May 17, 2012

Issue 744

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ON THE RECORD ....

"Ahem. His own family were ardent polygamists only a century ago -- and went to Mexican colonies to escape US federal oppression of their version of marriage (which also goes back a long, long way and still exists across the world). Romney's great-grandparents were polygamists; one of his his great-great-grandfathers had twelve wives and was murdered by the husband of the twelfth. For Romney to say that the definition of marriage has remained the same for 3,000 years is disproved by his own family. It's untrue. False. A lie." -- Andrew Sullivan 5.10.12

“I think this is one of his Etch-a-Sketch moments. I don’t think anybody takes that seriously. People remember his position, which was, ‘Let’s let Detroit go bankrupt.’ Had we followed his advice at that time, Chrysler would have gone under and we would have lost a million jobs throughout the Midwest.” -- President Obama about Mitt Romney who said “I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry has come back.” 5.10.12

"I'm a lawyer. I know what an assault is. This kid was scared. He was terrified. That's an assault." -- Phillip Maxwell who is "still haunted by what he claims he witnessed on the campus of the state's elite Cranbrook School in 1965: a young Mitt Romney and a group of friends holding down a classmate named John Lauber and cutting off chunks of his long hair." 5.11.12

"OBAMA FLIP FLOPS, DECLARES WAR ON MARRIAGE" -- Fox Nation headline.

"Scour Romney’s record for a single example of real political courage -- a single, solitary instance, however small, where Romney placed principle or substance above his own short- term political interests. Let me know if you find one ... His campaign has been an exercise in feeble appeasement. The only thing he appears to be dedicated to is abasing himself to the hard-right wing of the Republican Party. Consider the way he allowed a foreign-policy spokesman to be drummed out of the campaign simply for being gay ... Romney flunks the character test. He seems incapable of making the hard, sometimes unpopular, choices that are part of the job." - Gerald Rafshoon, White House communications director for President Jimmy Carter. l

“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. 5.12.12

“Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his views on marriage could get any gayer.”-- Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), on Obama’s views on gay marriage.

“As people who promote personal responsibility, family values, commitment and stability, and emphasize freedom and limited government we have to recognize that freedom means freedom for everyone. This includes the freedom to decide how you live and to enter into relationships of your choosing, the freedom to live without excessive interference of the regulatory force of government. -- GOP polster Jan R. van Lohuizen who is advising Republican candidates to emphasize the conservative nature of gay marriage, to say how it encourages personal responsibility, commitment, stability and family values. 5.11.12

“It’s like a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us.” -- A worker who lost his job at Kansas City’s GST Steel after Romney’s outfit bought it in 1993. Steelworkers were denied full pension and health insurance, and the feds had to bail out the pension plan. 5.14.12

“It is pretty galling for Speaker Boehner to be laying down demands for another debt ceiling agreement when he won’t even abide by the last one,. The last thing the country needs is a rerun of last summer’s debacle that nearly brought down our economy.” -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Boehner’s plan to erect the same requirements for raising the debt limit this coming winter that nearly led the country to default on its debt last August. 5.15.12

“They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The Speaker may hope for a case of national amnesia, but the American people haven’t forgotten what Republicans put our country through with the artificial crisis they created last August and the subsequent deal they spent the last year running away from.” -- A senior Senate Democratic aide. 5.15.12

IN THIS ISSUE

FYI

1. Global Investors Prefer Obama Over Romney
2. Ad War Update
3. Scott Bateman Animation: Mitt on his High School Pranks
4. The DAILY GRILL
5. From MEDIA MATTERS
6. Romney Economics - 1984 to 2002
7. Kaiser analysis: Estimated health insurance rebates under the health reform law total $1.3 billion dollars in 2012
8. Late Night Jokes for Dems
9. Andy Borowitz: “My School Days” by Mitt Romney
10. Romney Gives Commencement Speech At A University That Calls Mormonism A Cult
11. One-Man Florida SuperPAC Finances Attack on Obama in Ohio
12. Ann Telnaes Animation: Mitt Romney Devolving
13. Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia
14. Under Romney's Bain Capital, Dade Behring received millions in tax breaks before it laid off hundreds
15. GOP Budget Violates Boehner’s Debt Ceiling Demand

