iraq and Afghanistan defending our country,” Sanders said.

The amendment opposed switching from the current method of measuring inflation to a so-called chained consumer price index. President Barack Obama favors a chained CPI as part of what the White House calls a “grand bargain” that Obama hopes to reach with congressional Republicans.

The proposed change would affect more than 3.2 million disabled veterans receiving disability compensation benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans who started receiving VA disability benefits at age 30 would have their benefits reduced by $1,425 at age 45, $2,341 at age 55 and $3,231 at age 65. Benefits for more than 350,000 surviving spouses and children who have lost a loved one in battle also would be cut. Dependency Indemnity Compensation benefits already average less than $17,000 a year.

More than 55 million retirees, widows, orphans and disabled Americans receiving Social Security also would be affected by the switch to a chained CPI. That figure includes 9 million veterans with an average yearly benefit of about $15,500. A veteran with average earnings retiring at age 65 would get nearly a $600 benefit cut at age 75 and a $1,000 cut at age 85. By age 95, when Social Security benefits are probably needed the most, that veteran would face a cut of $1,400 – a reduction of 9.2 percent.

A chained CPI would cut Social Security benefits for average senior citizens who are 65 by more than $650 a year by the time they are 75 years old, and by more than $1,000 once they reach 85.

Well, they did it again, passing yet another radical budget plan from Rep. Paul Ryan, this one cutting $4.6 trillion over the next ten years, turns Medicare into a voucher system and repeals Obamacare. Every Democrat, along with 10 Republicans, voted no in a 221-207 vote.

Two-thirds of Ryan's budget cuts come from low-income Americans -- programs like Medicaid and food stamps -- and gives millionaires a $200,000 tax cut.

The bill is not expected to pass the Senate, where Thursday’s vote comes just as they're kicking off their own budget debate, which will culminate in an unlimited amendment process called votearama.

Good morning, today is Tuesday, November 6, 2012. It's election day, have you voted yet?

Your morning open thread begins below.

Some things go better if you get prepared. People should get ready to vote now to make their voices heard in this important election year. There are a few ways voters can get their votes in easily, get their votes counted, and make sure their voices are heard.

Every vote counts. Your right to vote is one of the most basic rights you have as an American. Many states’ rules have changed so make sure you know what you need to vote in your state this year.

K N O W Y O U R V O T I N G R I G H T S
Election Day is Tuesday, November 6, 2012.

Vote411: Plug in your address and find out where your polling station is and information about your registration.

An interactive map with hundreds of links to state-by-state election websites, including voter guides, provisional voting information and polling place hours and locations.

• 1-800-311-8683 Voter Help Line set up by the Democratic Party
• 1-866-MYVOTE1 (866-698-6831)
• 1-866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)
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By Kim Barker, ProPublica, and Rick Young and Emma Schwartz, Frontline Oct. 30, 2012

This story is being co-published with Frontline, which is also airing a documentary on the group tonight. Check your local listings.

New signs emerged Monday that a controversial nonprofit may have misled the Internal Revenue Service not only about its political activities but also about support from a purported donor.

Western Tradition Partnership, or WTP, sent the IRS a letter in 2008 asking the agency to expedite the group's request for recognition of its tax-exempt status. The letter said that without it, the group's principle donor, Jacob Jabs, would pull a planned grant of $300,000.

But Jabs, who runs Colorado's largest furniture retailer, said on Monday he had never pledged money to the group, and never even been in contact with them until press stories appeared naming him.

"I think they just grabbed my name out of a hat to forward their agenda," Jabs told us. "I know nothing about the group, never heard of them, never have heard of them until the last few days, and I did not, absolutely did not, commit $300,000 to start this company." (Jabs also spoke with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, again denying any connection to the group.)

Although operating at the state level, WTP has won national attention for its attempts to fight campaign-finance restrictions. It successfully sued to overturn Montana's ban on corporate spending in elections, extending the provisions of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision to all states. It has also sued Montana investigators over the state's ruling two years ago that the group is a political committee and should have to report its donors.

Documents obtained by Frontline on WTP offer a rare look into the inner workings of dark money groups, tax-exempt organizations that can accept unlimited contributions and do not have to disclose their donors for political ads.

