We are arguably the most free (freest?) country in the world, and for the most part I would agree. Americans tend to have a stronger sense of fairness and live-and-let-live mentality than others I think. Coupled with our constitutional, representative democracy where the rule of law is paramount, our comparatively huge and diverse country has surprisingly withstood all kinds of attacks with varying intensity on our liberty (for the most part).
But then there is our criminal justice system, on steroids thanks to our legislatures. For our own good of course. John Stossel disagrees:
The rules that bind us now total more than 160,000 pages. The Congressional Research Service said it was unable to count the number of crimes on the books. Yet last week the feds added or proposed another thousand pages. States and cities have thousands more. Have you read them all? Have our "representatives" read them all?
...When there is a big crime, legislators quickly demand that felons be given longer jail sentences and "mandatory minimums" for repeat offenses. This wins votes but kills judicial discretion and crushes unlucky people.
In Iowa, a man with an old felony conviction found a bullet, put it on his dresser and forgot about it. A police officer, looking for something else, saw the bullet. Felons may not possess any ammunition, and this "crime" made the man a repeat offender. He's now serving a 15-year mandatory sentence for possession of ammunition. Really.
Ron Paul was the only candidate to talk about this with any passion, not even Obama has discussed this.The article goes on to point out that if Obama had been prosecuted for his admitted crimes, he would not be president today, far from it actually. We were all young, and we've all done stupid things. In that respect, many of us are similar to Obama. Like him or not, he made something of himself, started a family and supported that family. Now imagine if he went to prison.
The point is that this is becoming a nation of people who are caught, and people who are not of increasingly vague and victimless crimes. And a prison term does not exactly open doors for people, at least not the doors we want.
I'm not your average news or political junkie. When something significant occurs the atmosphere seems to get acutely partisan, and the predictable hacks come out peddling their pet causes complete with rehearsed rhetoric, I get burned out.
I'm turning off the television, I've had enough of the blogs and tweets, and the endless articles. The Aurora victims deserve better.
A heavily armed gunman killed at least 14 people and wounded 50 more during an early Friday morning screening of the new Batman movie at an Aurora, Colorado, theater, police Chief Dan Oates told reporters.
Police arrested a man believed to be the shooter in a rear parking lot of the theater, Frank Fania, a police spokesman, told CNN. The suspect was not immediately identified, though Fania said he was believed to be in his early 20s.
"He did not resist. He did not put up a fight," Fania said. Police seized a rifle and a handgun from the suspect, and another gun was found in the theater, he said.
The Denver Post reports that the man was wearing a gas mask, released some kind of gas and then opened fire:
Witnesses said gunman wore a gas mask and was clad in black.
"Witnesses tell us he released some sort of canister." Oates said. "They heard a hissing sound and some gas emerged and the gunman opened fire."
A witness, Benjamin Fernandez, 30, said he was watching the movie when he heard a series of explosions. He said that people ran from the theater and there were gunshots as police shouted 'get down!"
Sounds like the police were on the scene as it happened, or very shortly after it started.
This was only 13 miles from the Columbine High School.
A suspect was apprehended in the shopping center's parking lot, Oates said. He was named as 24-year-old James Holmes, two federal officials from different agencies told NBC News.
Law enforcement officials and witnesses told ABC News Holmes, 24, wore what appeared to be a bullet-proof vest and riot-type mask as he opened fire...
A San Diego woman who identified herself as James Holmes' mother told ABC News she had awoken unaware of the shooting and had not yet been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved.
"You have the right person," she said, apparently speaking on gut instinct. "I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado."
...the suspect reportedly told police he had explosives inside.
Warner Bros. is deeply saddened to learn about this shocking incident. We extend our sincere sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims at this tragic time.
Via Gabe at Ace's, Romney has an effective new ad hitting Obama on the idiotic "You didn't build that" comments:
While Obama keeps making personal attacks on Romney, insinuating he's some sort of tax evading criminal banker, Romney keeps the focus on the issues that matter.
Please Mr. President, keep putting your foot in your mouth. Or maybe Obama will try a new demagoguing tactic, since the Bain attacks aren't working out so well:
“No, I haven’t had a falling out with Justice Roberts,” Scalia said, when asked about press accounts that some Republican-appointed justices were angry with Roberts after he reportedly switched sides to uphold the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
“Loud words exchanged, slamming of doors?” CNN host Piers Morgan asked Scalia.
“No, no. … nothing like that,” the justice replied.
He goes on to defend the Citizens United decision and Bush v. Gore.
Phase it out or better yet, sell it. I think the private sector is perfectly capable of handling and updating an increasingly obsolete service.
