Gov. Scott Walker: Once A Fan Of Recalls…

… until he has had to face one himself.

By  eXtina  on Wed May 30, 2012         Original Post

Gov. Scott Walker has claimed the effort to recall him and his allies is an expensive and unnecessary political gambit, even  though Wisconsin's Constitution is clear that the reasons for recall are to be specified by those seeking the recall.

He says

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign is spending a lot of the money it has collected from out-of-state billionaires to fund a television ad campaign that preaches against recall elections.

The governor’s “Recall: No” campaign, ../ argues that the push for a recall election is simply “sour grapes.” Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch won the 2010 election, the line goes, so Wisconsinites should swallow hard and shut up for four years.

This fantasy, that elections produce a “king for four years” or an “elected despot” (to borrow phrases from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison), has been promoted by the governor in interviews with right-wing talk radio and regular appearances on Fox News and CNBC programs.

“A minority of voters will get to force a new election in Wisconsin … costing millions of dollars to the taxpayers this spring,” Walker griped in the latest of the appearances on programs that he makes as part of a fundraising push.

And Tom Barrett reminds us that Walker signed petitions to recall Sen. Feingold and Sen. Kohl, because he disagreed with political decisions they made, one of only a few state legislators to do so. Walker has no memoryof signing those petitions he says, and they have since been destroyed. And took money from this group after it disbanded.

In 2002 Walker became the favored candidate of the group seeking to replace County Executive Tom Ament. He waxed poetic about that 'display of hope'when he ran for governor in 2010.

You know the folks that were angry about this started a recall and they were told they needed to collect 73,000 signatures in 60 days. Well, not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of ordinary people did an extraordinary thing. They stood up and took their government back. In less than 30 days they collected more than 150,000 signatures. It was at that moment I realized the real emotion on display in my county wasn’t just about anger. You see, if it had been about anger, it would have been about people checking out and moving out or giving up. But instead what happened was really amazing. You saw people standing up shoulder to shoulder, neighbor to neighbor and saying we want our government back. And in doing so the real emotion on display was about hope.”

Recall of Scott Walker? Sour grapes.  Recall of someone Walker wants to replace? Democracy and hope on disply. Just a little bit of hypocrisy there.

 

Technorati Tags: Scott Walker,Recalls,Politics,2012,Current Events

BREAKING! Obama To Sell Florida Back To Spain!

     Hello.  Joe Arpaio here.  You probably didn't know I was a Kossack.  Well, I'm gonna school you on that and a lot of other things.  For example, did you know that my Special Investigation Unit has just received solid intelligence to the effect that when King Juan Carlos was visiting Pensacola, Fla. in February 2009, he wasn't just there to commemorate the 450 years since the city's founding by Spaniards. 

In fact, the Spanish King was there to sign an earnest money agreement with "President" Obama, whereby the United States would sell Florida back to Spain.

As America's Toughest Sheriff®, I've been watching this situation for some time.  It looks like when Michelle Obama went to visit the Spanish royal family in August 2010 with her daughter Sasha, this was simply a cover story.  

The real purpose of course was to turn over her extra keys to Florida and give Queen Sofia the instructions on how to set the burglar alarm.

And tell me that this isn't suspicious:

PENSACOLA, Florida (AP): In the City of Five Flags on Thursday, it was the red and yellow of the Spanish banner that dominated as King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia helped celebrate the history Pensacola shares with their country.

School children wearing the Spanish colors and thousands of others with signs lined much of the route from Pensacola Beach to downtown to welcome the royal couple, who were invited as part of the 450th anniversary of the first Spanish settlement in what is now the United States.

Can you imagine the brainwashing that's already gone on to accustom little school children into fervently waving the Spanish flag?

I've been reading how back in 2010, this Obama fellow, whoever he is, met with the King of Spain in February 2010 and told King Juan Carlos he'd like to visit Spain.  Then it hit me like a federal lawsuit alleging systemic abuses of civil rights by my own department:  Obama means he'd like to visit Disney World as soon as it gets sold back to Spain!

All you have to do is connect the dots ...

* In 2010, the American Youth Soccer League held its National Games in Palm Beach, Florida.  Soccer of course is the most popular sport in Spain.  The 9,000 so-called players, coaches and so forth that came to the city were actually foreign infiltrators trying to subvert the local Floridians from true American sports, such as football, roller derby, and getting drunk and trying to shoot a beer can off your buddy's head with a crossbow.

* At the University of Florida the College of the LIBERAL Arts & Sciences has a whole department dedicated to the study of ... Spanish.  There can only be one purpose why liberals would want the youth of Florida to study Spanish: to prepare them to become subjects of Juan Carlos, rey de España.

 

* The Miami Dauphins aren't called that for no reason.  Juan Carlos I is in fact a member of the Bourbon family, which invented whiskey (that's how they got all their money) and also became kings of Spain after the War of Jenkin's Ear (or Jones's Nose, or something like that).  And "Dauphin" was one of the titles used by the Bourbons, there's even a picture of a Dauphin on their coat of arms!  Coincidence?  I think NOT.

* Florida has 29 electoral votes, and is considered a swing state.  And it's no surprise that the Liberal "President", Barack Obama, would consider selling Florida back to Spain.  That whole anti-colonist spin he was putting on (with the aid of his double agents, Dinesh D'Souza and Newt Gingrich) was just a false flag to prevent the Republicans from ever again getting Florida's electoral votes.

And if that doesn't convince you, consider the bilingualism at Florida's resorts.  Our academics at prestigious Area 51 University have translated this apparently innocuous Spanish text:

¡Atención los miembros del equipo de Expedición Everest! Una vez a bordo, asegurar todas las artes en la sección de carga frente a usted. Entonces, baje el cinturón de seguridad. Para su seguridad, permanezca sentado con las manos, brazos, pies, y piernas dentro el tren. Y cuida los ninos. Gracias.

into it's true nefarious form ...

Pssst, comrades of the Left Wing Conspiracy! See those happy people the next car over gibbering away in English?  Well, pretty soon Florida's gonna be reunited with the Spanish crown, and it's those folks who will be picking the oranges and the lettuce and you'll be the ones calling in to Rush Limbaugh complaining about furriners.   Ssssh ... keep it to yourself, Barack hasn't gotten over to Spain yet with Air Force One to pick up the money.   We don't want to blow the deal.

Coming up next:  What's Obama doing consulting with Peter the Great?  Is Alaska going back to the czars at 2 cents an acre?

