"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Thursday, October 04, 2012

I was so angry today
Posted by Bob | 11:50 PM
I couldn't understand why President Obama was so off his game last night. Then, around 1 am, listening to BBC World Service, the Turkey-Syria border crisis was big, big news. The Turkish Parliament had even authorized its military to enter Syria. I realized President Obama had cleared his calendar Wednesday to deal with that - it is a very serious national security & NATO problem, was dealing with it right up to the time he entered the building for the debate. Unfortunately, the debate was not about foreign policy, so the Commander-in-Chief & "Leader of the free world" could not give a little "what I was doing today & will be doing the moment I leave here" talk. No wonder he looked distracted. He was stopping a war from breaking out in the most volatile region on the planet. The weenie on the other side of the stage receives national security briefings. He knew what was happening. But he didn't have to worry about it.

It's no excuse. Judging from the lack of spin, President Obama ordered his people not to use it as an excuse. That would be like him. He knew what he was there to do. It wasn't to say, "Sorry folks, I was busy being President all day." Americans hardly believe there's a world outside America, & our TV news media is terrible at reporting international news, almost totally ignores it. Next debate, let's get back to that "3 am phone call" theme.

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Friday, July 13, 2012

My tinfoil hat is tingling
Posted by Jill | 7:01 AM
It's difficult to watch Willard Rmoney's ghastly performance at the NAACP conference this week without cringing. The man is so obviously trying to twist himself into a pretzel to try to appeal to enough people outside the batshit crazy Republican base -- and it shows. There's something vaguely deranged about the man as he stomps around the country in the quadriennial ritual of kissing babies and pretending that you care about every individual that you meet. Romney isn't like the country fair attendees in the flyover states. He knows it, and on a deep level, they know it too. And he's certainly not like the rank-and-file members of the NAACP, and he knows that too. That's why he had to bus in plants to applaud him.

Now there are people sniffing around not just Romney's offshore accounts (just the thing every patriotic American who "believes in America" does, right?), but his very tenure at Bain Capital.

And now it turns out that Willard Rmoney may very well have lied about the tenure of his time at Bain Capital:
Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.

Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

Romney's financial disclosure report has him claiming that he left Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 and that "Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way."

There's just one problem -- those pesky SEC documents, which conflict with Rmoney's financial disclosures. So which one is true? If Rmoney lied on either one of them, that's what's called a felony.

All of which makes me wonder -- at what time do we stap talking about "misstatements" and "dissembling" and start calling Rmoney a liar?

All of which brings us to tinfoil and Rmoney at the NAACP.

This week saw an Ipsos poll showing President Obama with a six-point lead over Willard Rmoney. Obama has been going around the country pointing out the dichotomy of a presidential candidate talking about job creators and believing in America -- and then storing his money in accounts in the Cayman Islands, as if he were a Saudi king or shady underworld operative. And it's working, because people are starting to look more closely at the GOP candidate who wants to take power so he can enact policies that will screw over the middle class even more and stuff his offshore accounts with more money. Not to know Willard Rmoney might be to love him, but to know him is to realize that this is just another greedy, power-mad GOP sociopath who can't even be said to serve his multimillionaire masters, because he is one.

In order to win, the GOP must field candidates who can convincingly pretend that they care about regular people. This is why Chris Christie is so popular among the pundit class. He's every bit the corporatist scumbag that Willard is, but when angry white guys see Christie's sizable frame clutching an ice cream cone on a Jersey Shore boardwalk and emulating Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, all that is forgotten and the reptilian brain thinks, "He's just like me." GOP voters love this sort of thing.

But I digress again.

Rmoney just isn't wearing well. The GOP can disenfranchise millions of people, and stiff minority districts on voting machines. They can even try to throw the election to the House. But that still may be too risky. Rmoney may be a reliable partner for moneyed interests, but some kind of a sham charade election still has to happen. And if Romney's unpopularity continues to grow, then the GOP has a problem.

So that's where my tinfoil comes in. I'm not at all convinced that this sudden attention to Rmoney's financial disclosures is coming from the Democrats. The party that turned the other cheek while their 2004 candidate, a decorated war hero, was branded as a traitor and coward while their guy, who spent the Vietnam era in a cushy National Guard gig for which he didn't even bother to show up, was painted as a macho Rambo tough guy, is just not smart enough to come up with something like this.

