Happy MUN-dane, Everyone! Sit back with 3 Chics, and enjoy John Lee Hooker week.
Wiki: John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was a highly influential American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally a unique brand of country blues. He developed a ‘talking blues‘ style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his blues guitar playing and singing. His best known songs include “Boogie Chillen’” (1948), “I’m in the Mood” (1951) and “Boom Boom” (1962), the first two reaching R&B #1 in the Billboard charts.
Ed Shultz needs to shut up in trying to tell President Obama what to do. Just shut up already. Joe Biden is NOT going anywhere. Enough!
LOL!
Hell Yeah!
BWA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Why You Cannot Say You ‘Like’ Firing People
It’s the word fire. I have fired people, and I have been fired — and there is no comparison in how much more excruciating the former process is. I know, agree with, and have even written a book about all the reasons why “flexibility” in the labor force is a good thing for companies and for the overall economy. People need to be held accountable for good or bad performance. Economies need to be able to move from the old — old markets, technologies, regions, emphases — and open up to the new. Companies very often need to “right-size” to survive. We all understand these truths. They are part of America’s strength.
But people with any experience on either side of a firing know that, necessary as it might be, it is hard. Or it should be. It’s wrenching, it’s humiliating, it disrupts families, it creates shame and anger alike — notwithstanding the fact that often it absolutely has to happen. Anyone not troubled by the process — well, there is something wrong with that person. We might want such a person to do dirty work for us. (This might be the point where the Romney campaign wants to take another look at Up In The Air.) We might value him or her as a takeover specialist or at a private equity firm. But as someone we trust, as a leader? No – not any more than you can trust a military leader who is not deeply troubled when his troops are killed.
Here’s a test: If you were making the point about the need for competition, can you imagine yourself saying, “I like being able to fire people…” ?
I don’t think this will stop Romney in New Hampshire or in his likely progress to the nomination. It may not make any difference in the general election. But for me, it’s a bell difficult to un-ring — “I like being able to fire people” — once it has been heard.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/why-you-cannot-say-you-like-firing-people/251123/
Arizona Officials Single Out Hispanic City Council Candidate To Take An English Literacy Test
By Marie Diamond on Jan 9, 2012 at 11:10 am
Alejandrina Cabrera is one of several candidates running for City Council in San Luis, Arizona. Like nearly all of her constituents, Cabrera is Hispanic and speaks fluent Spanish. She also has been an annoyance for the city’s current leadership, having led efforts to recall Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla.
Seemingly in retaliation for her trouble-making, city leaders have singled out Cabrera to take an English proficiency exam to prove her eligibility to hold office:
The City Council recently asked for verification that activist and council candidate Alejandrina Cabrera could speak, read and write in English, as state law requires of public officials. The action was in response to allegations by Guillermina Fuentes, a former mayor of the fast-growing border city, the Yuma Sun reported. […]
The council’s action could mean that the city hires someone to test Cabrera’s English fluency. In San Luis, nearly all 25,000 residents are Latino and about 88% speak a language other than English at home, according to Census Bureau data.
Cabrera is one of 10 council candidates running in the city’s March primary, the Sun said. She is considered something of a rabble-rouser, having spearheaded two failed recall attempts against the current mayor of San Luis, Juan Carlos Escamilla.
Escamilla voted in favor of testing Cabrera’s grasp of English, TV station KSWT reported.
English-only laws have been highly controversial, especially in states like Arizona that have a large number of Hispanic voters, many of whom have a limited grasp of English themselves. It would seem more important that Cabrera can effectively communicate in the language the vast majority of her constituents speak.
The suggestion that her English is not up to scratch is based on anecdotal claims from the very people who are trying to keep her from serving. None of the other Hispanic candidates for office are being asked to prove their English proficiency. In addition, the mayor’s targeting of Cabrera seems somewhat hypocritical given that he admits he is not completely fluent himself.
The Voting Rights Act protects the right of non-English speakers to cast a ballot, but these protections do not apply to candidates. Nevertheless, selectively applying the law based on candidates’ ethnicity or political leanings is troubling. There is nothing in the Constitution that protects English as the exclusive language of the United States.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/01/09/400489/arizona-officials-single-out-hispanic-city-council-candidate-to-take-an-english-literacy-test/?mobile=nc
Posted at 02:42 PM ET, 01/09/2012
Romney worried about pink slip? Bain gave him golden parachute
By Greg Sargent
As you may have heard, Mitt Romney declared over the weekend that there were times when he, too, worried about getting a “pink slip.” Romney’s GOP rivals immediately pounced, with Rick Perry claiming: “I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out.”
Now the Obama-allied group Priorities USA Action is set to attack Romney over this in another way, pointing out that Romney getting a pink slip during his years as a Bain Capital executive wouldn’t be all that comparable to the fate that befalls ordinary workers when they get fired.
In a memo set to go out to the press this afternoon, Priorities USA Action is highlighting a June, 2007 Boston Globe story that detailed the circumstances of Romney’s hiring. According to the article (via Nexis), the company’s founder, Bill Bain, and Romney agreed on a whole bunch of safeguards built into his deal, so if he failed, he’d have a very soft landing, including getting his job back at a previous firm both men worked at:
Bain sweetened the offer. He guaranteed that if the experiment failed, Romney would get his old job and salary back, plus any raises handed out during his absence.
Romney had one more concern: the impact on his reputation should he prove unable to do the job. In the end, Bain agreed to craft a cover story if necessary, promising to bring Romney back to the consulting firm and explain Romney’s return as a matter of his being more valuable to Bain as a consultant.
“So,” Bain says, “there was no professional or financial risk.”
Priorities USA spokesman Bill Burton adds: “Mitt Romney was guaranteed millions of dollars no matter the outcome of his Wall Street buyout enterprise. Romney’s absurd rhetoric is inconsistent with the facts surrounding his own situation and insensitive to the thousands of American who lost their jobs so Romney could extract millions for himself.”
This is another sign that Dems recognize the urgency of winning the war to define Romney’s Bain years in the public mind, and that if Romney succeeds in defining them on his terms, it could be dangerous. Expect Dems to use this one as another data point in the case that Romney is out of touch with the anxieties felt by many ordinary Americans coping with job insecurity and the stresses and travails of joblessness.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-worried-about-pink-slip-bain-gave-him-golden-parachute/2012/01/09/gIQAPD4ylP_blog.html
This Is a Lot Worse Than YoMama ‘Jokes’
By Charles P. Pierce at 12:00AM
And, suddenly, the dogwhistles have turned into air-raid sirens.