What good reason do we have to pour money down a sinkhole when we could be collecting taxes from a similar private enterprise?
The Postal Service, faced with continuing financial losses because of a drop in mail volume, expects to default for the first time...
The $5.5 billion payment, which was deferred from the 2011 fiscal year, is due Aug. 1. The Postal Service is also scheduled to make a $5.6 billion payment for 2012 in September. A spokesman for the agency said that barring intervention from Congress, it would default on both payments.
“We are simply not capable of making either of these payments to the U.S. Treasury, in part or in full, while continuing to meet our other legal obligations...
I'm beginning to think that aside from the military, there isn't a single federal government branch or agency that has the support of a majority of it's citizens. With spending on an unsustainable path, entitlements nearing bankruptcy, the Post Office defaulting, unemployment, it's a wonder we function with any unity at all.
The nation is now evenly divided, with 41 percent of Americans saying they approve of the job the court is doing and the same share voicing disapproval, according to a new poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News. In a poll a few weeks before the health care decision, the court’s approval rating was 44 percent and its disapproval rating 36 percent.
More than half of Americans said the decision in the health care case was based mainly on the justices’ personal or political views. Only about 3 in 10 of them said the decision in the case was based mainly on legal analysis.
PPP's newest New Mexico poll finds the race for President there getting a lot more competitive. Barack Obama continues to lead but his advantage is down to 5 points at 49-44, a far cry from the leads of 14 and 15 points he had on our previous two polls of the state.
The big difference between now and April comes with Democrats. Previously Obama was winning them 85-12 but now that lead is down to 73-21. New Mexico is a state, like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where any chance at victory for Romney is going to require winning over a significant number of conservative Democrats. Right now he's doing a pretty decent job of that.
I 'm not sure why he's losing support in New Mexico; maybe it's his stellar record on the economy, maybe it's record-breaking deportations, or maybe it's because his policies negatively impact New Mexico in direct ways. Or all of the above.
This potentially gives Romney and the GOP a huge opportunity. I've always believed Hispanics tended to be socially conservative, it's just that they more easily identify with the political party portrayed as the most pro-immigrant. Right or wrong, that's the Democrats. If the 'conservatives' would logically extend their free-market, limited government principles to immigration issues we could easily add in a whole new demographic to the GOP's base.
It's okay to be anti-illegal immigration, but it's politically cancerous to ignore legal immigration--which is a fucking nightmare for most immigrants. It should be easier, not harder for good people to enter and stay in the U.S.
This is what Hope and Change leadership looks like:
At this point, the hiatus — which reached the half-year mark Tuesday — might be less awkward than an official meeting, given the hornet’s nest of issues that could sting Obama and the council members if the private-sector panel gets together.
For starters, there’s the discomfort many business leaders may feel in appearing to embrace the president with his reelection bid in full swing.
Then, there’s the fact that some members of the commission have conspicuously declined to endorse him. And that Obama has conspicuously declined to endorse some of their recommendations. And that some of what Obama won’t endorse has been warmly embraced by Republicans...
No wonder the Obama campaign and the media would rather talk about Romney's tax records and former employment.
This single example is a metaphor of the entire administration: sloppy, lazy, ineffectual, and always directing attention away from themselves. What has been the number one issue since Obama was elected? Jobs. Or the economy in general.
Apparently assuming the Recovery Act was a cure-all, the check-list president then spent the next two years of his administration focusing on health care. But whether you like Obamacare or not, he left Nancy Pelosi to do the heavy lifting on that. I guess he needed his time on the green.
Even if I was a socialist, I would have to admit the president has been a complete failure of a leader. But it's worse; he won't assume responsibility for his failures, not even the failure to satisfy his base.
It's not like there are any trade secrets lying about where athletes can do damage merely by talking, it's just about making the most money while avoiding the most lawsuits.
According to the IOC 2012 guidelines, volunteers and athletes are allowed to use social media websites like Twitter and Facebook. However, any comments or postings must be in a "first-person, diary-type format" and not come close to emulating the "role of a journalist" by commenting on separate events.
In any of their postings, they must also avoid mentioning:
Details of their specific location,
Media of backstage areas
Breaking news
Information about participants
Detailed online discussions
There's more:
Personal photographs can posted to these sites, but cannot be commercially distributed elsewhere. A caveat to this is that any pictures taken in the Olympic Village must be vetted first by those pictured.
Videos can be shot but cannot be posted online or elsewhere in any form. Once in the stadium, only official sponsors are allowed to take video and still shots.
I guess it's good I'm no Olympic athlete, otherwise I'd be a walking broadcast network--spilling the beans on top secret stuff like the weather, the Russians' chances of winning, and what everyone had for lunch.
