Thursday, May 31, 2012

Paranoid Mitt Praises Hecklers



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 Heckle and Jeckle

ABC News Reports:
Axelrod took to the steps of the Massachusetts State House this morning to criticize GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s record as governor, part of a new Democratic line of attack. Flanked by Democratic state officials and a few dozen Obama supporters lining the steps behind, he proclaimed, “Romney economics didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”

But his audience — dozens of young, pro-Romney activists screaming and shouting just 15 feet away near a small bank of TV cameras – made it difficult to be heard.

The Republican crowd waved signs that read, “Obama Isn’t Working,” “Broken Promises,” and “Axelrod is in Fantasyland.” They boisterously chanted, “We want Mitt,” “Where are the jobs?” and “Solyndra, Solyndra, Solyndra.”



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You can't handle the truth, my friends. That's the problem. If you could handle the truth, you'd quiet down.
You can shout down speakers, my friends, but it's hard to Etch A Sketch the truth away.
~ Presidential Advisor, David Axelrod, to hecklers

At some point you say, you know what, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If they're going to be heckling us, why we're not going to sit back and play by very different rules
If the president is going to have his people coming to my rallies, and heckling, why, we'll show them that, you know, we conservatives have the same kind of capacity he does.
~ Presidential Candidate, Mitt Romney while holding a "secret press conference" of his own outside Solyndra Corporation, a closed-down business that was given a large loan by the Department of Energy and which also donated to the Obama campaign in 2008.

We knew, if word got out, that Solyndra would do everything in their power, and the Obama administration would do everything in their power, to stop us from having this news conference.
~ Unnamed Source from the Romney Campaign quoted on MSNBC's Maddow Blog.

I think there are people who don't want to see this event occur, don't want to have questions asked about this particular investment.
~ Mitt Romney on his Solyndra Press Conference in the New York Times

But for all of the campaign’s advance planning, Mr. Romney arrived at the dusty backdrop for his speech at nearly the same moment that former President George W. Bush was unveiling his portrait at the White House. All of the networks and cable channels opted to cover the White House live, rather than show Mr. Romney’s painstakingly planned event.
~ New York Times - The Caucus Blog















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Romney's Misspelled America


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Here's the story from AFP:
White House hopeful Mitt Romney has meticulously spelled out his vision for a better America while on the campaign trail this year. But in his new mobile app? Not so much.
The "With Mitt" application for the iPhone allows users to express support for the recently anointed Republican flagbearer by personalizing a photo with an overlaid Romney slogan. Trouble is, one of the slogans had a howler of a spelling mistake: "A Better Amercia."
Members of the proofreading public recently made the discovery and it went viral on Twitter late Tuesday, with people mockingly tweeting photos showing the "Amercia" message.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buzzfeed: Colbert Sings "Amercia the Beatiful"



This may be the worst typo in the history of visual design. "Romney iPhone app misspells 'America'"
~ Tina Roth Eisenberg on Twitter

RT @MittRomney I apologize for "Amercia" misspelling. The staff member who did it was foreign and has now self-deported.
~ Andy Borowitz on Twitter

Some poor app designer is getting strapped in a cage on the top of a car and driven across country tonight. ‪#amercia
~ Andrew Cove on Twitter

Sarah Palin loves Mitt Romney's new app and doesn't understand why everyone's laughing. ‪#Amercia
~ Top Conservative Cat on Twitter

Look on the bright side, Mitt Romney. Sure, your iPhone app spelled "America" wrong, but now you get to fire people!!!
~ Henry Birdseye on Twitter

Could the "America" typo on Romney's phone app actually win him support from the huge bloc of spelling-challenged Americans?
~ Howard Kurtz on Twitter

Mitt Romney's new campaign phone app misspells "America" as "Amercias" Maybe that is how Trump told him to spell it?!
~ Dean Obeidallah on Twitter 

Mitt Romney iPhone app misspells ‘America’...Romney then announces to cross every "i" and dot every "t" from now on.
~ Steven Santos on Twitter

Thanks App Store, but I'm never updating my "With Mitt" app.
Liam Mulshine on Twitter

