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Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Story behind the Bain Story...or how depending on @factcheckdotorg or @GlennKesslerWP for facts can burn you.
Okay, so it turns out Mitt Romney lied (to a possibly criminal degree) about when he left Bain. No surprise there, these are his core ethics at work: do whatever you have to do, say whatever you have to say to close the deal, i.e: win the Presidency.
But the story behind the story is equally as interesting, if not more disturbing, and continues to call into question the quality of so-called "Factchecker" websites like Factcheck.org and Glenn Kessler's column at the Washington Post.
Okay, basically the story is this. The President's Campaign team put out an ad saying that Mitt Romney was responsible for the layoffs perpetrated by Bain Capital. The Annenberg Center's Factcheck.org labeled the attack unfair. The President's team pushed back, putting out a six page letter doubling down on the claim. Factcheck remained unconvinced.
Then, David Corn, he of Mother Jones and MSNBC (soon to be NBC News), picked up the ball and ripped out a really strong piece on his investment in Stericycle, a company that made money disposing of medical waste and aborted fetuses. Here's the key bit from that piece:
In 2001 and 2002, Romney filed Massachusetts state disclosure forms noting he was the 100 percent owner of Bain Capital NY, Inc.—a Bain outfit that was incorporated in Delaware on April 13, 1999—two months after Romney's supposed retirement from the firm. A May 2001 filing with the SEC identified Romney as "a member of the Management Committee" of two Bain entities. And in 2007, the Washington Post reported that R. Bradford Malt, a Bain lawyer, said Romney took a "leave of absence" when he assumed the Olympics post and retained sole ownership of the firm for two more years.Okay, do we get that? Even though Romney has been saying over and over again that he left Bain in 1999, and has nothing to do, whatsoever with whatever bad stuff they did after that...a Massachusetts state disclosure form and a SEC Filing say otherwise.
And Factcheck and Glenn Kessler's reaction? To stand by their previous, lazy ass reporting.
Thus, David Corn decided to punch back...again:
Romney's actual departure date is significant. If he did fully leave Bain in February 1999, he is better able to argue that he cannot be held responsible for the firm's actions afterward—though he maintained his ownership interest in Bain and its various entities for years and, consequently, benefited from these deals. This past week, the Obama campaign has been tussling over this issue with FactCheck.org, the independent fact-checking organization created by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. After the Obama campaign launched an ad blasting Romney as a "corporate raider" who "shipped jobs to China and Mexico," FactCheck.org called the ad false, partly because Romney had exited Bain in February 1999, prior to the deals in question. In reply, the Obama campaign sent a six-page letter to the group, challenging its determination regarding Romney's departure. But FactCheck.org reaffirmed its initial conclusion and told the Obama-ites their complaint was "all wet." Meanwhile, Dan Primack, a senior editor at Fortune, took issue with my article for noting that the SEC documents undercut the claim that Romney had no participation in any Bain decisions after February 1999.
Both Primack and FactCheck.org were unimpressed by the fact that the Boston Herald reported on February 12, 1999, that Romney was not resigning but taking a leave, during which he would provide Bain "input on investment and key personnel decisions." FactCheck.org pointed out that this story also noted Romney would "leave running day-to-day operations to Bain's executive committee," and the group cited an April 4, 1999, Associated Press story reporting that Romney was overwhelmed by his Olympian task and had no time for Bain. Primack insisted that the Herald story and a July 19, 1999, Bain press release referring to Romney as "currently on a part-time leave of absence" and quoting him speaking for Bain Capital were not all that telling, because when Romney left for Salt Lake City he probably "assumed that he'd still be involved in [Bain] decision-making, albeit from a distance," but ended up not doing that, due to his workload in Utah. Primack said he has "numerous sources," including many who were with Bain, who have told him that Romney did not make any investment-related decisions after February 1999.
What about the various SEC documents—some of which Romney signed—that identify him as controlling assorted Bain entities and large blocs of shares in firms in which Bain invested after February 1999? The Obama campaign letter cited at least 63 SEC filings after March 1, 1999, that describe Bain entities as "wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney." Both Primack and FactCheck.org contended that these documents prove only that Romney continued on as an owner of Bain, not as a decision maker.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo also jumped on the bandwagon.
The gist of the disagreement comes down to this: There’s no question that numerous public filings and some contemporaneous press references say Romney was still running things at Bain after 1999. But his campaign insists that whatever securities filings may have said, in practice, he was so busy running the 2002 Winter Olympics that he actually had no role at Bain after early 1999. That’s possible in theory. But there’s no evidence for it besides self-interested claims by Romney. And there’s plenty of documentary evidence to the contrary. After all, what you tell the SEC is really supposed to be true.
But here’s the thing. I’ve found yet more instances where Romney made declarations to the SEC that he was still involved in running Bain after February 1999. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet noted these.
The documents go into different aspects of Romney’s ownership of various Bain and Bain related assets. But in both Romney had to say what he currently did for a living.
And finally, one of my faves, Steve Benen worked it (providing, by the way, a lot of the timeline for this piece):
What Josh highlighted were two SEC filings from July 2000 and February 2001 in which Romney listed his "principal occupation" as "Managing Director of Bain Capital, Inc." At the risk of putting too fine a point on this, one cannot be gone from Bain in February 1999 and also be the managing director of Bain in February 2001.
