Thursday Reads

Posted: June 14, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Banksters, child sexual abuse, children, Crime, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Good Morning!

Wall Street Royal Jamie Dimon deigned to appear before a Senate Committee yesterday, and the Senators mostly sucked up to him. I’m surprised they didn’t ask if he needed a pillow for his chair. MSNBC: Senate treats JPMorgan CEO Dimon with kid gloves

Dimon was expected to receive a frosty reception in his first congressional appearance since he announced the bank sustained a trading loss some analysts now estimate is at least $3 billion. It was a massive loss for the nation’s biggest financial institution.

Instead, Dimon, who has won praise for bringing JPMorgan (JPM) through the financial crisis relatively unscathed, was treated cordially by most of members of the Senate Banking Committee. They peppered him with questions about regulation and risky practices at the bank, but did not press him to give an update on the losses resulting from the trade. JPMorgan is expected to give an update to shareholders when it reports its second-quarter earnings July 13.

“I think it was a pretty favorable day,” David Konrad, a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods banking analyst, told CNBC. Konrad said he was surprised that the questioning of Dimon by lawmakers was so “professional.”

Excuse me, “professional” for a Senator would have been sending this man to the woodshed. NPR’s Marketplace called the treatment of Dimon “a wake for Dodd-Frank.”

Yahoo has named the winner of the “Most Tepid Endorsement of Mitt Romney” contest: it’s a bumper sticker that reads “At least he’s not a communist.”

Until recently, it appeared that no one could unseat Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels as the champion of the tepid Romney endorsement. Since Yahoo News started conducting reader polls on the politicians who supported Mitt Romney in the least enthusiastic terms, Daniels has defeated original champ George Pataki and defended the crown against Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and George W. Bush. (The former president came the closest to unseating Daniels.)

We thought the book was closed on the tepid endorsement bracket until Yahoo News reporter Chris Moody spotted a bumper sticker at last weekend’s regional CPAC conference in Chicago bearing these words of praise: “At least he’s not a communist.”

You can read the other tepid endorsements at the link.

First Romney made fun of Obama for wanting to help cities and states pay for cops, teachers, and firefighters. Then he went on Fox News and said it was a “strange accusation” for anyone to say he didn’t want to hire teachers and first responders.

After an extended skewering of President Obama for a gaffe about the private sector last week, ending with the charge that it was proof the president was “out of touch” Romney was asked by Fox and Friends’ Brian Kilmeade for his response to Obama saying it was Romney who was clueless (Romney’s comment comes at about the 1:40 mark) :

[BRIAN] KILMEADE: He says that you’re out of touch. He says you want to cut firefighters and teachers, that you don’t understand what’s going on in these communities. What do you say to that, Governor?

ROMNEY: Well, that’s a very strange accusation. Of course, teachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn’t pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen. So, obviously that’s completely absurd.

But of course the federal government does subsidize states and they often use the money to pay for these public employees. In fact, the reason so many teachers, firefighters and cops are getting laid off now is because stimulus money has run out.

Yesterday Greg Sargent pointed out that Romney’s plan would indeed cut billions from cops, firefighters and teachers

Yesterday Mitt Romney claimed that it was “ completely absurd” of the Obama campaign to argue that he favors cutbacks in cops, firefighters and teachers. “The federal government doesn’t pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen,” Romney said, adding that they were paid by states and localities.

What’s getting lost in the back and forth here is that Romney’s actual economic plan would, in fact, cut billions of dollars in federal money that goes to cops, firefighters, and teachers — perhaps more than $10 billion a year, in fact.

This is the conclusion of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which analyzed Romney’s plan through the prism of the debate over public workers at my request.

As Michael McAuliff reported yesterday, despite Romney’s claim, the federal government does give billions of dollars to states and localities through programs like Title 1, the COPS program, FEMA and others — which pay for first responders and teachers.

This is amazing. Romney finally broke down and decided to talk to a media source that isn’t Fox News! He will be on Face The Nation on Sunday morning.

