THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Barack Obama owes more than I'd like him to owe to the Wall Street crowd. He probably at this point owes a little more than I'd like him to owe to the military. The rest he owes to the millions of people who elected him in 2008 — especially to those people whose enthusiasm I neither shared nor really understood — and he will owe them even more if they come out and pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him this time around. He may sell them out — and, yes, I understand if you wanted to add "again" to that statement — but they are not likely to revenge themselves against the country if he does and, even if they decided to, they don't have the power to do much but yell at the right buildings.

On the other hand, Willard Romney owes even more to the Wall Street crowd, and he owes even more to the military, but he also owes everything he is politically to the snake-handlers and the Bible-bangers, to the Creationist morons and to the people who stalk doctors and glue their heads to the clinic doors, to the reckless plutocrats and to the vote-suppressors, to the Randian fantasts and libertarian fakers, to the closeted and not-so-closeted racists who have been so empowered by the party that has given them a home, to the enemies of science and to the enemies of reason, to the devil's bargain of obvious tactical deceit and to the devil's honoraria of dark, anonymous money, and, ultimately, to those shadowy places in himself wherein Romney sold out who he might actually be to his overweening ambition. It is a fearsome bill to come due for any man, let alone one as mendaciously malleable as the Republican nominee. Obama owes the disgruntled. Romney owes the crazy. And that makes all the difference.

// posted by montag @ 2:04 PM 0 Comments

One such example is the Meningitis outbreak that so far, has cost 25 people their lives. An additional 344 people in 18 states are suffering from Meningitis, resulting from Mitt Romney’s failure to regulate while serving as Governor of Massachusetts.

From the Examiner:

Records have revealed that a Massachusetts regulatory agency found that the New England Compounding Company had continually failed to meet accepted standards in 2004. Romney failed to act, was it because the New England Compounding Company were contributors to Mr. Romney, and he did not want to bite a feeding hand?

Nothing says responsible government like ignoring life risking negligence, when the company in question is a political donor.
This meningitis outbreak is the result of contaminated drugs, and according to some experts it will get worse.

We were concerned that there might be other medications that might be contaminated coming from that pharmacy,” said Schaffner, who is past-president of National Foundation for Infectious Disease. “The FDA has given us a heads up that that looks to be the case. We’ll have to notify many more patients across the country that they may have been exposed to a fungal infection.

Realistically speaking, this goes beyond a reluctance to bite the proverbial hand feeding his campaign. It’s an example of the extent to which Mitt Romney puts ideology first and sound policy second.
There are some disease outbreaks that cannot be prevented by regulation. No one is suggesting that regulation can create a disease free world. However, this meningitis outbreak could have been prevented. That is what is so infuriating and disgusting about the extent to which deregulation takes precedence over anything else in Mitt Romney’s world.

// posted by montag @ 12:19 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:32 PM 0 Comments

A Big Storm Requires Big Government

Most Americans have never heard of the National Response Coordination Center, but they’re lucky it exists on days of lethal winds and flood tides. The center is the war room of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where officials gather to decide where rescuers should go, where drinking water should be shipped, and how to assist hospitals that have to evacuate.

Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of “big government,” which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it. At a Republican primary debate last year, Mr. Romney was asked whether emergency management was a function that should be returned to the states. He not only agreed, he went further.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.

It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.

Over the last two years, Congressional Republicans have forced a 43 percent reduction in the primary FEMA grants that pay for disaster preparedness. Representatives Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and other House Republicans have repeatedly tried to refuse FEMA’s budget requests when disasters are more expensive than predicted, or have demanded that other valuable programs be cut to pay for them. The Ryan budget, which Mr. Romney praised as “an excellent piece of work,” would result in severe cutbacks to the agency, as would the Republican-instigated sequester, which would cut disaster relief by 8.2 percent on top of earlier reductions.

Does Mr. Romney really believe that financially strapped states would do a better job than a properly functioning federal agency? Who would make decisions about where to send federal aid? Or perhaps there would be no federal aid, and every state would bear the burden of billions of dollars in damages. After Mr. Romney’s 2011 remarks recirculated on Monday, his nervous campaign announced that he does not want to abolish FEMA, though he still believes states should be in charge of emergency management. Those in Hurricane Sandy’s path are fortunate that, for now, that ideology has not replaced sound policy.