I think, maybe, it’s time for the nation to rise up and point out to the Republican party that, root and branch, it is a racist embarrassment to democracy and a blight on this nation that all the world can see. Whether it’s N. Leroy Gingrich’s chirping about how all the black people are on food stamps, or Rick Santorum’s talking about the mysterious Blah People, or this clown whom the other clowns in the Kansas House elected to lead them, there is a steady, noxious river of bile flowing through the entire Republican party, and through the conservative “movement” that empowers it. It should marginalize the party to whatever back lot of hell it is in which a crosseyed James Earl Ray attempts to shoot an apple off the head of Byron De La Beckwith for all eternity.
No, I don’t accept your apology, you ignorant old fart. No, Rick, I don’t believe for a moment you meant to say something else and it came out “Blah people,” you Bible-banging coward. Nobody’s talking in code any more. It’s right out front there, for all the world to see. How dare these people? How dare their evil souls?
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mike-o-neal-racist-republicans-6635184#ixzz1j0wViaoo
Over 50% of stockholders in this country and abroad never worked a day in their life and they are the folks who decide/force and cause the layoffs,jobs goin’ overseas etc..Must be nice to have never EARNED a penny and have this power!Lots of silver spoon/blueblood money left over in this country frim whaling industry/trading NY and New England and lots of old plantation/slave money left over in cities in south!!!
January 09, 2012 3:30 PM
Classless Christie
By Steve Benen
I don’t find much to like about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). Political reporters tend to adore the guy — I guess for some, the “loveable loudmouth” is an archetype with appeal — but I find his policy agenda misguided, his incessant whining about President Obama misguided, and his approach to governing deeply irresponsible.
But on a more personal level, I just wish the guy had a little more class. Torie Bosch had this piece today on Christie’s ugliness yesterday.
On Sunday, Jan. 8., New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was speaking at a Romney for President rally in New Hampshire when he was interrupted by some female hecklers. It’s difficult to make out exactly what Christie’s critics were yelling, but it’s something to do with jobs going down. Ever the class act, Christie’s response: “You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart.” […]
The video … was uploaded to the New Jersey GOP’s YouTube account. They seem to think his remark about “going down” is a zinger, something to be proud of, rather than recognizing it as flagrantly demeaning, even misogynistic. How would Christie have responded to male protesters saying the same thing? Probably not by changing the subject to what acts they perform in the bedroom.
This fits in, unfortunately, with a larger pattern. Christie has a habit of trying to shout down anyone who challenges him, and the governor and his staff tend to be only too pleased to record the incidents and promote them. The public is apparently supposed to be impressed by his outbursts.
There’s just nothing admirable about a bully.
For that matter, governors — and presidential campaign surrogates, for crying out loud — should have a little better sense than to think cheap oral-sex jokes targeted at women protestors are acceptable.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/classless_christie034645.php
Drug dog busts Snoop Dogg’s bus
http://url2it.com/leqs
(CNN) — Hip hop star Snoop Dogg faces a drug charge after border agents searched his tour bus along the same stretch of a west Texas highway where singer Willie Nelson was busted in 2010, a Texas sheriff said.
Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, “freely admitted” that three prescription bottles filled with marijuana cigarettes were his, a statement from the Hudspeth County, Texas, Sheriff said.
The entertainer’s representatives did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The rapper, like Nelson, is an outspoken proponent of pot and he is known to have a license to use prescription medical marijuana in California.
The bust happened early Saturday at his bus approached the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint located in Sierra Blanca, Texas, at the U.S.-Mexico border about 85 miles southeast of El Paso, the sheriff’s statment said.
“During a routine check of U.S. citizenship the inspecting Border Patrol agent detected the odor of marijuana emitting from the inside of the vehicle and requested the driver to pull into the secondary inspection lane for further inspection,” the statement said.
A drug-detection dog sniffing inside the bus “alerted to a trash can located at the rear of the vehicle where a red prescription bottle containing rolled marijuana cigarettes were located,” the statement said. Two other containers with marijuana, weighing in all total of 0.130 pounds, were also found, it said.
“Snoop Dogg freely admitted that the marijuana belonged to him and he was placed under arrest by U.S. Border Patrol agents and detained,” it said.
He was cited for possession of drug paraphernalia, given a court date of January 20 and released, the sheriff said.
The next episode
Hold up….
Obama bans uranium mining around Grand Canyon
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/us-usa-grandcanyon-uranium-idUSTRE8081NA20120109
(Reuters) – The Obama administration banned new uranium mining claims around the Grand Canyon for the next 20 years, a move hailed by conservationists on Monday as key to the president’s environmental legacy but slammed by opponents as a job-killer.
The decision puts more than 1 million acres of public lands outside the Grand Canyon National Park off limits to all hard-rock mining for two decades, the longest moratorium allowed by law. Existing mining operations would continue.
“A withdrawal is the right approach for this priceless American landscape,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. “We have been entrusted to care for and protect our precious environmental and cultural resources and we have chosen a responsible path that makes sense for this and future generations.”
Melissa Harris-Perry:
I’m joining The Colbert Report tonight to discuss my latest book @SisterCitizen. http://bit.ly/9z50g9
Pelosi: Obama Should Run Against This Do-Nothing Congress | Video Cafe http://bit.ly/w1UPJY
Mitt Romney Likes Firing People
Trumps’s twin brother… Mitt; YOU’RE FIRED!
January 09, 2012
It’s a good idea(!)
Mitt Romney, at his little chat this morning with the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, was a veritable geyser of Babbittry. Not only did he reveal himself rather redundantly as a compassionless capitalist — a moment of infamy instantly memorialized in infinite network loops — he also ventured into the dubious populism of a bourgeois verity:
I would love to see term limits for congressmen and senators. We have one for the president. It’s a good idea.
Is this a good idea because the president has a term limit? Or does the president have a term limit because it’s a good idea? My guess as to Romney’s guess: He hasn’t a clue. One can easily imagine the depth of thought that went into this. Staff: “Hey, Governor, others around you have been proposing these limity things, and they seem to be getting a pretty good reception, so how about you proposing the same?” Governor: “Done.”
Of course the simpler verity is that term limits are a stupendously tyrannical idea, if, that is, one also believes in the bourgeois verity of the People as Sovereign. Should they wish to return to Congress the same doofus they’ve been returning for the past 30 years, then that by God is their democratically virtuous right. Its exercise may be stupid; they may be stupid; but representative democracy has never made claims to unerring intelligence. It is what it is: the People’s franchise to screw themselves by electing extraordinary doofuses — the one Constitutional right that we habitually convert to a guaranteed privilege.
I’d love to see Mitt defend his term-limit advocacy before a swarm of abnormally educated journalists, but I imagine he’ll be too busy defending his love of termination before a gaggle of sensationalist yokels instead.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/01/its-a-good-idea.html
“I Like Being Able To Fire People” Ctd
I should have noted when we ran the clip that it’s unfair to infer from this quote that Romney was talking about his time at Bain. He wasn’t. He was talking about something else entirely, extolling the benefits of choice in a marketplace. To say or imply otherwise is, well, something Romney would do if Obama said it, but we shouldn’t. This was a gaffe simply of presentation. It was how he put it, not what he said. But just as it’s true in some sense that “corporations are people,” it’s still a dumb statement for Mitt Bain Romney to be saying in this climate.
