Good Morning.
As we celebrate James Bond this week, we turn to first of the post-Connery Bonds: George Lazenby.
James Bond (1969)
In 1968, after Sean Connery quit the role of James Bond, producer Albert R. Broccoli first met Lazenby when getting their hair cut at the same barber.[6] He later saw him in the Big Fry commercial and felt he could be a possible Bond, calling him in for a screen test.[7]
Lazenby dressed for the part by sporting several sartorial Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row suit (ordered, but uncollected, by Connery).[8] Broccoli offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression.[7][9] Lazenby won the role based on a screen-test fight scene, the strength of his interviews, fight skills and audition footage.[10] Director Peter Hunt later claimed:
We wanted someone who oozed sexual assurance, and we think this fellow has that. Just wait til the women see him on screen… I am not saying he is an actor. There is a great deal of difference between an actor and a film star. Didn’t they find Gary Cooper when he was an electrician?[11]
During the production of the film, Lazenby’s voice was dubbed over with George Baker’s[12] in scenes in which Bond impersonated Sir Hilary Bray (Baker’s character), something not traditionally done with a leading actor whose original language is English. According to an interview, Lazenby experienced difficulties on the set stemming from director Peter R. Hunt’s refusal to speak directly with him, and Hunt’s brusqueness in asking Lazenby’s friends to clear the set before filming.[13]
[edit] Leaving Bond
In November 1969, prior to the release of the film, Lazenby announced that he no longer wished to play the role of James Bond. “They made me feel like I was mindless,” he said about the film’s producers. “They disregarded everything I suggested simply because I hadn’t been in the film business like them for about a thousand years.”[14]
His co-star Diana Rigg was among many who commented on this decision:
The role made Sean Connery a millionaire. It made Sean Connery… I truly don’t know what’s happening in George’s mind so I can only speak of my reaction. I think its a pretty foolish move. I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody in this business has to do – has to do – then he should do it quietly and with humility. Everybody has to do it. There are few instant successes in the film business. And the instant successes one usually associates with somebody who is willing to learn anyway.[15]
Lazenby’s James Bond did something no other Bond has done: he became a one-woman man and got married.
Of course, it didn’t last. James Bond wouldn’t be James Bond being tied down.
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Chickenshit muthafucka
Disney to make new ‘Star Wars’ films after buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion
Oct. 30, 2012, 5:48 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A decade after George Lucas said “Star Wars” was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy is destined for theaters, since The Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it was buying Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion.
The seventh movie, with a working title of “Episode 7,” is set for release in 2015. Episodes 8 and 9 will follow. The new trilogy will carry the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond “Return of the Jedi,” the third film released and the sixth in the saga. After that, Disney plans a new “Star Wars” movie every two or three years. Lucas will serve as the creative consultant for the new movies.
“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see ‘Star Wars’ passed from one generation to the next,” said Lucas, chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm Ltd. “It’s now time for me to pass ‘Star Wars’ on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that ‘Star Wars’ could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.”
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=771595
Evan Axelbank @EvanAxelbank
Worried GOPer leaked memo to me because they wanted to motivate the base, show that loss is possible @MittRomney @OFA_FL @wptv at 11
Evan Axelbank Evan Axelbank @EvanAxelbank
Memo: Dems lead early voting 60 to 22 in PBC, similar to 08. If you add returned AB ballots to EV by party, Dems like by 30k in PBC @OFA_FL
Evan Axelbank Evan Axelbank @EvanAxelbank
The memo from an adviser to a #GOP GOP campaign says “Democrat turnout machine is cleaning our clock.” @OFA_FL @MittRomney
Evan Axelbank Evan Axelbank @EvanAxelbank
Tonight I’m reporting on a leaked #GOP campaign memo on ground game. It says GOP is losing effort to Dems, warns down-ticket races
found this in the comments at POU:
jds09
Aquagranny, I really think Romney’s dream is for the American people to have nothing and become so desperate for any job that we are scaling the barbed wire walls to get into a factory. When he retold that factory tour story, its was aspirational for him. I truly believe he sees the presidency as a business opportunity. But instead of outsourcing he will help create a cheap labor market that rivals China
“The problem is this,” Reid said. “My concern is that Karl Rove and 17 angry old white men are trying to buy the election. And that’s the truth. You have (Las Vegas Sands casino billionaire Sheldon) Adelson, the Koch brothers (billionaires David and Charles). You have (billionaire Harold) Simmons of Texas. They are literally trying to buy the election. Think about this. The day after the election, Karl Rove sits down and talks to the 17 angry old white guys and says, ‘Hey, listen guys, we just bought America. And we’re still rich.’ That’s the concern that we all have.”
http://www.lvrj.com/news/nursing-sore-ribs-reid-continues-battering-republicans-176383851.html
Joy Reid
@TheReidReport
I find the #NateSilverTruthers amusing. Interesting that so many of them happen to be at @politico … #ahem
1:37pm Tues Oct 30
Bill Burton @billburton716 12m
From our new private polls: The President is holding narrow but steady leads in CO, NV, OH, VA & WI. Dead heat in FL & IA where we’re up 1
kennethgriffith@kennethgriffith
OBAMA CAMPAIGN ASKS ATTORNEY GENERAL TO INVESTIGATE ILLEGAL TACTICS BEING TAUGHT IN ROMNEY POLL WATCHERS TRAINING PROGR http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1152756
___________
I’ll talk with you guys later on..