// posted by montag @ 6:17 PM 0 Comments

Un-effing-believable. The entire GOP has been having a years-long allergic reaction to the very concept of "disaster relief," we've got Mitt Romney refusing to even mention whether or not he thinks FEMA is an abomination unto the budget gods, and now out here comes the head Katrina-botcher himself, back like a bad rash:

Michael Brown, former President George W. Bush's former FEMA director who was criticized for his slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said on Monday that President Obama may have acted too quickly on Hurricane Sandy this week.

Brown said Obama's Sunday press conference with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials was "premature" because the effect of the storm was not felt until a day later.

Oh, eff you, Brown. Yes, how dare Obama and FEMA try to prepare people for a natural disaster beforehand, instead of sitting on their asses waiting for it to happen. Everyone knows you're supposed to have the press conference warning people about the hurricane only after they've already lost power and nobody can watch the damn thing. If that's not the most Republican damn thing I've ever heard, it's only because Brown didn't figure out a way to wedge the words "tax cut" in there.

// posted by montag @ 5:32 PM 0 Comments

Two members of the U.S.-led military coalition were killed Tuesday by a man wearing an Afghan police uniform in southern Afghanistan, an official said. The killings are the latest in a series of insider attacks that have sown distrust between coalition and Afghan forces.

An Afghan official said the “green-on-blue” attack happened during a joint patrol in Girishk in southern Helmand province. The killer managed to escape, said the official, who spoke by phone on condition that he remain anonymous.

He said the attacker was a member of the Taliban-led insurgents who have been behind similar attacks in recent years. The killings bring to at least 53 the number of deaths among NATO and U.S. forces in similar attacks this year, the bloodiest period since the phenomenon began in 2007.

In a statement, NATO said the victims were members of the coalition but did not identify them. Most of the foreign troops in Helmand are British and Americans.

// posted by montag @ 12:03 PM 0 Comments

The ship left New London on Thursday, when Sandy was still over Cuba and its path uncertain. But by Friday, it became clear they could not avoid the storm.

On Saturday, as the sea began to get rough, someone posted on Bounty's Facebook page: "Riding the Storm Out...Day 2. I'm sure that Bounty's crew would be overwhelmed by all the prayers and best wishes that have been given. Rest assured that the Bounty is safe and in very capable hands. Bounty's current voyage is a calculated decision ... NOT AT ALL ... irresponsible or with a lack of foresight as some have suggested. The fact of the matter is ... A SHIP IS SAFER AT SEA THAN IN PORT!"

By afternoon Sunday, Bounty's engines had stopped and the ship was taking on water in 50-knot winds. The ship's crew sent distress signals, so when a Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules transport plane was dispatched Sunday, they were able to talk to the air crew by radio, as the plane circled overhead.

At first, plans were made to drop pumps aboard by helicopter to help keep the ship afloat. Then Bounty's crew radioed that the water was coming in too fast, about two feet an hour. They were going to abandon the ship, which was being thrown around by heavy seas that seemed to be traveling in every direction.

At 4 a.m., they launched two orange life rafts with canopy roofs and flashing strobe lights on top, and at least 14 of them climbed in, nine in one raft, five in another. It was still unclear Monday night what happed to the other two-the ship's experienced captain, Robin Walbridge, 63, and Claudene Christian, 42, who joined the crew in May while the ship was in Wilmington and whose Facebook page says she is a descendent of Fletcher Christian, the mutineer on the original Bounty played by Brando.

Late Monday afternoon, the Coast Guard recovered Christian's body and took her to Albemarle Hospital in Elizabeth City, where she was pronounced dead. Walbridge, 63, remained missing.

// posted by montag @ 11:27 AM 0 Comments

Romney is lying because Romney has to lie. It’s the best card he has to play in a stacked deck, betting on the ignorance and short term memory of the electorate. Oh, and rightwing racial hatred. Romney knows that if he were to tell too much of the truth then he would have to switch sides and begin campaigning for Obama, so instead he and his crew of ankle biters have conspired to weave an intricate alternate universe where the truth is defined strictly by the degree to which it benefits Romney. For instance, in RomneyWorld, Romney never told Detroit to go bankrupt, he only suggested that they consider a managed bankruptcy and Obama stole his idea from him. In RomneyWorld, Obama Care was modeled after..well…something else. In RomneyWorld, a steady if somewhat slowly improving unemployment rate (5.2 million jobs over the past 31 months) is not what a recovery looks like.

// posted by montag @ 11:04 AM 0 Comments

On Oct. 9, 2005, heavy rain storms caused the Green River to rise to historic levels and begin flooding into Greenfield, Mass. The flooding destroyed a trailer park and demolished swaths of low-income housing. Roads were impassable. The flood waters submerged the town's water treatment plant.