So here's my prediction: By the time of the convention, the offshore accounts and financial disclosures will become such a huge issue that Rmoney will have to withdraw. This will leave the field clear for the oligarchs to select the candidate they wanted all along. Even he has said "This was probably my time."

And it yet may still be.

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Sunday, June 03, 2012

More Republican "I know you are, but what am I?"
Posted by Jill | 3:22 PM
They sure are masters of projection, aren't they:
On Thursday, Mitt Romney campaigned at the headquarters of Solyndra — the first renewable energy company to receive a federal loan under the stimulus — and reiterated his debunked claims that its bankruptcy symbolized the corruption and cronyism of the Obama administration. But just one day later, a solar panel developer “that landed a state loan from Mitt Romney when he was Massachusetts governor” went belly up, the Boston Herald reports, creating an inconvenient storyline for the GOP presidential nominee.

The company, Konarka Technologies, “filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its 85 workers and liquidate”:

“Konarka has been unable to obtain additional financing, and given its current financial condition, it is unable to continue operations,” CEO Howard Berke said in a statement. “This is a tragedy for Konarka’s shareholders and employees and for the development of alternative energy in the United States.”

The demise of Konarka could become a hot topic on the campaign trail because Romney personally doled out a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to the Lowell startup in 2003, shortly after taking office on Beacon Hill.

Konarka is the second Massachusetts solar company, along with Evergreen Solar and Beacon Power, to receive taxpayer dollars under Romney’s tenure and subsequently declare bankruptcy.

Romney, meanwhile, routinely dismisses the nation’s 3.1 million clean energy jobs, even as clean energy is booming in Massachusetts. The industry has created 64,000 jobs across the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors.


Of course, under the IOKIYAR rule, you will not hear about this in the media, and Willard Rmoney won't be questioned about it -- anywhere. Because that would be a "vicious personal attack", as are all criticisms of The Man Who Would Be King.

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Friday, April 20, 2012

The Many Lies of Mitt Romney - First in a Series
Posted by Jill | 5:51 AM
It's already become crystal clear that Mitt Romney is a serial, pathrological liar. He lies about things he used to believe, he lies about his background, he lies about what he wants to do with this country, and he lies about other people. He doesn't "misspeak", he doesn't present "alternative facts", he doesn't "make mistakes."

He lies. Loudly and often.

So let's call him what he is -- a liar -- and start documenting them as they come.

Now he's trying to spin the fact that he refuses to release more than tax returns with the "Well, Johnny did it" schoolboy excuse, claiming that John Kerry only released two years of tax returns when he was running for president.

It makes sense for Romney to make this claim. After all, John Kerry is also extremely wealthy through his wife, who was the widow of hot dog condiment heir John Heinz. He's also been vilified on the right for being one of those "elites" that the people in rural Tennessee loathe -- those people whose houses need new roofs, who have old cars up on blocks in their yards, whose jobs have been exported by guys like Mitt Romney, and who still think Republicans will make them rich. Kerry does have an effeteness that taps into the loathing of the Republican base. So lying about John Kerry is a nice fat dogwhistle.

The problem is that what Romney said about John Kerry's taxes is just not true. It's....

A LIE.

Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times:
>George Romney released 12 years of income tax returns when he ran for president in 1968. George Romney’s son, Mitt, plans to release just two, so his campaign’s looking outside the family for precedent.

Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman, told The Huffington Post: “John Kerry released two years.” In a CNBC interview with Larry Kudlow on Tuesday night, Mr. Romney said: “John Kerry released two years of taxes…I’ve released one already, put the estimate out for the next year. We’ll have two years of taxes.”

There’s a slight problem with this claim: It’s not accurate.

As the Huffington Post notes, Mr. Kerry made a habit of releasing tax returns to the Massachusetts press during his senate campaigns. In 1996 and 1997, for instance, The Boston Globe ran stories on Mr. Kerry’s returns. During his 2004 presidential campaign, it looks as though Mr. Kerry released tax returns for the years 1999 to 2003.

Whatever the precise number (a Washington Post editorial from January of this year said “John F. Kerry released 10 years’ worth of tax returns”), it was more than two. The Romney campaign, however, has yet to acknowledge this fact. They refused to answer direct questions about whether they will continue using the two-year figure.


Of course they'll continue using it. Because Mitt Romney is a sleazy liar.

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