UPDATED: It's been brought to my attention that my opponent, Paul Penzone in the next election, probably doesn't believe that Obama is going to sell Florida back to the Spaniards.  He must be part of the conspiracy too! Whatever you do, don't go to his website at www.penzone2012.com. and give him your financial support!

Again, the website NOT to go to is www.penzone2012.com.

Originally posted to Plan 9 from Oregon on Fri May 25, 2012

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Florida,Spain,Joe Arpaio,Juan Carlos,Current Events

HEALTHCARE:The Stunning Truth About Healthcare Pricing

Sun May 27, 2012

A story in today's LA Times describes in rare detail why US healthcare is insanely expensive.  It's not due to malpractice lawsuits, patients who expect too much, high-tech medicine or burdensome regulations. No, it's the result of insurance industry bureaucracy and greed. While many consumers have long suspected that, hard evidence has been elusive.  Now, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times has turned up that hard evidence.

Evidence shows that healthcare costs are arbitrary and capricious.

The LA Times article, "Healthcare's High Cost: Many hospitals, doctors offer cash discount for medical bills," provides data showing that healthcare costs are neither realistic nor consistent. Americans purchase insurance with the expectation of getting reduced out-of-pocket healthcare costs, but instead pay more than they would if they just paid cash--sometimes, much, much more.  Example:

Los Alamitos Medical Center, for instance, lists a CT scan of the abdomen on a state website for $4,423. Blue Shield says its negotiated rate at the hospital is about $2,400.

When The Times called for a cash price, the hospital said it was $250. [LATimes]

Similar cost disparities exist at other hospitals, according to the Los Angeles Times and Dr. David Belk, MD, and insurance companies pocket the difference.

Healthcare reforms passed in the Obama administration require hospitals to disclose  their standard charges, i.e., list prices.  But, only a sucker pays the list price. The real cost of medical procedures remains hidden to most consumers.

The insurance industry can make exorbitant demands because it has full control of healthcare

Dr. Belk gives free talks around the country about the true costs of healthcare. Take a look at  video of one such talk on his website, along with a treasure trove of related information.

    In his video, Dr. Belk counters insurance industry propaganda with facts and figures, concluding, "Every price is jacked up...we're looking at 10 times on average." There is no reason, he says, why a CT scan should cost more than a plane ticket or a transmission overhaul.

"How many of you use your car insurance to pay to fill your gas tank or change your oil?  How many of you use your homeowner's insurance to pay your electric bill? Why is it that healthcare is the only industry in which we use our insurance for absolutely every expense, no matter how mundane? And, in a sense, we're forced to because if we say, "I'd rather pay for it myself," you're fined...you're fined ten times the actual value of the service you're getting." Moreover, the system limits what the physician can do even when a patient offers to pay cash.

"We're both stuck in this system where the insurance companies dictate everything we do. They control every dollar that goes into medicine--and not only do they control every dollar that goes into medicine, they can have complete control of the message. They can tell us whatever they want, and who are we to argue with them, because we have no understanding of what these costs are."

Thus, "They have us all looking in the wrong direction, and all talking about the wrong thing."  

Overpriced healthcare undermines health and the economy

One of the implications of exorbitantly priced healthcare is that many people do not receive needed care, and some die as a result.  Another implication is that huge expenditures on healthcare reduce our ability to pay for other things.

The average healthcare cost for a family of four is $20,728 a year.  The same amount of money would buy a new, mid-priced car, the LA Times points out--or a year's college tuition. No wonder many college students rack up massive student loan debt.

Were it not for the high cost of healthcare, the average American could purchase vastly  more non-healthcare goods and services. By co-opting consumer dollars, over-priced healthcare destroys jobs in other parts of the economy.

Conclusion

With new evidence in hand, consumers are empowered to demand a better healthcare system. That might be a private system combining high-deductible major medical insurance with patient direct pay for routine expenses, or a "single payer" government program, or something else entirely. In any case, the healthcare casino must be shut down. But, that will not happen until Americans demand it, insisting that politicians address it in their campaigns and pass reforms in their terms of office.

The time for change is now.

Originally posted to Deep Harm on Sun May 27, 2012

Technorati Tags: Healthcare,Los Angeles Times,Insurance,Medical Costs,Current Events

 

Obama Group Being Sneaky With Wall Street

Stunner! Gov’t “Secretly” Moves To Backstop Wall Street’s Derivatives Exchanges, Globally

 By bobswern on May 26, 2012

Around the time I posted my two latest diaries, early on Thursday [SEE: “Already In Deep Hot Water, JPMorgan Chase May Have Just Reached Its Boiling Point (Part I of II)” and “‘WhaleMu–JP Morgan’s Next Surprise?’ by Michael Olenick (Part II of II)”], little did I know that THIS absolute stunner appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

The story, and the facts related to it, truly speaks for itself. Here are excerpts from it from Thursday’s Wall Street Journal…

…J.P. Morgan's recent trading loss and the resulting Washington blather about tighter regulation have grabbed headlines. Little noticed is that on Tuesday Team Obama took its first formal steps toward putting taxpayers behind Wall Street derivatives trading—not behind banks that might make mistakes in derivatives markets, but behind the trading itself. Yes, the same crew that rails against the dangers of derivatives is quietly positioning these financial instruments directly above the taxpayer safety net.

We’re reminded of the Dodd-Frank legislation, wherein: ”One part of the law forces much of the derivatives market into clearinghouses that stand behind every trade. Mr. Dodd's pet provision creates a mechanism for bailing out these clearinghouses when they run into trouble.”

…the law authorizes the Federal Reserve to provide "discount and borrowing privileges" to clearinghouses in emergencies. Traditionally the ability to borrow from the Fed's discount window was reserved for banks, but the new law made clear that a clearinghouse receiving assistance was not required to "be or become a bank or bank holding company." To get help, they only needed to be deemed "systemically important" by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council chaired by the Treasury Secretary.

Last year regulators finalized rules for how they would use this new power. On Tuesday, they began using it. The Financial Stability Oversight Council secretly voted to proceed toward inducting several derivatives clearinghouses into the too-big-to-fail club. After further review, regulators will make final designations, probably later this year, and will announce publicly the names of institutions deemed systemically important.

We're told that the clearinghouses of Chicago's CME Group and Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange were voted systemic this week, and rumor has it that the council may even designate London-based LCH.Clearnet as critical to the U.S. financial system.

(Hot-link to Financial Stability Oversight Council is provided by diarist. Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.)