Pictures Below From "Amercia is With Mitt" Tumblr


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Wild Trumpus Starts on CNN - with Colbert Update


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Note: On the same day Romney reached enough delegates to be the Republican Presidential nominee for 2012, his "surrogate" Donald "Birther" Trump went on Wolf Blitzer's CNN Situation Room and had meltdown over President Obama's Birth Certificate on life TV:



Stephen Colbert Update:

According to RealClearPolitics Average of Polls, Obama leads Romney by 45.6 percent to Romney's 43.6%. How is Mitt going to get to that 50.1% up here? He's already got the fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives mixed in - that's not enough!
Now Trump gets him the Birthers, but now he's got to reach out to the 9-11 Truthers, the Alien Abductees, the Doomsday Preppers, the Sasquatch Hunters, the Sasquatches, or "Sasqueetch."
Sh** - that's only 50%!
How does he get that tiny sliver? That's going to be tough. Who represents such a miniscule portion of Americans? Wait! I've got it - all Mitt needs are the blacks who like Donald Trump. (Shows Video of Trump saying "The winner is Arsenio Hall" on The Apprentice.)
50.1! 50.1! Mitt, you're hired!


 From the CNN Transcript Situation Room May 29, 2012

 TRUMP: Obama does not like the issue of where he was born. His own publisher, as you know, using his words, said he was born in Kenya and he lived in Indonesia. Of course, now he's denying that, amazingly.
So -- but I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk, as you said you would, jobs, China, what's going on with respect to China and how they're ripping this country, what's going on with respect to OPEC and how the nations of OPEC are laughing at the stupidity of our country. That's what I'm here to talk about.

BLITZER: All right.

TRUMP: You know that's what I'm here to talk about, and I thought your introduction was highly inappropriate. But that's OK, because I have gotten to know you over the years.

BLITZER: Well, I -- well, listen, Donald, first of all, I never said we weren't going talk about the birther issue. We had a conversation earlier today. We didn't discuss at all what we were going to talk about...


. . . *SNIP*


TRUMP: Now, you won't report it, Wolf, but many people do not think it was authentic.

His mother was not in the hospital. There are many other things that came out. And, frankly, if you would report it accurately, I think you would probably get better ratings than you're getting, which are pretty small.

BLITZER: Donald, have you seen the actual newspaper announcements within days of his birth in Honolulu, for example, "The Honolulu Star- Bulletin"? We will put it up there. You see the birth announcement back in 1961.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Listen to me, Donald.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Can I ask...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Am I allowed to talk, if you could stop defending Obama?

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Donald, Donald, you're beginning to sound a little ridiculous, I have to tell you.

TRUMP: No, I think you are, Wolf.

Let me tell you something. I think you sound ridiculous. And if you would ask me a question and let me answer it, instead of making...

BLITZER: Here's the question. Did the conspiracy start in 1961, when "The Honolulu-Star Bulletin" and ""The Honolulu Advertiser" contemporaneously published announcements that he was born in Hawaii?

TRUMP: That's right.

And many people put those announcements in because they wanted to get the benefit of being so-called so-called born in this country. Many people did it. It was something that was done by many people,even if they weren't born in the country. You know it, and so do I. And so do a lot of your viewers.


. . . *SNIP*


BLITZER: Donald, let me tell you -- let me tell you who hates this subject. It is Mitt Romney, who totally disagrees with you on this, including today. He issued a statement.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't speak to Mitt Romney about it.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Is Mitt Romney a Democrat? Is he an Obama supporter?

TRUMP: Mitt -- what I speak to Mitt Romney about is jobs. What I speak to Mitt Romney about is China, because he's got a great view on China and how they're trying to destroy our country by taking our jobs and making our product and manipulating their currency, so that it makes it almost impossible for our companies to compete.

What I speak to him about is OPEC. I don't speak to him about this. You bring it up because you feel it's probably going to get a few more people watching your station, which, unfortunately, they're not doing.

BLITZER: Here's what Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said today -- today, not yesterday, not last week, not six months ago -- "Governor Romney has said repeatedly that he believes President Obama was born in the United States."

Now, he's not a Democrat.