It’s also extremely dumb for Romney to say things like this:
“I know what’s it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired. There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
And like so many of his other big lies, Romney cannot substantiate it. Each time Romney tries to connect with regular voters (“I’m unemployed too”), you want to curl up onto a little ball of excruciation. Perry picked up on the latest maladroit quote immediately:
“I mean, he actually said this,” Mr. Perry told more than 100 diners at a breakfast gathering here. “Now, I have no doubt Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips — whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company, Bain Capital, of all the jobs that they killed,” Mr. Perry said. “I’m sure he was worried that he would run out of pink slips.”
And that seems to me the most telling quote of all. That Gingrich and Perry are openly using classic Democratic attack lines against Romney, especially with his record at Bain, is a sign to me that they suspect it could work. And if it can work against Romney in a Republican primary, imagine what could be done in a general election. Already, Perry has found a specific example to bring against Romney in South Carolina:
He said that people in nearby Gaffney, S.C., in particular, “would find his comments incredible,” because it is where Mr. Perry said Bain shut down a plant and fired 150 workers. “That didn’t happen until Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, they looted that company with more than $20 million in management fees.”
He also charged that Mr. Romney’s firm took $65 million in management fees out of a steel company in a deal in which 700 steelworkers in Georgetown, S.C., and Kansas City lost their jobs, their health insurance and “large portions” of their pensions.
“There’s nothing wrong with being successful and making money — that’s the American dream,” Mr. Perry said. “But there is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failures and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business. I happen to think that that is indefensible.” “If you are a victim of Bain capital’s downsizing, it’s the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain — because he caused it,” Mr. Perry said.
Jesus. “Looting”? Blaming Romney for unemployment?
Even the hardest of hardcore Republicans, like Perry, realize that this is now a populist election and their likeliest nominee is a plutocrat who stumbles every time he tried to relate to regular folks, and has a record at Bain that is a populist opponent’s dream.
Donna Brazile was onto something. Romney is a man actually ill-suited to the temper of the times. If the economy is improving sufficiently, he will also be denied his core argument, that the president has made the Bush recession worse. He’s weak. Perhaps the weakest of them all.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/i-like-being-able-to-fire-people-ctd.html
South Carolina Woman Welcomes Rick Perry: ‘Good To See Someone As Homophobic And Racist As You’
http://www.mediaite.com/online/south-carolina-woman-welcomes-rick-perry-good-to-see-someone-as-homophobic-and-racist-as-you/
A South Carolina woman greeted Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry with a hearty helping of Southern hospitality when she informed him that it’s “good to see someone as homophobic and racist as you” as the two smiled for a picture together.
9 Jan 2012 01:10 PM
When Will The GOP Change?
James Joyner expects demographic trends to eventually transform the GOP. In the near term:
Whether someone like Huntsman will be the Republican nominee in 2016 depends almost entirely on what happens these next ten months. If Romney wins the nomination and loses to Obama–both of which seem likely right now–then we’ll likely see a swing to the right in 2016, as it would reinforce in the nominating electorate the notion that nominating moderates is a recipe for disaster.
If Romney wins the nomination and beats Obama, he will, barring tragedy, be the nominee in 2016 and 2020 will proceed along something like the current path, with no lessons being learned. The only real way to speed up the learning curve–and it might take two presidential cycles even then–would be if Santorum were to get the nomination and then lose in an Electoral College landslide to Obama despite a down economy. Were that to happen, it would be hard for the base to tell themselves that they got beaten because they didn’t get behind a Real Conservative.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
Budget Director Jack Lew to take over as Chief of Staff.
TCBGP
Rick Perry says he’d send troops back to Iraq, and his poll numbers drop quicker than Herman Cain’s pants on a first date.
LMBAO
January 09, 2012 2:00 PM
Fear of pink slips
By Steve Benen
Mitt Romney tends to run into trouble when he tries to relate to Americans who are struggling. There was that time over the summer, for example, that he joked about being “unemployed.”
The multi-millionaire stumbled into a similar situation in New Hampshire yesterday, reflecting on the times he feared losing his job. “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re gonna get fired,” Romney said. “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
By all appearances, this is plainly false. Looking back over his career choices, there was simply never a moment at which Romney was likely to get fired from anything. Arguably the only people who wanted to give him a pink slip were his constituents in Massachusetts, who grew to dislike him quite a bit. But Romney didn’t give them a chance — rather than lose a re-election bid, the governor quit after one term.
Asked by reporters for an example of Romney worrying about getting fired, his campaign team offered nothing, which is generally a big hint that the candidate just made it up.
But as it turns out, Romney’s manufactured memories opened the door to a new line of attack from his Republican rivals.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry picked up the attacks on Mitt Romney this morning, trying to capitalize off the former Bain Capital executive’s comment that he once feared getting a pink slip.
“Now I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips — whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed, I’m sure he was worried that he’d run out of pink slips,” Perry told the crowd at Mama Penn’s restaurant.
Perry laid into Romney for heading a company which Perry alleged eliminated hundreds of South Carolina jobs.
“There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business and I happen to think that’s indefensible,” said Perry. “If you’re a victim of Bain Capital’s downsizing, it’s the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it.”
Ouch.
It must really be crunch time — Rick Perry’s campaign rhetoric is getting sharper and more interesting.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/fear_of_pink_slips034642.php
Romney’s Bain figures don’t add up
Posted by Ezra Klein at 11:35 AM ET, 01/09/2012
During Saturday night’s debate, Mitt Romney repeated his oft-made claim that his time at Bain Capital led to the creation of more than 100,000 jobs. George Stephanopoulos, one of the debate’s moderators, asked whether that number counted both jobs that were created and jobs that were lost. Romney’s answer was dismissive — and untrue. “It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that.”
The Romney campaign has repeatedly explained how they arrived at the 100,000 jobs figure. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, for instance, got Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom on the record. “Fehrnstrom says the 100,000 figure stems from the growth in jobs from three companies that Romney helped to start or grow while at Bain Capital: Staples (a gain of 89,000 jobs), The Sports Authority (15,000 jobs), and Domino’s (7,900 jobs). This tally obviously does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved — and are based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain.”
The American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethokoukis also asked the Romney campaign for details on their jobs number. “Here’s what the Romney campaign e-mailed me when I asked for some substantiation of the claim,” wrote Pethokoukis:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/romneys-bain-figures-dont-add-up/2011/08/25/gIQAjKhelP_blog.html
William Daley to step down as Obama’s chief of staff
By Christi Parsons
January 9, 2012, 11:00 a.m.