OPINION

1. E.J. Dionne Jr.: Mourdock Republicans, embracing dangerous austerity
2. Gary Kamiya: Obama’s finest hour
3. Joe Klein: Bully Pulpit Second Thoughts
4. Mark Halperin: Why ACA Rebates Are A Big Deal
5. Paul Begala on Romney: Once a Bully, Always a Bully
6. Andrew Leonard: Romney’s Jamie Dimon problem
7. Dana Milbank: Richard Mourdock and Keith Judd vs. Washington
8. Robert Reich: How J.P. Morgan Chase Has Made the Case for Breaking Up The Big Banks and Resurrecting Glass-Steagall
9. Jeffrey Toobin: Money Unlimited
10. Eugene Robinson: Romney is no economic savior
11. Jamelle Bouie: Misleading, But Effective
12. Ezra Klein: California’s political crisis — and ours
13. Jonathan Chait: Romney’s Budget Fairy Tale


FYI

1. Global Investors Prefer Obama Over Romney

Asked who would be the better leader for the global economy, 49 percent favor Obama against 38 percent for Romney, according to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll. In January, the two candidates tied on the question. 5.11.12 Read more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-11/obama-winning-investors-by-49-38-against-romney-in-poll.html

2. Ad War Update

Obama campaign ad: “Mitt Romney: Backwards on Equality.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vwJJm-we-vs

Priorities USA action Ad: “Heads or Tails” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fncJZXrzG8k&list=UUS6scxofr3K4j5q7hn6xQmQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Obama campaign ad: “Romney Economics: Bankruptcy and Bailouts at GST Steel.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZMndjLIQUFw

3. Scott Bateman Animation: Mitt on his High School Pranks

http://vimeo.com/42140898

4. The DAILY GRILL

"America counted on President Obama to rescue the economy, tame the deficit and help create jobs. Instead, he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of your dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined." -- Mitt Romney 3.15.12

VERSUS

“Presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush ran the national debt up to $10.62 trillion, the amount it was on the day Obama took office. Today, it is $15.67 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt. So it has gone up by $5.05 trillion under Obama. That's roughly half of the amount amassed by all the other presidents combined. In short, the debt has gone up by about half under Obama. Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled.“ -- Calvin Woodward, AP 3.16.12

“I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno. We will stop borrowing unfathomable sums of money we can’t even imagine, from foreign countries we’ll never even visit. I will bring us together to put out the fire.” -- Mitt Romney

VERSUS

“Romney’s tax and spending plans don’t support his vow to dampen the debt fire. He proposes to cut taxes and expand the armed forces, putting yet more stress on the budget, and his promise to slash domestic spending isn’t backed by the big specifics. Romney’s tax plan would cut the top income tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent and other rates by 20 percent each. He says he’d broaden the tax base and eliminate many deductions in the process, but details are missing.” -- Calvin Woodward, AP 3.16.12

“The people of Iowa and America have watched President Obama for nearly four years, much of that time with Congress controlled by his own party. And rather than put out the spending fire, he has fed the fire. He has spent more and borrowed more. … When you add up his policies, this president has increased the national debt by $5 trillion.” - Mitt Romney 5.15.12

VERSUS

“Much of the increase in the debt is due to lower tax revenues from depressed corporate and individual incomes and high joblessness in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The recession officially began in December 2007, when George W. Bush was president and the national debt stood at just over $9 trillion. Financial bailouts, stimulus programs and auto rescue spending that started under Bush and continued under Obama contributed to the run-up of the debt.” -- Calvin Woodward, AP 3.16.12

“End Taxpayer-funded Campaigning: David McKinley believes that it’s wrong to abuse taxpayer money by funding campaign-style “constituent” mailings and phone calls during re-election years.” -- McKinley’s campaign website

VERSUS

“Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), who spent $263,083, was 4th on the list of the ten biggest spenders on taxpayer-funded mailings of the 444 people who served in the House over the last nine months of 2011.” -- USA Today 5.15.12

”We are not going to beat Barack Obama with some guy who has Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Island accounts, owns shares of Goldman Sachs while it forecloses on Florida and is himself a stockholder in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while he tries to think the rest of us are too stupid to put the dots together and understand what this is all about.” -- Newt Gingrich during the campaign

VERSUS

”I’m going to campaign for him, I favor him over Obama. I went through, like, seven different issues where I favor him. I’ll do everything I can to help elect Romney. … As far as I’m concerned, I’ve endorsed him.” -- Newt Gingrich now