TRUMP: OK.

BLITZER: He's not an Obama supporter. He's Governor Romney, the Republican nominee. He says you're wrong.

TRUMP: You know what?

Everybody is entitled to their opinion, Wolf. You know my opinion. You know his opinion. And that's fine. We're entitled, as he said yesterday in the airplane, we're all entitled to our opinions. And he's entitled to his opinion and I think that's wonderful. I don't happen to share that opinion. And that's wonderful, also.

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BLITZER: But the state of Hawaii says it's not an opinion, it's a fact.

TRUMP: No, I don't think so. I think if you look at the birth certificate, take a look and you tell me, really. You analyze the birth certificate. There are many people that don't agree with that birth certificate. They don't think it's authentic, Wolf.

BLITZER: I don't know when you say many people who don't agree...

TRUMP: Many people.

BLITZER: Like who?

TRUMP: There are many people...

BLITZER: Give me an -- give me a name of somebody...

TRUMP: There are many people...

BLITZER: -- in a position of authority...

TRUMP: -- that do not believe...

BLITZER: -- in Hawaii who says -- but give me a name.

TRUMP: There are many people -- I don't give names. There are many people that do not believe that birth certificate is authentic.

BLITZER: Well, you know what...

TRUMP: Many people.


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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Trump Goes Birther on CNN

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Today Mitt Romney became the Heir Apparent to the Republican Throne by delegate count. He is in Las Vegas with Donald Trump on a fund-raising mission.

So what does The Donald do to help his man? He goes on CNN, gets in a fight with Wolf Blitzer, and goes completely crazy-ass over the Birther Issue.

You have to watch it and listen to Trump to believe it. He says Obama was born in Kenya and nothing will change his mind, not even the state of Hawaii issuing a valid birth certificate. Is this helping Mitt Romney?






The other day George Will called Trump a "bloviating ignoramus," and leave it to Trump to prove him right again just two days later. Trump responded that Will was "the dumbest political commentator of all time," but I would say no - that would be Trump as well, and this piece of videotape proves it.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed. For Romney to be legitimate (poor choice of words, I know) he needs to get the big bloviated bedbug out of his campaign.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Chris Hayes Totally Overthinks the Word Hero

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Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the word ‘hero’? I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
~ MSNBC host Chris Hayes discussing the word "Hero"

As many have rightly pointed out, it's very easy for me, a TV host, to opine about the people who fight our wars, having never dodged a bullet or guarded a post or walked a mile in their boots. Of course, that is true of the overwhelming majority of our nation's citizens as a whole.....But in seeking to discuss the civilian-military divide and the social distance between those who fight and those who don't, I ended up reinforcing it, conforming to a stereotype of a removed pundit whose views are not anchored in the very real and very wrenching experience of this long decade of war. And for that I am truly sorry.
~ Chris Hayes Apology on the "Up" website

So yes Mr. Hayes to the extent that dying did not make my son or any other man or woman killed in war a hero I agree. They were and are heroes long before the war wounds or kills them. They are heroes when they courageously put themselves at risk by investing their lives in this nation and freedom.
Mr. Hayes.. I feel somewhat sorry for you.. that you have never loved anything or anyone enough to stand up and put your life on the line to fight for it. You see that is what makes a hero...something you obviously do not understand.
~ Mother of a soldier who fell in Afghanistan

Chris Hayes' recent remarks on MSNBC regarding our fallen service members are reprehensible and disgusting. His words reflect his obvious disregard for the service and sacrifice of the men and women who have paid the ultimate price while defending our nation. His insipid statement is particularly callous because it comes at a time when our entire nation pauses to reflect and honor the memory of our nations' fallen heroes.
VFW National Commander Richard DeNoyer said in a statement to Fox News

Apparently he is the arbiter of what acts actually equal heroism. And, oh, his comfort. As long as he’s “comfortable.” That is what is important! We wonder if he said it while chewing contemplatively on his hipster glasses? We also wonder if he’d like to tell the children of the fallen that calling their mommies and daddies heroes makes him “uncomfortable.”
~ Twitchy.com