William Daley is stepping down as White House chief of staff and budget director Jack Lew is taking over the President Obama’s team as it heads into a tough election year, senior administration officials say.
Daley gave his letter of resignation to the president in a private meeting in the Oval Office last week, recounting the administration’s successes of his one year on the job and saying it was time for him to return to his hometown of Chicago.
Obama plans to announce the change in leadership in a public event Monday afternoon. The official shift will take place at the end of the month, giving Lew time to complete the administration’s budget proposal while Daley leads the team through the crafting of the State of the Union address due in two weeks.
The choice of Lew puts a veteran staffer of the White House, Capitol Hill and State Department in a critical position at a difficult time for the president. Obama hopes he can work through tough budget and economic issues with Congress this year despite fierce opposition from Republicans in the GOP-led House. Having a strong team captain who can deal with lawmakers, staffers and business leaders is considered crucial to their strategy.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-william-daley-to-step-down-as-obamas-chief-of-staff-20120109,0,1505407.story
Obama To Deliver Statement At 3 PM ET
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/3815
President Obama will deliver a statement at 3 p.m. ET, likely announcing the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.
January 09, 2012 12:30 PM
‘I like being able to fire people’
By Steve Benen
Mitt Romney’s detractors in both parties are eager to point out one of the more glaring problems with the former governor’s background: he’s put thousands of Americans out of work.
And with that push in mind, Romney’s critics could hardly believe their good fortune this morning when he spoke to the Nashua Chamber of Commerce in New Hampshire. Here’s the clip from the DNC:
It’s a line I guarantee voters will be hearing again: “I like being able to fire people.”
In fairness, the context makes an enormous difference. Laura Conaway reports this morning that Romney was talking about health insurance when he said, “I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.”
I think I see the point Romney was trying to get at, but for a guy with an atrocious jobs record, who got very wealthy laying off American workers, “I like being able to fire people” is a seven-word phrase that may prove tough to live down.
Dems were quick to send around the above clip, but let’s not forget that Romney’s GOP rivals noticed the quote, too. Jon Huntsman said this morning, “What’s clear is he likes firing people; I like creating jobs.”
Now, I suspect Romney and his team will insist that the line is being taken out of context, and when they make their case, the argument will have merit. But let’s not forget that Romney and his campaign have already forfeited any credibility on this subject — Team Romney’s very first television ad wrenched an Obama quote from context, on purpose, and when asked for an explanation, the former governor said he just didn’t care.
Indeed, just last month, a top Romney campaign official said all campaign messages “propaganda” and “agitprop,” so there’s no point in worrying about niceties such as context.
It leaves Romney in an awkward position: he thinks it’s acceptable to take others’ words out of context, but doesn’t want to be treated the same way.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/i_like_being_able_to_fire_peop034639.php
HuffPost Politics:
BREAKING: Obama chief of staff Bill Daley reportedly resigning http://huff.to/yY3RxE
Political AnimalBlog
January 09, 2012 1:20 PM
‘Independents’ Day
By Steve Benen
Gallup has a new report out this morning on how Americans identify themselves when it comes to political party. The results are generating a fair amount of interest, but I’d add a note of caution about the nature of “independents.”
Gallup finds 40% of American self-identify as independents, the highest percentage Gallup has ever measured since it began keeping track. Democrats are a distant second with 31%, with Republicans third at 27%.
What this doesn’t tell us, though, is that the definition of “independent” is far too vague to be of any real value. John Sides had a piece a few years ago that’s worth revisiting.
[H]ere is the problem: Most independents are closet partisans. This has been well-known in political science since at least 1992, with the publication of The Myth of the Independent Voter.
When asked a follow-up question, the vast majority of independents state that they lean toward a political party. They are the “independent leaners.” … The number of pure independents is actually quite small — perhaps 10% or so of the population. And this number has been decreasing, not increasing, since the mid-1970s. […]
The significance of independent leaners is this: they act like partisans…. There is very little difference between independent leaners and weak partisans. Approximately 75% of independent leaners are loyal partisans.
Note that the new Gallup poll shows 40% of Americans self-identify as independents, but when leaners are pressed into one side or the other, the number drops to 10% — exactly where Sides said the number would be when he wrote this more than two years ago.
A variety of pundits will frequently characterize “independents” as a group of “moderate” or “centrist” voters — as if the right sides with Republicans, the left sides with Democrats, and the middle stays “independent.”
That’s a common belief, but it’s also wrong. The Washington Post published a lengthy analysis of political independents in July 2007, based on a survey conducted by the Post in collaboration with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The result was a pretty straightforward reminder: there’s an enormous amount of political diversity among independents.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/independents_day034641.php
Hillary on the Ticket, the Zombie Idea
by BooMan
Mon Jan 9th, 2012 at 11:26:41 AM EST
Why the Obama administration would want to create a sense of doubt, disarray, and even panic by swapping out Vice-President Biden for Hillary Clinton is beyond me, but that doesn’t keep idiots like Bill Keller from revisiting the issue over and over. The reasoning is terrible. No allegation is made that Joe Biden is a liability or that he is doing a bad job.
The purpose of the change wouldn’t be that it was necessary, only that it would help Obama run-up-the-score and get a better Congress. Well, that, and it would create a better heir-apparent to Obama for the 2016 campaign. The former rationale is plausible, but also highly doubtful. Clinton could help Obama win more comfortably and have more coattails. I can’t rule that possibility out. But she could also make him look wobbly and indecisive. She would excite one element of the Democratic Party while deflating Obama’s core supporters, who presumably supported him because they saw something less than ideal in Clinton. If the president were desperate, the potential reward might outweigh the risk, but that is not currently the case. As for the latter rationale, both Clinton and Biden will be on the old side by 2016. But neither of them will be too old to run. Biden is seven years younger than Ron Paul, just to make one comparison.
If Clinton wants to run in 2016, there is no reason in the world why she would need to be the sitting vice-president to do it. She could resign from the State Department after the election, take some time off to rest and recuperate from her vigorous schedule, and then start ramping up a campaign in 2014. A little distance from the sitting administration would probably be an asset. It would give her the ability to create some separation and enjoy some maneuverability. If Obama loses his reelection, she’ll probably be the undisputed front-runner in 2016. There’s so little upside for her, that I very much doubt she wants the job. She’d probably take it if asked, but unwillingly.