Now, you might be thinking, "Does this really matter? What difference does it make exactly when Romney left Bain?" It matters quite a bit, actually.
For one thing, call me old fashioned, but Romney is supposed to tell the truth, both to the public and to the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this point, Romney's claims don't add up, and it's not unreasonable to ask for an explanation.
On a related note, it also matters whether or not Romney told the truth on his official financial disclosure forms.
And then, of course, there's the whole point of why Romney wants people to believe he left Bain earlier than the apparent date. The Republican candidate probably doesn't want to be on the hook for a series of controversial Bain investments -- again, see Corn's reporting -- and layoffs, which would help explain his competing explanations.
FactCheck.org's editors appear to have accepted Romney's claims at face value, but the documentary evidence now appears to point in the opposite direction. Here's hoping they, and others in media, give this another look.
I guess its easy for Factcheck.org and Glenn Kessler to take on Liberal Writers for a Liberal Magazine and Blogs. After all, let's call this game what it is: Factcheck and Kessler are more interested in their reputations as "impartial artibers of truth" rather than doing...you know...their job in getting the truth out there.
So what do they got to say now that the Boston Globe has gotten involved?
Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.
Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”
Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.
The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date.
Contradictions concerning the length of Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital add to the uncertainty and questions about his finances. Bain is the primary source of Romney’s wealth, which is estimated to be more than $250 million. But how his wealth has been invested, especially in a variety of Bain partnerships and other investment vehicles, remains difficult to decipher because of a lack of transparency.
Whoops.
Also, it should be noted (as it was by Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall), that The Boston Globe totally skunked David Corn and didn't mention his work at all the story. Stay classy, Boston Globe!
Meanwhile, Kessler and Factcheck.org? Staying with their original line.
Josh Marshall's reaction? (just as a highlight):
Meanwhile, Glenn Kessler seems to be sticking with his earlier claims that Romney actually did end his roll at Bain in 1999, hanging his hat on the fact that the former SEC official the Globe asked about documents had given money to Democrats. This strikes me as the feeblest crutch of contemporary journalism. The issue is the filings — not the person you found to give a quote about them.
Yeah, no hope of them staying classy there.
Folks, putting your total trust in any single one of these yahoos is asking for trouble. You cannot rely on a single arbiter to be your judge and jury over what is and isn't the truth. If you want to get the facts, then like Democracy itself, it's going to make you work at it. You've got to read multiple stories, and you've got to form that picture for yourself. Don't let the folks who claim to have "Fact" in their name do that work for you. As this an other instances have proven, you can't trust 'em.
What proof? Here's another instance. (Granted this one's about Politifact, but the the claim remains the same):
Meanwhile, what has David Corn done now? He's done what a good Reporter should do. He's moved on:
EXCLUSIVE: Romney Invested Millions in Chinese Firm That Profited on US Outsourcing
The GOP candidate decries China poaching US jobs. But at Bain he held a large stake in a Chinese company that did just that.
Last month, Mitt Romney's campaign got into a dustup with the Washington Post after the newspaper reported that Bain Capital, the private equity firm the GOP presidential candidate founded, invested in several US companies that outsourced jobs to China and India. The campaign indignantly demanded a retraction, claiming that these businesses did not send jobs overseas while Romney was running Bain, and the Post stood by its investigation. Yet there is another aspect to the Romney-as-outsourcer controversy. According to government documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Romney, when he was in charge of Bain, invested heavily in a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits—and that explicitly stated that such outsourcing was crucial to its success.Lemme quote Josh one more time:
Read [David's new story] now before it appears as someone else’s exclusive.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Seriously, Mitt? Seriously??
From TPM:
Mitt Romney told Fox News Wednesday that black leaders support him, but are afraid to say so publicly.
After his speech to the NAACP national convention Wednesday, Romney said he connected with black leaders in private and was assured that the loud and sustained booing he got for promising to repeal the health care reform law didn’t represent the feelings of all African American voters, even if they can’t say so in public.
“I spoke with a number of African-American leaders after the event and they said, you know, a lot of folks do not want to say they will not vote for President Obama but they are disappointed in his lack of policies to improve the schools,” Romney told Fox, according to a rush transcript. “The president has not been able to get the job done and people want to see someone would can get the economy going so I expect to get the African American votes, and at the end of my speech having a standing ovation was generous and hospitable and I believe we disagree on some issues like ‘Obamacare’ on a lot of issues people see eye to eye, they want someone getting the economy going.”
Polls show Romney has made no inroads with the African American electorate. He’s pulling single-digit support among black voters in the PollTracker Average. But by Romney’s account, it’s possible black voters are simply afraid to tell pollsters their real feelings.
Just so you know...
It's game time.
This blog will be active for the 2012 Election (duh!), but a majority of my blogging will be done at the Pasadena Democratic Blog, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Tumblr accounts, which I will hopefully figure out a way to feed here.
So in the meantime, particularly if you're in Pasadena/Southern California Area, follow @pasadenadems on Twitter, and the Pasadena United Democrats on Tumblr and Facebook.
We're going to do this. We're going to win in November, re-electing President Obama.