As the rain fell and the Green River rose, Greenfield's then-Mayor Christine Forgey tells The Huffington Post that she did not hear from Romney. About 75 people, including many retirees, lost their homes in the trailer park, she says. Still many more were displaced. Forgey says a resident opened up the high school and used it as a crisis shelter. A radio station launched a food and clothing drive and the Red Cross provided services...

The town could handle distributing donated shirts and juice. But Greenfield, with its population of 18,000, couldn't repair this level of loss, which had been estimated to exceed $1 million. Forgey said she needed the state government to respond and for Romney to declare an emergency. But for days, Greenfield residents were on their own, with limited outside help. "We really didn't get the response we were looking for," she says. "I had to declare a state of emergency ... We really needed help desperately, desperately."

On the first day, Forgey says she did not hear from Romney. Nor the second day. Nor the third.

Romney wasn't in Massachusetts when the flood hit, and the emergency did not alter his plans. The Associated Press reported at the time that the governor had been scheduled to speak to an economic club in North Carolina. "If the governor thought for one second he was needed here today, he would be there," a spokesperson told the AP.

// posted by montag @ 11:17 PM 0 Comments

In this last month leading up to the election, nearly a dozen CEOs of large and very profitable corporations have pressured their employees to vote for (and donate to) GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. With the collective dignity of a back-alley loan shark, these men have intimidated employees into backing Romney by threatening their retirement funds, wages, and very jobs if Obama prevails.

It seems nonsensical for these CEOs to vehemently oppose a President whose administration has overseen skyrocketing corporate profits –- a record $824 billion last year, much higher than at any point during the George W. Bush administration. Also, the Dow Jones industrial average has risen 67.9 percent since Obama took office, a bigger jump than under any Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower.

But no amount of wealth ever seems to be good enough. And, despite representing a very specific, limited slice of America, these chief executives purport to know what’s best for everyone, while pretending to give a flip about increasing your meager take-home pay.

Remarkably, these 10 CEOs are quite similar in ways other than being wealthy and used to getting their way. They also are all male, and all white.

// posted by montag @ 12:45 PM 0 Comments

For while Medicaid is generally viewed as health care for the nonelderly poor, that’s only part of the story. And focusing solely on who Medicaid covers can obscure an equally important fact: Medicaid has been more successful at controlling costs than any other major part of the nation’s health care system.

So, about coverage: most Medicaid beneficiaries are indeed relatively young (because older people are covered by Medicare) and relatively poor (because eligibility for Medicaid, unlike Medicare, is determined by need). But more than nine million Americans benefit from both Medicare and Medicaid, and elderly or disabled beneficiaries account for the majority of Medicaid’s costs. And contrary to what you may have heard, the great majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are in working families.

For those who get coverage through the program, Medicaid is a much-needed form of financial aid. It is also, quite literally, a lifesaver. Mr. Romney has said that a lack of health insurance doesn’t kill people in America; oh yes, it does, and states that expand Medicaid coverage show striking drops in mortality.

So Medicaid does a vast amount of good. But at what cost? There’s a widespread perception, gleefully fed by right-wing politicians and propagandists, that Medicaid has “runaway” costs. But the truth is just the opposite. While costs grew rapidly in 2009-10, as a depressed economy made more Americans eligible for the program, the longer-term reality is that Medicaid is significantly better at controlling costs than the rest of our health care system.

How much better? According to the best available estimates, the average cost of health care for adult Medicaid recipients is about 20 percent less than it would be if they had private insurance. The gap for children is even larger.

And the gap has been widening over time: Medicaid costs have consistently risen a bit less rapidly than Medicare costs, and much less rapidly than premiums on private insurance.

// posted by montag @ 12:19 PM 0 Comments

President Obama’s successful rescue of the auto industry is helping the president maintain a small lead in the crucial battleground state of Ohio. But in the final days of the campaign, Mitt Romney is trying to erode that edge.

In a new ad in Ohio, the Romney campaign argues that it’s Mitt Romney who will support the auto industry and that the president put the companies through a destructive bankruptcy process that will result in jobs going overseas.

“Who will do more for the auto industry? Not Barack Obama,” a narrator says in the ad, which was not announced by the campaign but which media outlets report ran in the Toledo market in Ohio. “Fact checkers confirm his attacks on Mitt Romney are false. The truth? Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry. He’s supported by Lee Iacocca and the Detroit News.”