One is reminded anew of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous comment that the sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. But the funny thing is that in this case, saying that (a) certain wars might be objectionable, and (b) the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines fighting them are heroic are not even opposed ideas. So it is possible that Hayes has failed to display even a fifth-rate intelligence. Scary stuff.
~ Chequerboard.org blog post entitled "Chris Hayes Jumps Multitudes of Sharks

During the Bush war the GOP was all too willing to politicize military service: "Love our war or you hate the troops." Yellow ribbon magnets became thought-killing pro war bumper stickers. The legacy of Bush-era war propaganda is that it's become difficult to separate personal bravery and morally repugnant use of the military. If the country is going to heal from the Bush years, we're eventually going to have to have this conversation. Unfortunately for Chris Hayes and the rest of America, neocon casket-riders are still controlling the debate.
~ comment by Vapid on Huffington Post

In an election year, you can't give the GOP any openings to spew their propaganda. Their only issues to run on are missteps by the left which will be pounded into the conscious of the swing states. Hayes had no reason to go there, especially given the nature of the guest's conversation. Ponder issues like that in your own time Chris-----the GOP uses things like this to make you hesitate before speaking out on all issues. That said, he's usually got some great insight.
~ comment by Beowoof

Just in time for Memorial Day, some MSNBC drone named Chris Hayes has lit up the internet with his confession that dead American troops don’t quite measure up to his exacting standards for what qualifies as a “hero.” Memo to Chris: they are heroes, and you don’t get a vote.
. . . So, like so many other useless progressive fops who glide from cocktail party to panel discussion, Chris Hayes continues to push his progressive vision of collectivist serfdom from behind the unbreachable wall of American warriors. He has not stood with them and, in fact, is unworthy of doing so. He is a parasite taking sustenance from the exertions of better men and women.
~ Kurt Schlichter on Breitbart

And decades from now, I hope another young American will visit this place and reach out and touch a name. And she’ll learn the story of servicemembers—people she never met, who fought a war she never knew—and in that moment of understanding and of gratitude and of grace, your legacy will endure. For you are all true heroes and you will all be remembered.
~ President Obama at the Vietnam War Memorial Today

Perhaps President Obama should take a minute to pick up the phone and explain the heroism of our fallen servicemembers to his fellow progressive, MSNBC host Chris Hayes?
~ William Kristol in The Weekly Standard

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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Dine With Mitt and "Bloviating Ignoramus" Trump


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Donate today and you are eligible for a chance to win:
• Airport transportation in the Trump vehicle.
• Stay at the Trump International Hotel & Tower New York.
• Tour of Trump Tower.
• Dine with Donald Trump and Mitt Romney.
~ From a new Romney Promo featuring a dining experience with both Mitt and Donald for as little as a $3 donation.

Chris Christie's a great guy. He's a friend of mine. On a younger side, you could look at Sen. Rubio, who I think could help with Hispanics. But he is young, and I think he sort of doesn't want to go through it and doesn't want to do it.
They have a lot of very good people. Probably the best choice of all would be Donald Trump.
~ The Donald Trump, quoted by Newsmax

He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia… Now they’re saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her she said, ‘Oh, I mean Hawaii.’ Give me a break.”
~ Donald Trump Via Daily Beast insisting that President Obama was born in Kenya because a literary agent mistakenly wrote that once.


I do not understand the cost benefit here. The costs are clear. The benefit — what voter is gonna vote for Romney because he is seen with Donald Trump?
The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious it seems to me.

Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics. Again, I don’t understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?
~ George Will on ABC News This Week
































Friday, May 25, 2012

Attack of the Birther Zombies


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So, if you were from another planet, say, Nut-tron, and you were circling the earth in your saucer looking for a place to land, where would you touch down?
OK, besides New Hampshire.
Arizona, right?
I mean, you'd want to hook up with beings that were on your same wavelength. And judging from the continuing popularity of the "birther" movement in Arizona, you would be welcomed there with open arms … um, provided, of course, you didn't come in through Mexico.
~ from an article in The Hartford Courant by Jim Shea titled: "Arizona Birthers From Outer Space."