The piece continues on to report on remarks by former Goldman Sachs senior exec Gary Gensler, who’s now the Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). We’re told that:  “…U.S. taxpayers thinking that they couldn't possibly be forced to stand behind [U.S. banks’] overseas derivatives trading will not be comforted…” by Chairman Gensler’s remarks from this past Monday, where he “…emphasized his determination to extend Dodd-Frank derivatives regulation to overseas markets when subsidiaries of U.S. firms are involved.”

For more on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, simply click on the hot-link to it, above.

If you wish to learn more about the potential implications of this action, I would strongly suggest a read of my two posts from Thursday, also linked above. IMHO, this is a stunning development that is directly-related to those two posts.

It is truly amazing that our government uses the convenient reality that our nation’s too-big-to-fail banks simply cannot be properly regulated because much of these banks’ activities occur globally, outside of our government’s jurisdiction. However, as of this week, it is now a part of “the record” that when it comes to backstopping Wall Street’s actions with U.S. taxpayer money, on an international basis, there’s no problem facilitating that ongoing travesty…whatsoever.

Sun May 27, 2012 at  4:48 AM PT: Please checkout THIS comment.

Technorati Tags: Bipartisanship,Corruption,Democrats,Derivatives,Ninety Nine Percent,1%,Plutocracy,Privatized Profits,Wall Street,JPMorgan,Wall Street Casino,Current Events

 

President Obama Talks On Mitt Romney’s Bain Experience

  President Obama had a little chat at the Iowa fairgrounds with the fair-goers on Thursday and the President had a few sharp words on Mitts time ( his record ) at his former ( ? ) company, Bain Capitol, and what it would says about Romney’s approach to the Presidentcy.

   A few snips of Obama’s speech, which can be read in its entirety right here.

Governor Romney has made his experience as a financial CEO the entire rationale of his candidacy for president. Now, he doesn’t really talk about what he did in Massachusetts. But he does talk about being a business—business guy. Right? He says this gives him a special understanding of what it takes to create jobs and grow the economy—even if he’s unable to offer a single new idea about how to do that, no matter how many times he’s asked about it, he says he knows how to do it. So I think it’s a good idea to look at the way he sees the economy.

Obama then pointed out that Romney's goal was to earn a profit for Bain, not to create jobs. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, he said, but:

When maximizing short-term gains for your investors rather than building companies that last is your goal, then sometimes it goes the other way. Workers get laid off. Benefits disappear. Pensions are cut. Factories go dark. In some cases, companies are loaded up with debt — not to make the companies more productive, not to buy new equipment to keep them at the cutting-edge, but just to pay investors. Companies may go bankrupt as a result. Taxpayers may be on the hook to help out on those pensions. Investors walk off with big returns, and working folks get stuck holding the bag.

And experience in doing those sorts of things—in short, Mitt Romney's experience—is not what we want in the White House, Obama said.

Now, that may be the job of somebody who's engaged in corporate buyouts. That’s fine. But that’s not the job of a President. (Applause.) That’s not the President's job. There may be value for that kind of experience, but it’s not in the White House. (Applause.)

Obama then made the case for what he thinks a president should be focused on:

See, the job of a President is to lay the foundation for strong and sustainable broad-based growth — not one where a small group of speculators are cashing in on short-term gains. It’s to make sure that everybody in this country gets a fair shake—(applause)—everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is playing by the same set of rules. (Applause.)

Without using labels, Obama then contrasted the Democratic vision for American capitalism with Mitt Romney's Republican vision:

Now, let me tell you something. We believe in the profit motive. We believe that risk-takers and investors should be rewarded. That's what makes our economy so dynamic. But we also believe everybody should have opportunity. (Applause.) We believe—we think everybody who makes the economy more productive or a company more productive should benefit.

And the problem with our economy isn’t that the American people aren’t productive enough—you’re working harder than ever. Productivity is through the roof. It's been going up consistently over the last decade. The challenge we face right now—the challenge we’ve faced for over a decade—is that harder work hasn’t led to higher incomes. Bigger profits haven’t led to better jobs. And you can’t solve that problem if you can’t even see that it's a problem. (Applause.)

And he doesn't see it's a problem. And so this experience explains why he is proposing the exact same policies that we already tried in the last decade, the very policies that got us into this mess. He sincerely believes that if CEOs and wealthy investors are getting rich, then the wealth is going to trickle down and the rest of us are going to do well, too. And he is wrong. Source

  I’m not sure about you, but, I do not think that America needs another businessman in the White House. Just think back to our last President with an MBA, George Bush. His business acumen is what got the United States into this mess in the first place. Mitt Romney’s policies would be just a continuance of Bush’s.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Mitt Romney,Bain Capitol,2012 Elections,George Bush,Current Events,Politics

 

Rand Paul’s Trip Through Stupidville

  The idiot must have a hard time living in the world that most sane people live in. That would be the world of “ reality.” If ever there is an argument for insane asylums, the Republican Party and their supporters make the case for more of them, not less.  Rand Paul gives ample evidence here that he is a leading candidate for a position in a straight-jacket.

MinistryOfTruth on Sat May 26, 2012     

It's like BadLipReading, only he's actually saying this stuff on purpose . . .

Watch Senator Rand Paul try to end the FDA's ability label to accurately label food. That's right, food labels that are accurate are unconstitutional. The logic behind this is an insane rant that could come out of an Adam Sandler movie. Rand Paul is an awesome senator if you are a business or a businessman, if you are people, and I mean flesh and bone people, Senator Rand Paul is about as useful as trying to block sunburn with Capri Sun. Case in point . . .

Senator Rand Paul offered an Amendment to an FDA Bill yesterday that would end the FDA, that evil food and drug regulatory body that is restricting our constitutional freedoms, man. Your freedom to drink things and not know what is in them is at stake. Your freedom to sell products and put whatever you want on the packaging is slowly fading away.

Just watch and listen, with painstakingly made transcript below the fold, as Rand Paul explains how Amish farmers are oppressed at gunpoint for trying to sell unlabeled milk straight from the cow at "the market", then imagine America's Big Agricultural Corporations as the Biggest Amish Farm in America. Understanding and decoding Senator Paul requires an active imagination, so bear with me. Rand Paul is shocked, truly shocked about Amish milk suppliers having to withstand the overbearing presence of overbearing FDA officials with guns, as seen here in Chicago . . .