It's sad really: Citizen-journalists are encouraged by social media and the internet in general today; athlete-journalists are another story.
The Democratic National Convention Committee announced today that its upcoming Charlotte convention program will be shortened from four days to three days, and that the event will begin on Labor Day...
Either way the numbers don't lie; and Silver basically stops short of calling the anti-Voter ID people a bunch of whiners:
One last thing to consider: although I do think these laws will have some detrimental effect on Democratic turnout, it is unlikely to be as large as some Democrats fear or as some news media reports imply — and they can also serve as a rallying point for the party bases.
Sure, the whole anti-American thing is a stretch so that's easy to ignore, but when you hear the words "this narcissistic parasite" describing Paris Hilton among others, in the most serious, documentary-like, matter-of-factly voice imaginable you can't help but laugh:
Via Twitchy, where apparently it's news that an airhead rapper bought this hook, line and sinker.
Out of the 10th Anniversary Firefly Reunion panel came a surprise announcement which will delight Browncoats the world over:
Bleeding Cool was on the scene when Joss Whedon and The Science Channel’s Debbie Myers confirmed to a packed room of journalists that if the planned Firefly reunion movie performs well that we can expect a full Firefly series reboot. And, it seems as if Whedon plans to wipe the slates clean and bring back the entire original cast.
“The opening sequence [of the Firefly reboot] is a conversation between Wash and Book,” said Whedon quite, quite seriously to the amazed Firefly cast and crew on the press panel with him Friday in San Diego. [emphasis added]
I hope it's true... I mean they keep teasing us hardcore sci-fi fans with awesome movies like Promethius and the 2009 Star Trek, with a sequel next year yet nothing on television. What I would give to see more of this on tv:
Speaking of Trek, here's the latest news on the sequel, which might be followed by a new tv series. On the other hand, it might be from the guy who did Heroes, which was horrible.
Since January 2011, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan claims it’s killed or captured over 100 insurgent “leaders.” Too bad it doesn’t have any clear idea what “leader” means. Any insurgent who commands another person apparently qualifies. And worse, by that criteria, Taliban and aligned insurgents have killed twice as many U.S. troops in the same time period.
We're losing a lot more "leaders" than they are? We're approaching 11 years in Afghanistan. That's several years too long.
According to the Boston Globe, Mitt Romney was CEO and president of Bain Capital until at least 2002, three years after he said he left.
Yeah, I know.
Romney did not finalize a severance agreement with Bain until 2002, a 10-year deal with undisclosed terms that was retroactive to 1999. It expired in 2009.
Bain Capital and the campaign for the presumptive GOP nominee have suggested the SEC filings that show Romney as the man in charge during those additional three years have little meaning, and are the result of legal technicalities. The campaign declined to comment on the record. It pointed to a footnote in Romney’s most recent financial disclosure form, filed June 1 as a presidential candidate.
“Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way,’’ according to the footnote. Romney made the same assertion on a financial disclosure form in 2007, during his first run for president.
Either Romney left in 1999 or 2002, and while this may muddy the waters and help Democrats paint him as an outsourcer, the potentially bigger story is that he possibly wasn't honest. Coupled with the implied allegations of tax evasion via offshore accounts it isn't exactly good news for him.
I tend to think Romney will open his books, and similarly explain the Bain departure confusion, a reasonable amount of time before the election. But I could be wrong, and Romney doesn't even need to. This is a referendum on failed economic policies Obama.
Since they can't debate Romney on the issues, they will attack his character. Or lie.
Listen, Romney wasn't my first pick. To be honest I wasn't happy with any of the GOP candidates, and it was the least interesting, least motivating, least inspiring GOP presidential primary that I can remember. Sure I want to beat Obama, and there is a HUGE swell of new Republican energy this year because of that. But that doesn't mean our candidates are the bees knees.
Yes I wish Romney could hit a little harder, keep Obama on defense (after all, it is his presidency we're after). But we fight with the candidates we have, not the ones we want to have.
Robert Elliot at the Examiner has compiled a list of states that elected new governors in 2010, and what he found was that, as a percentage, states with new Republican governors have hired more workers than states with new Democratic governors:
[I]n January 2011 the U.S. national unemployment rate stood at 9.1%. It is currently 8.2%, meaning that the national unemployment rate has declined by just 0.9% since then. Based on these percentages, it can be said that the job market in states with new Republican governors is improving a full 50% faster than the job market nationally.
This one would take some help from Congress. But if Republicans find a way to stop funding the federal exchanges, a Romney administration would be under no obligation to come up with the funds...
5. Do nothing
If Romney’s really determined to block the law, he might not actually need to do anything too clever — he could do a lot by simply doing nothing at all.