A full year into his presidential campaign, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney will venture out of his Fox comfort zone this Sunday to make his first appearance on a rival network’s political talk show.

Romney has been interviewed several times on ”Fox News Sunday” this campaign cycle, but has declined repeated invitations to appear on any of the other Sunday shows, occasionally drawing scorn from veteran anchors accustomed to interviewing presidential candidates.

Let’s hope Shieffer asks a few tough questions. One thing Shieffer will probably ask about is Romney’s choice of Vice President. One of the leading contenders, Marco Rubio, announced yesterday that he supports the illegal Florida voter purge.

“How can you argue against a state identifying people who are not rightfully on the voter rolls?” he said at a Bloomberg event, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Rubio’s comments put him in line with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) who on Tuesday declared the debate on the merits of the purge “over,” because the probe had supposedly turned up more than 50 non-citizen voters who had cast ballots.

The Department of Justice didn’t agree. Later Tuesday, it announced it was launching a federal lawsuit against Florida over complaints that the purge was taking place within 90 days of its August 14 primary election, as well as over its alleged violation of a voting rights law meant to prevent states from suppressing voters.

That might not help Romney win over Latino voters.

John Avlon has a piece at CNN on Jeb Bush and other “moderate” Republicans who are starting to fight back against Grover Norquist:

This is what happens when politics starts looking like a cult: Jeb Bush gets attacked for being a traitor to the conservative cause.

The former Florida governor has been speaking with the freedom of someone not running for office, saying that both his father and Ronald Reagan would have had a hard time in today’s hard-right GOP and questioning the wisdom of Grover Norquist’s absolutist anti-tax pledge.

That set off a fascinating public fight between Bush and Norquist, two faces of competing factions within Republican Party. It is the latest evidence of a growing GOP backlash against the ideological straitjacket Norquist has attempted to impose on governing in the United States.

And Jeb is not alone.

As it turns out, Norquist has reason to be concerned. It’s not just Jeb Bush. A growing number of Republicans are rejecting his pledge. Oklahoma conservative Sen. Tom Coburn called the pledge’s effective veto of deficit reduction plans “ridiculous” when talking with Erin Burnett on “OutFront.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Tuesday declared his independence from the pledge, saying, “We’re so far in debt, that if you don’t give up some ideological ground, the country sinks.”

Add to those voices seven other Republican U.S. senators — from Maine’s Susan Collins to Iowa’s Chuck Grassley to Wyoming’s John Barrasso — and 11 Republican House members, ranging from centrist New Yorker Richard Hanna to tea party Floridian Allen West.

In pedophile news, Jerry Sandusky had another bad day in court yesterday with three victims testifying that he manipulated and threatened them into putting up with his sick sexual behavior.

The trio of young men who testified against Jerry Sandusky on the third day of his sexual-abuse trial couldn’t have been more different in personality and temperament. Yet each of their testimonies was sexually graphic and disturbing—and midway through the prosecution’s fast-tracked arguments, a clear pattern has emerged in their allegations.

I’m not going to quote all of the sordid details–there are too many of them anyway. You can read it all at the link. I’ll just give you one excerpt that shows what Sandusky is all about:

Then, the witness told the jury of a time he visited the Sandusky home.

“We were in the basement. We were wrestling,” he said in a monotone frequently heard from abuse victims who have had to tell their stories multiple times. “The defendant pinned me to the floor, pulled down my gym shorts, and started to perform oral sex on me.” Asked by prosecutor Joe McGettigan what his reaction was at the time, the witness said, “I freaked out.”

“Did he ever say anything to you about it?” McGettigan asked.

“He told me if I ever told anyone I’d never see my family again,” the young man replied. “Later he apologized and said he didn’t mean it, that he loved me.”

I hope Sandusky goes to prison for life, and I want to see prosecutions of his enablers at Penn State. It’s an outrage that he was allowed to go on abusing children for years after many at the school knew about his behavior.