5. From MEDIA MATTERS

Limbaugh: I Was "Minding My Own Business" And "All Of A Sudden They Put Gay Marriage In Our Face" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205100009

Fox's Todd Starnes: Public Schools Are "Indoctrination Centers" For Marriage Equality http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205100005

Fox's Carlson Asks If Obama Is "Demonizing Those Who Disagree" With Marriage Equality http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205100001

Hannity Claims Obama's Drug Use As A Youth "Is All Relevant" Because He "Came Out This Week In Favor Of Gay Marriage" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110017

Limbaugh: To Save Economy, "Get Rid Of Everything Obama's Done And Simply Go Back To America The Way It Was" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110013

Huckabee Again Pushes The Conspiracy Theory That Obama Entered College As "A Foreign Student" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110011

Limbaugh Continues To Dismiss Bullying, Says Wash. Post Story "Is All Part Of A Conceived Strategy" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110007

Fox's Doocy Tries To Blame Obama For JP Morgan Losses: "If He's The President, He's The President Of The Banks, Too" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110003

Bill Donohue: "Nature Has Ordained" That Only Men And Women "Can Have A Family. Gay People Have Been Disqualified From Nature" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205100025

Rove Refers To Romney Incident Recalled By Five Sources As "Pranks That May Or May Not Have Taken Place" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205120003

Dick Morris Blames Obama For "The Crisis In Greece, The Crisis In Spain, The Freezing Of Lending Of Capital Throughout The World" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110020

Greg Gutfeld's "Good Joke": "What Do You Call An Angry Feminist On Mother's Day? You Don't" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205110018

Buchanan: Same Sex Marriage Is "Unnatural And Immoral," And Obama Is Trying To Impose It "By Coercion" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205140007

Fox Legal Analyst: "I'm Hoping Gasoline's Going To Stay Close To Five Dollars In November ... No Joke" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205140005

Fox Anchor Jon Scott: "Sounds Like Gridlock Is A Good Thing, Because The Government Can't Get In The Way" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205140003

Limbaugh: Democrats Have Used The "Contrived War On Women" And The "Contrived Sandra Fluke Thing" To Convince Women They're Miserable http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205150007

Fox's Perino: CA Gov. Brown's YouTube Video On State Budget Is A "Chicken Move" That's "Done By, Like, Dictators" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205140012

Buchanan: Same Sex Marriage Is "Unnatural And Immoral," And Obama Is Trying To Impose It "By Coercion" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205140007

Fox "Straight" News On The Debt Ceiling Debate: It's A "Showdown Over Out-Of-Control Spending In Washington" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205160008

John Bolton On Iran: "I Thought The Israelis Should Have Struck About Three And A Half Years Ago" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205160001

Fox's Napolitano Attacks "The Socialist Entity Called The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201205150016

6. Romney Economics - 1984 to 2002

http://www.romneyeconomics.com/gst

7. Kaiser analysis: Estimated health insurance rebates under the health reform law total $1.3 billion dollars in 2012

Consumers and businesses are expected to receive an estimated $1.3 billion by this August in rebates from health insurers who spent more on administrative expenses and profits than allowed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), finds a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation of the latest estimates provided by insurers to state insurance commissioners.

The rebates include $541 million in the large employer market, $377 million in the small business market, and $426 million for those buying insurance on their own. Rebates in the group market will generally be provided to employers, and in some cases be passed on to employees as well.

Rebates are expected to go to almost one-third (31%) of consumers in the individual market. Among employers, about one-quarter (28%) of the small group market and 19% of the large group market is projected to receive rebates. The share of consumers in the individual insurance market expected to receive rebates ranges from near zero in several states to as high as 86% in Oklahoma and 92% in Texas. http://www.kff.org/healthreform/hr042612nr.cfm

8. Late Night Jokes for Dems

"President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has been going through an evolution on the issue. That makes opponents on the far right doubly angry. They don't believe in gay marriage OR evolution." –Jimmy Kimmel

"Michele Bachamnn has announced she is now also a citizen of Switzerland. What better way to protest a president you think is socialist than become a citizen of a country with a socialist philosophy and a mandated health care plan." –Jay Leno

"Mitt Romney responded today by restating his own views on marriage. He said marriage should only take place between two consenting rich people." –Craig Ferguson