Venture capitalist Einhorn behind ‘voter fraud’ billboards
http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/10/30/venture-capitalist-einhorn-behind-voter-fraud-billboards/
Billboards warning communities of color in Ohio and Wisconsin that voter fraud can lead to jail time were put up by a group led by a Milwaukee-based venture capitalist and donor to Mitt Romney and the Tea Party movement, an investigation by NBC’s theGrio has found.
The billboards—which carried the unnecessary (and some might say, intimidating) warning that “VOTER FRAUD IS A FELONY!”—have been removed by the company that erected them in the first place, Clear Channel. They did so after previously defending their own “mistake” and violation of Clear Channel policy—taking payment from an anonymous client for ads, and then allowing that anonymous client to remain anonymous on the advertisement itself. Perhaps plagued by a sudden attack of conscience a week ago Saturday, the company gave the client a choice: either reveal yourself, or the ads need to come down. The client chose to have the ads come down, and to remain anonymous.
But that anonymity lasted about a week. A joint investigation by our colleagues at theGrio and the issue-advocacy group One Wisconsin Now pulled back the curtain a bit:
One Wisconsin Now and theGrio discovered that a little-known non-profit, the Einhorn Family Foundation, based in Milwaukee, was behind the 2010 and 2012 Milwaukee area billboard campaigns. The Einhorn Foundation, led by the family patriarch, Steven Einhorn, is just one of a constellation of conservative organizations that go beyond Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers behind much of the tea party funding, who have become familiar to those watching the rise of “dark money” in American elections since the Citizens United decision in the U.S. Supreme Court.
______________________
I want to know …are certain people above the law? Do the laws of our Nation not pertain to the rich and wealthy? IF voter intimidation and voter suppression is a federal crime, then ENFORCE the damn law.
Do you know of any rich or privlidged,people in a real jail or prison,l don’t.Let’s face it if they have money they do not show up in regular population,they get a clean,kushy cell that’s like a country club,and of coarce we would not know how to act there unless,we was picking up dirty dishes or mopping the floor,and toilets.They just payoff who ever needs to be paid and their back out in public doing,the same dirty things all over again.THESE RACIEST jerks would put an ass—- in office no matter how many lies he tells and they are down right cought in the act lies,and some americans are so stupid they will settle for lies,cheats,and someone that will ruin our lifes forever just because he’s white,go figure.ANSWER:THE LAWS ONLY APPLY TO PEONS LIKE US. ENFORCE THE RICH PFT! DON’T THINK SO.
Not sure if this was posted Chicas, but it’s so important.
EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/30/1106961/romney-wisconsin-poll-watchers/
Mitt Romney’s campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters’ rights.
Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher training obtained by ThinkProgress contain several misleading or untrue claims about the rights of Wisconsin voters. A source passed along the following packet of documents, which was distributed to volunteers at a Romney campaign training in Racine on October 25th. In total, eight such trainings were held across the state in the past two weeks and 17 since late September.
One blatant falsehood occurs on page 5 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any “person [who] has been convicted of treason, a felony, or bribery” isn’t eligible to vote. This is not true. Once a Wisconsin voter who has been convicted of a felony completes his or her sentence, that person is once again eligible to vote.
__________________
I want to know …are certain people above the law? Do the laws of our Nation not pertain to the rich and wealthy?
YEP!
That’s the $64,000 question, SG2. Don’t forget white male; they think they are above the laws of this land.
Jackson takes 98 year mother to the poll in Milwaukee
Just so folks know….we love, honor and respect our ELDERS. Where I come from…we say”yes ma’am”/ “yes sir”. Answering them in any other way is considered a sin. :)
this picture makes me smile.
and SG2, you are on point.
Joanna Jenkins, 108-Year-Old South Carolina Woman, Votes For The Very First Time (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/27/joanna-jenkina-108-year-o_n_2026613.html
The upcoming election will be significant for many first-time voters. But for one South Carolina woman, the day will be truly memorable as she casts her first vote ever — at the age of 108.
According to NBC News, Joanna Jenkins, from Beaufort, South Carolina, will finally cast her first vote after being registered as an absentee voter this year.