The ad continues: “Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”

// posted by montag @ 5:23 PM 0 Comments

Peggy is that most sought-after creature, an undecided woman who is a swing voter. She started as a blond concrete block in President Obama’s female firewall, but like many other women, is now pondering divorcing him for the man who looks and darn well talks like a ’50s sitcom dad.

She does not believe the economy is getting better, and she trusts Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan not to do anything radical on women’s reproductive rights or Medicare. She rejects my contention that Republicans in Congress would force them to; they see Mitt as an empty suit who would happily sign their far-right bills as long as he got Air Force One.

// posted by montag @ 12:50 PM 0 Comments

One of the truly disturbing parts of our current politics is that we have begun to identify people who want to impose their religious beliefs on millions of women who don’t share them as moderates as long as they’re O.K. with the rape exemption.

// posted by montag @ 1:23 PM 0 Comments

Rapid advances in the development of cyberweapons and malicious software mean that electronic-voting machines used in the 2012 election could be hacked, potentially tipping the presidential election or a number of other races.

Since the machines are not connected to the Internet, any hack would not be a matter of someone sneaking through cyberspace to change ballots. Rather, the concern is that an individual hacker, a partisan group, or even a nation state could infect voting machines by gaining physical access to them or by targeting the companies that service them.

The 2010 discovery of the Stuxnet cyberweapon, which used a thumb drive to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and spread among its computers, illustrated how one type of attack could work. Most at risk are paperless e-voting machines, which don’t print out any record of votes, meaning the electronically stored results could be altered without anyone knowing they had been changed.

// posted by montag @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

About a month ago, I wrote about a Catholic Bishop in Illinois who warned his parishioners that their souls might be in danger if they vote for Obama. It’s happened again – this time in the neighboring state of Wisconsin...

Not only is the Bishop threatening his congregation’s souls, he’s threatening the community, by saying that the Church will withhold healthcare services.

This isn’t the first time the Church has taken that stance either. Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George threatened to close down the 600 Catholic hospitals across the country if the Affordable Care Act continued. Nearly one in six people, Catholic or not, visit Catholic hospitals in any given year.

People will argue that because the Catholic Church is tax exempt, they are required by law to stay out of politics. Please note, in Bishop Ricken’s email, there are no mentions of candidates’ names or of parties. Obviously, the meaning is clear, but I’m sure that those omissions give some plausible deniability. Even if he had mentioned President Obama’s name or the name of the Democratic party, it’s unlikely the IRS would have anything to say in the matter.

// posted by montag @ 1:01 PM 0 Comments

People come from all over the world to trim cannabis during the harvest season in California. Between early October and mid-November they swell the population of Mendocino, Humboldt, and other counties. Many others work on indoor grows year round, all over the state.

There are young adults —high school drop-outs and college graduates— looking for work. There are local moms clipping to help pay the bills. There are Mexican families who come every year from down south. Trimmers come from all walks of life. You find yourself taking part in interesting conversations —a good fringe benefit.

Cultivators generally want workers they are acquainted with, who have trimmed before, and are trustworthy. Training someone new takes time, and the novices tend to work slowly at first.

The amenities of a trim job for an outdoor harvest are varied. Sometimes the trimming is done deep in the woods. A person will be sleeping in a tent with an outdoor toilet. Other times there are more plush accommodations, with guest houses, electricity and plumbing. Growers generally pay for the trimmers’ food and caffeine. They want a productive workforce.

// posted by montag @ 12:37 PM 0 Comments

You look in great shape. And who wouldn't be if they shoveled crap all day long.

// posted by montag @ 5:11 PM 0 Comments

You have to hand it to Mitt Romney and his team. Starting in the first debate, he pivoted almost effortlessly to the center, which is where elections are won. If he beats President Barack Obama, it will be because he Etch-A- Sketched his earlier positions and convinced enough people that he would be a moderate president.

Unfortunately, he has little chance of governing that way. We don’t know which Romney will show up on a given day, but we sure know which Republican Party would be in charge in Washington every minute. The Republicans have become the most extreme major political party in generations. They are tolerating Romney’s heresies this month only to gain power.

If a President Romney tried to govern in a moderate fashion by, say, allowing for some revenue increases to reduce the deficit, his base wouldn’t hesitate to savage him. Then he would be a man without a party, unless you include Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Were Senator Scott Brown to survive his challenge in Massachusetts (and Elizabeth Warren currently leads in the polls), the moderate Republican caucus in Congress might include just two senators, plus three or four House members. That’s it.

More likely, Romney as president would be a man with a strange crick in the neck, constantly looking over his right shoulder to see which pickup truck full of movement conservatives was about to run him over.