I really can't understand the controversy when you are doing a fraud investigation and looking into the possible forgery of government documents...
We feel that document is a forgery. We’re trying to figure out who did it. That’s good police work....
It's one deputy, so what? We have security issues, too, that I can't got into.... He's not going to make any arrests...I didn't say we're going to keep using him. We're not going to use him constantly. He's not assigned to it. For this trip I feel it's important to have a deputy there. He's just a liaison to give advice if needed. He's not doing anything. The posse's been doing the research....
We did visit the Department of Health yesterday and as predicted we were stonewalled...
~ Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, explaining why he dispatched Mike Zullo, a member of his Cold Case Squad, as well as a taxpayer-funded policeman to Hawaii to confront the Hall of Records about Obama's birth certificate, quoted Here and Here and Here.


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I think we have long since passed the point at which I’d find this story believable in a fictional setting, so, sure, why not have two crack detectives flashing their worthless Maricopa County badges at the Hawaii Department of Health. (I just can’t decide if they should be hard-bitten noir characters or Clouseau-esque bumblers.) But yes a completely crazy person who is in charge of law enforcement for the most populous county in Arizona is probably going to attempt to arrest Barack Obama at some point.
~ Alex Pareene on Salon.com in an article called "Arpaio Goons Sent to Hawaii for Important Birther Investigation."

If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn't my intent. I don't think there's anything embarrassing about doing everything I can to help Arizonan's have confidence that the ballot is correct and the people that are on it are entitled to be there. . . . What is so sacred or untouchable about this question that you can't even ask the question?
~ Birther Ken Bennett, Secretary of the State of Arizona, telling radio listeners that he has decided Obama could be on the November ballot after all, but explaining why he was harassing the state of Hawaii over the President's birth certificate.

I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.
~ Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) last week

I misspoke and I apologize...I stand by my statement that I mispoke and I apologize. I mispoke and I apologize. I stand by my statement that I mispoke and I apologize. I stand by my statement that I mispoke and I apologize...
~ Mike Coffman last week, when asked by a Denver reporter if he had any other excuse for his birther opinion besides saying that he mispoke.

If I had to do it over again I think I would have said, ‘Let’s move from this birther question, the president was born in the United States, period. . . Let’s just move on and let’s focus on the issues that are going to win this election. And secondly, let’s not ascribe this to those who oppose us that they’re any less Americans than we are.’
~ Ken Coffman (R-Colorado) this week



Thursday, May 24, 2012

Facebook ~ Sorry, Suckers! I mean, Zuckers!


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Facebook Shows There's a Sucker Born Every Minute
~ Headline on Wall Street Journal

It’s the biggest pump-and-dump in history.
~ Francis Gaskins, president of the IPO research site IPOdesktop.com, on New York Daily News

In one of the biggest IPOs in history, in which a huge amount of stock was sold to small investors, privileged Wall Street insiders once again got much better information than individuals did.
~ From MSNBC "The Inside Story of Facebook's IPO"

...there’s something unseemly about customers complaining at a gambling table that the game was rigged against them....Unfortunately, you can’t sue people for being suckers or greedy. You’ll note these people never sue when their investments go up.
~ WSJ Marketwatch OP-ED called "You Can Sue Facebook, but Why Did You Buy?

Nasdaq messed up Facebook's IPO, and now Facebook is totally going to show them by taking its stock away from Nasdaq and hooking up with Nasdaq's frenemy, the New York Stock Exchange.
That is the latest gossip from the world of Facebook, whose stock today managed to dead-cat bounce by more than 3 percent to exactly $32.
~ Huff Post Article "Facebook is Totally Dumping Nasdaq"

someecards.com - Sorry to hear that your Facebook stock is now as worthless as your Facebook posts.

