Friday
Aug032012
The Commentariat -- August 4, 2012
The President's Weekly Address:
... Here's the transcript.
Jordan Weissmann of The Atlantic: "... there are now fewer public sector employees per American than at any time dating back to the Carter administration (To be clear, we're talking state, federal, and local here).... If the share of government workers was back to 2007 levels, we'd have about 1.7 million more jobs than we do today." With charts. Here's the overview of the Brookings Institution report Weissman cites. ...
... Adam Peck of Think Progress: "Even as the national unemployment rate ticked up ever so slightly in July, the unemployment rate for veterans fell to its lowest level in more than three years, dropping to 6.9 percent. That figure is the lowest monthly unemployment rate for all veterans since before President Obama took office.... The unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars remained higher than the national unemployment rate, but it too appears to be trending in the right direction."
Gail Collins: The Do-Nothing Congress has no time to save the Post Office, but plenty of time to name post offices; it has no time to pass a farm bill during a national emergency but plenty of time to vote 33 times against ObamaCare. "Maybe it's possible [for Congress] to have a negative approval rating."
New York Times Editors: Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) showed "utter disdain" for the House Ethics Committee that reprimanded her. "She was found to have misused House resources, violated campaign restrictions on staff members, withheld subpoenaed documents and sought to manipulate witnesses and evidence. In the process, she most likely broke federal law, while showing a 'near total deflection of responsibility,' the panel concluded."
Solomon Banda of the AP: "... some are wondering whether the [University of Colorado's threat assessment] system broke down.... A university psychiatrist was so alarmed by graduate student James E. Holmes' behavior that she tried to bring him to the attention of the school's threat assessment team more than a month before the attack, but the group never met to talk about him because he had already taken steps to drop out.... University Chancellor Don Elliman has repeatedly said the school did all it could with regard to Holmes.... However, KMGH-TV and the Denver Post ... said police were never contacted."
Judy Chu (D-Calif.) in a New York Times op-ed: "I introduced the Harry Lew Military Hazing Accountability and Prevention Act, which asks the military to make hazing a crime, requires the Defense Department to come up with a comprehensive anti-hazing plan, and creates a tracking system for hazing incidents. These provisions passed the House in May as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, but the Senate still needs to act. And the sooner it acts, the better, because we know this is just the beginning of what we need to do to eradicate hazing. Our military doesn't have to abuse its own to be strong."
Charles Blow: "A young man is stopped by police, who find $10 worth of drugs on him; he had twice been searched by officers and then double handcuffed behind his back and placed in the back of a police car; yet, somehow, he retrieves a gun that both searches failed to find and uses it shoot himself in the right temple? That is what police in Jonesboro, Ark., say happened on the evening of Sunday, July 29, to Chavis Carter, a 21-year-old African-American man from Southaven, Miss., a suburb of Memphis."
"Still Puritan after All These Years." Matthew Hutson in a New York Times Sunday Review piece: "... present-day Americans still exhibit, in their attitudes and behavior, traces of those austere English Protestants who started arriving in the country in the early 17th century."
Contributor Victoria D. recommends this excellent piece by Karoli of Crooks & Liars on Campbell Brown, former CNN "journalist"/hack/stealth Romney surrogate & wife of Romney advisor Dan Palestinian-Culture-Sucks Senor. So do I.
Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post: America's First Ladies didn't/don't like the job.
Presidential Race
Rachel Maddow in an excellent segment on Mitt Romney's history of, um, lying about his taxes:
... AND one on Romney's insistence in 1994 that Ted Kennedy release his tax returns, etc.:
Brian Beutler of TPM: "Romney's most recent financial disclosure form revealed that his tax-deferred individual retirement account holds upwards of $100 million -- an amount that ... raises legal and ethical questions. IRAs are intended to allow workers to put away modest sums of money each year in order to help finance a middle class retirement. The savings are tax deferred, but there's a legal limit -- now $6,000 -- on how much each IRA holder can contribute annually. Now top Democrats on the Budget, Ways and Means, and Education and Workforce Committees want to know how people of Romney's wealth can end up with 100,000 times that much money in a single IRA, and how much the tax and investment strategies they employ cost the Treasury in revenue every year." With copy of letter from to top Treasury & Labor officials from Reps. George Miller (D-CA), Sander Levin (D-MI), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
Sam Youngman of Reuters: "Under pressure to reveal more about his personal finances..., Mitt Romney on Friday said he had paid 'a lot of taxes' every year.... Romney said the sources of [Harry] Reid's accusations [that Romney paid no taxes for 10 years] may be within the White House or President Barack Obama's re-election campaign."
Spending More Time with His Family. Arlette Saenz & Emily Friedman of ABC News: Romney "Spokesman Rick Gorka, whose curse-laden flap with the press in Poland rounded out the news reports culminating Romney’s trip, is 'taking some time off the trail' after a week abroad, per a Romney aide. Gorka normally serves as the traveling spokesman for Romney on all his campaign trips."
No Apologies? No Principles. Ginger Gibson of Politico: "At a news conference in Las Vegas, Romney wouldn't weigh in on either the fight over comments by the president of the fast food restaurant Chick-fil-A over gay marriage or an effort spearheaded by Michele Bachmann calling for an investigation into Huma Abedin and alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the federal government." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "Mitt Romney is most amusing when he has to go la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you at the cultural-issues antics of his party's base.... Even as his most loyal supporters treat this election cycle as marking the Final War for the Preservation of Civilization, the candidate himself continues to pretend it's all about GDP growth and out-year budget estimates. It's just ha-larious."