And then there’s the Catholic Church: U.S. Catholics still suspect priests sexually abuse children: Report

The National Review Board said that, a decade after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a child protection charter, there has been a “striking improvement” in the way the Church deals with the abuse of minors by clergy.

“Children are safer now because of the creation of safe environments, and action has been taken to permanently remove offenders from ministry,” said the report, released as the Conference began its annual spring meeting in Atlanta.

But it acknowledged: “Despite solid evidence (to the contrary), many of the faithful believe that sexual abuse by clergy is occurring at high levels and is still being covered up by bishops.”

Well, what did they expect? I’m certainly not surprised. In fact I’d be surprised if there aren’t still pedophile priests abusing children.

Forest boy

I’ll end with the strange story of “Forest Boy.”

Berlin police on Wednesday released photos an English-speaking teenage boy who wandered into the city nine months ago saying he had been living for the last five years in the forest with his father.
Police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said all attempts to identify the boy since he emerged in the German capital on Sept. 5 have been unsuccessful, and they are now hoping the release of his photo may produce some leads.

“We have checked his DNA against all missing person reports, sent the data to Interpol so that they could check it internationally, but unfortunately without any success,” Neuendorf said.
The boy has told authorities his father called him “Ray” and that he was born June 20, 1994, but claims not to know his last name or where he’s from.

He said his mother, Doreen, died in a car accident when he was 12 and after that he and his father, Ryan, took to the forest. He said they wandered using maps and a compass, staying in tents or caves overnight.

He told authorities that after his father died in August, 2011, he buried him in the forest and then walked five days north before ending up in Berlin, and showed up at city hall.

As of last night, the identity of the boy was still a mystery even after release of the photos.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

So Many Plutocrats, So Few Guillotines …

Posted: June 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: the villagers | Tags: , , , , | 15 Comments

I don’t wonder how these folks get their money or their positions.  However, I do wonder if any one even listens to them.  Oh, wait.  One of them is running for president and the other is taken seriously in the media.

Where’s a guillotine when you need one?

Here’s the Romney example from my old home town of Council Bluffs, Iowa where my Dad owned a Ford Dealership for 30 years from KPTM TV.

Dianne Bauer opened up her cafe to Mitt Romney and his campaign for a small round table discussion Friday morning before his speech at Bayliss Park.

This isn’t the first politician that has asked Bauer to use the Main Street Cafe in downtown Council Bluffs.

“With Rick Perry he made a point of stopping in the kitchen before he ever went to the other side to address the public and the media to thank us and introduce himself to us,” said Bauer. “That’s what I thought we would get here, just normal. This was all out, like you’d think Obama was here.”

Bauer’s issues with the campaigns staffers started the night before when they started staging the cafe for the event.

She described many of their demeanors as “arrogant”.

She says her cafe was not treated with the respect it deserved.

“Stuff got broke. My table cloths they just got ripped off, wadded up and thrown in the back room,”

She says the boom truck she allowed the campaign to borrow to gain access to the roof now has an 8-inch gauge in it that she’ll have to take the time to repair.

The campaign told her to send them an itemized list of anything that was broken, and they would pay for it, but Bauer says that won’t fix everything.

“My dad’s picture, an emblem my dad gave me, it got broke. Those aren’t things you can replace,”

Bauer says she never even got to meet the candidate she closed half of her restaurant down for.

“Every time we tried to go out or look, secret service was right there,” she said.

She was complaining about the event to a friend when reporters overheard her and posted about it online.

That’s when Romney called Bauer himself. She says he explained that it was just a misunderstanding that she did not get to meet him, but the phone call didn’t smooth things over for her.

“He responded ‘well, I’m sorry your table cloths got ripped off, wadded up and thrown in the back room’ and I took it as mocking,” she said. “We’re the ones he’s wanting to get the votes from, you’d think we would have been treated better.”

She says the whole experience left her wondering.