“She’s just excited, she wants to vote this year, we were looking at the election, and as the debates were going on she decided she wants to vote all of a sudden. She just wants to vote, she wants to vote and is excited to vote,” her cousin, Shirley Lee told KSDK.
Since Jenkins can’t read or write, and does not have a state issued ID, her family didn’t think she’d be eligible to vote. However with a little help from her doctor and the Beaufort County Board of Elections, Jenkins is now registered as an absentee voter.
Elections officials say her case is extremely unusual.
“It’s incredible, she grew up in a time when Jim Crow laws were fully in effect, and minority voter suppression was the norm, and to vote was a fight not a right. She is a great example to others that it’s never too late to vote and you should always exercise your right,” Director of Elections Scott Marshall told WCSH.
Which candidate has the 108-year-old’s loyalty?
“Obama!!” she told WCSH.
God Bless Her! Love her for as long as you can,it’s never the same when they go home.
You go Ms. Joanna Jenkins! We will not be going back Mitt Romney & GOP. Go to HELL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nYkduh0TY8&feature=player_embedded
FUCK YOU, MITT ROMNEY
LOVE IT!LOVE IT!LOVE IT!
Great button i want one.
Afternoon everyone!
Just checking in. I’m back from the doc. and in a lot of pain. I’ll catch up with you guys later. I hate pain. It makes me cry. :(
Rest up and get your pain managed, SG2.
Thank you. I’m going to be on for a minute. The pain is easing up a little bit. I have a couple of stories to post that I think our reading community will enjoy. It’s too precious for words. Brings tears to my eyes. Check them out in a bit.
HOPE YOUR BETTER SOON.
rest and get better SG2
Thank you everyone for the well wishes and encouragement. I’m still having some pain. I am up at this hour to take my medication and put a heat wrap to my back. When I cough or sneeze it feels like my back is being ripped apart. It hurts like everything! **sniff**
PBO with staf and volunteers at Red Cross.
Four years later: A look at our economy
October 29, 2012
Four years ago, President Obama took office amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Our economy bled millions of jobs thanks to the economic policies that Mitt Romney hopes to return to. But under the President’s leadership, the economy has added 5.2 million private sector jobs over the last 31 months. The U.S. auto industry is roaring back, adding new auto jobs across the country.
While we’re on the right track, there’s still more to do. But it’s important to note the progress we’ve made and how the policies President Obama is putting in place are helping strengthen our economy. Take a look at some key economic measures of where we stand today:
Sorry, you gotta click on the link and read on: LOL
http://www.barackobama.com/truth-team/entry/four-years-later-a-look-at-our-economy
LEARN HOW OBAMACARE BENEFITS YOU:
http://my.barackobama.com/Forward-This-Obamacare
Today, Mitt Romney continues to push his wildly misleading ad about Jeep shifting production to China—a claim that Chrysler, as well as scores of independent fact-checkers, have thoroughly debunked.
Chrysler has no intention of shifting production—see why Romney’s claim doesn’t pass the smell test: http://bit.ly/S8IuEC
Despite the facts, Romney has refused to take down the ad. Newspapers and commentators across the country are highlighting the dishonesty –Truth Team has a roundup: http://bit.ly/T1kzal
Obama for America has released an ad that highlights the truth about Mitt Romney and the auto industry: http://bit.ly/PF8f2E
Business Insider on why Romney’s ad is “the type of fear-mongering that no one wants in a president”: http://read.bi/SeOXOi
Politifact rates the claim “Pants on Fire”: http://bit.ly/V5n4wL
The Washington Post gives it “Four Pinocchios”: http://wapo.st/RnjEiE
Hi folks. If you want to help Hurricane Sandy victims:
You can donate to response efforts at http://www.redcross.org.
Posted at 12:50 PM ET, 10/30/2012
Oct 30, 2012 04:50 PM EDT
TheWashingtonPost
Explaining Romney’s dishonesty on the auto-bailout
By Greg Sargent
A reader emails me with a great point that gets right to the heart of why Mitt Romney has had to dissemble so extensively about the auto rescue and his own ill fated opposition to it:
I’d only add one point. Romney’s opposition to the auto rescue, and the subsequent rebound of the industry, undermine Romney’s whole philosophical opposition to government intervention in the economy, which is at the core of his differences with Barack Obama over the most important issue facing the country right now — i.e., how best to ensure the country’s recovery and restore economic security for the middle class. It’s mostly forgotten now, but Romney didn’t just oppose the auto rescue; he predicted that government interference of the sort Obama pursued would ultimately destroy the industry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/explaining-romneys-dishonesty-on-the-auto-bailout/2012/10/30/646b2cda-22af-11e2-8448-81b1ce7d6978_blog.html
Turnaround my ass,he screws the worker,out of work,health insurance,pensions and your life.He needs to be turned around and screwed in the -s- and in a year ask him how he likes it.You cannot beleive a word out of romneys mouth why start now.I live in mich and i stopped takeing the detroit news today because they endorced that jerk,I’ll be damned,to support a man that said let detroit go bankrupt,he would have done to the car industry what he did to bain.Wake up people.