Oh, funny, that was a picture of police surrounding citizens using their First Amendment right to freely assemble. That doesn't bother Rand Paul at all. I've never heard Rand Paul make mention of the ongoing police brutality in America against citizens exercising their first Amendment rights to freely assemble, but Rand is about to go on a six minute rant about how oppressive it is that food suppliers have guns in their faces from the FDA, and Rand ties that to the evils of accurate label laws and scientific nutrition information! A whole pile of crazy, word salad style like you haven't gotten since Sarah Palin went on her last powdered moose horn bender, listen and beware, for this kind of stupid, once seen, can never be unseen.

 Sen. Paul:     "Mr. President, today I'm offering an Amendment to the FDA. I'm troubled by images of armed agents, armed FDA agents raiding Amish farms and preventing them from selling milk directly from the cow. I think we have bigger problems in our country without sending armed FDA agents onto peaceful farmers land and telling them they can't sell milk directly from the cow.
    "My Amendment has three parts, first, it attempts to stop the FDA's overzealous regulation of vitamins, food and supplements by codifying the First Amendment's prohibition on prior restraint. What do I mean by that? The First Amendment says you can't prevent speech, even commercial speech, in advance of this speech. You can't tell Cheerios that they can't say that there is a health benefit to their Cheerios . .  "

  Already this is so far off the rails, you feel like Rand lost control back when he said that "The First Amendment says you can't prevent speech, even commercial speech, in advance of this speech." He got lost after defending commercial speech, and then he quickly goes from Amish farmers stalked at gun point by FDA agents, a rampant bit of stop and frisk profiling that the Amish community suffers from on a daily basis, Rand Paul quickly shifts from suffering Amish farmers to Cheerios, doesn't he? So now Cheerios is being oppressed, because the FDA won't let them advertise their health benefits, as seen on this cheerios.com website, which lists under the "Why They're So Good" section . . . .

* 14 Vitamins & Minerals
    * Low Fat
    * Good source of calcium
    * Good source of fiber
    * Made with whole grain*
    * Helps reduce the risk of heart disease

    * Can help lower cholesterol*
    * 1g sugar
    * Excellent source of iron
    * Certified by the American Heart Association, Learn more at heartcheckmark.org

  Clearly, a fanatical power hungry armed and dangerous FDA is oppressing Cheerios, but do go on and tell me more Rand. . .

Sen. Paul:     "Under our current FDA laws, the FDA says that of you want to market Prune Juice you can't say that it cures Constipation.

  Again! That evil FDA! Prune Juice is under assault! To the googlemachine! Is Prune Juice's right to advertise their constipation stopping abilities being oppressed?

Under our current FDA laws, FDA says if you want to market prune juice, you can’t say that it cures constipation.

You can’t make a health claim about a food supplement or about a vitamin, you can do it about a pharmaceutical, but you’re not allowed to do it about a health supplement.

I think this should change. There have been several court cases that show this goes against not only the spirit but the letter of the law of the First Amendment. So this amendment would change that.

This amendment would stop the FDA from censoring claims about curative, mitigative effects of dietary supplements. It would also stop the FDA from prohibiting distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease. Despite four court orders condemning the practice as a violation of the First Amendment, the FDA continues to suppress consumers’ right to be informed and to make informed choices by denying them this particular information. It’s time for Congress to put an end to FDA censorship.

Get that? Rand wants to stop the FDA from prohibiting distribution of scientific articles? No, the FDA wants that "scientific" information to be scientific, meaning based on facts and stuff. You can't just make shit up and call it scientific because you put it on a box. No one is stopping Prune Juice from talking about the benefits of prune juice, but we have a problem with them saying it cures leprosy. What Rand is trying to do is upside down, he is saying the FDA stops food distributors from labeling their products, which no one is trying to stop, and he is arguing that we should let them label their products however they want with no oversight at all, in the name of free speech, and he is tying that to an imagined strawman of a military division of the FDA when in reality a militarized police state is actually trampling the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of American protesters, but Rand Paul doesn't give a crap about that. If Occupy Wall Street wants Rand Paul to stand up for our rights we are going to have to start selling Amish Milk in the streets.

Moving along to the last crescendo of crazy . . .

Second, my amendment would disarm the FDA.

Now, some of you might be surprised the FDA is armed. Well, you shouldn’t be.

We have nearly 40 federal agencies that are armed. I’m not against having police, I’m not against the army, the military, the FBI, but I think bureaucrats don’t need to be carrying weapons and I think what we ought to do, is if there is a need for an armed policeman to be there, the FBI who are trained to do this should do it. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to be arming bureaucrats to go on the farm to, with arms, to stop people from selling milk from a cow.

I think we have too many armed federal agencies, and that we need to put an end to this. Criminal law seems to be increasing, increasingly is using a tool of our government bureaucracy to punish and control honest businessmen for simply attempting to make a living. Historically the criminal law was intended to punish only the most horrible offenses that everyone agreed were inherently wrong or evil, offenses like rape, murder, theft, arson – but now we’ve basically federalized thousands of activities and called them crimes.

If bureaucrats need to involve the police, let’s have them use the FBI, but I see no reason to have the FDA carrying weapons. Today the criminal law is used to punish behavior such as even fishing without a permit, packaging a product incorrectly or shipping something with an improper label.

Simply said, the federal government’s gone too far.

The plain language of our Constitution specifies very few federal crimes. In fact, the Constitution originally only had four federal crimes and now we have thousands of federal crimes.

We’ve moved beyond the original intent of the Constitution. We don’t even know or have a complete list of all the federal crimes. It’s estimated there are over 4,000, but no one has an exact number.

  Nobody knows how many laws there are? LOL! Is this the level of discourse and reason? Like if we had less laws, automatically we are more free. God gave us 10, what more do we need, though if you go based on that I guess gay marriage is just fine, didn't see it in the 10 commandments, doesn't count. Same with the Constitution, the founding fathers gave us 10 amendments and that's all we need, especially the 2nd and 10th ones.

Finally, my amendment will require adequate mens rea protection. In other words, when you have a crime, you’re supposed to prove the intent. People have to have intended to harm someone, it can’t be an honest mistake where a businessman or woman have broken a regulation and didn’t intend to harm someone. If you want to convict someone of a crime and put them in jail, it should be a mens rea requirement.

This is something we have had for hundreds of years, it comes out of our common-law tradition.

This amendment would fix this problem by strengthening the mens rea component of each of the prohibited acts and the FDA acts by including the words "knowing” and “willful" before we address and accuse someone of a crime.