He could stop the writing of the remaining rules to implement the law, stop Medicare from moving ahead with programs to find new ways to pay providers, stop the IRS from enforcing the individual mandate and even stop Medicaid officials from facilitating the expansion of the program in the states that want it.
Now this will stop, or at least significantly hinder the functioning of Obamacare, but one or all of these strategies would be more harmful to a Romney administration than out-right repeal.
Why? Uncertainty. It's hard for businesses to plan if they don't know what the law is or will be, and how it will be enforced. Uncertainty = less hiring.
It's messy. You can imagine the White House press secretary spinning wild tales of how things are perfect, "We have Obamacare de jure, just not de facto." And the Democrats' response would be something along the lines of, "the president is not faithfully executing the duties of office..." Most Americans tend not to like messy politics.
The five ways Politico pointed out might work in tandem with a repeal effort on the front burner, otherwise it's a recipe for electoral failure. And without repeal, any future president and congress could begin to fund and enforce it.
Details have been shortcoming, but the congressman from Illinois has been under investigation for some time:
Jackson is currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for his involvement with Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempts to sell the Senate seat in Illinois as well as using campaign funds to fly his mistress to Chicago.
And it's not such a stretch to think he could be a danger to himself. The few details we have paint an unsettling picture:
A statement from Mr. Jackson’s office gave few particulars about his condition, but it noted that he was undergoing “further evaluation and treatment at an in-patient medical facility.”
“Recently, we have been made aware that he has grappled with certain physical and emotional ailments privately for a long period of time,” read the statement from Frank E. Watkins, the director of communications for Mr. Jackson’s office in Washington.
It also said, “According to the preliminary diagnosis from his doctors, Congressman Jackson will need to receive extended in-patient treatment as well as continuing medical treatment thereafter.”
According to WaPo sources, Jackson was typically energetic and not one to shy away from media coverage, until now:
[T]he announcement is the latest in a long line of troubles for the civil rights scion. Previously, Jackson and his wife acknowledged that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship, and Jackson has also been linked to convicted former governor Rod Blagojevich’s (D) efforts to sell the open Senate seat vacated by President Obama in 2009 (though he has not been charged with wrongdoing).
What's going on Congressman?
Word on the streets in Chicago is @RepJJJr (Jesse Jackson Jr.) can't take the heat, tried to swallow a bottle of pills and check out. #loser
— RebelPundit (@RebelPundit) July 5, 2012
But the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., in an interview with POLITICO, pushed back on an unconfirmed report that his 47-year-old son attempted suicide.
The elder Jackson was responding to a “rumor” broadcast by an Illinois radio station Tuesday. WLS of Chicago cited “two high-ranking people on the Democratic side of the aisle..."
[Freeman] was especially interested in talking about President Obama, and why Freeman thinks he should not be called America's first black president.
"First thing that always pops into my head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this barrier for him ... they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white — very white American, Kansas, middle of America," Freeman said. "There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America's first black president hasn't arisen yet. He's not America's first black president — he's America's first mixed-race president."
I'm sure Sharpton and Jackson are already doing damage control.
Consistent with this administration's general theme of arrogant unaccountability, the enviro-potentates at the BLM have been refusing to disclose their reasoning on land use decisions to the locals.
But now a judge has ruled that the federal government must release the documents that show what rationale they are using to consistently deny lawful requests for land use.
Please go to the link to see the news video, which is short but good. The reporter takes the time to point out that Red Rock was sponsored by a NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN. You can imagine Utahns all spitting in unison when they heard that part of the broadcast, heh.
For the life of me I couldn't figure out what the deal was with a couple of seemingly small stories. Then the narrative started to take shape--that Romney is in big trouble, his campaign is confused, his supporters are angry at him, and Romney himself is looking like a flip-flopper among other depressing and nefarious things.
On Thursday, Romney’s team put out word of a massive $100 million fundraising haul — but its skill in attracting donors has done little to tamp down longstanding concerns within the GOP about the insularity and rigidness of the Romney camp. Those gripes are now being aired in public, as center-right staples from The Wall Street Journal editorial page to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham lament what they view as an uninspired, passive campaign. Romney’s general-election approach has resembled the strategy he used during the GOP primaries, a keep-your-head-down, minimalist effort aimed at keeping the focus on his opponent.
Adopting a prevent defense when it's only the second quarter and you're not even ahead is dubious enough as a strategy. But his campaign's monomaniacal belief that it's about the economy and only the economy, and that they need to keep telling us stupid voters that it's only about the economy, has gone from being an annoying tick to a dangerous self-delusion.