On Monday, we detailed how some of those documents pointed to WTP actively shaping the campaigns of candidates for state office in Montana. The documents, found in a meth house near Denver by a convicted felon in late 2010, indicate possible coordination between candidates and outside groups. Outside groups and candidates are not allowed to coordinate.

Social welfare nonprofits like WTP are allowed to engage in some political activity, but IRS regulations say they must have social welfare as their primary purpose. ProPublica has extensively reported on how some of these nonprofits, known as 501(c)(4)'s after their section of the tax code, appear to exploit gaps in enforcement between the Internal Revenue Service and election authorities so they don't have to disclose where they get their money.

As ProPublica and Frontline have previously reported, when WTP applied for recognition of its tax-exempt status, the group also told the IRS under penalty of perjury that it would not directly or indirectly attempt to influence elections. Yet even before its application, the group sponsored mailers that criticized politicians in the 2008 Republican primary.

The IRS approved WTP's tax-exempt status three days after it received the group's request for expedited review.

Jabs said he only first spoke with WTP earlier this month, after seeing reports that he was the primary donor. Jabs said he reached a WTP official, Athena Dalton, who signed the IRS letter citing him. According to Jabs, Dalton told him she was WTP's secretary and had been instructed to send the letter by two other WTP officials, Christian LeFer and Dan Reed.

"I did talk to Christian LeFer," Jabs said. "They basically admitted they used me to get their 501(c)(4) status." Jabs said he also contacted Reed, who did not call him back.

In an email responding to a ProPublica question about Jabs, LeFer wrote: "Your facts are wrong, I 'admitted' no such thing; that doesn't even sound plausible. Further, what significance this issue might hold escapes me. I don't discuss donors, and I can see that your story line does not need my help."

Reed did not respond to a phone call.

On Monday, LeFer also confirmed the documents found in a meth house were stolen from his wife's car and belonged to him and his wife, Allison. The documents included material from outside groups and candidates, and communications between LeFer and candidates. There were surveys of candidates by outside groups and drafts and final copies of mailers marked as being paid for by the campaigns.

LeFer, described as WTP's director of strategic programming in memos in 2009, said in an email that the boxes of documents were stolen in Colorado in June 2010.

"These stolen documents appear to be a mix of those from my consulting and volunteer work and from my wife's independently owned and operated mail and printing shop," wrote LeFer, whose wife runs a company called Direct Mail and Communications in Livingston, Mont. "Both my wife and I have scrupulously endeavored to avoid any possibility of illegal coordination.

"The stolen documents, which were in the process of being transferred to storage when the theft occurred, have been mingled to infer that the work of two separate people is in fact the work of one person and therefore improper. This is false." (Here is LeFer's full response.)

Candidates have confirmed that LeFer worked with Direct Mail. They have also said LeFer was an adviser on their campaigns.

There is also other evidence LeFer worked with the firm.

On Tuesday, a woman named Elizabeth Sheron said that when she briefly worked for Direct Mail in 2010, LeFer welcomed her to the company. She provided us a check from Direct Mail and an email from LeFer in which he asked her to elaborate on her abilities and experience. LeFer also wrote that he hoped to increase the membership of one of his social welfare nonprofits to 250,000 people in two years.

Sheron said she did work for Direct Mail, WTP and other related groups. "They kind of had you involved with every project…no matter who was paying you," she said. "I was paid by Direct Mail but I was doing stuff for other groups." Sheron worked there only briefly before quitting.

In an email, LeFer said he didn't think it was useful to try to recall "snippets of information from years back." He said if reporters sent "the entire file of materials you have and you want to discuss at a later time, please do so."

The documents from the meth house eventually landed in the office of Montana investigators, who couldn't do much with them because they couldn't definitively prove they were real, or how they ended up in a meth house.

On Monday, a lawyer for LeFer confirmed them by sending a letter to Montana authorities explaining that the car was stolen from a homeschooling conference in Denver. The lawyer said the documents were stolen property and "evidence regarding the criminal investigation of the car theft in Colorado." The lawyer also said the documents contained sensitive information, and demanded that the documents be turned over to LeFer.

Montana investigators have sealed access to the documents, saying that now that someone has asserted ownership, they are unable to further discuss or release them until a court rules on the matter.