This I think would give protection to folks who are guilty of inadvertently guilty of breaking a regulation and would keep from overflowing our jails. We’ve got plenty of violent criminals without putting people in for honest breaches of regulations. If Congress is going to criminalize conduct at the federal level as it does with the FDA act, the least it can do have is have an adequate mens rea requirement. My amendment will attempt to do this.

It’s not that we won’t have rules at the federal level, but the rules ought to be reasonable. We ought to allow people to market vitamins. There’s no earthly reason why somebody who markets prune juice can’t advertise it helps with constipation.

We’ve gone too far, and we’ve abrogated the First Amendment and what we need to do is tell the FDA that the courts have ruled that the First Amendment does apply to commercial speech and the FDA has been overstepping their bounds.

The amendment Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced yesterday to demilitarize the FDA failed in the Senate today by a vote of 78-15.

Paul's amendment would have prohibited FDA employees (as well as all other Health and Human Services employees) from carrying weapons and making arrests without warrants.

http://reason.com/...

What kind of screwed up website called Reason.com takes this hyperbolic hot mess of a rant that sandwiches in armed FDA agents with reducing accurate labeling laws and treats it as if it is reasonable? Rand Paul has built a might tower of babel. EconomicPolicyJournal.com thought Sen. Paul's rant was so important they transcribed the whole thing and put it on their site. That alone should say plenty. Rand Paul is using his strawman of an armed and dangerous FDA to argue that accurate and scientifically product labeling is unconstitutional. Rand Paul just wants to gut the FDA. His insane rant about armed FDA agents is the Fox News of Senate speeches. Every one is dumber for having listened to it. If you are worried about armed agents intimidating people at gunpoint and overstepping on our constitutional guaranteed first amendment rights I would love to invite you to the next Occupy Wall Street event, Senator Paul, I'm sure you will be shocked at the constitutional over-reaches you would see if you could manage to pull your head out of your ass. I award you no points, Senator Rand Paul.

Technorati Tags: Rand Paul,FDA,Deregulation,First Amendment,Stupidville,Free Speech,Current Events,Politics

Friday Funnies: The Facebook, Romney Edition

Jimmy Fallon: "While attending meetings in Chicago this week, President Obama stayed in a hotel instead of his own house. It was annoying, though: When he asked for a wake-up call, they just showed him his latest poll numbers.

Jimmy Kimmel: "Shares of Facebook stock dropped from the opening day price of $38 to around $34 today. They say if it drops any lower, Mitt Romney will swoop in and divide it up into Face and Book." 

Jay Leno: "According to a study released today, the average member of Congress can only speak at a tenth grade level. Which is worse than it sounds, because the average tenth grader speaks at a third grade level."
 "Facebook has lost so much money that founder Mark Zuckerberg has been named an honorary board member of JPMorgan."
 "President Obama gave the commencement speech at Barnard College the other day. He told graduates their future is bright unless they want jobs."
 "On the first day of trading, Facebook shares rose less than expected. We were promised that Facebook would take off like a rocket. Apparently it's a North Korean rocket."
 "Our good friend Chris Matthews on MSNBC was on 'Jeopardy' the other day and get got his butt killed. He was so embarrassed. The good news? He got so many facts wrong today he was offered a job at Fox News."
 
Conan O'Brien : "Mark Zuckerberg got married a couple of days ago. At their wedding, Zuckerberg's wife wore a dress that cost nearly $5,000. That is until the dress went public. Now it's worth $2,000." 
 "Facebook shares fell again today. At one point this afternoon, Mark Zuckerberg went from being a billionaire to being 'still a billionaire.'

David Letterman :"Facebook is worth $100 billion. Today it was friended by Greece."

Bill Maher : "For the first time in our history, more minority children were born in America than white children. And today the Octomom said, 'I'm on it.'"
 Ron Paul did not endorse Mitt Romney, and this happens to a lot of people. They say his hatred for Romney comes from a phenomenon called 'meeting him.'
 "Conservatives often say that gay marriage cheapens their marriage. Well, I think a diploma from Liberty cheapens my degree from a real school.
 "When you confuse a church with a school it mixes up the things you believe – religion – with the things we know – education. Then you start thinking that creationism is science, and gay aversion is psychology, and praying away hurricanes is meteorology." –Bill Maher on Mitt Romney's speech at Liberty University

"They teach that the Earth is 5,000 years old, and dinosaur fossils washed up in Noah's flood. This is a school you flunk out of when you get the answers right." –Bill Maher on Mitt Romney's speech at Liberty University


 



 

Yes, my Internet connection is still going as slow as honey in Alaska. I did manage to browse the Internet and find a little post making some fun of Republican Mitt Romney, so I now present it to you.


The Chronicles of Mitt: May 23, 2012


Hello, human diary. It is I, Mitt Romney. Today I gave a speech at the Latino Coalition annual economic summit. This was good, because it had the word "economic" in it; it also had the word "Latino" in it, however, which was the trickier part. I have found connecting to ethnic units to be quite difficult, during this campaign. For some reason they seem to be suspicious of my intentions. Immigration seems to be a sensitive topic in this community. I have tried in the past to thread that needle with what I thought was a perfectly sensible proposal, which is that we simply make life in America so miserable for immigrants that they self-deport. The benefits of this policy would be numerous; in addition to reducing government costs by outsourcing immigrant deportation to the immigrants themselves, it turns out that most of my other polices would have the side effect of making non-wealthy members of the country quite miserable already, which means very little additional work would have to be done. This self-deportation policy was, alas, not well received by the ethnic unit community. I still do not fully understand why, but Eric F. has stated that I am not to speak of it again. It is at times like these that I wish I still had access to the undocumented workers that used to work for me, so that I may discuss my ideas on the subject with them, and perhaps receive suggestions on how better to make the lives of undocumented workers less bearable in general. Alas, I was forced to downsize them because I was running for office, for Pete's sake. (Note to self: Pete still owes me for that one. Discuss it with him.) Regardless, my speech today to the ethnic units was satisfactory. I successfully addressed the immigration issue by removing all mentions of it from my speech, thus solving the problem. Not mentioning things is proving to be among my greatest campaign assets, and Eric F. believes we should strive to do more of it. Original

Internet Problems

I am having the worst time with my Internet connection ever since that damned solar eclipse on Sunday night. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, but my Internet speed is something like 17 times slower than it is supposed to be. Of course, my ISP says that there is nothing wrong, but I beg to differ. It took over 10 minutes for my posting page to fully load! WTF? Needless to say, there will not be much posting from myself until this crap is fixed.