It’s just a dumb idea.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/1/9/112641/3104
Romney’s Bain Capital Made Billions While Bankrupting Nearly One-Quarter Of The Companies It Invested In
By Pat Garofalo on Jan 9, 2012 at 9:25 am
2012 GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney, who has a large lead in the polls heading into the New Hampshire primary tomorrow, has been taking heat from both Democrats and his Republican challengers for his time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm that he headed. Bain’s modus operandi was to invest in companies, leverage them up with debt, and then sell them off for scrap, allowing Bain’s investors to walk away with huge profits while the companies in which Bain invested wound up in bankruptcy, laying off workers and reneging on benefits.
Last week, Reuters profiled one company, Worldwide Grinding Systems, that went belly up after Bain invested in it. The company not only lost 750 jobs, but the federal government had to come in to bail out its pension fund, while Bain walked away with millions in profits.
And according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, this was far from an isolated incident. In fact, 22 percent of the companies in which Bain invested wound up either in bankruptcy or shutting their doors entirely, while Bain itself has made billions of dollars for its investors:
The Wall Street Journal, aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain’s involvement and shortly afterward.
Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost. […]
The Journal analysis shows that in total, Bain produced about $2.5 billion in gains for its investors in the 77 deals, on about $1.1 billion invested. Overall, Bain recorded roughly 50% to 80% annual gains in this period, which experts said was among the best track records for buyout firms in that era.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/09/400404/romney-bain-bankrupts-billions/?mobile=nc
Swiss central bank chairman resigns
Philipp Hildebrand, chairman of the Swiss National Bank, has resigned with immediate effect over insider trading allegations.
Philipp Hildebrand, chairman of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), has resigned with immediate effect, the BBC has reported.
Hildebrand has been accused of speculating on currency transactions only weeks before his central bank capped the Swiss Franc, shifting prices in his favor.
It has been confirmed that Hildebrand’s wife Kashya purchased $504,000 in August, three weeks before the SNB’s intervention. According to Sky News, she made a 15 percent profit on the transaction. Hildebrand says he has since donated the profits to charity, according to the Associated Press.
Speaking at a news conference in Berne, Hildebrand said he had “no knowledge of my wife’s transaction on that day,” but had “come to the conclusion it is not possible to provide conclusive and final evidence that my wife did initiate the transaction without my knowledge.”
At a press conference in Zurich last Thursday Hildebrand denied any wrongdoing, refused to quit as SNB chairman, and vowed to fight “with all means” the accusations centred on his wife’s currency transactions.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/120109/swiss-central-bank-chairman-resigns
POLITICO:
The Supreme Court upholds a federal law that bars foreign nationals from spending to influence U.S. elections: http://politi.co/ypUVLg
January 09, 2012 10:40 AM
Making Bain the center of attention
By Steve Benen
It took a while, but Bain Capital and its victims are finally starting to become a central issue of the presidential campaign.
Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC, an outfit called Winning Our Future, is investing in a 30-minute short film about Mitt Romney’s private-equity firm and the extent to which Romney got rich laying off American workers. The Super PAC released this trailer over the weekend:
What struck me as interesting about the clip, aside from all the Romney victims, was the message at the beginning: “Capitalism made America great. Free markets, innovation, hard work — the building blocks of the American dream. But in the wrong hands, some of those dreams can turn into nightmares.”
At its root, this is a pretty liberal message. Romney believes critics of Bain Capital’s layoffs are borderline communists, trying to “put free enterprise on trial.” Gingrich’s Super PAC is arguing that capitalism is great, but not the kind of ruthless, needlessly-greedy, screw-the-workers style of capitalism Romney used to get rich.
When there’s overlap between liberal and conservative criticisms of Romney, we’ve reached an interesting stage of the larger discussion.
The DNC, meanwhile, released a new clip — its first that mentions Romney’s Bain record — which is shorter than the Gingrich Super PAC’s video, and emphasizes a different point.
This one reminds folks that Romney didn’t just lay off thousands of American workers, he also lied about the jobs his firm created.
“Mitt, why not just tell the truth?” the tagline reads.
Given the frequency with which Romney misleads the public, it’s a question that’s likely to come up quite a bit in the coming months.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/making_bain_the_center_of_atte034630.php
Saw this BAIN issue a mile coming. Had a thread on it waiting for months…
Political AnimalBlog
January 09, 2012 10:00 AM
Santorum starts to find new friends
By Steve Benen
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t much care who Gary Bauer endorses for president, but there’s a relevant backstory to this.
Bauer, for those unfamiliar with the name, is a prominent religious right leader, a veteran of the Reagan White House, and a former GOP presidential candidate (he finished fourth in Iowa in 2000, a few points ahead of John McCain). As of the weekend, Bauer is also an enthusiastic Rick Santorum supporter, traveling with the former senator to South Carolina yesterday.
Bauer … praised Santorum as “the next Ronald Reagan” while introducing him at Stax restaurant here.
“For me, Ronald Reagan has always defined what the right political prescription was for the United States,” Bauer said. “As I listened to [Santorum], I realized the next Ronald Reagan had been standing in front of me all this time and I hadn’t been paying attention.”
Now, Bauer doesn’t control a massive voting bloc, so in isolation, it’s not as if his endorsement will suddenly give Santorum a major boost towards the nomination.
I mention this, though, because we learned last week that several major religious right leaders planned to hold “an emergency meeting” in Texas on Saturday to find a “consensus” anti-Romney candidate they could coalesce behind. Bauer was one of the attendees, and a day later, he was on the campaign trail with Santorum.
It would suggest that if this Republican contingent intends to pick their horse, they’re betting on the former Pennsylvania senator (and not the disgraced former House Speaker).
In all likelihood, the right is too late. Romney won Iowa, he’ll win New Hampshire, and he’s leading in South Carolina and Florida. Conservatives knew early on they didn’t want him as their nominee, but they splintered and failed to pick a Romney rival when it could have made a difference. Sure, they’re scrambling now, and seem to be settling on Santorum, but if they wanted to have a real impact, these prominent far-right figures should have gotten their act together a month ago.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see just what kind of investments these movement conservatives are willing to make over the next week or two, and whether they have any success in driving some candidates (see Perry, Rick) from the race altogether.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/santorum_starts_to_find_new_fr034629.php
AttackWatch.com
Romney is misleading Americans about @BarackObama’s jobs record—while ignoring his own record at Bain and in MA: http://OFA.BO/QPBx6j
Dear @jodikantor…I will NEVER spend a dime on your trashy lie.
Signed
SG2
ps-rikyrah says me too!
Ditto. Amazing how many media WHORES have been strolling the Blvd. picking up any piece of info they can find on POTUS & FLOTUS since 2009. What will they do when they leave the White House after 2016?
Mitt Romney – I Like Firing People
he can’t help himself…this is who he is
President Obama Honors the 2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks
The White House
January 09, 2012 12:00 PM EST
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/
Re-election of President Barack Obama
1911 United
The super PAC is aiming to raise $1.5 million during the election cycle.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/70987.html
President Barack Obama has a new, moneyed supporter in this new year — a super PAC dedicated to mobilizing black voters in key swing states.