But the only way this is going to be easy, is if we make it look easy. How do we make it look easy? By working very hard.
This blog will be active for the 2012 Election (duh!), but a majority of my blogging will be done at the Pasadena Democratic Blog, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Tumblr accounts, which I will hopefully figure out a way to feed here.
So in the meantime, particularly if you're in Pasadena/Southern California Area, follow @pasadenadems on Twitter, and the Pasadena United Democrats on Tumblr and Facebook.
We're going to do this. We're going to win in November, re-electing President Obama.
But the only way this is going to be easy, is if we make it look easy. How do we make it look easy? By working very hard.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Your everything-you-need-to-know-complete guide to Fast & Furious...
Lordy, this is gonna be a long one.
I’m getting a little tired of supposedly smart people like Jon Stewart screwing up the Fast and Furious story, so I decided to do a little research on my own. My starting point was the rather well-laid out timeline Randi Rhodes started with on her June 20, 2012 Broadcast. She used the Wikipedia listing for ATF Gun Walking which itself used a Washington Post Story from July 25, 2011 about Fast and Furious to get its facts. But even she missed some things that need to be highlighted. Lord knows, Stewart screwed this thing up in his last two appearances with an appalling Fox News level of accuracy.
So, after the jump, I’m going to open with the Wikipedia page before some NRA doucebag steps in and makes bullshit changes to it. It also happens to be the piece Randi Rhodes read pretty much word for word opening up her June 20, 2012 Broadcast.
Click here to see the whole thing.
I’m getting a little tired of supposedly smart people like Jon Stewart screwing up the Fast and Furious story, so I decided to do a little research on my own. My starting point was the rather well-laid out timeline Randi Rhodes started with on her June 20, 2012 Broadcast. She used the Wikipedia listing for ATF Gun Walking which itself used a Washington Post Story from July 25, 2011 about Fast and Furious to get its facts. But even she missed some things that need to be highlighted. Lord knows, Stewart screwed this thing up in his last two appearances with an appalling Fox News level of accuracy.
So, after the jump, I’m going to open with the Wikipedia page before some NRA doucebag steps in and makes bullshit changes to it. It also happens to be the piece Randi Rhodes read pretty much word for word opening up her June 20, 2012 Broadcast.
Click here to see the whole thing.
How Jon Stewart and the fine folks at @TheDailyShow @#$%ed up Fast and Furious (VIDEO)
It started on June 20th:
Again, Jon's version of events demands you being stupid enough to believe Darrell Issa's version of events. Up until now, I never thought Jon was that stupid, but stranger things have happened.
Here's the thing, to believe Issa's version of events, you have to believe that the Acting Head of the ATF, by his own admission, knew nothing about what the ATF Phoenix Field Office was doing, but somehow the U.S. Attorney General did.
Oh, and did I mention that the Acting Head of the ATF is Issa's Star Witness, and thought he was going to get fired by the Administration, which is why he went running to Issa in the first place? Purely a coincidence, I'm sure.
And then, Jon doubled-down the next day, June 21st:
First off, it actually began with an Operation called Wide Receiver in the Bush Administration before being killed and record as Fast and Furious, and the stated purpose actually made some sense. The ATF wanted to allow these purchases to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, in theory leading to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.
Problem was, ATF let the purchases happen, they tracked the guns to the people who were using them, who were hired thugs, not the major players in the Cartel. Since the purchases didn't go high enough up the chain of command, ATF let the purchases keep happening, hoping they'd get someone better so they could make an arrest. In fact, indictments didn't start happening until Obama became President.
And, to be clear, we lost 1400 guns, still an appalling figure, but...c'mon, Jon, that's the kind of Bullshit Fox News engages in.
Then there's the letter. That was my major problem with the bit. Jon kinda left out the part where the Head of the Phoenix Field Office, may have...you know...lied to the Justice Department about the existence of the program. That could be because Justice told him in 2009 not to engage in Gunwalking (but didn't do it clearly enough), and he went ahead and engaged in it anyway.
I know, details, details.
I would like to know why the hell did Stephen Colbert have a better grip on the damn story than Stewart did?
A complete, unadulterated guide to my problems with what Jon Stewart said will be published in about 30 minutes.
Again, Jon's version of events demands you being stupid enough to believe Darrell Issa's version of events. Up until now, I never thought Jon was that stupid, but stranger things have happened.
Here's the thing, to believe Issa's version of events, you have to believe that the Acting Head of the ATF, by his own admission, knew nothing about what the ATF Phoenix Field Office was doing, but somehow the U.S. Attorney General did.
Oh, and did I mention that the Acting Head of the ATF is Issa's Star Witness, and thought he was going to get fired by the Administration, which is why he went running to Issa in the first place? Purely a coincidence, I'm sure.
And then, Jon doubled-down the next day, June 21st:
First off, it actually began with an Operation called Wide Receiver in the Bush Administration before being killed and record as Fast and Furious, and the stated purpose actually made some sense. The ATF wanted to allow these purchases to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, in theory leading to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.
Problem was, ATF let the purchases happen, they tracked the guns to the people who were using them, who were hired thugs, not the major players in the Cartel. Since the purchases didn't go high enough up the chain of command, ATF let the purchases keep happening, hoping they'd get someone better so they could make an arrest. In fact, indictments didn't start happening until Obama became President.