Of course Republican concern trolling is just not complete without the New York Times. Jeremy Peters opines:
The editorial was a stern reminder of Mr. Romney’s failure to win the trust of the Republican Party’s core conservatives, a group that pays close attention to Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers and cable news outlets. Though political strategists debate the ultimate impact of any single media outlet, what is written in the pages of The Journal and The New York Post and talked about on Fox News — all Murdoch properties — could have the collective power to shape the thinking of millions of voters.
So what do we conclude with this narrative that has saturated American punditry? Answer: OMG, Romney is gonna implode!!1!
As I mentioned, this boils down to two, very small stories.
First, one guy on Romney's campaign staff said that the Obamacare mandate is a penalty and not a tax. It's easy to take either side, or both sides, since the Court was very creative in justifying the mandate as a tax. So one guy went off message on something most normal people could take either side on. The semantics of the mandate/tax don't change what it really does.
Second and finally, the other small story is about what a rich guy tweeted. Yes, Rupert Murdoch has some problems with Romney, and why are we supposed to care? The election is a referendum on Captain Failed-Recovery Obama, not on the true conservative manliness of Romney. Murdoch even said it was a referendum and that "all else [is] pretty minor"! It's not part of the narrative so it doesn't get reported.
More like slow news week. I'm a bit tired of writing about Romney's confusion/flip flopping on the Obamatax (it's not a big deal despite what the media says), so in no particular order here's some stuff I found:
Dollar bills came swirling down just after 5 p.m. at Seventh Avenue and Pike Street, to the delight of tourists. The money was printed with the words "money as speech silences us all," a statement of protest against court rulings that consider political donations from businesses a form of free speech.
According to the activists' website, the money will go back into general circulation and get their message out.
Holly Rozner, a tourist visiting Seattle from Chicago with a group of friends, fetched $14 from the sky.
"I just saw it coming down," she said. "I didn't think it was real."
Nothing refutes the idea that money is bad like free money. In fact, I will gladly take up this cause for a princely sum.
Kentucky senator Rand and his father Ron Paul, who has not yet formally conceded the Republican presidential nomination, will throw their weight behind a new online manifesto set to be released today by the Paul-founded Campaign for Liberty. The new push, Paul aides say, will in some ways displace what has been their movement's long-running top priority, shutting down the Federal Reserve Bank. The move is an attempt to stake a libertarian claim to a central public issue of the next decade, and to move from the esoteric terrain of high finance to the everyday world of cable modems and Facebook...
The document is intended to serve as a conservative counterpoint to a Declaration of Internet Freedom released this week and hosted by the group FreePress, though the two share some goals...
The language of the document tries to reclaim the issue of Internet freedom from the strange bedfellows that have staked a claim to it: progressives and tech companies on one hand, and more traditional conservative politicians like California Rep. Darrell Issa.
Hey Buzzfeed idiots, this is more libertarian than conservative. But I hope this gets the support it deserves. It's always so refreshing to see bold libertarian ideas put into what seems like "a line in the sand" moment.
Chinese leadership — the same leadership that has made hacking our military and commercial computers a priority — understands that no nation on earth is more dependent for its overall survival on its satellites than the United States... What if they went dark or were destroyed in orbit?
...But preeminence is space is about much more than military advantage. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, outlined that argument when he told Popular Science earlier this year:
If China sets up a permanent base on the moon, and tries to explore Mars on a time scale shorter than ours, that will be another space race. I am just certain of it. I am trying to get people to do this without having to view it as an act of war, or an act of a response to an adversary. One way is because of economics; the government could do this, and they could say, “The economic return is the scientists and technologists who invent the new tomorrow.” Space exploration is the carrot that incites people to become scientifically literate. So I view it as an economic development plan.
Maybe it’s time for the president and his Republican opponent to elevate a few issues to the “tangible” list regardless of personal or partisan self-interest. As China launches military satellite after military satellite while declaring its intention to colonize the moon, maybe preeminence in space should be one of them.
If money were no object, I'd be the first pushing for reachable goals within 5-20 years. Like more deep-space and asteroid-bound probes, manned flights to the moon--laying the foundation for a moon base, setting up a new Hubble on the dark side of the moon, gearing up for "robotic colonization" on Mars--setting the stage for manned missions. Further exploration of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. And yes, these are all physically doable with today's technology.
Right now that's just fantasy. I must confess, a part of me wants the Chinese to force our hand. But a much bigger part of me wants the private sector to step it up; profiting off of space is a lot nicer than paying for it.
Granted, it's only from 1000 likely voters, and if I remember correctly, likely voters are slightly more likely to be Republican. Though I could be wrong.