Posted at 02:35 PM ET, 10/30/2012
Romney’s astonishingly dishonest Jeep-to-China radio ad
By Greg Sargent
I noted below that the Romney campaign has broadened its Jeep-to-China ad campaign by putting a version of its earlier TV ad on the radio in Toledo, Ohio, home to a Jeep plant.
I’ve got audio of the ad from a Democrat — it’s posted below — and it is even more staggering in its dishonesty than the TV spot is. Here’s the script:
Romney’s new ad suggests that the auto bailout did not save the industry for Ohio, and saved it for China instead. That alone is a pretty big whopper. The ad then strongly implies that the Jeep/China news constitutes a breaking of the auto bailout’s promise to Ohio auto workers — that it proves the auto bailout is not helping them, that it has let them down. But as Fiat’s chief executive reiterated today, Chrysler is not moving any American Jeep production to China. It is returning production to that country for the Chinese market. Not only that, but Chrysler is planning to add Jeep jobs in the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Typical Romney…
By Dennis G. October 30th, 2012
Following on Kay’s post, I wanted to underscore how disgusting it is that Mitt Romney is using Hurricane Sandy as a campaign prop. He held the exact same rally that he had planned, but pretended it was for “disaster relief”. Such bullshit is typical Romney. He held a full-on campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio—nothing more. We are a week out and he is entitled to campaign how he wants and where he wants, regardless of any other current event.
But Romney is shameless. He wants to use Sandy’s destruction as a media hook, so he re-branded his rally for the stupid and gullible members of the press as a “storm relief’ effort. To underscore the stupid deception, Mitt asked attendees to bring can goods to the rally, as if random truckloads of unsorted can goods flooding a disaster area are useful. The Red Cross is pretty specific that these kinds of efforts produce piles of supplies that cannot be used and cause real problems for relief efforts:
Does the American Red Cross accept donated goods?
Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel.
Theatrical can good drives are the kinds of things that people do when they want to pretend they care—as long as the cameras are rolling (and yes, it was only a photo op). It is not a surprise that it is what Mitt is doing. I would bet that everything collected at the rally ends up in a landfill.
If you want to help: send money. Here is the link to the Red Cross disaster relief.
If Mitt was serious about disaster relief he would ask his supporters to only do that, but loading cans on trucks makes for a good “I care” photo op, so he asks for props. That Mitt is asking his supporters to drop off their spare cans of Spotted Dick and jars of Grey Poupon tells you all you need to know.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/10/30/typical-romney/
A Question For the 73% of White Evangelicals Who Say They’re Voting for Romney
According to polls 73 percent of WHITE evangelicals will be voting for Mitt Romney.
If the polls are correct here’s the question I’d like to ask evangelicals using their own style of language/concerns/theological thinking as applied to their choice:
What’s the explanation for the fact that WHITE American evangelicals made the allegedly philandering lying ignorant braggart lapsed Roman Catholic Dinesh D’Souza their anti-Obama hero, embrace a pro-choice Mormon bishop who promoted abortion and Planned Parenthood in MA, are working to elect a job-destroying tax-avoiding lying flip-flopping-tell-anyone-anything-they-want-to-hear Swiss bank account collecting draft dodger running with a disciple of the God-hating, Jesus-mocking hater-of-the-poor Ayn Rand, for their presidential candidate and look the other way as a crazed ultra-Zionist many Israeli Jews fear billionaire casino owner who is being investigated for allegedly making billions off the dirtiest Chinese gambling Communist Party-controlled outfit in the world funds the enterprise, at the very same time as Franklin Graham sold his ailing father Billy’s soul and denied core evangelical theology by taking Mormonism off the Billy Graham organization’s list of cults in order to help the Mormon pagan-ritual-performing, Trinity-denying, casino-money-grubbing billionaire-coddling, earth-destroying global-warming denying Mormon bishop win respectability for his dead-Jews-baptizing-polygamy-rooted-reality-denying-interplanetary Masonic lodge-embracing faith in an election against an exemplary modest faithful husband good father compassionate smart BLACK evangelical Christian President who’s major accomplishments include saving the economy, ending a war, killing our greatest enemy, giving health care to children and the poor and the “least of these” and who has tried to reduce the number of abortions by helping women escape poverty in a reenactment of the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan?
Go figure.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/a-question-for-the-73-of-_b_2033645.html
Ben LaBolt @BenLaBolt 4m
The Romney camp admits today current map doesn’t get them to 270. Down in key states. Desperately looking for new paths: PA, MI, MN.