And, to be clear, we lost 1400 guns, still an appalling figure, but...c'mon, Jon, that's the kind of Bullshit Fox News engages in.
Then there's the letter. That was my major problem with the bit. Jon kinda left out the part where the Head of the Phoenix Field Office, may have...you know...lied to the Justice Department about the existence of the program. That could be because Justice told him in 2009 not to engage in Gunwalking (but didn't do it clearly enough), and he went ahead and engaged in it anyway.
I know, details, details.
I would like to know why the hell did Stephen Colbert have a better grip on the damn story than Stewart did?
The Colbert Report
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Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
A complete, unadulterated guide to my problems with what Jon Stewart said will be published in about 30 minutes.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Issa gets his information from a break-your-windows paranoid blogger. (VIDEO)
Darrell Issa, once a liar, always a liar.
To be sure, Congress has a legitimate interest in investigating Operation Fast and Furious, but Chairman Issa and Republican majority on the Committee appear to be more interested in scoring political points than in getting to the bottom of what happened," argued Keegan, who added that, “The hoops the Committee is demanding the Attorney General jump through illustrate that these contempt hearings are as partisan as they are extreme. Over the course of this ‘investigation,’ the Committee has ordered the A.G. to produce documents whose confidentiality is protected by federal law, has refused to subpoena Bush Administration officials to testify about their knowledge of the operation during their time in office, has refused to allow public testimony from officials whose testimony counters Issa’s partisan narrative, and has repeatedly rejected the A.G.’s efforts to accommodate the committee, making compliance all but impossible.
People for the American Way president Michael Keegan.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Is the GOP about to spend the next couple of Election Cycles in the wilderness?
Possibly.
Let's start off with Andrew Sullivan:
So, Romney may be forced to turn to White voters in an unprecedented fashion (i.e., run a more racist-slash-racial campaign than he's used to) in order to compete. Yet, if the Senate, specifically the Republican Senate hadn't bowed down and caved to George W. Bush 43 at every possible turn:
Let's start off with Andrew Sullivan:
After Obama's end-run around Romney on deferring deportations of young native-born Americans who have broken no law apart from being born, the Latina Oprah, Cristina Saralegui, puts her invaluable imprimatur on the president. It's getting more and more necessary for Mitt to max out his percentage of the Caucasian vote:
Most polls this spring show Obama running near the 52 percent he won among those upscale white women in 2008, and also remaining very close to his 80 percent showing among all minorities. If Obama can hold that level of support from those two groups, Romney could amass a national majority only by winning nearly two-thirds of all other whites—the men with college degrees, and the men and women without them. To put that challenge in perspective, Reagan, while winning his historic landslide, carried a combined 66.5 percent of those three groups. To defeat Obama, in other words, Romney may need to equal Reagan.
So, Romney may be forced to turn to White voters in an unprecedented fashion (i.e., run a more racist-slash-racial campaign than he's used to) in order to compete. Yet, if the Senate, specifically the Republican Senate hadn't bowed down and caved to George W. Bush 43 at every possible turn:
“The importance of the Hispanic vote to President Barack Obama’s reelection chances is practically impossible to overstate,” writes Frank Wilkinson over at Bloomberg View. He’s almost certainly right.
So here’s my question: If President George W. Bush, working with Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, had passed comprehensive immigration reform in 2005, would Democrats have a chance this year? I see how they could have won in 2008, amidst a financial crisis and Bush fatigue. But it’s harder to see how they’d win in 2012 if the Hispanic vote was split.
"An impact on Latinos for generations to come..." (VIDEO)
There's a sad state of affairs in this country when this is the first I've ever heard of the "Hispanic Oprah" as Greg Sargent put it this morning. The fault's with me. I've got to get to know Latino culture more and more in the coming years.
So, this is Cristina Saralegui's endorsement of the President. And just to be fair, I'll put up the Spanish version as well.
So, this is Cristina Saralegui's endorsement of the President. And just to be fair, I'll put up the Spanish version as well.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
The part when even Frank Rich (@frankrichny) is telling you to chill...
Jeez louise, people. Me and Frank don't always agree, but we're in 100% alignment on this one:
“Is it time for Democrats to panic?” was the lead of a front-page Washington Post story Wednesday morning. Is it?
Not in June. The proximate source of this alarm is a memo written by James Carville and the pollster Stanley Greenberg, and seconded by another old Clinton hand, Douglas Schoen, a persistent Obama basher who months ago called for the president to abdicate after one term and let Hillary run in his place. The point of their angst is that Obama needs a new economic message, more like Clinton’s. Perhaps. More effective might be a stronger anti-Romney message. The Republican candidate avoids the press (Fox News aside), largely ducks the public, and offers only standard issue party boilerplate as his own “jobs” plan. The question is when and how the Obama campaign will knock this brittle opponent off his anodyne memorized talking points, out of his bubble and into interaction with the real world. The new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that among “swing-voting independents” the economic plans of both candidates are more or less equally despised, with a 38 percent favorable rating for Obama’s and 35 percent for Romney’s. That’s a serious opening for Obama.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Broken Promises: Romney's Massachusetts Record (VIDEO)
Okay, back from Vacation...such as it was...what did I miss?