“With how he treated me, is that how he’s going to treat others? You know, if he gets in office is he going to be that way to us little people?”

The always guillotine-worthy David Brooks proves to his again exactly why he is a public menace.  He whines that there just aren’t any good ‘followers’ out there any more.  I guess he’s in search of a new generation of true believers.  I’m going to let you read  Dean Baker who rips him a new one.

Nope, I’m not kidding. His column today is devoted to “the follower problem.” He is upset that people are cynical and don’t seem to trust the elites. Brooks tells us:

“I don’t know if America has a leadership problem; it certainly has a followership problem. Vast majorities of Americans don’t trust their institutions. That’s not mostly because our institutions perform much worse than they did in 1925 and 1955, when they were widely trusted.”

Let’s leave aside 1925 since it was a very different world. In 1955 the economy was growing at a healthy pace with workers up and down the income ladder sharing in the prosperity. They were seeing rapidly rising living standards and it was a virtual certainty that children would enjoy much better standards of living than their parents.

Brooks may have missed it, but the economy collapsed in 2008. This was not due to any external event like a massive drought or asteroid strike, it was due to fact that the people who design economic policy were too brain-dead to see the largest financial bubble in the history of the world.

The result of this failure is that tens of millions of people are unemployed, underemployed, or out of the workforce altogether. Millions more are facing the loss of their homes. And a huge cohort of baby boomers, many of whom spent their lives working at decent paying jobs, are approaching retirement with nothing to support them but their Social Security.

It’s enough to make me take up knitting.

OOPS wrong musical …

Mitt Romney Says We Don’t Need More Firemen, Policemen, or Teachers

Posted: June 8, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 34 Comments

This afternoon Mitt Romney was in Council Bluffs, Iowa mocking President Obama for saying at a press conference earlier today that the private sector of the U.S. economy of the U.S. economy:

“The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government”

Of course, he shouldn’t have said it that way, but it actually is true that employment in the private sector has improved greatly, and overall unemployment wouldn’t be that bad except for cutbacks in state and local government workers. Here’s the private vs. public employment data, via TPM.

After Republicans crowed loudly about Obama’s “gaffe,” he “clarified” his remarks. Frankly, I would have preferred that he or a staffer had simply shown the above chart and explained what it means.

Here’s what Romney said at his campaign appearance in Council Bluffs, Iowa this afternoon:

“he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

How could that be the “message of Wisconsin?” Scott Walker exempted police and firefighters from laws banning collective bargaining? Walker at least understood that Americans want people to show up if their homes catch fire. People also want someone to protect them from crime. And certainly most people want teachers to help educate their children.

Romney claims Obama is “out of touch,” but how out of touch do you have to be not to understand the importance to communities of firefighters, police and teachers? Does Romney think these people are not Americans? What exactly is he proposing: that groups of people band together and raise funds to pay for these services outside of government?

Romney “longed” to serve in Vietnam, but took four draft deferments

Posted: June 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Anti-War, U.S. Economy, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 20 Comments

Mitt Romney, age 19, demonstrates in favor of the draft at Stanford U., 1966

In his 2012 campaign for the presidency, Mitt Romney has been a strident supporter of every possible use of U.S. military power abroad.

He has said he wouldn’t hesitate to attack Iran in order to prevent them from getting nukes. He even wrote an op-ed about it for the Washington Post.

He has argued for U.S. military intervention in Syria, and has been loudly critical of President Obama’s approach to the Syrian uprisings. He has also criticized Obama’s decision to pull out of Iraq and his strategy in Afghanistan.

Finally, Romney has argued for dramatic increases in defense spending, while at the same time claiming he will cut the federal deficit if elected.

Based on his hawkish policy positions, it seems relevant to ask what Romney did when he was eligible for military service; and the AP recently took a look at Romney’s military service–actually his lack of military service. Not to put too fine a point on it, Romney is a chicken hawk. His (non)military history also shows that his etch-a-sketch behavior began quite early in life.