Calling itself 1911 United, the super PAC is aiming to raise $1.5 million during the election cycle and train its efforts on Colorado, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, committee treasurer Sinclair Skinner told POLITICO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXUIloEQaug&feature=player_embedded#!
The vision is for Nupes and Ques to work together to build an army of Obama supporters across the United States. We will encourage every supporter of our President to volunteer for at least one day, one hour, or even one minute in order to re-elect President Barack Obama. If every citizen who believes in having a competent, responsible leader can do at least ONE thing to further our President’s support across America, we will not fail.
We will encourage every supporter of our President to volunteer for at least one day, one hour, or even one minute in order to re-elect President Barack Obama. If every citizen who believes in having a competent, responsible leader can do at least ONE thing to further our President’s support across America, we will not fail.
Was 16 yrs old when in South Chicago on saturday/1959.Lots of bands on the street and I’m sure I saw/heard John Lee!Big influence on me as I’ve played blues and jazz guitar for 55 yrs.Precious Memories!
Political AnimalBlog
January 09, 2012 9:20 AM
Don’t root for public-sector job losses
By Steve Benen
Brenda Buttner, a senior business correspondent at Fox News, reflected yesterday on the latest jobs report, and made a curious comment when asked about which areas of the economy aren’t faring well.
Well, government is a little bit losing jobs. That’s something we see as a positive because we want government to lose jobs to get more in line with the private sector.”
This is not an uncommon sentiment on the right. Two months ago, George Will argued it’s “good” that the “public sector happily shrank by 24,000 jobs” in October.
When conservatives, during a jobs crisis, are cheering public-sector layoffs, insisting that thousands of additional unemployed workers is “a positive,” there’s a problem with the state of the debate.
For the left, the economic goals are inherently pragmatic — creating jobs is the top priority. When more Americans are working, they’re not only helping themselves and their family, but they’re boosting the larger economy and helping lower the deficit. For the right, as Buttner reminds us, the economic goals are philosophical — creating jobs is nice, but the real priority is shrinking government. Maybe, conservatives argue, the economy will improve when more teachers, police officers, and firefighters are unemployed and unable to spend and invest.
Reality suggests the right has it backwards, and the severe public-sector job losses are a drag on the economy, effectively serving as a counter-stimulus. David Leonhardt described this a while back as “an unforced economic error” — the federal government can prevent these layoffs, keep these workers on the job, and help the larger economy, but Republicans don’t want to.
With all of the problems we can’t control, this is one problem we know exactly how to prevent, but choose not to, because, as Buttner put it, “we want government to lose jobs,” forcing thousands of public-sector employees into unemployment during a jobs crisis.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/dont_root_for_publicsector_job034628.php
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Romney’s A ‘Job Cremator’
Benjy Sarlin January 7, 2012, 6:09 PM
Democrats are in full force at Saturday night’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, ostensibly to rebut the GOP field, but in practice mostly to go after frontrunner Mitt Romney.
Well, not necessarily, the frontrunner. In an interview with TPM at St. Anselm College in Manchester, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz pushed back against any premature pronouncements of Romney’s inevitable nomination.
“I would not put the cart before the horse and define him as an unambiguous frontrunner,” DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told TPM in an interview at St. Anselm College in Manchester. “He’s coming off what at some point probably wont even be defined as a win in Iowa where fewer voters came out for him than came out in 2008.” She added that anything less than 50% in New Hampshire should be interpreted as a sign of weakness given his close ties to the state.
Nonetheless, as polls show Romney threatening to secure the nomination early, Democrats are unveiling new campaigns to try to define his business experience as more Gorden Gekko than Steve Jobs. Party officials have been holding press events in Iowa and New Hampshire with Randy Johnson, a worker who was laid off from his job at American Pad and Paper under Bain Capital’s management in the 1990s, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that Bain’s layoffs under Mitt Romney will be a critical part of their general election strategy should he win the nomination. Romney says that his opponents are cherry-picking his failures and ignoring success stories like Staples, but his campaign has been unable to substantiate its claims that he created net jobs and critics note that even some of Bain’s failures ended up creating a profit for Romney and his fellow investors through consulting fees and dividends.
“Mitt Romney, I think, is more of a job cremator than a job creator,” Schultz said. She added: “He was a corporate buyout specialist at Bain Capital. He dismantled companies. He cut jobs. He forced companies into bankruptcy and he outsourced jobs and sent jobs overseas. That’s not a record to write home about, that’s not a record to be proud of, and it’s something voters need to know.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/republicans-rebut-romney-attacks-with-bizarre-solyndra-analogy.php
Republicans Rebut Bain Attacks With Bizarre Solyndra Analogy
Pema Levy January 8, 2012, 1:50 PM
On Sunday, Republicans tried to fend off Democratic attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, by drawing the following analogy: Romney is to Bain Capital as President Obama is to Solyndra.
It began on Fox News Sunday, when host Chris Wallace turned to his guest, DNC Chairwoman and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) with a question comparing Romney’s work at Bain to President Obama’s relationship to the failed solar energy company Solyndra, which went bankrupt after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. “You go after Romney for laying off people, correct?” Wallace said. “Let me ask you about that. Is the President responsible for laying off the people of Solyndra?”
The comparison is misguided on many levels and only makes sense if you fundamentally misrepresent both what private equity at Bain meant in practice, and what happened at Solyndra. As a private equity firm, Bain Capital invested in companies and came up with a plan for making them profitable, or more profitable than they previously were. It wasn’t merely a loan — that’s venture capitalism — because it included a business strategy. Sometimes the plan was to lay off workers and cut wages and benefits. Sometimes the strategy failed and the company went under. But Romney, as CEO of Bain, was in charge of strategies that called for laying off workers while benefiting shareholders. None of that is true of Solyndra, where the company was loaned money to follow through on its own projects but ultimately failed anyway.
That’s the argument Wasserman Schultz gave Sunday morning, and Wallace and the chairwoman went back and forth. Here’s some of the exchange:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/republicans-rebut-romney-attacks-with-bizarre-solyndra-analogy.php
Gov. Romney’s Party-First Approach To Serving Our Country
January 08, 2012 2:36 pm ET — Brian Powell
In Saturday night’s GOP presidential debate on ABC News, Mitt Romney attacked Jon Huntsman for serving as an ambassador to China under a Democratic president. The Hill described the back-and-forth:
“You were for the last two years implementing the policy of this administration in China. The rest of us were doing our best to get Republicans elected” and put an end to Obama’s policies, Romney said.
Huntsman came back at Romney with an unusual trump card: His knowledge of Mandarin Chinese.
“It’s important to note, as they say in China,” Huntsman said before uttering a phrase in Chinese that left the audience baffled.