Facebook: What you have when you put lipstick on MySpace.
~ Comment by Aerobat on Huffington Post

I understand that the FB shareholders are planning to rename their company, CHAGRIN, and to discuss their 'issues' on the new social/legal networking site, FACEOFF.
~ comment by awenshok on BusinessWeek

I would buy a ton of it. Because Facebook is the king of backlash. It takes a whipping and keeps on gripping. Us all. Try as we might we can never break the bonds that our Facebook masters have us all captive in. This is the dirty secret that they, and us, all know. They can force us into a timeline. We will revolt, but then learn to tow it. They can take away our protections. We will complain, but then learn to cope. They can sell all our information. We will freak out, then give them some more. They've got us all by the walls.
And we're not going anywhere. All 900 million of us and growing. We can bitch, we can moan, but we're still going to post. Facebook is like an awful party that we all already went to and have been standing in the corner of for the last 6 years...
~ Gavin Shulman on Huff Post Comedy







Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Investers Get "Zucked" by Facebook IPO

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Via Zazzle


Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his Harvard dorm room and in eight years built it into the most popular waste of time the world has ever seen.
~ Jay Leno

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

Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Facebook is exactly like that except you're not really famous and your 15 minutes goes on forever.
~ Craig Ferguson

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.
~ Jimmy Kimmel

Mark Zuckerberg’s paper wealth has fallen by more than $3 billion over the past two-and-a-half trading days. It could fall further today, giving us a new term for the business lexicon: “Zucked.” (As in “My stock wealth is down 30 percent, I got Zucked!”)
~ Robert Frank on CNBC

Please try to imagine, how passionately indifferent I am, to these wealthy morons, who got screwed by believing the Faceplant hype.
~ comment by deconstructionist on CNBC

I'm going to wait till next month to see if Facebook stocks will be on Groupon at 50% off.
~ comment on Techcrunch by Julian Hugh, Founder and CEO at SwagFriends.com teens social network

Insiders profited, the rest are suckers. Dot-bomb 2.0.
~ comment by Curt Story on Techcrunch

Remember this biblical saying? "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind"! So be it with Facebook.
~ comment by Slyfas on Independent UK














Monday, May 21, 2012

Cory Booker Goes Rogue, Kisses Up to Bain ~ with Obama UPDATE

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Cory Booker, the Democratic Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, schlepped up a bunch of praise for Romney's Bain Capital on Sunday while throwing Obama's talking points about Romney off a pier.

Transcript from NBC's Meet the Press Sunday May 20

Mayor Booker: . . . I have to say from a very personal level I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it's just, we're getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially, I know, I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses, and this to me, I'm very uncomfortable with.

. . . *snip*

David Gregory: . . . local officials like yourself, who are out there trying to grow the economy, who say hey, wait a minute, let's not indict all of private equity, and yet you have a campaign that's making him out to be Gordon Gekko. They, they want the voters to think that Mitt Romney is Gordon Gekko and Wall Street greed and a throwback.

Mayor Booker: Well, again, I talk to the White House quite often. I'm a surrogate for the Obama campaign. The messages that they're sending me out to do, out to talk about is nothing about this.

...*snip*

This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It's nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough! Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop because what it does is it undermines to me what this country should be focused on. It's a distraction from the real issues. It's either going to be a small campaign about this crap, or it's going to be a big campaign in my opinion about the issues the public cares about.

Later on Twitter Booker wrote:








Then he went on YouTube to clarify again:



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cory Booker, Surrogate from Hell
~ Headline of article by Steve Kornacki from Salon.com

"In this particular instance, he was just wrong. There were specific instances here that speak to an economic theory that isn't the right theory for the country...
"I love Cory Booker. He's a great mayor. If my house was on fire, I'd hope he was my next door neighbor.
~ White House Adviser David Axelrod to MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, quoted on Buzzfeed referring to Mayor Booker recently saving someone from a burning house

The substance of his comments on ‘Meet the Press,’ I agree with the core of it. I would not have backed them out...
~Harold Ford, Jr, on Morning Joe

This was actually a very courageous thing for Cory Booker to do...So that's great!...He stuck to his guns even on YouTube. That takes guts. That takes guts - I'm proud of him...That is the definition of a hostage video...It makes it so much worse and it underlines the fact of how bad the White House's position is on this, that the White House had to stick a gun...I mean, it's a hostage video....He got really scared when they said 'we're going to cut off your head' but he didn't realize they were just talking about the framing...'we're going to cut off the top of your head' - that's why he's so scared...
~ Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe via Business Insider