So I just got an email from Friedrich Engels, who pointed me to this story about how the united workers of China have generously helped out their fellow workers in Angola, Africa.
I have to admit, all those blocks of centrally planned, color coordinated, high-rise apartment buildings have some appeal, in a creepy ghost town sort of way:
China sure knows how to build ghost towns, I'll give them that.
Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss, dived into the President's past with a magnifying glass to write a biography. And apparently the facts don't exactly match what Obama wrote in either of his books.
The president confirmed Maraniss's research and offered sometimes guarded explanations for those instances when he had chosen to employ an approach in Dreams that was less than strictly factual...
And where Dreams related the story of Obama quarreling with a white girlfriend after the two attended a black theatre production in Manhattan... actually happened with a different girlfriend, in Chicago.
The false portrayal of the incident as having happened with Obama's white girlfriend in New York was startling to Australian native Genevieve Cook, who confirmed to Maraniss that she was that girlfriend. Cook... also told Maraniss that Obama had "greatly exaggerated" in Dreams the details of another encounter between them.
I'm not going to pretend this is scandalous or even big news, but I am happy this kind of research is finally taking place, even if it's 4 years late.
This is news for at least two reasons (and pardon me while I engage in some helpful generalizing):
1. Romney is too rich, and since he's Republican there must be something fishy going on.
The first reason is why every MSNBC host will be talking about this, after they've read what every lefty blog had to say on the subject of course.
How Romney appears to the left.
(comic from Steve Benson)
Even if it's unfair and fodder for partisan hacks, it's the reason why every Republican nominee needs to open his books completely, to rub the left's faces in their own warrantless suspicions. Now this could be what Romney is doing--waiting patiently for leftist anger and speculation to build so he can use that energy against them; play them for fools. The left will claim victory by proving he's rich, but most Americans don't care about that. Believe it or not, many even admire success.
2. It's possible (if unlikely) that Romney wasn't paying all of his taxes, so we need to see what he's got.
This is true for every candidate. Democrat, Republican, even Libertarians. If they have a viable chance at winning the election, their finances should be an open book a reasonable amount of time before November. Heaven forbid we elect a guy without vetting him, that would be awful! Thankfully we have our trusty watchdog media.
But seriously, no party and no citizen wants to find out their candidate is shady when it's too late. So Mitt should open up. When the time is right, and not a minute earlier.
Correction: I mistakenly attributed this story to the Washington Post; I've corrected the title--it's from the Associated Press.
Not a single celebratory image, barely a mention of our Independence Day. Just a link at the bottom of the page tucked away in a widget saying "Obama Marks 4th of July with New Citizens".
Click on images to enlarge.
ABC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, Washington Post, and Google were markedly different.
Here are a few examples:
MSNBC was only slightly better. They had a top story about the 4th and eating hot dogs (briefly, but now it's gone).
Update: Better late than never? After going all day without, The New York Times and MSNBC finally show prominent stories about the 4th of July. Apparently it's not so much about our nation's independence as it is about fireworks.
“While I agreed with the dissent, that’s overtaken by the fact that the majority of the Court said it’s a tax and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There’s no way around that,” Romney said. “The American people know that President Obama has broken the pledge he made — said he wouldn’t raise taxes on middle-income Americans.”
CBS hasn't posted the full video of Romney's interview yet, so it's not clear if Romney addressed Fehrnstrom's comments, or whether his remarks on the mandate today mean he also raised taxes in Massachusetts. Republicans have urged Romney to campaign comprehensively against the law known as Obamacare, even if that means talking around his record as governor.
You know what this means? Romney is a flip flopper:
The Obama campaign responds in a statement hitting Romney as a flip-flopper: "[Romney] contradicted himself by saying his own Massachusetts mandate wasn't a tax — but, Romney has called the individual mandate he implemented in Massachusetts a tax many times before..."
Update: The NYT is a little late on this, but there's a point every non-Fox News media personality keep forgetting:
Mr. Romney appeared to be making a finer point about the absolute role the Supreme Court plays in setting American law, even if the nuance was lost on many. “Well, the Supreme Court has the final word and their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it’s a tax,” he said.
If SCOTUS rules that the sky is green, then as far as American law is concerned, the sky is green. It's a tax.
Republican politicians across the country claim that Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, the widely popular program which makes health insurance available for lower-income Americans, will increase costs for states...
Directly disproving Republican claims, an extensive study reveals that the Affordable Care Act significantly benefits states by reducing their uncompensated care costs.
Let's just uncritically swallow whole this study that comes from the President's very own advisers. I mean take a look at that website, you would think they were talking about an entirely different country! I want to move there it sounds so nice.