Oh.
Oh.
Friday, May 18, 2012
How racist Joe Ricketts managed screwed over his own family.
No, seriously.
Okay, so the Ricketts family owns a little enterprise known as the Chicago Cubs. And they want to renovate Wrigley Field (originally built, by the way with private money) with public funds. They're asking the City of Chicago for $150 million bucks to help with a $300 million dollar renovation.
Guess...who the @#$%@ Mayor of Chicago is, and would have to approve said money?
Okay, so the Ricketts family owns a little enterprise known as the Chicago Cubs. And they want to renovate Wrigley Field (originally built, by the way with private money) with public funds. They're asking the City of Chicago for $150 million bucks to help with a $300 million dollar renovation.
Guess...who the @#$%@ Mayor of Chicago is, and would have to approve said money?
In October 2009, a trust that Joe and Marlene Ricketts established on behalf of their family acquired a 95-percent controlling interest in the Cubs and the team’s home park, Wrigley Field. Tom Ricketts, a son, is team chairman, and Pete Ricketts, Laura Ricketts, and Todd Ricketts (another son) all serve on the board. Dad’s place in the headlines this week actually comes at a bad time for the Cubs: the team is trying to work out a deal with the city “that would involve using $150 million in city amusement taxes for a $300 million renovation of Wrigley Field,” The Chicago Tribune reports. An aide to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told The Washington Post that the former White House Chief of Staff was “livid” over the Times story.
“The Ricketts have tried to contact the mayor, but he’s said that he does not want to talk with them today, tomorrow or anytime soon,” the aide said.
In local news: Glendale settles with ex-employee who says he was fired for union stance
There goes $29,000 of my tax dollars because someone in my stinkin' city tried to pull a Scott Walker:
Right, that settlement you dropped waaaay convinces me of that.
A Glendale employee who claims he was wrongfully fired for promoting a new union has settled with the city for $29,000.
After being terminated in May 2010, Anthony Carbajal filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, claiming he was fired because of his strong support of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, a Los Angeles group that at the time was pushing to represent Glendale Water & Power workers.
The IBEW and the city have since clashed over a new labor contract, with Glendale electrical workers and their Los Angeles counterparts protesting outside City Hall. The IBEW recently rejected a proposed city contract.
Carbajal’s attorney, David Klehm, said his client was a vocal leader in the movement as he tried to drum up support for the IBEW — making him a political target at City Hall.
But the city maintains Carbajal was terminated “based on legitimate business reasons and that there was no discrimination or retaliation,” City Atty. Mike Garcia said in an email.
Right, that settlement you dropped waaaay convinces me of that.
@NickHanauer reminds the Super Rich that it is the Middle Class who are the real Job Creators (VIDEO)
And Nick Hanauer's interview with Lawrence O'Donnell:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
C'mon, Scalito, Roberts, do it. DO IT! I dare ya...
I hope they spend more intellectual firepower on Obamacare, than they did on Citizens United:
Next month, America’s health insurance plans may lose $1 trillion in revenue.
It won’t have anything to do with a business deal gone awry, or Americans dropping health coverage during the recession. Instead, $1 trillion is the amount of revenue that health insurance plans can expect to lose if the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act. The Court is expected to issue its opinion in late June.
The figure comes from Bloomberg Government, where number crunchers have taken a look at what happens if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act and its expected expansion of health care coverage to 32 million Americans. They find that, should the Affordable Care Act be found unconstititional, insurance companies will lose $1 trillion in revenue between 2013 and 2020.
To put that in perspective, $1 trillion accounts for about 9 percent of all revenue that health insurers are expected to earn in the same period. It’s one-half of a percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Add up the annual revenues of America’s five largest banks - Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Wachovia and U.S. Bancorp- and you’re still about $500 billion short of what health plans can expect to lose if the Supreme Court decides against Obamacare.
“It’s the sheer size of the number that was startling,” says Bloomberg Government health care analyst Matt Barry. “I don’t know if people fully appreciate the stakes involved here. It’s not just politics - there’s a lot of money, and a lot to lose.”
Monday, May 14, 2012
ICYMI: @MichaelEDyson ripping the skin off Anti-Gay Black Preachers (VIDEO)
Metaphorically speaking, of course. But if anyone's deserved a rhetorical thrashing, it's been black preachers.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Friday, May 11, 2012
For the record, @msnbc, you're not paying @tamronhall NEARLY enough (VIDEO)
Give her a raise, now. Just for this:
Thursday, May 10, 2012
So basically, Mitt Romney was pretty much a dick in prep school. (VIDEO)
So is this is who you want for your President?
Or this?
Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.
“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”
“It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious.”
“He was just easy pickins,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it.
The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall.
Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened.
Or this?
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
West Virginia is so racist, that they'd rather vote for the Mine Owner instead of the Mine Worker.
Even the Washington Post gets it:
Hmmm...
When West Virginia wonders why it's perpetually in the ninth circle of Economic Hell it ALWAYS finds itself in (like for example the fact that it's...dead last in K-12 Education) they can look back on decisions like this.