Mitt Romney, George W. Bush share post-endorsement phone call

By Hunter  on Fri May 18, 2012    Daily Kos Original

The other day George W. Bush, or as Mitt Romney calls him, He Who Must Not Be Named, gave Mitt a rousing endorsement in the form of a four-word "I'm for Mitt Romney" muttered from behind closing elevator doors.

Given that, I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for this one:

Bush and Romney spoke with each other after the former president offered his fleeting support for the Republican candidate in an elevator this week, a person on Romney’s campaign tells ABC News.

The Romney aide wouldn’t disclose details of the call and wouldn’t say if Romney thanked Bush for his endorsement.

That's some top-secret phone calling right there. He won't even say whether Mitt thanked Bush?

"Hi George. Look, I'm pretty sure we talked about this, and I thought I was pretty clear on how you needed to not say anything for the next six months."

"Sorry, Mitt. It just slipped out. Want me to take it back?"

"Jeez ... no, no, that'd probably look worse. All right, we'll just go with it. But now please, please promise me you won't say anything supportive of me from now on? I mean Christ, George, your favorability ratings are still three points behind leprosy."

"Yeah, but I think I'm gonna be vindicated anytime now. You seen how much brush I've been clearing lately? I fuckin' hate brush. Little thorny terrorists, all of them."

"Fine, George, whatever. Listen, I have to go. Just please, take a vow of silence or something. Now's not the time."

Yeah, I like that version pretty well. The other version would be that Bush and Mitt actually get along fine and have a lot of the same ideas, on things like tax cuts, hurting poor people and not really giving a flying damn about any of that foreign policy stuff unless they're forced to by outside events, and that Mitt's actually sucked in a lot of old Bush advisers because hey, their advice all worked out great the first time around, but that version's just too scary to contemplate.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,George Bush,Tax Cuts,The 1%,Foreign Policy,Current Events

Slapping Down Mitt Romney's Job Creation Claims, Yet Again

By Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor on Thu May 17, 2012

Early in the primaries, Mitt Romney insisted he had created 100,000 jobs through his work at Bain Capital, but faced with stiff challenges to that number from his Republican primary rivals and the media, his job creation claims fell precipitously. Now, Romney is back to claiming 100,000 jobs created, fact-checkers around the nation are back to saying, wearily, "No, Mitt. You didn't. That's a lie."

Bloomberg's latest fact-check reiterates the key point that Bain Capital does not track how many jobs it creates or eliminates, for the simple reason that it doesn't give a damn. Bain is about creating more wealth for its already wealthy investors. Jobs, layoffs—workers' lives—are a largely irrelevant byproduct of that in the Bain worldview. So Romney's claims about the jobs created by his Bain work are slapdash, post-hoc inventions.

Furthermore, office supply retailer Staples accounts for 90,000 of the jobs Romney says he created, but Bain's investment in Staples was just $2 million, "a minuscule amount when compared to the firms other investments." And:

[E]ven at those investments made while Romney was at the firm, a number of people at companies bought by Bain told Bloomberg News that he had little involvement in the day-to-day operations of the companies. Rather, Romney left the oversight and daily management to his associates and executives running the businesses.

So Romney wasn't deeply involved in oversight of companies Bain invested in in general, but we're to credit him for every job created at a company in which Bain invested a relatively small amount of money. Got that?

As Jed Lewison has pointed out, these days, Romney only makes the 100,000 jobs claim in front of a friendly audience, but he does keep making it no matter how often it's debunked. As if we're as forgetful as he wants (and needs) us to be.

Tags: Mitt Romney, Bain Capitol, Jobs, Politics, Current Events

Powered by Qumana

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Bain Capital,Jobs,2012 Elections,Politics,Current Events,Republicans

Romney Had A Dream

  As if you did not know that everything that Mitt Romney takes credit for is a “ dream “ that he had.

Romney "Dreamed" That He Deserved Credit For Steel Dynamics

by Been There 1963  on Thursday, May 17,2012

In his ad touting Steel Dynamics, Romney takes false credit for other people's hard work. Here's what actually happened 18 years ago.

Like the rooster who takes credit for the sunrise, the Romney campaign touts the success of Steel Dynamics.  "American Dream," is a 60-second campaign spot that shows workers talking about their company, which grew from nothing in 1994 to a 6,000-employee operation. The workers say nothing about Romney or Bain Capital, for obvious reasons.  And about 25-seconds into the ad, a voiceover drives home a fraudulent message: "But SDI almost never got started. When others shied away, Mitt Romney's private leadership team stepped in." 

Suppose the Winklevoss twins took credit for saving Facebook's IPO.  Their claim would be far more plausible than Romney's suggestion, that his "private leadership team" played an essential role in SDI's startup. The startup of Steel Dynamics is well known and well documented.  Bain's role was, to put it charitably, minor. I know because I remember that deal and the people who put it all together. As with his bogus claims that he "created" 100,000 jobs or deserves credit for the auto bailout, or played an instrumental role the success of Staples , Romney shows a limitless contempt for facts.

SDI's startup began on June 30, 1994. Up until that date, the company was just a couple of guys with a business plan who had burned through most of their $731,000 in equity funding. They had no money to build their planned greenfield steel mill in Butler, Indiana. But on June 30, SDI closed about $370 million in debt and equity financing, which enabled construction to begin.

That's the way it works whenever a large industrial project is being financed. Nobody puts in real money until all of the financing and contractual arrangements are nailed down and executed. And prior to June 1994, there was never any shortage of financiers willing to step up. The entire financial plan was designed so that no financial sponsor, like Bain, could ever exert control. There are many private equity deals set up so the financial equity sponsors are able to call the shots. But not this time.

On June 30, 1994, a senior secured credit agreement for an amount of about $200 million, the $55 million Subordinated Debt Purchase Agreement, the Equity Agreements, which provided for $81.3 million in equity contributions, the Stockholders Agreement, and the Registration Agreement, all became effective simultaneously.  Bain's equity contribution was less than 5% of the total $370 million initial financing.

According to the Shareholders Agreement, Bain Capital would have no more than one director on a 10-person board, which was comprised of four members of SDI management, three individuals representing different companies within SDI's supply chain--from Preussag, Omnisource and Heidtman--plus three individuals representiing financial investors: Bain, GE Capital, and a Connecticut venture capital firm, J.H. Whitney.  GE Capital and J.H. Whitney also stepped up to take pieces of the convertible subordinated notes, but not Bain.