Even if the states were going to save a bunch of money under the medicaid expanison part of Obamacare, you can't get around the fact that premiums are rising. Obamacare as is, does nothing long term to stop the rising costs of health care. And there is little reason it should.
Yeah, having everyone insured expands the insurance pool lowering premiums. But premiums aren't about being in a group, they are about enabling you to pay for catastrophic care, and increasingly routine medical services. Doctors and hospitals have little reason to be priced competitively; after all the cost of your visit won't be coming directly out of your pocket, why even look at the price tag?
But what I think is hilarious is this common claim:
This study blows a hole in Republican claims that Obamacare has ill economic effects. In reality, Obamacare saves states money while improving the overall economy. Republicans who care more about fiscal responsibility than political gamesmanship would do well to embrace it.
I don't know how anyone can say that last sentence with a straight face. It's as if they keep telling themselves this, and maybe it will increase the odds of Obamacare being a success. Well don't kid yourselves.
Where is all this magic money coming from? If it's not coming from state governments it's coming from the federal government. That means you and me. Tell me now, how does taking money out of your pocket, and putting it in someone else's create wealth? If you can figure that out, let me know. And please don't say the printing press.
Think Progress also buys into (or hackishly spreads) the lie that Obamacare is revenue neutral. Back during the congressional debates this was a very controversial position. It was all over the news, and plenty of researchers dived into it. But it doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics or political science to figure out that health care subsidies for millions of people isn't gonna be "revenue neutral".
Egypt's new government is sparking growing outrage in the U.S. for its attempts to win the release of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind cleric behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
In Cairo, President-elect Mohamed Morsi proclaimed to hundreds of thousands of supporters in Tahir Square on Friday that he will gain the release of Rahman, who is in a federal prison in North Carolina after having been convicted of masterminding the bombing that killed six and unsuccessfully plotting to blow up other landmarks, including the United Nations.
Although a U.S. official told FoxNews.com the sheik will never be freed, the fact that Egypt's newly-installed Muslim Brotherhood government is asking has top elected officials here seething.
Well that's wonderful, Obama's new friends in Egypt showing their true colors. Of course we're not going to release him, but thanks in part to Obama's "smart diplomacy", Egypt's new leaders are now able to gin up hate like it's going out of style.
I'm really sympathetic to David Frum here, where he argues that America should start burying power lines like much of Germany has:
Outages are not inevitable. The German power grid has outages at an average rate of 21 minutes per year.
The winds may howl. The trees may fall. But in Germany, the lights stay on.
There's no Teutonic engineering magic to this impressive record. It's achieved by a very simple decision: Germany buries almost all of its low-voltage and medium-voltage power lines, the lines that serve individual homes and apartments. Americans could do the same. They have chosen not to.
Frum goes on explaining that Americans haven't buried their power lines primarily because it costs too much. And it is expensive. And he's right that the rewards of having a lot more underground and more reliable power indicate that there is a case to be made for it.
The problem I see, however, is that I don’t think this project would be nearly as easy as Frum seems to think that it is. For one thing, the United States is far larger than Germany and has many more miles of power lines to worry about. A project to bury every single line in the country would take a very long time and, Frum’s reassurances not withstanding, cost utilities a lot of money. That money would either have to come from increased rates, or from taxpayer dollars. Add into that the fact that we’re not just talking about electrical lines here, but also telephone and cable transmission lines, and you’ve just increased the number of potential players by a pretty significant degree. It took us decades to wire the country for electricity.
Getting the utility companies to fork out serious money to bury the lines isn't going to happen easily. Even assuming the political climate is calm enough, it would take one hideous beast of a law forcing them to, while the cost gets shifted on to customers, taxpayers or both. Making this a national thing would take a huge subsidy.
The best way to do this is to do it locally. Have state and local governments require, where feasible and appropriate, new developments to have underground lines, and similarly replace damaged above-ground lines. But even that may not be fast enough, as I believe this is the policy today in many cities.
Since patience is something of a scarcity in Washington, it will take that hideous beast of a spending bill to get most of the country's power lines underground in about a decade. But let's not kid ourselves Mr. Frum, forcibly taking people's money to hire other people is redistribution of wealth, not wealth creation:
Burying power lines is a project that could put many hundreds of thousands of the unemployed to work at tasks that make use of their skills and experience.
“Perhaps if there’s a second term for Obama after health care is enacted and people see it working well and get used to it, he’ll float to a new level of power.
“Maybe he’ll go even further trying to bolster his legacy by enacting new paternalistic mandates meant to make the nation better. Saying all Americans must vote, because government works better when all participate in selecting leaders.
Eat your vegetables!