"Romney said he had no problem with gay people because one of his best friends owns San Francisco." –Craig Ferguson

"Yesterday New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he's not sure if he's going to run for re-election next year. He's said, 'I'll collapse that bridge when I get to it.'" –Jimmy Fallon

"Police in Fort Wayne, Indiana, arrested a man for allegedly driving three blocks with four young children strapped to the hood of his car. Good to see Mitt Romney spending some time with the family, huh?" –Jay Leno

"Usually they do these on TV together, but in this case Santorum made the endorsement in the 13th paragraph of an email he sent out just before midnight. Sounds like somebody had a bottle of sparkling apple cider for dinner." –Jimmy Kimmel

"Santorum woke up this morning and said, 'I endorsed who?'" –Jimmy Kimmel

"In the email, Santorum acknowledged his differences with Romney, but said they have common-ground thoughts about the economy and foreign policy. And they both like pleated Dockers." –Jimmy Kimmel

"In the last year, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s approval rating has gone up 12 points. That's impressive. Usually, the only time he picks up a dozen is when he goes to Krispy Kreme." –Jimmy Fallon

"Yesterday on CBS, Newt Gingrich said it would be 'inconceivable' for Mitt Romney to choose him as a running mate. And today, Romney issued a statement saying, 'Yep.'" –Jimmy Fallon

"And the Republicans, of course, were livid that on the anniversary of the killing of bin Laden, that Obama went over there and celebrated that. How dare he run for President using his accomplishments as President. We knew his campaign would be ugly, but stooping to facts?" –Bill Maher

"Could you imagine what Bush would have done if he had gotten bin Laden? I mean, this is a guy who played dress-up to celebrate a war he lost. If he had gotten bin Laden, he would have spent his whole second term in a Batman costume." –Bill Maher

"President Obama visited Afghanistan — unplanned, unannounced, just went right to Afghanistan. Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney got in his car and drove through the rough part of Beverly Hills." –David Letterman

"Mitt's wife Ann Romney, Mrs. Mitt, said there's another Mitt Romney that is wild and crazy. She says that one time he changed his name to Mitta World Peace." –David Letterman

"This week the president unveiled his new campaign slogan, 'Forward.' ... And Mitt Romney unveiled his slogan, 'My money might be offshore, but my heart's right here in America.'" –Jay Leno

9. Andy Borowitz: “My School Days” by Mitt Romney

Some of you may say, “Hold on, Mitt – isn’t holding a kid down and cutting off his hair going a little far?” Well, the merry prankster in me tells me you can never go too far when it comes to giving the greatest gift of all: the gift of laughter. And I certainly remember many of us laughing long and hard about what I did to that Nancy-boy. Was it cruel? Perhaps, but it’s not like I tied him to the roof of a car or anything.

The Democrats have already tried to seize on this incident as evidence that I don’t like gays. That is a lie. I have nothing against gays. Except for the poor ones, of course. And as any of my high school chums can tell you, I did not go out of my way to pick on gay kids. I was also a total douche to many heterosexuals.

The fact is, boys will be boys. Who among us hasn’t shoved a crippled kid down a flight of stairs? That’s something else I did in those mischievous days, but the mainstream media isn’t reporting it because they want to turn this into an anti-gay thing. The fact is, when I was in high school I played pranks on everyone – blind kids, deaf kids, dwarves and Jews. Although come to think of it, I don’t think our school accepted Jews.

Now that I’ve put my actions into better context, I hope you’ll see this incident with the gay kid for what it was: innocent good fun. And I hope when you vote in November, you won’t judge me as the teenager who bullied one gay boy, but rather as the adult who fired thousands of people. Read more at http://www.borowitzreport.com

10. Romney Gives Commencement Speech At A University That Calls Mormonism A Cult

Romney might have checked out the Liberty University curriculum first: Page 173. Graduate course Theology 678—Western and New Religions.

Course description: "The history, doctrines, and present state of the major cults such as Mormonism, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventism. The course will also include a study of the Occult Movement. Emphasis is placed on the errors of these groups and on methods and materials for confronting them effectively." 5.12.12 Read more at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/romney-giving-commencement-speech-at-university-that-calls-mormonism-a-cult/

11. One-Man Florida SuperPAC Finances Attack on Obama in Ohio

A Florida-based investment firm run by a frequent Republican donor is the sole contributor to a group that is airing television ads comparing President Barack Obama’s leadership unfavorably to that of former Democratic presidents.