BTW, You do realize Mayor Loudmouth that you single handedly changed the frame of Obama's campaign message from Romney's job creation record to an attack on private equity firms. The campaign message has never been an attack on private equity firms. But you single-handedly changed the frame of the message. That is why you will find yourself persona non grata as far as support from the Democratic party goes. Be content with being a mayor because that is as far as you will go.
~ comment by Kahuna754 on YouTube

Cory booker should read uncle tom's cabin. lololololol!
~ comment by tenfarther on YouTube

What hath ye wrought, Mr. Mayor? What a colossal mistake you've made. Stepped on all on Obama's message of right vs wrong. You're a mayor. So disappointed. You will be in a Romney ad by the end of this week showing how even you think Bain is a noble enterprise. This video does not even begin to undo the damage you have done. Shame.
~ comment by kevin0811 on YouTube

UPDATE:
Obama Speaks out about Romney and Bain:
\
Via CNN's Political Ticker

When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot
...If your main argument for how to grow the economy is 'I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,' then you're missing what this job is about.
My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.
This is not a distraction. This is what this campaign is going to be about, is what is a strategy for us to move this country forward in a way where everybody can succeed.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Mitt Romney ~ Bully Boy of Cranbrook


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Commentary on Mitt Romney's school days at Cranbrook, a posh prep school in Michigan, back when he was a wealthy white-privileged teenage bully who attacked people with scissors.

From the original Washington Post Story by Jason Horowitz:
John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
And then there's this:
One venerable English teacher, Carl G. Wonn­berger, nicknamed “the Bat” for his diminished eyesight, was known to walk into the trophy case and apologize, step into wastepaper baskets and stare blindly as students slipped out the back of the room to smoke by the open windows.
. . . As an underclassman, Romney accompanied Wonnberger and Pierce Getsinger, another student, from the second floor of the main academic building to the library to retrieve a book the two boys needed. According to Getsinger, Romney opened a first set of doors for Wonnberger, but then at the next set, with other students around, he swept his hand forward, bidding the teacher into a closed door. Wonnberger walked right into it and Getsinger said Romney giggled hysterically as the teacher shrugged it off as another of life’s indignities.

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I’m not going to be too concerned about their piece they talk about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school and they describe some that well you just say to yourself, back in high school well I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended obviously I apologize but overall high school years were a long time ago...
~ Mitt Romney, quoted by ABC News

I don’t remember that incident and I’ll tell you I certainly don’t believe that I, I can’t speak for other people of course, thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from my mind back in the 1960s, so that was not the case. But as to pranks that were played back then, I don’t remember them all, but again, high school days, if I did stupid things, why I’m afraid I got to say sorry for it.
~ Mitt Romney, quoted by the Washington Examiner


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Yo, Romney, like Eminem said: “F*** Cranbrook.
~ Mother Jones Tumblr

On multiple occasions over the last year, Romney has shown a tendency to dodge, weave, parse or deny in such a way that it outweighs the original offense. It’s his weasel problem, a real character flaw.
. . . what Romney seems to be implying — that bullying of effeminate-seeming boys didn’t happen in prep schools in the 1960s — is preposterous.
~ Timothy Egan in a NYT's Op-Ed entitled Romney's Weasel Problem

I think it’s worth noting that the framing of the Post story—the suggestion that Romney and the others picked on this schoolmate because they thought he was gay—is anachronistic. In spring 1965 long hair was associated with surfers (the Beach Boys had their first national hit record in 1964) and the Beatles (who made their first U.S. appearance in January 1965). And hair length was a big issue in the 1960s. Men of the World War II generation, who had memories of military short haircuts, took umbrage when teenagers left their hair grow, and fathers would badger their sons to get haircuts.
~ Fellow Cranbrook Alumnus Michael Barone
 
The Post reported that the abused boy was ultimately expelled from Cranbrook—for smoking a cigarette. Really. The victim got expelled for smoking a cigarette, but Mitt faced no sanctions for maliciously victimizing a vulnerable student and a teacher. It's good to be a prince. Maybe that's why Romney felt entitled to take a $10 million bailout for Bain, but opposed President Obama's bailout of the auto industry. He thinks there's one set of rules for the privileged, and another for the rest of us.
~ Paul Begala on The Daily Beast