// posted by montag @ 2:32 PM 0 Comments

The mother of China’s prime minister was a schoolteacher in northern China. His father was ordered to tend pigs in one of Mao’s political campaigns. And during childhood, “my family was extremely poor,” the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said in a speech last year.

But now 90, the prime minister’s mother, Yang Zhiyun, not only left poverty behind, she became outright rich, at least on paper, according to corporate and regulatory records. Just one investment in her name, in a large Chinese financial services company, had a value of $120 million five years ago, the records show.

The details of how Ms. Yang, a widow, accumulated such wealth are not known, or even if she was aware of the holdings in her name. But it happened after her son was elevated to China’s ruling elite, first in 1998 as vice prime minister and then five years later as prime minister.

Many relatives of Wen Jiabao, including his son, daughter, younger brother and brother-in-law, have become extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, an investigation by The New York Times shows. A review of corporate and regulatory records indicates that the prime minister’s relatives — some of whom, including his wife, have a knack for aggressive deal making — have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.

In many cases, the names of the relatives have been hidden behind layers of partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, work colleagues and business partners. Untangling their financial holdings provides an unusually detailed look at how politically connected people have profited from being at the intersection of government and business as state influence and private wealth converge in China’s fast-growing economy.

// posted by montag @ 1:32 PM 0 Comments

An Italian court on Friday convicted former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and sentenced him to four years in jail for tax fraud in connection with the purchase of broadcasting rights by his Mediaset television company.

Mr. Berlusconi has the right to appeal the ruling two more times before the sentence becomes definitive and will not be jailed unless the final appeal is upheld. Prosecutors had asked for a jail sentence of three years and eight months.

The court also ordered damages provisionally set at $12.96 million, to be paid by Mr. Berlusconi and his co-defendants to the tax authorities.

// posted by montag @ 1:25 PM 0 Comments

Well, as I’ve said before, Mr. Romney’s “plan” is a sham. It’s a list of things he claims will happen, with no description of the policies he would follow to make those things happen. “We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget,” he declares, but he refuses to specify which tax loopholes he would close to offset his $5 trillion in tax cuts.

Actually, if describing what you want to see happen without providing any specific policies to get us there constitutes a “plan,” I can easily come up with a one-point plan that trumps Mr. Romney any day. Here it is: Every American will have a good job with good wages. Also, a blissfully happy marriage. And a pony.

So Mr. Romney is faking it. His real plan seems to be to foster economic recovery through magic, inspiring business confidence through his personal awesomeness.

// posted by montag @ 1:14 PM 0 Comments

At an event in Defiance, Ohio Thursday evening, Mitt Romney got his Halloween on early by playing the Grim Reaper of jobs when he told a complete falsehood about Chrysler moving Jeep to China and taking Americans job with them. Chrysler said that a “careful and unbiased” understanding “would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.” That’s our Mitt.

Romney took “a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats” Thursday when he said, “I saw a story today, that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America, I’m going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it’s fair, America will win.”

Did you catch that? He saw a “story” alright, and just like Fox, he figured he’d “some people” reality by not bothering with it at all.

The truth is that Chrysler is not moving its Jeep production from America to China. As Chrysler said today, “Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China.”

// posted by montag @ 12:34 PM 0 Comments

Another boss weighs in telling his workers to vote for Mitt Romney, and if this one takes it easier on the intimidation than many of his plutocratic brethren, he makes up for it with an extra helping of hypocrisy. Jack DeWitt, president of Michigan's Request Foods, included in his company's newsletter a message assailing President Barack Obama for wanting "a bigger government," including "more regulations and rules which makes it difficult to start and grow business (such as Request Foods)." One little thing:

Request Foods obtained $5.5 million under a federal grant program that Obama's stimulus bill increased by $1 billion. Last year, the company greatly expanded its footprint in Holland, Mich., where it used the money for a water treatment plant to serve a new facility.

The company has also seen a strong increase in sales during the Obama administration. [...]

With the help from taxpayer money, Request was able to add at least 250 jobs.

While DeWitt didn't include the threat to his employees' jobs that seems to be de rigeur these days, a logistics coordinator at the company told the Huffington Post that "All the employees fall in line. They support our business policies." (Small conflict there: Request's business policies led to 250 people being hired thanks in large part to the stimulus. It's the company's political message that's at issue here, telling workers to vote against the president who made their jobs possible.)

// posted by montag @ 5:40 PM 0 Comments

John McCain bitterly denounced former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday for supporting President Obama for a second straight election.