You have a Democratic State that votes Democratic, but because of its slavish devotion to coal, and the fact that the President's a black man, they'd rather vote Republican and thus vote to screw themselves over.
The President has no Political Allies in the States? That may be true, but that's also two way street. And people like Joe Manchin don't work for the people of West Virginia. They work for Massey Energy, which managed to kill how many of its employees again in 2010?
I would say if West Virginia were drowning, I wouldn't bother to throw them a life preserver. But they are drowning. They need a life preserver. Still, they'd rather be racist, and thus of vote for the party of the Mine Owner, instead of the Mine Worker.
They deserve what they get. @#$% 'em.
Keith Judd, who is serving a 17 1/2-year prison sentence for extortion at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, took 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia’s Democratic primary Tuesday night — 72,000 votes to Obama’s 106,000. He would qualify for convention delegates, if anyone had signed up to be a Judd delegate. (No one did.)
How did Judd get so many votes?
It’s likely not his past careers as a superhero and religious leader. Or his passionate FEC report ramblings. Simply put, West Virginia does not like Obama.
Keith Judd got 4 in 10 votes in West Virginia, despite living in a Texas prison.
“I voted against Obama,” a 43-year-old electrician named Ronnie Brown told the AP. His daughter planned to vote for Judd too, until she found out he was in prison. “I just want to vote against Barack Obama,” she said.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state. West Virginia regularly votes in Democratic officials at the state level (its governor and all of its statewide elected officials are Democrats) and narrowly supported Bill Clinton in 1996. But the very rural state has never warmed to the current White House occupant.
“President Obama has no strong political allies in this state. A couple leading Democrats grudgingly support Obama, but say that only when they are asked,” said West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval. “Several are openly hostile to him.”
Obama, not surprisingly, rarely visits the state.
The president angered voters with new Environmental Protection Agency policies, which some see as a “war on coal” and have stalled mining permits for the state’s coal mining industry. Both Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Sen. Joe Manchin, both Democrats, have clashed with Obama on the issue, and neither has committed to supporting him in the fall.
“In talking to many West Virginians, they do recognize and realize that the president is working very hard to help working families across the country and in this state,” said state Democratic Party Chairman Larry Puccio. “It’s just that coal plays such a major role in West Virginia and folks are frustated with this administration’s position.”
In the latest state-by-state Gallup poll, Obama’s approval rating in West Virginia was 32.7 percent. A recent poll gave former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney a 17-point lead over Obama in the state.
But Obama was unpopular in West Virginia before he took office.
In the 2008 Democratic primary, Obama lost West Virginia to Hillary Clinton by 41 points — even though her campaign was all but over.
In the fall, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) beat Obama in the state by 13 points.
Race likely plays some role here. In the 2008 primary, 2 in 10 white West Virginia voters said race was an important factor in their votes, second only to Mississippi. Those voters went for Clinton 8 in 10 times.
Hmmm...
When West Virginia wonders why it's perpetually in the ninth circle of Economic Hell it ALWAYS finds itself in (like for example the fact that it's...dead last in K-12 Education) they can look back on decisions like this.
You have a Democratic State that votes Democratic, but because of its slavish devotion to coal, and the fact that the President's a black man, they'd rather vote Republican and thus vote to screw themselves over.
The President has no Political Allies in the States? That may be true, but that's also two way street. And people like Joe Manchin don't work for the people of West Virginia. They work for Massey Energy, which managed to kill how many of its employees again in 2010?
I would say if West Virginia were drowning, I wouldn't bother to throw them a life preserver. But they are drowning. They need a life preserver. Still, they'd rather be racist, and thus of vote for the party of the Mine Owner, instead of the Mine Worker.
They deserve what they get. @#$% 'em.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Mitt Romney Versus Reality: Auto Recovery Edition (VIDEO)
Oh, and did I mention?? (via Bloomberg):
During an election-year clash over which U.S. political party has the best prescription for curing unemployment, Democrats can argue that almost two-thirds of private-sector job growth in the past five decades came with them in the White House.
The BGOV Barometer shows that since Democrat John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, non-government payrolls in the U.S. swelled by almost 42 million jobs under Democrats, compared with 24 million for Republican presidents, according to Labor Department figures.
Democrats hold the edge though they occupied the Oval Office for 23 years since Kennedy’s inauguration, compared with 28 for the Republicans. Through April, Democratic presidents accounted for an average of 150,000 additional private-sector paychecks per month over that period, more than double the 71,000 average for Republicans.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Go -- aka, President Obama's new Ad (VIDEO)
Twenty-five million...what again?
President Obama’s campaign spent the Republican primaries quietly amassing a war chest of over $100 million while his rivals dominated the airwaves in swing states around the country. But they’re done watching from the sidelines.
The president’s re-election team is out with a new ad, “Go,” running in nine swing states, as part of a whopping $25 million ad buy this month. To put the amount in perspective, Romney finished March with only $10 million cash on hand.
The ad, which focuses on how the economy has improved from the initial 2008 crisis that Obama inherited, is part of an aggressive effort from the president to remind voters of the dire circumstances the president faced in January 2009. The hope is that by putting his achievements in that context, Obama can overcome Romney’s message to voters still hurting among weak job growth that the White House has fallen short of its goals.