AND Willard Gets a Key Endorsement. CBS News: "Porn star Jenna Jameson chose a familiar stage to make her endorsement for the 2012 presidential election Thursday night. At a San Francisco strip club, the former adult actress and stage performer said she was ready for a Romney presidency. 'I'm very looking forward to a Republican being back in office,' Jameson said while sipping champagne in a VIP room at Gold Club in the city's South of Market neighborhood. 'When you're rich, you want a Republican in office.'" ...
... Okay, maybe this is a better one. Steve Peoples of the AP: "Clint Eastwood just made Mitt Romney's day. [He] endorsed the Republican presidential candidate Friday night during a Sun Valley fundraiser. 'I think the country needs a boost,' Eastwood told The Associated Press as he joined other Romney supporters for the private campaign event. In February, Eastwood told Fox News that he wasn't supporting any politician at that time. Some saw the 'halftime in America' ad he made for the Super Bowl as a nod toward President Barack Obama. Eastwood responded then by saying he was not 'politically affiliated' with the president." CW: What he meant was, "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."
Congressional Races
Lucas Johnson of the AP: "The Tennessee Democratic Party is disavowing the man who won the party's nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Bob Corker in November, saying the little-known candidate belongs to an anti-gay hate group. Mark Clayton, 35, reported raising no money and campaigned little but received more than 48,000 votes, twice the number of his nearest competitor in Thursday's seven-candidate Democratic primary. Clayton is vice president of Falls Church, Va.-based Public Advocate of the United States, which calls itself a conservative advocacy group. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the organization an anti-gay hate group." CW: Congratulations on your re-election, Sen. Corker. And thanks to reader Jeanne B. for the link.
News Ledes
Birmingham News: "- A federal judge ... sentenced former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-Ala.) to 78 months in prison.... A federal jury in 2006 convicted Siegelman of federal funds bribery on allegations that he sold a seat on a hospital regulatory board to former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in exchange for $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's 1999 referendum campaign to establish a state lottery. Siegelman served nine months of an 88-month sentence before being released in March 2008 on an appeal bond. A federal appeals court tossed out two of the charges against him, which prompted today's resentencing."
Reuters: "Wildfires burned out of control on Friday in Oklahoma, destroying homes and shutting down highways in a state that has suffered 18 straight days of 100-plus degree temperatures and persistent drought. Emergency officials counted 11 different wildfires around the state, with at least 65 homes destroyed in parched areas north and south of Oklahoma City and south of Tulsa."
Reuters: "The University of Colorado has hired a former federal prosecutor to probe its handling of a former graduate student accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 in a shooting spree at a movie theater in a Denver suburb, the school said on Friday."
AP: "Iran claimed Saturday it has successfully test-fired an upgraded version of a short-range ballistic missile with improved accuracy, increasing the Islamic Republic's capability to strike both land and naval targets."
AP: "The Afghan parliament passed votes of no confidence Saturday against the country's defense and interior ministers, a blow to the government of President Hamid Karzai as it attempts to project an image of stability while international forces draw down."
AP: "Senate Democrats rejected a Republican effort to force defense contractors to send out notices of possible job layoffs four days before the election, calling the move politically driven and purely speculative based on looming spending cuts. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 17-13 against an amendment by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. The provision would have overturned Labor Department guidance this week to federal contractors that they do not have to warn their employees about potential layoffs from the automatic, across-the-board cuts that kick in Jan. 2."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (3)
Well, there we have it––the reason some people want Romney for our next President––"When you're rich, you want a Republican in office," says Jenna Jameson who evidently has made her millions by putting herself out there in all her glory and screwing herself to the top. Nice work if you can get it? She's "very looking forward to a Republican being back in office," because she evidently relates to those that "very" much fuck us over.
The situation with Romney's tax problem is becoming a huge story and some reporters like Maddow are not going to let it go. Last night she dedicated practically the whole segment to this––and that makes me "very looking forward" to the outcome.
Re: For a few dollars more. To continue the thread I started a comment ago, todays news stories are good examples of what I'm trying to express. "Pro sex star endorses Romney". Gee, there's headline. "Aged director and wooden actor endorses Romney". Another good one. Who really cares? I believe we are being swept into a virtual world of media and are ignoring the real world outside. We are becoming transformed from flesh and blood into zombies of image.
The proof is in the pudding when Ronald Raygun is now idolized as one of the great American presidents. He wasn't; he played the part of being one of the great American presidents. We have collectively, culturally, and socially have become unable to separate real from make believe. Clint was one bad-ass lawman on celluloid. Ms. Pussy has floated a thousand boats with her smooth-shaven twat on camera. Do either of the two deserve our attention as to who their preferences for president are? I think not. So one more time; why are they part of the national dialog? Because they sell, nada mas.
"I wish my life could be a nonstop Hollywood picture show..." Kinks
What is is and what ain't ain't, JJ. Or as Rummy said, you go to war with the army you've got. We've got a 24/7 news cycle to fill with what ever we've got or can imagine, including, I suppose, guys stuck to freshly painted toilet seats. It's been ever thus; it's only more annoying now because it's more obvious.