Huntsman, whose nomination to the post was unanimously approved by the Senate (a rather remarkable feat these days), responded on Sunday morning’s Meet the Press debate on NBC, noting, “I was criticized last night by Governor Romney for putting my country first. … He criticized me, while he was out raising money, for serving my country in China. Yes, under a Democrat. Like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy. They’re not asking what political affiliation he is.”
HUNTSMAN: Let me say, first of all with respect to Governor Romney. You know, there are a lot of people who are tuning in this morning, and I’m sure they’re terribly confused after watching all this political spin up here. I was criticized last night by Governor Romney for putting my country first.
And I just want to remind the people here in New Hampshire and throughout the United States, that I think- He criticized me, while he was out raising money, for serving my country in China. Yes, under a Democrat, like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy; they’re not asking what political affiliation the president is. I want to be very clear with the people here in New Hampshire and this country — I will always put my country first, and I think that’s important to them.
ROMNEY: I think we serve our country first by standing for people who believe in conservative principles, and doing everything in our power to promote an agenda that does not include President Obama’s agenda. I think the decision to go and work for President Obama is one which you took — I don’t disrespect your decision to do that. I just think it’s most likely that the person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China.
HUNTSMAN: This nation is divided, David, because of attitudes like that.
http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201201080003
Monday, January 9, 2012
Some Of Newt’s Best Friends Are Black, You Know
Posted by Zandar
I’ve talked about the difference between racism and assumption of privilege before, but every now and again somebody managed to do both at the same time, like Newt Gingrich. And every now and again, people like Gingrich get called out on it.
At a town hall event meant to appeal to Latino voters at a Mexican restaurant in Manchester, an African-American man confronted Gingrich about recent comments he made that have drawn the ire of the NACCP and other civil rights leader. Gingrich controversially said last week, “I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”
Now, that was bad enough, but the reality is Gingrich’s assumption that the majority of SNAP recipients are African-American males is also completely and totally wrong. The largest plurality are white children, as a matter of fact. And only 8% of people on SNAP received additional federal welfare benefits, while 4% recieved additional state benefits. That’s it.
Today, someone called Newt on it, a black small business owner who took offense at Gingrich assuming all black people take food stamps.
LAMOTHE: My question to you is, do think blacks represent an American problem. And if you don’t think that, when you start using blacks in general as a stepping stone or a punching bag–
GINGRICH: I didn’t say that. I just want to say that frankly this makes me very irritated. The Democratic National Committee took totally out of context half of the sentence, OK? I mean clearly somebody who’s served with Colin Powell, who has served with Condoleezza Rice, I have a fairly good sense of the fact that African Americans have many contributions to America.
And yes, Newt went there with “How dare you! Some of my best friends are black!” Which never, ever works. Just because you have a black co-worker at your lobbyist job doesn’t mean you can’t be a bigoted prick making idiotically false assumptions about minorities. It becomes a hundred times worse when those false assumptions form the basis of your Presidential campaign.
Since Gingrich prides himself on running a “fact-based” campaign as he mentioned in Saturday’s debate, it’s all the more awful that Gingrich is happily playing the race card. The logical conclusion is that he’s running on taking away the safety net from all people by attacking black people, so that white people won’t miss it, which is the real thrust of all this lovely bigotry.
It works like this: Republicans want to eliminate as many social programs and services as they can in order to give more money to the wealthy. In order to do this, they need to get the people to vote against their self-interests. In order to do THAT, they need to stigmatize social programs and pretend that they’re only used by a particular “bad” minority group, signalling that the candidate will work to only take those social programs away from those groups and not the “good” majority.
The joke is of course on them. The most effective political marketing movement in the last 30 years has been making the middle-class vote against their own self-interests. Wages have stagnated for a generation, and Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) have led the charge in convincing the country that the means to help rectify the massive income and wealth inequality in this country need to be completely eliminated in order to “fix” the problem. It’s like saying the best therapy for chronic heart disease is to stop spending money on that expensive medicine and doctor’s visits and hospital stays, and getting rid of all three because really, those are costing you more money than it’s worth.
And so it goes, the GOP scapegoat plan. On social programs it’s blacks. On immigration it’s Latinos. On marriage and civil rights it’s gays. It’s been working for years. Now they don’t even hide it anymore in the Age of Austerity. We’re fighting over the scraps from the lord’s table.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2012/01/some-of-newts-best-friends-are-black.html
January 09, 2012 8:00 AM
Telling falsehoods for no good reason
By Steve Benen
Newt Gingrich’s status in the Republican presidential campaign went from “frontrunner” to “barely hanging on” over the course of about two weeks. There’s no great mystery as to why: $4 million in attack ads from Mitt Romney’s Super PAC tore the disgraced former House Speaker to shreds.
Gingrich, not surprisingly, is pretty unhappy about it, and pressed Romney on the point in yesterday’s debate. The former governor had an interesting response. First, there was this line:
“With regards to their ads, I haven’t seen ‘em.”
That was followed 14 seconds later with this line:
“The ad I saw said that…”
At that point, Romney proceeded to describe the contents of the attack ad that he hadn’t seen in quite a bit of detail.
It wasn’t long before the Democratic National Committee was highlighting the bizarre contradiction.
Of particular interest was a piece from Ben Smith’s BuzzFeed, which noted Romney’s “inexplicable debate fibs” and “odd, small shadings of truth.”
This is a real danger for Romney. Some of his lies are less obvious to campaign reporters, because they require a little fact-checking research. But this one was obvious to anyone awake during the debate — Romney couldn’t possibly know the script of an ad he knew nothing about. And once he develops a well-deserved reputation as someone who’s willing to routinely say things that aren’t true, it has the potential to do significant damage to his credibility.
Also note, Romney didn’t have to lie about this; the truth would have been just as good. But we’re reaching the point at which Romney is telling falsehoods reflexively, without thinking it through.
“Inexplicable,” indeed.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/telling_falsehoods_for_no_good034625.php
January 09, 2012 8:35 AM
Turning ‘country first’ on its head
By Steve Benen
There are quite a few elements to Jon Huntsman’s background and ideology that contribute to his struggling campaign, but his service in the Obama administration is probably near the top of the list. Republicans voters are desperate to replace President Obama, and one of the GOP candidates worked for the president as recently as eight months ago.
In Saturday night’s debate, Mitt Romney, who probably sees the former Utah governor as a mild threat in New Hampshire, pressed the point, telling Huntsman, “[Y]ou were, the last two years, implementing the policies of this administration in China. The rest of us on this stage were doing our best to get Republicans elected across the country and stop the policies of this president from being put forward.”
It took 12 hours, but Huntsman thought of a good response, explaining in Sunday morning’s debate that he, like his two sons currently serving in the Navy, has been willing to serve under a Democratic president. “I want to be very clear with the people here in New Hampshire and this country — I will always put my country first,” Huntsman said.