What I see is an opportunity for Mitt Romney to lead and really be an advocate for decreasing bullying. It’s sad to hear what occurred many years ago characterized as ‘pranks’ and ‘horsing around.’ We’re no longer conformable with the notion of describing bullying as ‘kids will be kids.’ This was a presidential moment, and this should be a teachable moment for him.
~ Lee Hirsch, the director of “Bully”, a new documentary that focuses on bullying in U.S. schools, in a phone interview with TPMemo

Imagine holding someone down on the ground against their will. Imagine raising scissors to their head because you didn’t like the style of their hair. Imagine cutting the hair while the boy or girl beneath you struggled to get free. Is she crying? Is he? Is this a moment you could forget? Once you had matured would you want to? In the best scenario, a lesson is learned and behavior changed; in the worst, the behavior is rationalized and outwardly forgotten, finding rest in the dark recesses of the soul.
~ Tim Durnin, Santa Barbara Noozhawk











Monday, May 14, 2012

JP Morgan Bank Losses in the Billions from Sketchy Hedge Trading

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We made a terrible, egregious mistake...There's almost no excuse for it...We got very defensive. And people started justifying everything we did.
~ CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, on NBC's Meet the Press













Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting....We don't know all the details," Obama said. "It's going to be investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street reform.
~ President Obama on The View

Jamie Dimont Put in the Rough
~ Headline on Boston Herald

It’s no secret that bankers have been feeling the wrath of an angry public—although nowhere near as much wrath or anger as the situation demands. They kept a low profile for a while, garaging their Lamborghinis and keeping the big watches in the sock drawer. But like penny-ante crooks who ignore warnings not to flash their money around after a heist, they are what they are. And everything, from multi-million-dollar duplexes to oceangoing yachts and NetJets accounts, is back on display.
~ From an article called "Dimon in the Rough" on VanityFair.com

If we are going to define this trade as a hedge, then there is no other conclusion to reach except that everything at a huge bank is a hedge.
And once you define everything as a hedge, well then, nothing is a hedge.
~ Barry Ritholtz on The Big Picture Blog

You liberals need to get out of the way, u don't understand capitism (sp)
~ Huffpost Super User Oppose Obama (who cannot spell)

What is capitism, brainwave? We DO understand fraud and malfeasence.
~ Celiene on Huffpo in response to Oppose Obama

Why is this a left vs. right problem? How can anyone think we don't need tighter regulation?
~ comment by Jaguar Man on Huffington Post

That is what Jamie Dimon has said. He says it’s stupid and sloppy but we’ll fix it. So stay away. But what if the next loss is $20 billion or $200 billion? Is he saying JP Morgan should be entitled to continue to take these bets right up until the day it lands in the taxpayers lap again?
...That’s the strongest argument for a modern Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall said in effect that hedge funds should be separated from commercial banking. If a big institution wants to go out and play in the market, that’s fine. But it doesn’t get the backup of the federal government. If it’s too complicated to implement the Volcker rule, do you say we give up and let the largest financial institutions do what they want? Or do you say maybe that’s the reason we need a modern Glass-Steagall?
~ Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to Ezra Klein of Washington Post



Banks have been loading up on risk and they don't want to be accountable. Jamie Dimon not only is CEO of JP Morgan Chase, he holds this position of public trust, advising the New York Fed. on how to regulate risk for these large financial institutions, like his own finanicial institution.
It's not just conflict of interest, it's a real point about attitude here. This isn't personal to Jamie Dimon. It's what's been going on ever since Dodd-Frank passed. There's been a guerrilla war out there in which the largest financial institutions have been doing everything they can to make sure that financial regulations don't get put in place. And if they do get put in place, that they're loaded with loopholes and not very effective. There's been a lobbying army hired by these financial institutions becasue they really don't want to have any oversight. They want to take on risks however they want to take on risk and let the rest of us bear the consequences...
~ Elizabeth Warren on CNN's Starting Point