Retweeted by allanbrauer
The Final Days, the Biggest Issue, and the Clearest Choice
By Robert Reich
As we go into the final days of a dismal presidential campaign where too many issues have been fudged or eluded — and the media only want to talk about is who’s up and who’s down — the biggest issue on which the candidates have given us the clearest choice is whether the rich should pay more in taxes.
President Obama says emphatically yes. He proposes ending the Bush tax cut for people earning more than $250,000 a year, and requiring those with high incomes to pay in taxes at least 30 percent of any income over $1 million (the so-called “Buffett Rule”).
Mitt Romney says emphatically no. He proposes cutting tax rates by 20 percent, which would reduce taxes on the rich far more than anyone else. He also wants to extend the Bush tax cut for the wealthy, and reduce or eliminate taxes on dividends and capital gains.
http://www.nationofchange.org/print/30806
http://twitter.com/raywert/status/263102070989680640/photo/1
When Government Works
Ambinder assesses local and federal efforts to minimize Sandy’s damage:
As much as we like to make fun of disaster preparedness, with its acronyms and power points, we also have to acknowledge something profound, which is that these big institutions can actually learn from their mistakes and can make decisions that save millions of lives. If climate change is functionally changing the globe’s weather, then experts in this area have to evolve themselves to catch up. Since Katrina, FEMA has become an incredibly agile and forward-leaning agency and it never gets credit for it.
So far, at least as I type this, everything is working as it should. Warnings are dire, but people are heeding them. The devastation is potentially crippling, but folks are acting proactively. The person at ConEd who made the call to pre-emptively shut off power to lower Manhattan so that, when the flood waters recede, it can be restarted much more quickly, deserves a prize of some sort. Yes! Do more of that! Be accountable for your decision, but, yes, be smart about stuff. We can cheer for that. The federal government is working well with its state and local partners, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will attest. Utilities pre-mobilized thousands of workers. The stock exchange wisely decided that Howard Roark didn’t have the power to stop storm surges, and that even the economy can take a break to ride out the storm. Will people lose money? Sure. The right call? Totally
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
http://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/263269745317523457/photo/1
Damn; looks like a war zone.
EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin
By Scott Keyes on Oct 30, 2012 at 9:00 am
Mitt Romney’s campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters’ rights.
Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher training obtained by ThinkProgress contain several misleading or untrue claims about the rights of Wisconsin voters. A source passed along the following packet of documents, which was distributed to volunteers at a Romney campaign training in Racine on October 25th. In total, six such trainings were held across the state in the past two weeks.
One blatant falsehood occurs on page 5 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any “person [who] has been convicted of treason, a felony, or bribery” isn’t eligible to vote. This is not true. Once a Wisconsin voter who has been convicted of a felony completes his or her sentence, that person is once again eligible to vote.
The training also encouraged volunteers to deceive election workers and the public about who they were associated with. On page 3 of the packet, Romney poll workers were instructed to hide their affiliation with the campaign and told to sign in at the polls as a “concerned citizen” instead. As Kristina Sesek, Romney’s legal counsel who just graduated from Marquette Law School last year, explained, “We’re going to have you sign in this election cycle as a ‘concerned citizen.’ We’re just trying to alleviate some of the animosity of being a Republican observer up front.”
This packet could cause major problems if Republican observers across the state try to enforce such wrong and misleading information on Election Day. Even if they simply slow the voting process down, this could discourage voters waiting in line and drive drown turnout.
Here are four misleading or incorrect pieces of information disbursed by the Romney campaign
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/30/1106961/romney-wisconsin-poll-watchers/
“‘The level of devastation at the Jersey Shore is unthinkable,” says New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Hundreds of people had been rescued Tuesday morning, and “we’ll have to rescue hundreds more,” he said after surveying damage left by Sandy.
And what are Mitt Romney’s thoughts? Let’s charge the 47% for rescuing them!
By God, GOVERNMENT HAS A ROLE AFTERALL!
PBO’s Son for Gov Christie:
See GOP; this is how the game is played. We’re all in this together. The president PRESIDES and The Governors GOVERN for the AMERICAN PEOPLE.
POTUS TO GOP = “CALL ME.” LOL
Chrysler 3rd-quarter profit up 80% to $381 million
Chrysler earned $381 million in the third quarter, an 80% improvement from a year earlier, the company said today, as both sales and profit-per-vehicle increased during its fifth straight profitable quarter.
Last year, Chrysler earned $212 million for the three months ending Sept. 30.
The Auburn Hills automaker, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009 with the assistance of federal loans, has rebounded faster than almost anyone expected.
The company has added more than 16,400 jobs as its U.S. sales have increased during the last 30 consecutive months.