When SDI went public in November 1996, Bain's 13.3% equity stake was smaller than that of GE Capital, Preussag Stahl AG, or Omnisource.

The startup relied very heavily on government financing provided from outside the U.S.   The German government-owned development bank, Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau , or KfW, was by far the largest lender in the $200+ million bank facility.   That government sought to support SDI's purchase of advanced German technology and machinery, which were the guts of the new mini-mill.

SDI's founder, Keith Busse, is well known as a pioneer in the steel industry.   The story of how he and his team at Nucor built the first-of-its-kind mini-mill, relying on advanced German technology, in Crawfordsviile, Indiana in 1987 is was known throughout the industry by 1991. It was also detailed at length in two New Yorker profiles, and in a terrific book, American Steel , by Richard Preston. The Crawfordsville plant was the first mini-mill to fabricate flat rolled steel, a higher-end product compared to the mini-mills' traditional product, reinforcing bar.   In very simple terms, moving the manufacture of flatrolled steel toward mini-mills, and away from blast furnace production, was somewhat analogous to the move toward desktops computers away from mainframes.   Mini-mills had much lower capital and operating costs, and much greater operating flexibility.  In 1993, Busse and some colleagues decided to leave Nucor and strike out on their own.

From SDI's incorporation in September 1993 up until June 29, 1994, Busse's team worked with an investment banker to pull all these different financing arrangements together, so that they could all close simultaneously.  He was from a Cleveland investment banking firm (since subsumed by UBS) called  McDonald & Co,  and his name was David Stickler.  Busse's reliance on Stickler is evident in an article published in Crain's Cleveland Business  soon after the deal closed. I can attest to the veracity of the story. Bain was just one of many investors who put up a relatively small amount of money but exercised no effective control. There was never a moment in time when SDI's startup was in danger of not happening, but for the "leadership" of Bain Capital or Mitt Romney.

Again, the parallels with the Winklevoss twins cannot be overstated. It's a stereotype come true. A rich kid from Harvard, who offers nominal value-added, feels entitled to take most of the credit for the hard work done by others. It doesn't matter if it's the auto bailout , or the expansion of Staples, or SDI. That's how Romney envisions his "American Dream."

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Steel Dynamics,Bain Capital,Unemployment,Current Events,2012 Elections,Politics,Auto Bailout,American Steel,Romney Campaign,SDI,GOP

House Passes $642 Billion Defense Bill Under Veto Threat

   While much of America was waiting for the Facebook IPO on Friday and their chance to maybe make a little bit of money on the stock, the House Republican band of merry men was busy passing another one of their bills designed to fuck the taxpayer while giving their “ Masters “ more of your tax dollars for shit that is not needed.

By  Joan McCarter  on Fri May 18, 2012

House Republicans ignored the requests of the generals and a White House veto threat today, passing their bloated defense spending authorization bill, 299-120.

The bill breaks the spending agreement made last year as part of the Budget Control Act, and spends much more than the Pentagon has asked for on programs it opposes.

That includes: a new missile defense system on the east coast;

indefinite detention as included in last year's National Defense Authorization Act.

For these reasons, and more, the White House has said it will veto the bill.

keeping ships and aircraft that the Pentagon is trying to retire; rejecting the military's request for domestic base closings; and about $4 billion more than the administration and the Pentagon set as a spending limit.

And there's more, including a ban on "same-sex marriages and 'marriage-like' ceremonies on military bases." Additionally, it includes "indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects, including U.S. citizens, captured on U.S. soil," despite a decision by a federal judge issued yesterday to block implementation of  indefinite detention as included in last year's National Defense Authorization Act.

For these reasons, and more, the White House has said it will veto the bill.

   After President Obama veto’s this sorry bill, the Republicans will try to use it as a campaign gimmick for Mitt Romney by pressing the narrative that Obama is soft on U.S. defense.

Technorati Tags: The House,Military Spending,The Budget,Budget Control Act,Barack Obama,Veto,National Defense Authorization Act,Current Events

The Newest Birther Conspiracy

    The stupidity from the communist ( GOP ) party just keeps getting better and better as the days pass by.

    Here is the latest foolishness from the birthers, brought to you by

Hunter for Daily Kos.

Talking Points Memo:

“Dreams From My Real Father,” a 97-minute film narrated by an Obama impersonator, weaves the narrative that Obama’s grandfather wasn’t a furniture salesman but an undercover CIA agent who convinced Barack Obama Sr. to marry his teenage daughter to hide the fact that she was impregnated by a 55-year-old communist named Frank Marshall Davis. [...]

The film has been favorably reviewed by WND’s Jerome R. Corsi, who wrote an entire book arguing that Obama’s birth certificate is a fake and that he was really born in Kenya and ineligible to be president of the United States.

Of course, both conspiracies cannot simultaneously be true (for that matter, not even one of them can be true, given the readily available evidence, but setting that aside for a moment, etc). It is a bit odd, however, that now "secret Muslim Kenyan" is no longer the go-to conspiracy theory for some people. No, "secret Muslim Kenyan" is what the government wants you to think. In reality, Barack Obama was the offspring of a communist, his grandpa was an undercover CIA agent and he was quickly shuttled off to Bill Ayers for proper indoctrination into how to someday be a secret communist president posing instead as a secret Muslim Kenyan president. Oh, and all of this took place so that, many decades later, children could stay on their parents' health insurance a bit longer. I think.

This does, however, nix the whole notion of Barack Obama not being a citizen, so not all birthers are as quick to endorse it as Jerome Corsi. Jerome Corsi, after all, would endorse the notion that Barack Obama was a space alien brought here to help Hitler take over France but that the time-traveling plotters involved got their timing wrong by 70 years or so, so long as it made Jerome Corsi a few bucks to say it. Orly Taitz, for one, is not amused:

WND and Corsi, wrote Taitz, are “trying to kill the case by making up an American citizen father for Obama.”

Conflicting conspiracy theories? Which one to believe? That one over there has America's Dumbest Sheriff endorsing it, but this one comes with a film narrated by an Obama impersonator. If that isn't evidence, what is?

On the other hand, why would you even go with the "Obama's father was really an elderly secret communist" angle? Is this a new schism between people who are more afraid of a black president and those who are more afraid of a communist one? Was the original conspiracy just getting too cluttered, just like any other long running franchise, so that a reboot was needed in order to wedge all the new, most fashionable ideas in? I have no idea. I had some previous notion that perhaps Corsi would, for his newest trick, announce that Barack Obama was in fact fathered by bad kerning, and as a typographical-American should be removed from office on that basis. It hardly matters what the conspiracy is, so long as you provide it with a decent narrator.