Western Tradition Partnership is now known as American Tradition Partnership. So far this election season, the group has advocated for candidates in Montana's Republican primary, putting out a press release announcing that 12 of those candidates won. It also has launched a newspaper called the Montana Statesman, which claims to be the state's "largest & most trusted news source," to be the state's "only non-partisan newspaper" and to have been founded in 1889.

A second edition of the purported newspaper was mailed to voters in Montana last week. Like the first edition, the 12-page paper contains many articles attacking Steve Bullock, the Democratic candidate for governor who as attorney general fought the partnership's lawsuits against the state. One on the front page accused him of being soft on child molesters.

Other stories attacked the state auditor, a Supreme Court candidate and the secretary of state.

On its website, the group describes itself as a "no-compromise grassroots organization dedicated to fighting the radical environmentalist agenda."

In a statement responding to the story Monday by ProPublica and Frontline, American Tradition Partnership, or ATP, said it had not coordinated with candidates. "I have never met or spoken to virtually all the candidates on the ballot," wrote Donny Ferguson, the executive director of the partnership and the editor of the Montana Statesman, on the Statesman website.

Ferguson also said the law was always on the group's side, and that the nonprofit had always obeyed every applicable law. He denied that the group told people how to vote. "ATP does not, and never will, tell voters which candidates to vote for," he wrote. "ATP speaks on the issues, informing voters where candidates stand and of their public records."

The IRS defines political advertising much more broadly than election authorities, asking whether social welfare nonprofits directly — or indirectly — engaged in campaign activities.

Mike Huckabee makes a pre-election push with a new ad claiming, in his usual unsubtle Republican way, that if you vote the wrong way on Nov. 6 you're probably going to go to hell.

Huckabee:

Many issues are at stake, but some issues are not negotiable: The right to life from conception to natural death. Marriage should be reinforced, not redefined. It is an egregious violation of our cherished principle of religious liberty for the government to force the Church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life.

Your vote will affect the future and be recorded in eternity. Will you vote the values that will stand the test of fire? This is Mike Huckabee asking you to join me November 6th and vote based on values that will stand the test of fire.

Actually, "the Church" is exempt from the contraception coverage mandate, which Huckabee says forces "the Church to buy the kind of insurance that leads to the taking of innocent human life." Not only that, but the hormonal birth control he's likely speaking of works by suppressing ovulation, not sperm.

So essentially, Mike Huckabee lied. As I recall that puts him at risk of eternal damnation, hell fire and all that jazz.

Evan Axelbank, a reporter with WPTV in Florida, was tweeting late Tuesday night about a memo he received from a GOP campaign adviser to a local candidate there that contained some good news...for Democrats. (See the memo above.)

Axelbank tweeted that a "Worried GOPer leaked memo to me because they wanted to motivate the base, show that loss is possible."

The text of the memo reads:

The early and absentee turnout is starting to look more troubling.

As of yesterday, Republicans made up only 22% of early voters and 30% of returned absentee votes.

This is closer to (and worse than) 2008 where we saw 19% EV and 38% of the absentees. 2010 (our blowout year) was 33% of EV and 45% of AB.

Conslusion: The Democrat turnout machine in the county has been very effective and they are cleaning our clock. Even if Romney wins the state (likely based on polls), the turnout deficit in PBC will affect our local races.

When you are calling or canvassing, remind people how effective our opposition has been and how they must not only get themselves to the polls, but their friends and neighbors as well.

Axelbank spoke with Palm Beach GOP Chair Sid Dinerstein, who is responsible for leading the ground-game criticized in the memo.

Dinerstein says he believes that motivation will not be a problem for GOP voters in Palm Beach Co.

"We are broken glass Republicans, meaning we will walk over broken glass to vote."

Obama has been surging in Florida's early voting for three days now, and apparently it's taking its toll on Florida Republicans to the point that even they don't believe Mitt Romney is going to win. And not that I enjoy kicking anyone when they're down -- okay, I do make an exception for Republicans -- the latest numbers from FivethirtyEight give President Obama a 77.4% chance of winning the election, 299 electoral votes projected for Obama, and 50.4% of the popular vote projected to go to Obama.