Brian Powell flagged Romney’s fascinating retort.
“I think we serve our country first by standing for people who believe in conservative principles, and doing everything in our power to promote an agenda that does not include President Obama’s agenda.”
Think about that for a moment. As far as Romney is concerned, putting country first means putting country second — or perhaps third, behind ideology and party.
Or as Powell put it, “Essentially, he’s saying Americans serve the country best by serving the Republican Party first.”
For what it’s worth, Huntsman has decided to effectively make this his closing statement, trying to turn his Obama administration service into a positive. He spent yesterday afternoon pushing the “country first” message, and last night, argued, “Mr. Romney apparently believes in putting politics first.”
The problem for Huntsman may be that he’s out of step, again, with his party — the Republican base very likely agrees with Romney, and believes “putting country first” means pushing a far-right agenda and refusing to compromise with Democrats.
But I also suspect outside the GOP base, Romney’s insistence of putting party and ideology above all is rather offensive.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/turning_country_first_on_its_h034627.php
and this is another good comment from The Obama Diary:
Chi
January 9, 2012 at 4:55 am
Thanks as always dear Chips…
I too read the Chicago magazine interview with Jodi Kantor that the lurker references and I came away with a completely different impression of this Jodi Kantor person and her book than Lurker apparently did…
For starters, Jodi Kantor was asked if she’d ever been inside the private residence and she’d never been…
That is very telling…
The very sly Ms Kantor seeing where the interviewer was going with that question, and to save face, quickly threw in the bit about how the Clintons had never had dinner with the Obamas at their residence and how Mrs Obama sees the residence as Sasha and Malia’s home…
If they never even let her have a peek of their home as she interviewed them and even as she snooped around the East wing…they never trusted her…
The Obamas never trusted this woman, but knew that she was going to write this book anyway whether they liked it or not…
And something tells me they realized she was going to do a book only *after* they gave her the one and only NYT interview in 2009…
It all probably was just about giving her access to write articles for the NYT on the East wing and its activities initially, but like all slimy opportunists, Ms Kantor turned every bland detail of routine low level activity at the WH into a book on the Obamas…
Jodi Kantor and the NYT were going to write their version of things and in true President And Mrs Obama form, having absolutely nothing to hide, they declined to be interviewed but did not stop any of their staff or friends from independently making a decision to correct any falsehoods Jodi Kantor was going to spin…
This book serves absolutely no purpose beyond lining Jodi Kantors pockets…
But ill-gotten wealth never served the reaper any good…
Jodi will never enjoy any money she make from writing this book – if anything, it will only bring her lots of pain, misery, loss, agony and a lifetime of tears and heartache…
Karma…
http://theobamadiary.com/2012/01/08/a-word-from-diane/
found this over at The Obama Diary:
From Diane (from this comment):
Hi TODers,
I have been a daily lurker here for a long time. So long in fact that I feel that I know most of you. I never had any intentions to actually post a message, but something has been rolling around in my brain for several days and I can’t shake it.
I have been deeply disturbed by the book trashing Michelle Obama. I KNOW that FLOTUS is a strong and confident woman, and I am sure she considers the source and has moved on. However, I put myself in her shoes and I am sure some of these lies must sting. She has worked her heart out for all of us for three years, not counting the grueling campaign to the WH. Is it too much to ask to be treated with respect she has earned and certainly deserves?
So in honor of her, and to assure her that I have her back and that she has my respect and love, I am donating money to the campaign in increments of $24.00 from now on. This $24.00 is the same number of minutes that Jodi Kanter actually spent at the WH. I am planning to send a different friend a card with each $24 donation explaining that this is my personal monetary message of support for the first lady. I will ask each friend to also send a $24 donation and refrain from buying the book (the approximate value of a hard cover book).
I am hoping that other people will also do the same. For each $24 donation Michelle will know that there are many who have her back, and are taking the money Jodi Kantor thought to received and sending it were it truly belongs. Imagine the impact if suddenly $24 donations started pouring in from woman who also encouraged their friends to do the same. It is just a thought and I am doing it, but for some reason I felt I had to share this to see if others here felt the same.
Now that I have gotten that off of my mind, I just want to say how much I love this place and all of you. I may not post again, but I am learning loads from you and I am always here reading your news.
http://theobamadiary.com/2012/01/08/a-word-from-diane/
Barricaded Inside His Show
By DAVID CARR
Published: January 8, 2012
When I saw the story last week about Keith Olbermann and Current TV lawyering up, I couldn’t help thinking, My, that was quick.
It was just six months ago that I wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine about the well-traveled anchor’s bold new partnership with Current TV, the low-rated liberal cable channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore.
I wondered how Current TV and the hot-headed Mr. Olbermann would get along, but back then, it was all hugs and hopeful rhetoric. At a Yankees game I attended with Mr. Olbermann, he said he was looking forward to working at a place where he would hold the title of chief news officer and where the corporate meddling would be at a minimum. Mr. Gore was similarly upbeat in a phone conversation for the article.
“Yes, he is a piece of work in all that that implies, but I have read all kinds of things about him and the Keith Olbermann I know is a good friend, extremely intelligent and uniformly positive,” Mr. Gore told me, adding, “The relationship is way more textured than owners and an employee. We are partners and friends, and this will be the first time that he has been an equity participant and co-owner of a channel that he works at.”
That didn’t seem to count for much on Tuesday night when Mr. Gore found himself participating in Current TV’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses while Mr. Olbermann was nowhere in sight. Without the star power of Mr. Olbermann and the trappings of a well-financed news outfit, the former vice president looked as if he were trapped in the studio of a midsize public access station.
Meanwhile, Mr. Olbermann refused to participate in any programming outside the parameters of his regularly scheduled “Countdown,” a show where he has all but taken himself hostage by broadcasting against a black backdrop. The motif scans as a running protest against the technical problems at the channel, with a candle lit to mark the start of the vigil. That nice, gooey start-up rhetoric now seems very far away.
Mr. Olbermann did excellent on-air work for CNN, Fox, ESPN, and MSNBC, but that never stopped him from burning bridges faster than they could be built. It rarely ended well in spite of his skills.
As it turned out, past performance was a good predictor of results going forward. Current executives have been reduced to communicating with their biggest talent through his manager and lawyer, with both sides working the media to get their story out. By creating drama in yet another high-profile assignment, Mr. Olbermann could be running out of options, but don’t bet the house on that, given how desperate cable channels are for anyone who can generate ratings, never mind the rough edges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/business/media/at-current-tv-keith-olbermann-is-trapped-inside-his-show.html?_r=1
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone. Sweet words of inspiration, SG2. Thank you! :-)
Morning! You’re welcome!