As you can see in the photo above, Mitt actually participated in a demonstration in favor of the Vietnam-era draft while a student at Stanford. From The Daily Mail, January 6, 2012:

Taken at the height of the swinging Sixties, Mr Romney holds a sign declaring ‘Speak Out, Don’t Sit In’ as, alongside like-minded individuals, he proclaims his support for Lyndon Johnson’s ever-expanding draft….

A newspaper clipping headlined ‘Governor’s son pickets the pickets’ states: ‘Mitt Romney, son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, was one of the pickets who supported the Stanford University administration in opposition to sit-in demonstrators.’

The photograph was taken on May 20, 1966, shortly after a group of students had taken over the office of Stanford University President Wallace Sterling.

They were protesting at the introduction of a test designed to help the authorities decide who was eligible for the draft.

Of course Romney himself could have been drafted in 1966, but he applied for and received a student deferment in the same year he participated in the pro-war demonstration. After one year at Stanford, young Mitt left school to serve as a mormon missionary in France. From MSNBC.com:

Though an early supporter of the Vietnam War, Romney avoided military service at the height of the fighting after high school by seeking and receiving four draft deferments, according to Selective Service records. They included college deferments and a 31-month stretch as a “minister of religion” in France, a classification for Mormon missionaries that the church at the time feared was being overused. The country was cutting troop levels by the time he became eligible for the draft, and his lottery number was not called.

Romney received three more deferments during his missionary service, even though the Mormon church was strongly supportive of the Vietnam war and was limiting the number of deferments it signed off on. Romney got three of them though. Gee, I wonder why?

After his first year at Stanford, Romney qualified for 4-D deferment status as “a minister of religion or divinity student.” It was a status he would hold from July 1966 until February 1969, a period he largely spent in France working as a Mormon missionary.

He was granted the deferment even as some young Mormon men elsewhere were denied that same status, which became increasingly controversial in the late 1960s. The Mormon church, a strong supporter of American involvement in Vietnam, ultimately limited the number of church missionaries allowed to defer their military service using the religious exemption.

Later, a 23-year old Romney had turned against the war he avoided.

“If it wasn’t a political blunder to move into Vietnam, I don’t know what is,” a 23-year-old Romney would tell The Boston Globe in 1970 during the fifth year of his deferment.

His 31-month religious deferment expired in early 1969. And Romney received an academic studies deferment for much of the next two years. He became available for military service at the end of 1970 when his deferments ran out and he could have been drafted. But by that time, America was beginning to slice its troop levels, and Romney’s relatively high lottery number — 300 out of 365 — was not called.

Later, when he ran for the Senate against Ted Kennedy in 1994, Romney was quoted in the Boston Herald as saying:

“I was not planning on signing up for the military”…”It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam, but nor did I take any actions to remove myself from the pool of young men who were eligible for the draft,”

But he in fact had applied for and been granted four deferments–nearly as many as Dick Cheney got.

Mitt’s views on Vietnam continued to “evolve.” During his last run for president in 2007, he the Globe again quoted Romney on Vietnam:

“I was supportive of my country,” Romney said. “I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there, and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam.”

Romney’s views on Vietnam had gone full circle–from enthusiastic pro-war demonstrator, to draft dodger, to vocal critic of U.S. policy, to claiming he never wanted to go to war, but never tried to get out of it, to nostalgia for how much he “longed” to be in Vietnam while he served out his extra-long 4-D deferment.

What a guy!

Open Thread: Top Romney Aide Made Millions from Obamacare

Posted: June 4, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Tea Party activists, The Right Wing, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance | Tags: , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Best buds Mike and Mitt

Lots of corporate news sources were buzzing over the weekend about Romney’s appointment of former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt to head up his transition team. It’s also assumed that Leavitt would have the inside track to get the plum role of Chief of Staff in a Romney administration. Leavitt is also the guy who hired Romney to turn around the scandal-plagued Winter Olympics in 2002.