“We’ve changed the conversation at Chrysler Group,” Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a statement. “We continue to work feverishly and are pleased to see that our all-consuming aspiration for excellence is translating into results.”
http://www.freep.com/article/20121029/BUSINESS0103/121029064/Chrysler-3rd-quarter-profit-up-80-to-381-million?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
Yes; Rachel, the rest of the media has allowed Mitt’s LYING Mendacity to fester all these months, for ratings and profit. American voters be damned! Just criminal…
Flailing in Ohio, Romney rolls out Jeep ploy: editorial
Published: Monday, October 29, 2012, 8:15 PM Updated: Monday, October 29, 2012, 8:15 PM
Mitt Romney is desperate to convince Ohio voters that he’s the candidate most committed to the U.S. auto industry — no matter how much confusion he must sow to do it.
Last week, Romney recklessly told a large audience in Defiance that he’d read that Chrysler’s Italian owners — that would be Fiat, which has controlled the American automaker since 2009 — were planning to move all Jeep production to China. The Republican presidential nominee’s statement predictably drew groans in Northwest Ohio, where the auto industry is critical to prosperity. He pledged to keep American jobs in America, if elected.
But apparently Romney had been reading a blogger who misunderstood reports that Chrysler was looking to again make some Jeeps in China for that expanding market. The news is a sign of Chrysler’s health, not of some sinister intentions by its management. The company is investing $500 million and hiring 1,100 workers at its Toledo Jeep plant. The day Romney misspoke, Chrysler announced plans to add 1,100 employees in Detroit, too. A company spokesman called any suggestion that Chrysler is abandoning its U.S. plants “a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.”
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/10/flailing_in_ohio_romney_rolls.html
October 30, 2012 06:59 AM
Concern trolling with Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin
n some ways this is a nothing sort of clip, as Scarborough and Halperin have featured these type of discussions pretty much daily on MSNBC’s Morning Joe as this election wore on. Democrats are in trouble, worried that safe states have now suddenly become competitive depending on the vagaries of some useless partisan polling by companies no one ever heard of before this election (or worse, Rasmussen). The list is endless really.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/
EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin
By Scott Keyes on Oct 30, 2012 at 9:00 am
Mitt Romney’s campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters’ rights.
Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher training obtained by ThinkProgress contain several misleading or untrue claims about the rights of Wisconsin voters. A source passed along the following packet of documents, which was distributed to volunteers at a Romney campaign training in Racine on October 25th. In total, six such trainings were held across the state in the past two weeks.
One blatant falsehood occurs on page 16 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any identification cards from a voter “must include a photo”, despite the fact that Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been blocked by multiple state judges for this election.
The training also encouraged volunteers to deceive election workers and the public about who they were associated with. On page 5 of the packet, Romney poll workers were instructed to hide their affiliation with the campaign and told to sign in at the polls as a “concerned citizen” instead. As Kristina Sesek, Romney’s legal counsel who just graduated from Marquette Law School last year, explained, “We’re going to have you sign in this election cycle as a ‘concerned citizen.’ We’re just trying to alleviate some of the animosity of being a Republican observer up front.”
This packet could cause major problems if Republican observers across the state try to enforce such wrong and misleading information on Election Day. Even if they simply slow the voting process down, this could discourage voters waiting in line and drive drown turnout.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/30/1106961/romney-wisconsin-poll-watchers/
Michael Tomasky: F-You Dishonesty: Romney and Jeep
There’s basic dishonesty and then there’s f-you dishonesty – dishonesty so blatant, so consciously abusive of facts that everyone knows, that it deserves a category of its own. Kato Keilin: dishonesty. O.J.: f-you dishonesty.
Romney’s new ad about Jeeps and Italy is f-you dishonest….
I originally cut Romney a break here–some aide handed him a news article that was sloppily or strangely written, he read it on the fly, he decided to throw it in there. Not such a crime.
But then Chrysler ripped Romney and said no way, this is not true. Chrysler is thinking about putting plants in China down the road to try to increase market share there. But as for the here and now and the U.S. market, Chrysler is not only not cutting back domestic Jeep production but expanding it, investing $500 million in the Toledo, Ohio Jeep plant.
At that point, even most political campaigns would have just dropped it. They wouldn’t apologize, because campaigns don’t do that, but a normal campaign would just drop it and try to move on.
So what did Romney’s campaign do? It cut a TV ad doubling down on the claim, cleverly worded so as to suggest that the Obama administration sold out America (and Ohio) by selling Chrysler to the Italians who are moving production to China.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/29/f-you-dishonesty-romney-and-jeep.html
Posted at 03:32 PM ET, 10/29/2012
Oct 29, 2012 07:32 PM EDT
TheWashingtonPost
Calling Romney’s lie what it is: A lie
By Greg Sargent
The Obama campaign is up with a new ad in Ohio that hits back at Mitt Romney’s suggestion — made most recently in a Romney campaign ad — that Obama’s auto bailout will result in American Jeep jobs getting shipped to China:
The ad reprises Romney’s opposition to the auto-bailout — and flatly calls Romney’s Jeep-to-China claim a “lie.” The script:
When the auto industry faced collapse, Mitt Romney turned his back. Even the conservative Detroit News criticized Romney for his “wrong-headedness” on the bailout. And now, after Romney’s false claim of Jeep outsourcing to China, Chrysler itself has refuted Romney’s lie. The truth? Jeep is adding jobs in Ohio. Mitt Romney on Ohio jobs: Wrong then. Dishonest now.