“The president has faced a combination of crises few others have ever had to deal with, all at the same time,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a conference call with reporters Monday. “Starting on Day One, he’s made bold and brave decisions to hep our economy get back on its feet and bring our troops back.”
I think Romney is about kaput money-wise until the Convention, when he accepts the nomination. Then he can start soliciting money for the campaign again. And here is the President just swamping him with money.
Remember, between now and Tampa...Romney's campaign can't say or do jack because he's basically out of money. He's down to $10 million cash on hand, and he's still got campaigning to do. That means until Tampa, the President pretty much can bombard the Airwaves at will.
Mind you, Romney's not broke, he's just hamstrung by a technicality of Campaign Finance Law. He's got a huge war chest waiting for him...but he can't use it until after Tampa. That will minimize the Romney Campaign's presence on the airwaves.
...but not the SuperPacs associated with him.
And believe it or not, that may also be a good thing...for Democrats.
The Republican SuperPacs, they are the unrestrained Id of the Party. They can't be coordinated with the Campaign, and...at the same time, they don't get any of the campaign's professional polish.
Basically, there's no one there at the SuperPac going: "You know that idea of yours is totally batshit insane right? Don't do it...you'll hurt the candidate."
But no, money trumps everything...even common sense at times.
There is just as much chance these SuperPacs will do harm to Mittens as well as good. We've seen what they've done in the Primaries.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Apparently, "Stand Your Ground" only applies if you kill Black People (VIDEO)
Who knew?
In her own home, threatened with physical harm by a man with a record of abuse, by a man with a restraining order...
As much as I despise this law, this seems to be the very kind of incident it was designed for, and yet...George Zimmerman is allowed to use, and Marissa Alexander is not. Please someone explain to me why.
Frankly speaking, if Marissa had killed her husband, and then told any old story she needed to, she might not be in jail today.
That's Florida for you.
That's why I just as soon it was cut off from our country and allowed to float away.
In her own home, threatened with physical harm by a man with a record of abuse, by a man with a restraining order...
As much as I despise this law, this seems to be the very kind of incident it was designed for, and yet...George Zimmerman is allowed to use, and Marissa Alexander is not. Please someone explain to me why.
Frankly speaking, if Marissa had killed her husband, and then told any old story she needed to, she might not be in jail today.
That's Florida for you.
That's why I just as soon it was cut off from our country and allowed to float away.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Why the Obama Team is better than the Romney team at the web, Part 397
The Obama Campaign now presents the Life of Julia. Worth checking out.
Rock Center: Inside The Situation Room Special on the killing of Bin Laden (VIDEO)
In case, like my Dad, you missed it we have the whole special here:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
What Ric Grenell's departure from the Romney campaign tells us about Romney as a leader...
It tells us that he isn't much of one, and that his first instinct is always to make the problem go away, not to solve it.
From Andrew Sullivan:
Some actual reporting from yours truly. It seems clear from sources close to Grenell and reporters on the foreign policy beat that his turning point came last week. He'd been part of organizing a conference call to respond to Vice President Biden's foreign policy speech, now known best for the "big stick" remark. So some reporters were puzzled as to why Grenell, a week into his job as Romney's national security spokesman, was not introduced by name as part of the Romney team at the beginning of the call, and his voice completely absent from the conversation. Some even called and questioned him afterwards as to why he was absent. He wasn't absent. He was simply muzzled. For a job where you are supposed to maintain good relations with reporters, being silenced on a key conference call on your area of expertise is pretty damaging. Especially when you helped set it up.
Sources close to Grenell say that he was specifically told by those high up in the Romney campaign to stay silent on the call, even while he was on it. And this was not the only time he had been instructed to shut up. Their response to the far right fooferaw was simply to go silent, to keep Grenell off-stage and mute, and to wait till the storm passed. But the storm was not likely to pass if no one in the Romney camp was prepared to back Grenell up. Hence his dilemma. The obvious solution was simply to get Grenell out there doling out the neocon red meat - which would have immediately changed the subject and helped dispel base skepticism. Instead the terrified Romneyites shut him up without any actual plan for when he might subsequently be able to do his job. To my mind, it's a mark of his integrity that he decided to quit rather than be put in this absurd situation. And it's a mark of Romney's fundamental weakness within his own party that he could not back his spokesman against the Bryan Fischers and Matthew Francks.
Oh, Lord. Here we go again. (Paul Krugman Edition)...
Sigh.
When you read this, remember two things. One, this blog always trusts Paul Krugman's numbers, but never his Political sense (which is terrible).
...and two, Paul Krugman is trying to sell a book.
When you read this, remember two things. One, this blog always trusts Paul Krugman's numbers, but never his Political sense (which is terrible).
...and two, Paul Krugman is trying to sell a book.
Ending Afghanistan, an a decade of War (VIDEO)
The Speech:
Signing the Agreement:
And talking to the Troops:
Signing the Agreement:
And talking to the Troops:
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
The President's Speech at the White House Correspondence Dinner 2012 (VIDEO)
I just LOVE the fact that the President just kicked the holy crap out of the Huffington Post:
Plenty of journalists are here tonight. I'd be remiss if I didn’t congratulate the Huffington Post on their Pulitzer Prize. You deserve it, Arianna. There's no one else out there linking to the kinds of hard-hitting journalism that HuffPo is linking to every single day. Give them a round of applause. And you don’t pay them -- it's a great business model.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) blasts the Beltway Culture (VIDEO)
Wow.