According to Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Romney adviser, Leavitt is “the ideal candidate” for the transition job because of:

his three terms as Utah governor as well as serving as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush.

“Mike Leavitt checks every box. It’s a combination of experience and personal relationship,” Chaffetz said. “He can help outline the parameters of what a transition would look like.”

Leavitt has been on board with the Romney campaign throughout the primaries; he has his own office at the Boston headquarters. He and Romney are close, says Politico, and they’re “a lot alike.”

One Romneyland figure said Leavitt’s influence is derived from the fact that he is a spoke in many of the concentric circles around the candidate. Leavitt is part of Romney’s orbit of Mormon associates, but he also sits in the realm of the policy gurus, political counselors, fellow governors and veterans of the Salt Lake Olympics.

So with little fanfare, he has become one of the most influential advisers to the candidate this election cycle. He has an office at the Boston headquarters, travels with Romney at times, has been summoned to rally donors and is tight enough with the high command that he scored an invite to campaign manager Matt Rhoades’s engagement party last month.

He’s also a surrogate and has headlined health care policy discussions at $10,000 per-person Beltway fundraisers for Romney.

Romney officials say Leavitt is often circumspect but has an E.F. Hutton-like effect when he does speak up; many in Boston believe he offers much of his advice directly to Romney — something Leavitt suggests is accurate.

Mike Leavitt

Although it happened following Leavitt’s tenure, Utah was the second state after Massachusetts to institute universal health care. And Leavitt is the health care business–and he’s made millions in profits from Obamacare. At Salon, Alex Seitz-Wald writes:

Leavitt, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under George W. Bush, leads a firm that has positioned itself as a leading consultancy to help implement the Affordable Care Act (PDF), and it’s already won contracts to do so.

Just two weeks ago, the company was awarded a $1 million contract with the state of New Mexico to help it build its exchanges, and Politico reported that the “size of his firm, Leavitt Partners, doubled in the year after the bill was signed as they won contracts to help states set up the exchanges funded by the legislation.”

On its web site, Leavitt Partners features prominently its “Health Insurance Exchange Intelligence Team,” an entire section of the business that advises clients on how to implement and respond to the health insurance exchanges created by Obamacare.

“The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) altered many of the fundamentals of healthcare coverage and financing,” the company’s website states. “Our team has a deep background and understanding of exchanges, from the policy side to the technical requirements and infrastructure necessary to operate an exchange. Our team members have unique experience in building exchanges and analyzing health insurance markets.”

Today, the right wingers have suddenly awakened from the collective trance that followed their reluctant recognition that Romney’s their guy now. And they are not happy about the Leavitt appointment. From TPM:

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Leavitt “strenuously backed the core piece of President Barack Obama’s health-care law and urged the states to move forward together in adopting health insurance exchanges.” And his stance hasn’t changed: “We believe that the exchanges are the solution to small business insurance market and that’s gotten us sideways with some conservatives,” Leavitt’s top aide Rich McKeown told Politico.

“We’re troubled by it,” Dean Clancy, who runs health care advocacy for the Dick Armey-led conservative group FreedomWorks, told TPM Monday via email. “We’re very concerned. The tea party grassroots have always feared that Gov. Romney would be a weak standard bearer because of RomneyCare. This choice only reinforces those doubts. Tapping a high-profile ObamaCare profiteer is disturbing, there’s no way around it. … The tea party has been fighting exchanges in state after state.”

Michael Cannon, who directs health policy for the libertarian Cato Institute, reacted to the Leavitt choice in a blog post he penned: “Romney’s appointment of Leavitt is a first step toward flip-flopping — or Etch-a-Sketching, or Romneying(TM), or whatever — on ObamaCare repeal.”

The right wing blogs are in a tizzy too. Time to break out the popcorn!

Hey Righties! Haven’t you noticed? Willard’s a pathological liar. And besides, he just not that into you. He’s all about amassing more money and power for Willard, not you or your pathetic, rage-filled party.
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