Yeah it's a "self parody" or something but pay attention to the end of the clip; he believes "the government should lead sometimes... sometimes the people need to be driven further". Allow me to translate: The government should coerce often, in directions against their will.
A very interesting read from SCOTUSblog on the likely affects of the Sebelius decision, the CBS report, the leaks that lead to it, and who wrote what:
[T]here is the discussion of the composition of the dissent... the story says that the Chief Justice had no part in that document. It was the joint collaboration of the four Justices who ultimately dissented, according to the account.
The story also implies that the writing of that opinion came after Roberts’s purported switch. But there is one telltale contradiction of that possibility. On page 25, the dissenters say that, if the ruling in favor of the mandate were based upon the Tax Clause, that ”would force us to confront a difficult constitutional question,” but it then added that “we have no need to address the point.” The point is whether the tax was, in constitutional terms, a “Direct Tax.” But, unaccountably from the language in the dissent, Roberts’s opinion does directly confront that difficult question, and decides that the penalty associated with the mandate is not a Direct Tax, but is a tax nonetheless. That conflict makes the supposed sequencing of the dissent and the Roberts opinion somewhat doubtful...
[T]he prospect of lingering impact of the CBS story is not due only to the fact of the leaks. The content itself is a public rebuke of Roberts, from inside the Court, and amounts to a direct challenge to his ability to lead the Court and to take steps — if that was what his position on the health care law was intended to do — to insulate the Court from the partisan polarization that so dominates the rest of Washington.
I don't think it's exclusively a tax or a penalty, it's both.
Wait, wait. So it goes both ways? Does this have something to do with bipartisanship where both sides win? I r confused.
But Romney isn't. He's had enough of the rhetorical kama sutra required for the Obamatax:
For an issue that's supposedly potent against Democrats, Romney's campaign is declaring a cease fire. This, even as the law polls unfavorably and it proved to be a motivating force for Republicans and disaffected independents in the 2010 midterms.
It's becoming clear that Romney has decided to focus on the economy at the expense of everything else... He's avoided criticizing the administration's handling of the botched Fast and Furious operation, even as it threatens to become a serious vulnerability for the president.
So Romney is trying the successful McCain strategy of playing nice? But let me say seriously that I think the National Journal overstated the facts. Actually they just linked to the story about Fehrnstrom and decided that was enough to call it a "cease-fire". Great work guys!
The Obama campaign has seized on remarks made by Romney adviser Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom this morning on MSNBC, to the effect that the individual mandate in Obamacare (and Romneycare) is not a tax. Fehrnstrom allowed Chuck Todd to push him off message--and re-ignited the fears that conservatives have long had about Romney's will and ability to fight. In response, conservatives--who had just coalesced around opposition to what many now call "Obamatax"--exhort: Mitt, start fighting, or give up and let someone else do it.
This just won't do; McCain strategy off. I guess rhetorical kama sutra sprinkled with semantic foreplay is back on.
So is the Romney campaign, in fact, declaring a “cease-fire” on Obamacare? No, no, no, says Romney spokesman Ryan Williams. “From our perspective, Obamacare has been and will continue to be a central issue in the campaign,” says Williams. “It presents voters with a bright line that divides the two candidates. Gov. Romney is going to repeal Obamacare and President Obama is going to keep it. There is a clear choice in November.”
[Republicans] promise to efficiently manage the Leviathan with a measured hand. And maybe some tax breaks from time to time. And who better to keep that promise than the man whose team gave us state-run health care in the first place?
I'm beginning to doubt the competence of Romney's campaign. Their messaging is so confused and changes day to day, compounded by the fact Romney is known as a flip-flopper. If your guy can't stay on message, fire him on the spot. Make him walk out of the interview in shame. But if there is any truth to the "cease-fire", Susan Duclos explains why it might be a good idea:
Obamacare will be a defining issue in the November 6, 2012 presidential election as will the economy and jobs, but the individual battles fought until that day must be divided up accordingly where Romney's strength in business can be utilized by his campaign and his weakest area, health care, can be utilized by other sources.
Apparently Jon Stewart doesn't like rich people, unless perhaps they subscribe to the same ideology.
If Romney only switched sides all would be forgiven; as we all know socialists and progressives get a platinum hypocrite card which permits them to drive SUVs, fly in private jets, and make gobs of cash on the backs of their staff and fans guilt free. After 6 months of membership in the elite club you get to bash rich Republicans on TV for doing the same thing! Calling everyone racist is optional, but encouraged.
Now honestly, I don't know if or how much Stewart gives to charity or if he shares with his staff, but I'm willing to bet Romney has given to charity and helped others in need far more than Stewart has. But that still doesn't excuse rich Republicans for being Republican.