Traffic? Seriously, dude? Have you been to L.A.??
Also, as a Native D.C.er, as in born and raised in D.C., I have to admit, I've ALWAYS called it a Subway. "Hey, Malcolm...what's the Metro?" "Well, that's our Subway System." I don't know what else you'd call it.
Traffic? Seriously, dude? Have you been to L.A.??
Also, as a Native D.C.er, as in born and raised in D.C., I have to admit, I've ALWAYS called it a Subway. "Hey, Malcolm...what's the Metro?" "Well, that's our Subway System." I don't know what else you'd call it.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Rolling Stone Interview with President Obama...
Yeah, the link is right here. Jon Stewart, Paul Krugman and Andrew Sullivan are going to have reasons to smile a bit today.
Also, I thought this was important:
What do you read regularly to keep you informed or provide you with perspectives beyond the inner circle of your advisers?
[Laughs] Other than Rolling Stone?
That goes without saying.
I don't watch a lot of TV news. I don't watch cable at all. I like The Daily Show, so sometimes if I'm home late at night, I'll catch snippets of that. I think Jon Stewart's brilliant. It's amazing to me the degree to which he's able to cut through a bunch of the nonsense – for young people in particular, where I think he ends up having more credibility than a lot of more conventional news programs do.
I spend a lot of time just reading reports, studies, briefing books, intelligence assessments.
Newspapers?
I'll thumb through all the major papers in the morning. I'll read the Times and Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, just to catch up.
Do you read Paul Krugman?
I read all of the New York Times columnists. Krugman's obviously one of the smartest economic reporters out there, but I also read some of the conservative columnists, just to get a sense of where those arguments are going. There are a handful of blogs, Andrew Sullivan's on the Daily Beast being an example, that combine thoughtful analysis with a sampling of lots of essays that are out there. The New Yorker and The Atlantic still do terrific work. Every once in a while, I sneak in a novel or a nonfiction book.
I thought you were going to say Playboy.
No [laughs].
Also, I thought this was important:
In working with the Republicans in this term, it seems clear that the traditional rules of give-and-take politics have changed – that the Republicans have been playing a "lose-lose" game with you. What's your relationship with the GOP leadership at this point? A little frosty?
It's not frosty. This isn't personal. When John Boehner and I sit down, I enjoy a conversation with him. I don't think he's a bad person. I think he's patriotic. I think that the Republicans up on the Hill care about this country, but they have a very ideologically rigid view of how to move this country forward, and a lot of how they approach issues is defined by "Will this help us defeat the president?" as opposed to "Will this move the country forward?"
Is there any way to break through that obstructionism by Republicans?
My hope is that if the American people send a message to them that's consistent with the fact that Congress is polling at 13 percent right now, and they suffer some losses in this next election, that there's going to be some self-reflection going on – that it might break the fever. They might say to themselves, "You know what, we've lost our way here. We need to refocus on trying to get things done for the American people."
Frankly, I know that there are good, decent Republicans on Capitol Hill who, in a different environment, would welcome the capacity to work with me. But right now, in an atmosphere in which folks like Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist are defining what it means to be a true conservative, they are lying low. My hope is that after this next election, they'll feel a little more liberated to go out and say, "Let's redirect the Republican Party back to those traditions in which a Dwight Eisenhower can build an interstate highway system."
The President's Interview on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon... (VIDEO)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6: (Man, there's a Part 6???)
And finally, and most importantly...slow jammin' the News:
Technically, that was first, but...it's a great way to end this post.
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6: (Man, there's a Part 6???)
And finally, and most importantly...slow jammin' the News:
Technically, that was first, but...it's a great way to end this post.
The Daily Show: The War on Women...Jason Jones style (VIDEO)
I've fallen behind...badly. So I'm catching up with a couple of greatest hits...
Friday, April 13, 2012
Courtesy of @beardedstoner, the ethical rationale of the Mitt Romney Campaign (VIDEO)
Full props to @beardedstoner for a damn good idea.
The complete Ed Show interview with Vice President Joe Biden (VIDEO)
Intro:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Part 1:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Part 2:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Colbert Interview with Michelle Obama (VIDEO)
Part 1:
Part 2:
And in case you missed this bit of Michelle Obama comedy goodness:
Just wait for it, you'll see it.
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Part 2:
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
And in case you missed this bit of Michelle Obama comedy goodness:
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Just wait for it, you'll see it.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Billboard Racism... (VIDEO)
Saw these stories in a couple places today, but Jonathan Capehart was the first to collect them both together:
“Long live Zimmerman” was spray painted on a wall outside the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center at Ohio State University on April 5. In a tweet that morning, university President E. Gordon Gee called it a “Deplorable act of intolerance.” As you see in the video [below], the message was removed.
“Trayvon A N-----” was the message to motorists on one of those electronic construction signs early this morning on Interstate 94 in Michigan. According to Shawn Ley of WDIV-TV in Detroit, the computer keyboard used to type those highway messages was torn out and stolen from the metal box on the back of the construction sign.
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