“General Powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what is clearly the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime,” McCain told Brian Kilmeade on his radio program.

In 2008, Powell’s late backing of Obama over McCain was one of the most widely-covered endorsements of the campaign.

Once again, Powell weighed in towards the end of the race this week, telling CBS News that he stands by the president based on his first term performance on the economy and foreign policy alike. According to Powell, he witnessed “the president get us out of one war, start to get us out of a second war and did not get us into any new wars. And finally I think that the actions he has taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very very solid. And so, I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on.”

// posted by montag @ 5:06 PM 0 Comments

Reuters reported yesterday that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has warned the OCSE to stay away from Texas polling places. I wrote the other day about the Republican reaction to the presence of these international observers. The agents of voter suppression to not want witnesses to their illegal activities.

So in a move that is likely to be repeated in other Red States, Abbott says he will take legal action if the OCSE refuses to follow state law. Not federal law, mind you, but state law. The treaty in question, of course, was not made by the State of Texas, but by the United States of America.

Abbott said,

“They act like they may not be subject to Texas law and our goal all along is to make clear to them that when they’re in Texas, they’re subject to Texas law, and we’re not giving them an exemption.”

He claims, “Our concern is that this isn’t some benign observation but something intended to be far more prying and maybe even an attempt to suppress voter integrity.”

Only in Texas, is the subtitle here. These Red States sometimes forget we are a nation, a union of states under a single federal government and that individual states do not make foreign policy decisions, sign treaties, or decide which obligations to adhere to. You might be able to ignore biblical injunctions at will but states can’t ignore international treaties.

// posted by montag @ 11:00 AM 0 Comments

Federal prosecutors in New York sued Bank of America on Wednesday, accusing the giant bank of carrying out a mortgage scheme that defrauded the government during the depths of the financial crisis.

In a civil complaint that seeks to collect $1 billion in damages from the bank, the Justice Department took aim at a home loan program known as the “hustle,” a venture that Bank of America inherited with its purchase of Countrywide Financial during the crisis. Prosecutors say the effort, created in 2007 but kept alive through 2009 by Bank of America, was designed to churn out mortgages at a rapid pace without proper checks on wrongdoing. The bank then sold the “defective” loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled housing giants, which were stuck with heavy losses and a glut of foreclosed properties.

// posted by montag @ 1:32 PM 0 Comments

The bill, HB 2626, passed on October 17 with bipartisan support. Just 80 members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, most of the Democrats, voted in opposition.

Employers that hope to take advantage of the incentive program must hire 250 or more new full time employees and provide health insurance for them, in addition to paying a wage that’s above the county average wherever they’re located. Once those conditions are met, the proposed law would allow companies to absorb as much as $5 million of their employees’ income taxes every year.

As state struggle with one another in an effort to lure companies with special tax rates and incentives, millions are given away every year to thousands of companies that otherwise earn more than enough to continue being profitable.

// posted by montag @ 1:23 PM 0 Comments

A retired Marine who served as a gunner in Iraq says that his employer in Lexington, South Carolina refused to let him keep Veterans Affairs appointments and eventually fired him, citing that he was a “disable veteran” as the cause.

Lexington County court filings obtained by WIS showed that Jonathan Brown was terminated by New Life Fitness World on July 31 the and the “Employment Status Change” form said, “Discharged for: disabled veteran.” Brown has sued the gym because federal law requires employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for disabled employees.

Brown served in the Marine Corps for six years and was deployed to Iraq, where he operated a 25MM cannon before being discharged for a disabling eye condition.

“The VA is just like the military,” the retired Marine told WIS. “If you miss an appointment, you might not get another one to actually let them help you with your problem.”

Brown recalled that his regional manager, Jonathan Moreno, called him into his office to talk about the doctor visits and then fired him for being a “disabled veteran.”

// posted by montag @ 1:03 PM 0 Comments

In a previous post, I reported on some scam letters sent to voters to several counties in Florida. There are many questions that remain unanswered as the FBI and Florida’s law enforcement work to find the source of those letters.

At this point, we don’t know who is behind it and, as of yet, we don’t know why. It could be an attempt to steal people’s identities, deny them the vote or something else.
I am glad that State and Federal law enforcement is investigating. Whatever the motives were, I also hope the people behind this scam are caught and held accountable under the applicable laws.

At the same time, this incident raises questions for Florida’s Secretary of State.
Florida Today reports that the Secretary of State, Ken Detzner made the following comment in an email to Florida’s 67 county supervisors.