As I wrote here the other day, the Obama campaign views the auto-bailout as a stark black and white case that dramatizes one of the most basic questions voters ask themselves: Who can they really trust to fight for them and to be on their side when it matters?
Back when Ohio needed the auto industry bailed out — and Obama took the politically risky step of proceeding with the rescue — Romney took the politically easy position. Attacking it was a good way to pander to conservatives in advance of the GOP primary. But then, when this position became problematic for him in the general election, he began to dissemble about it, falsely suggesting he’d supported government action up front when that’s simply not what happened. With time running out, Romney has run out of answers on the auto-bailout, and has now turned to the claim that it will result in American Jeep jobs getting shipped to China. That isn’t true either.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/calling-romneys-lie-what-it-is-a-lie/2012/10/29/78168b68-21fa-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html
Yes, Florida is still very close:
Nate Cohn takes a look at another basic fact that has gone overlooked amid the obsessing over Ohio: Florida remains very close, and Obama could still very well win there, thanks partly to the state’s growing black and non-Cuban Hispanic populations. Voter registration numbers show large jumps among them
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
GA & NC TOO!
Political Animal
Blog
October 29, 2012 4:58 PM
If the Campaign Lasted Twenty Years….
By Ed Kilgore
So now, predictably, the Romney campaign is backtracking on his primary campaign suggestion that emergency management needs to be taken over by the states (implying in turn that FEMA should be abolished). Oh no! Mitt wouldn’t do that!
We’re witnessing a pattern that is getting very interesting to anyone paying attention. Romney has endorsed a variety of budget blueprints that require very deep reductions in domestic spending, and particularly non-defense discretionary spending. Matt Yglesias has the basic math:
[T]he fact is that his overall budget requires sharp cuts in everything. The central issue is that Romney wants to cap government spending at 20 percent of GDP while boosting military spending to 4 percent of GDP and leaving Social Security harmless. That means a 34 percent across-the-board cut in other programs according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Unless, that is, Medicare is also exempted from the cuts in which case you’d need a 53 percent cut
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_10/if_the_campaign_lasted_twenty040810.php
Posted at 09:05 AM ET, 10/30/2012
The Morning Plum: Romney’s Jeep-to-China lie earns brutal headlines in Ohio
By Greg Sargent
As David Plouffe wrote in his memoir of Campaign 2008, the Obama team has long thought that a good way to reach independents and undecided voters is via local media in key battleground states. So it’s worth taking a look at how the battle over Mitt Romney’s latest falsehood — that the auto bailout will result in American Jeep jobs getting shipped to China — is playing in the Ohio media, since this claim represents Romney’s last chance to turn things around in the state.
Here’s the headline in today’s Toledo Blade:
Clinton, Biden call Jeep ad deceptive
Another in the Toledo Blade:
Obama campaign accuses Romney of dishonesty on Jeep issue
The Blade has been covering this story pretty aggressively, noting that Romney — who now claims Obama followed his approach on the auto-bailout — previously derided the rescue effort as “crony capitalism.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, meanwhile, published a scorching editorial with this headline:
Flailing in Ohio, Romney rolls out Jeep ploy
The editorial flatly noted that Romney is now trying to sow “confusion” among Ohioans, to obscure his opposition to a policy that has helped save an industry linked to one in eight Ohio jobs. “It won’t work,” it concluded. “Ohio voters know who stepped up when the auto industry was at the abyss — and it wasn’t Romney.”
And the Columbus Dispatch has been running with headlines like: “Jeep/Romney question lingers.” The Dispatch extensively fact-checked Romney’s claims about the auto-bailout, clearly demonstrating that he did in fact oppose the rescue of the industry Obama ended up pursuing
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Giving ‘politics at water’s edge’ new meaning
by Steve Benen
Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:35 AM EDT.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) spoke to NBC’s Matt Lauer this morning about the response effort to Hurricane Sandy, and towards the end of the interview, he offered some noteworthy praise for the federal response to the crisis.
Christie offered a fairly detailed assessment of conditions in the Garden State, including the fact that there have been three reported fatalities thus far. But when Lauer asked about the efficacy of the federal response, the governor said it’s been “great,” noting that he spoke directly to President Obama at midnight and FEMA again this morning. Christie said Obama “has been outstanding.”