Hearing about things like this (and how very, very prevalent they are, when it comes to politics, science, or anything else that somebody, somewhere, finds personally objectionable), the only conclusion one can come to is that humankind is, for all our preening, made up of some damn stupid individuals—and that our ancestors are unbelievably damn lucky to have managed to form governments or civilizations at all, given what they had to work with.

I can't imagine how many of our primate ancestors made the very early discovery that fire equals good, only to have their heads caved in by fellow primates that were certain fire was a plot by the primate devil and/or the primate Illuminati. How many thousands of years went by before the whole "let's use fire to keep warm" or "hey, let's cook this damn meat to make it less putrid" thing took off to the point where the vaguely bipedal practitioners didn't just get torn to bits for suggesting the idea? That is impressive enough, but then to have gone on to develop bronze, or cement, or Nintendo systems—now that took some true miracles. No, the astonishing thing about civilization is that it can withstand such a very large percentage of crackpots, during any given era, who are bent on knocking down the whole thing because it conflicts with their own personal motivations or notions of which particular bogeymen are waiting behind which particular corners.

What was I talking about? Oh, I was saying how miraculous it was that human civilization can actually exist, given the omnipresence of such profound dunderheads as Jerome Corsi, Orly Taitz, et al. Yeah, that. I don't know why I can no longer hear the name "Jerome Corsi" without thinking of world-shattering, civilization-crumbling stupidity, but it just pops into my head, every single damn time.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Birthers,Conspiricies,Republicans,The Tea Party,Politics,Current Events

Friday Funnies:JPMorgan,Mitt Romney

Jay Leno:"The average college graduate now leaves school $27,000 in debt. But the good news is that now it means they are more than qualified to work as financial advisers at JPMorgan."

Jimmy Fallon: "Police in California just burned 34,000 marijuana plants that were growing in a state park. The police were very angry about finding all that weed until the wind changed direction."

 

"David Letterman: JPMorgan lost $2 billion in bad trades. They made bad investments — for example, those gay wedding chapels in North Carolina. What were they thinking?”

"Jimmy Fallon-This week investors will be able to buy shares of Facebook stock for the first time ever. It's great – now you can lose all your money in the same place you lost all your time."

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Late Night Talk,Mitt Romney,Barack Obama,Facebook,JPMorganChase,Curent Events

Romney Gains In Polling

  According to a new Gallup poll, GOP president wanna-be Mitt Romney has made an 11% jump in the polling on his favorability ranking. Can you believe it? 50% of Americans have a favorable view of this clown, his highest ratings since Gallup began tracking Romney back in 2006.

Yahoo:

Romney's increasing favorable numbers appear to be fueled by his growing popularity with Republicans and self-described independents. Among Republicans, Romney's favorable number has jumped 22 points since February to 87 percent. Meanwhile, 48 percent of independents view Romney favorably—an 11-point increase since February.

   With those numbers in mind, it’s worth noting that at present more Americans view President Obama unfavorably ( 46% ) than Romney ( 41% ).

Romney's favorable rating is two points lower than that of President Obama—which currently sits at 52 percent.

   I was actually starting to believe that the citizens of America were getting a little bit smarter than in the past. I guess that is not the case, especially among the Republican voters. It would seem that the Independent voter is also losing their mind.

Technorati Tags: Nitt Romney,2012 Elections,Gallup,Polling,Barack Obama,Politics,Current Events

CHART: Spending, Taxes, And Deficits Are All Lower Today Than When Obama Took Office

By Guest Blogger on May 15, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Our guest blogger is Michael Linden, Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for Center for American Progress Action Fund".

Federal spending is lower now than it was when President Obama took office. I’ll pause to let you absorb the news.

In January 2009, before President Obama had even taken the oath of office, annual spending was set to total 24.9 percent of gross domestic product. Total spending this year, fiscal year 2012, is expected to top out at 23.4 percent of GDP.

Here’s another interesting fact. Taxes today are lower than they were on inauguration day 2009. Back in January 2009, the CBO projected that total federal tax revenue that year would amount to 16.5 percent of GDP. This year? 15.8 percent.

One last nugget. The deficit this year is going to be lower than what it was on the day President Obama took office. Back then, the CBO said the 2009 deficit would be 8.3 percent of GDP. This year’s deficit is expected to come in at 7.6 percent.

The fact is that Obama inherited a disaster of a federal budget. Eight years prior, when President George W. Bush took the oath of office, there was a $281 billion surplus. By the time Obama was sworn in, he was facing a $1.2 trillion deficit. Inconvenient though it may be for conservatives (especially those who are running for president), the truth is that spending, taxes and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office.

This material [article] was created by the Center for American Progress Action Fund

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Taxes,The Deficit,Government Spending,Politics,Current Events,Center for American Progress Action Fund

Obama Campaign Comes Out With Guns Ablazin'!

By brooklynbadboy  Mon May 14, 2012   Original Post

I just want to extend a hearty OOHRAH to the Obama Campaign for taking off the goddamn gloves and going to work on Mitt Romney's ribcage and kidneys. The Monday morning carpet bombing is a beautiful thing to behold. I think the Bain attack ad is pitch perfect and spot on.

I'm especially glad they opened up with the Kansas City story. That's a good way to make Romney protect his face. He now knows the Obama Campaign isn't playing tiddly winks. They're going to go right at his entire life experience. (They should go to work on Mormonism too, but I know they don't have the stomach for it. However, hope springs eternal.).

As has been pointed out, there are so many ways to go with Bain. Mitt Romney is touting it has is central justification for being president. So its totally fair game to mine this thing and flesh out every end of the story. And trust, there are at least several big stories in every single swing state. Every one. If the Obama Campaign keeps it up, and ignores the assmunch pundits in Washington, you'll see Romney's numbers begin to drop in short order over the summer and his negatives climb even higher.

What's so beautiful about the Bain ad is that Romney can't blame "a Democratic legislature" or "economic conditions" or anybody else for his activities. He was the founder and boss of Bain. Everything they do, he's the only guy responsible because he was in charge. The moment he starts running from his record at Bain, that's when you know he's bloody and headed for the canvas.

Kudos to Campaign Manager Jim Messina and media & oppo teams.

Also republished by The Federation.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Obama Campaign,2012 Elections,Mitt Romney,Current Events