The Department of State takes this possible act of voter intimidation and fraudulent activity very seriously and is pursuing all avenues to ensure the practice is immediately stopped, as we do with all attempts at voter intimidation or fraud. The department is referring any information about these letters and other cases of potential voter fraud to law enforcement.

The Tampa Bay Times reported on October 2nd that Ken Detzner has yet to speak publically about the alleged fraudulent activity by Republican strategist, Nathan Sproul and his company Strategic Allied Consulting.

With less than a week before the deadline to register to vote in the November election, Republican state leaders who had made voter fraud a top issue are offering little insight into how they are handling the increasing numbers of suspicious registration forms being found throughout Florida.

What gives, Secretary Detzner? Where was your concern when the perpetrator was known to authorities and election fraud had occurred? Where are you instructions to Country Election Officials?

// posted by montag @ 12:31 PM 0 Comments

Across the nation’s Corn Belt, even as the worst drought in more than 50 years has destroyed what was expected to be a record corn crop and reduced yields to their lowest level in 17 years, farmland prices have continued to rise. From Nebraska to Illinois, farmers seeking more land to plant and outside investors looking for a better long-term investment than stocks and bonds continue to buy farmland, taking advantage of low interest rates.

And despite a few warnings from bankers, the farmland boom shows no signs of slowing. Almost every year since 2005, except during the start of the recession in 2008, agriculture land prices have posted double-digit gains. In the same period, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has had double-digit gains in only three of those years.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago showed a 15 percent increase in farmland prices since last year across a region that covers Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. Another survey released at the same time from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City showed even higher growth in the Great Plains states, where farmland prices have increased 26 percent since last year.

The two Fed surveys and sales data have raised concerns from bank regulators about a potential farmland bubble, similar to the housing frenzy that helped set off the financial crisis. A year ago, rising farmland prices prompted regulators to warn banks not to relax lending standards. In July, the Kansas City Fed held a symposium to discuss concerns about a bubble.

// posted by montag @ 1:15 PM 1 Comments

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan says that he can’t figure out what President Barack Obama meant when he mocked Mitt Romney’s complaint about the Navy’s smaller fleet of ships by saying “we also have fewer horses and bayonets.”

During the third 2012 presidential debate, Romney had criticized Obama because “our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission, we’re not down to 285. We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me.”

In response, Obama promised that military spending would not be cut, adding, “I think Gov. Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example. And that we have fewer ships that we had in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed.”

“We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so, the question is not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships, it’s what are our capabilities?”

// posted by montag @ 12:37 PM 0 Comments

But Romney likes to push the narrative that Obama has made America weaker and that our Navy is no longer the Navy it once was. Romney is wrong, but being wrong has never stopped Romney before, and it did not stop him last night.

ROMNEY: Our Navy is old — excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now at under 285. We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me.

I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947.

But President Obama was ready for this weak play:

But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works.

You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting slips. It’s what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home.

// posted by montag @ 12:18 PM 0 Comments

Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, are willing to risk the nation's fiscal health on keeping a lousy four points in the tax rate for their richest friends.

// posted by montag @ 1:35 PM 0 Comments

Barack Obama began his Presidency devoted to the idea of post-partisanship. His rhetoric, starting with his “Red State, Blue State” Convention speech, in 2004, and his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” was imbued with that idea. Just as in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” he had tried to reconcile the disparate pasts of his parents, Obama was determined to bring together warring tribes in Washington and beyond. He extended his hand to everyone from the increasingly radical leadership of the congressional Republicans to the ruling mullahs of the Iranian theocracy. The Republicans, however, showed no greater interest in working with Obama than did the ayatollahs. The Iranian regime went on enriching uranium and crushing its opposition, and the Republicans, led by Dickensian scolds, including the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, committed themselves to a single goal: to engineer the President’s political destruction by defeating his major initiatives. Obama, for his part, did not always prove particularly adept at, or engaged by, the arts of retail persuasion, and his dream of bipartisanship collided with the reality of obstructionism.