The governor made similar remarks on CBS, saying, “Cooperation from the president of the United States has been outstanding. He deserves great credit.”
What’s more, Christie told reporters yesterday that he’d spoken to Obama, “and he told me that if, at any point over the next 48 hours, I was not getting something from the federal government that I should call him directly at the White House and that he was going to be there. And I should just not worry about dealing with anybody else, call him. So I appreciate that call from the president. It was very proactive. And I appreciate that type of leadership.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/30/14802492-giving-politics-at-waters-edge-new-meaning?lite
Romney’s October Tax-Avoidance Surprise
By Anne Laurie October 29th, 2012
Anybody here want to weigh in on “charitable remainder unitrusts“?
From Dave Weigel, at Slate, news that (if I understand this correctly?) Romney cheats his church as much as every other entity he’s ever touched:
Bloomberg obtains new information about Mitt Romney’s taxes and… well, the story comes out when everyone is distracted by imminent disaster. It’s too bad, because this is as thorny and irritating a tale of tax law chicanery as you’re likely to read.
Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity—the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing —to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.
In general, charities don’t owe capital gains taxes when they sell assets for a profit. Trusts like Romney’s permit funders to benefit from that tax-free treatment…
From what I can understand, the loophole Romney took advantage of is legal, just sleazy even by tax-lawyer standards, because he’s essentially getting a payment every year from the ‘trust’ that gradually reduces the church’s principal to zero.
I know there have been persistent rumors that members of the Mormon hierarchy who’ve actually had to deal with Willard aren’t his biggest fans, so maybe this kind of financial three-card-monte hasn’t helped his popularity within the Covenant?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/10/29/romneys-october-tax-avoidance-surprise/
LOL VP Biden: “This guy pirouettes more than a ballerina.”
The ideal time for ‘big government’
By Steve Benen
Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:00 AM EDT
We talked yesterday about Mitt Romney’s unique perspective on FEMA — he wants to turn emergency response efforts over to the states or the private sector — articulated during the Republican primary process. In light of the severity and brutality of Hurricane Sandy, the candidate’s position is receiving new scrutiny.
The New York Times’ editorial board, for example, argues today that “a big storm requires big government” (thanks to Bill Wolff for the tip).
………………….
Eugene Robinson is thinking along the same lines: “Back when he was being “severely conservative,” Mitt Romney suggested that responsibility for disaster relief should be taken from the big, bad federal government and given to the states, or perhaps even privatized. Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he’d care to reconsider.” Robinson added that Romney’s approach is “absurd” and “dangerous.”
——————————————————————————–
And finally, reader D.M. alerted me to this gem from Charles P. Pierce.
This entire campaign has been fought out over the issue of whether or not we are all members of a viable political commonwealth with implicit mutual obligations to act through our government — a self-government that is, or ought to be, the purest creative project of that commonwealth — for the common good, or whether that government is a some sort of alien entity repressing our fundamental entrepreneurial energy. Over the next few days, I believe, we are going to see that argument brought to the sharpest point possible. If you want to see how this event will “impact the election,” look to what answer to that question emerges from the storm. It will tell us a lot about the election, and about ourselves.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/30/14801985-the-ideal-time-for-big-government?lite
A Big Storm Requires Big Government
Published: October 29, 2012
Most Americans have never heard of the National Response Coordination Center, but they’re lucky it exists on days of lethal winds and flood tides. The center is the war room of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where officials gather to decide where rescuers should go, where drinking water should be shipped, and how to assist hospitals that have to evacuate.
Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of “big government,” which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it. At a Republican primary debate last year, Mr. Romney was asked whether emergency management was a function that should be returned to the states. He not only agreed, he went further.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.
It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.
The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.
Over the last two years, Congressional Republicans have forced a 43 percent reduction in the primary FEMA grants that pay for disaster preparedness. Representatives Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and other House Republicans have repeatedly tried to refuse FEMA’s budget requests when disasters are more expensive than predicted, or have demanded that other valuable programs be cut to pay for them. The Ryan budget, which Mr. Romney praised as “an excellent piece of work,” would result in severe cutbacks to the agency, as would the Republican-instigated sequester, which would cut disaster relief by 8.2 percent on top of earlier reductions.
Does Mr. Romney really believe that financially strapped states would do a better job than a properly functioning federal agency? Who would make decisions about where to send federal aid? Or perhaps there would be no federal aid, and every state would bear the burden of billions of dollars in damages. After Mr. Romney’s 2011 remarks recirculated on Monday, his nervous campaign announced that he does not want to abolish FEMA, though he still believes states should be in charge of emergency management. Those in Hurricane Sandy’s path are fortunate that, for now, that ideology has not replaced sound policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/opinion/a-big-storm-requires-big-government.html?smid=tw-share#comments
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Everyone :)