Perhaps inevitably, the President has disappointed some of his most ardent supporters. Part of their disappointment is a reflection of the fantastical expectations that attached to him. Some, quite reasonably, are disappointed in his policy failures (on Guantánamo, climate change, and gun control); others question the morality of the persistent use of predator drones. And, of course, 2012 offers nothing like the ecstasy of taking part in a historical advance: the reëlection of the first African-American President does not inspire the same level of communal pride. But the reëlection of a President who has been progressive, competent, rational, decent, and, at times, visionary is a serious matter. The President has achieved a run of ambitious legislative, social, and foreign-policy successes that relieved a large measure of the human suffering and national shame inflicted by the Bush Administration. Obama has renewed the honor of the office he holds.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 0 Comments

When Romney says he knows how to reduce deficits and balance budgets, he is lying because it is not the business model he used to create his enormous wealth. His practice was creating debt that someone else had to repay, and when they could not, Bain bought the distressed company, stripped assets, and sent profits offshore to avoid the Internal Revenue Service. When Romney ran the 2002 Olympics, the American people paid $1.5 billion as Romney’s cronies reaped the profits.

When he was governor of Massachusetts, he ran up over $1 billion in debt and left taxpayers and the next governor the bill as he began his six year quest for the White House. Now, Romney expects Americans to believe he knows how to reduce the deficit and balance the budget when it is contrary to his entire record? It is impossible to think this man who spent his entire career creating debt for profit is going to “run” the largest economy in the world and not create more debt. It is not likely; not for Romney, or any other Republican president.

Romney’s tax plan alone will increase the deficit by $5 trillion, and that is not including $2.1 trillion increase in defense spending. The 20% across-the-board tax cut and elimination of capital gains and investment taxes means government will have to borrow to fund the cuts and to keep operating. One thing is certain, if a small business owner was told to take on massive debt with no way to repay it and trust providence would repay the debt, they would run for the hills. There is nothing in Romney’s past, or his proposals for the future, that demonstrate he has any knowledge or experience reducing deficits because he never did, does not know how, and it remains a mystery to Republicans.

// posted by montag @ 12:15 PM 0 Comments

Willard Romney is a pathological liar with a business history steeped in corruption and fraud as he destroyed entire companies and consorted with the likes of disgraced junk bond king Michael Milken, his son Tagg’s Ponzi schemers, and foreign countries he contends are enemies of the state. Americans love a success story, but Romney’s support informs that they also love his un-American tactics that raided employees’ pensions, shipped jobs to China, and sent his ill-gained wealth offshore to avoid paying taxes. Romney’s supporters may claim that accusations of his malfeasance are historical, but how many corruption accusations does it take before an intelligent human being thinks, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire?” The only conclusion one can make is that a large segment of the population loves associating with liars, economic traitors, and tax evaders and still call themselves “real Americans.”

It is incredibly curious that so many Americans identify with a party of anti-government corporatists and corrupt businessmen and claim to be good Americans, and it is incomprehensible why they support a Republican candidate with a shadowy business record, hatred for at least 47% of the population, and fallaciously claims to be a Christian. For the record, Jesus Christ never condoned lying, restricting healthcare and food for the poor, children, and seniors, or advocated for war, and yet that is Romney’s appeal to the American people; particularly the religious right.

It is troubling to portray Romney supporters as pathetic sycophants yearning for Dark Age social policy and government by theocratic plutocracy, but the alternative explanation is worse; racism. That is what this election is coming down to and it has been the driving force behind Romney’s popularity and the ease at selling a Draconian corporatist agenda to the American people. Over six months ago during an interview with four retired middle class men, the question was posed; “do you really want a government controlled by corporations and religious extremists?” The spokesman’s reply was instantaneous; “We’d rather have a corporate theocracy than a n*gger in the White House,” as his compatriots nodded in agreement and patted him on the back. That one statement defines Romney supporters and a great portion of America. This is America drives a large segment of the population to forfeit Medicare, contraception, and peace, and they will give up economic freedom willingly to see a white man, even a corrupt white man, in the Oval Office.

// posted by montag @ 12:22 PM 0 Comments

I’m so fed up with all the nonsense that’s repeated over and over about the Benghazi attack that I need to vent. You kind of get used to most reporting on international issues being more or less complete crap, but for some reason it’s really bugging me this time. Apologies in advance for the rant-i-ness.

1) The relationship between the anti-”Innocence of Muslims” protests and the attack is still unclear. There were protests against the video that night in Benghazi. There are reports that some people at the protests were also seen at the attack, though it’s difficult to assess credibility. The video cameras at the consulate didn’t record any protest activity at the consulate site itself, and what they did record looked like a direct and determined attack, but it’s not clear how close the demonstrations got, or whether there might have been overlap. Point being that the administration didn’t lie about the attacks–it genuinely wasn’t sure what happened, because no one was.

2) Whether or not someone called the attack “terrorism” is completely irrelevant. No one here [in Libya] cares what politicians in the US call it.

// posted by montag @ 2:23 PM 0 Comments