The activity of Real Leader PAC illustrates the ease with which one person can organize a super-political action committee and attempt to influence the outcome of the 2012 presidential race in large and small ways. Creating a committee simply requires depositing money in a new bank account and filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. 5.13.12 Read more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-14/one-man-florida-superpac-finances-attack-on-obama-in-ohio.html

12. Ann Telnaes Animation: Mitt Romney Devolving

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-devolving/2012/05/13/gIQAEiKaNU_video.html

13. Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were found guilty of war crimes.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Yvonne Ridley 3.12.12 Read more at http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/

14. Under Romney's Bain Capital, Dade Behring received millions in tax breaks before it laid off hundreds

In advance of Mitt Romney's fundraising swing through Florida tomorrow Democrats are highlighting one of the business ventures of Bain Capital while Romney was in charge: Dade Behring, which, saddled with debt, wound up shuttering two medical technologies facilities in Miami. Some 850 jobs were lost, while Bain walked away with $242-million - an 800 percent return on its investment

The Dade Behring case has been well-documented, but here's a new wrinkle: The company under Bain's leadership sought and received millions of dollars in tax breaks for creating jobs in Puerto Rico - shortly before closing it's facilities, costing nearly 300 jobs.

The company in 1997 received a $3-million federal tax break aimed to promoting job creation in Puerto Rico. It also received a $4.1-million tax exemption from Puerto Rick in 1997 in the name of job creation. Dade ceased its operations in Puerto Rico in the first quarter of 1998. Read more at http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/under-romneys-bain-capital-dade-behring-received-millions-tax-breaks-it-laid-hundreds

15. GOP Budget Violates Boehner’s Debt Ceiling Demand

House Speaker John Boehner’s demand Tuesday that the next increase in the debt limit be accompanied by dollar-for-dollar “cuts and reforms” apparently comes with a caveat: It doesn’t apply to the GOP budget drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Ryan’s House-passed blueprint would increase the nation’s debt by $5 trillion over a decade, according to the nonpartisan CBO. Sahil Kapur 5.16.12 Read more at http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/john-boehner-debt-ceiling-limit-paul-ryan-gop-ryan-budget.php


OPINION

1. E.J. Dionne Jr.: Mourdock Republicans, embracing dangerous austerity

The irony is that it’s conservatives who want to follow the Western European path of austerity that voters in France and Greece rejected last weekend. The Obama administration, by contrast, has chosen a distinctly American path that kept austerity at bay. As a result, the American economy has climbed out of the Great Recession more quickly than most of Europe. Had Obama accepted the right wing’s assertions that cutting government is the one and only route to prosperity, we would have gone the way of Britain, which is slipping toward recession again.

In fact, the “socialist” Obama has presided over an economy in which private employment has risen by 4.2 million jobs during the recovery even as governments at all levels have cut public payrolls by some 600,000 since the beginning of 2009. If shrinking government is the political right’s goal, this puts Obama to the right of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The United States should have been even more aggressive in pump-priming the economy — and Obama would have been if conservatives and some moderates had not been so resistant.

France’s Francois Hollande may carry a Socialist label, but he, too, favors a balanced policy that would use public spending primarily to induce more private sector growth. Matt Browne, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is right to describe Hollande’s economic views as “pragmatic” and his proposals as embodying “a realistic European agenda.”

On the other hand, the Mourdock Republicans — and they now very much include Mitt Romney, the party’s presumptive nominee, in their ranks — would have the United States embrace an even more radical program of government cutbacks at the very moment when Europe’s voters are telling us that this simply doesn’t work.

Obama’s thoroughly moderate economic policies are an excellent example of a practical American exceptionalism. Europeans are moving toward the center-left not because they are doctrinaire but precisely because they are sick of the rigid approaches the advocates of austerity have imposed upon them. Why would we now want to imitate Europe’s failures? 5.9.12 Read more http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-american-exceptionalism/2012/05/09/gIQAmKDRDU_story.html

2. Gary Kamiya: Obama’s finest hour

On Wednesday, the real Barack Obama stood up. He is a better man and a better president for having done so. And America is a better country.

Homophobia is the last refuge of open bigotry in American life. Racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny still exist, but they lurk in the shadows. It is no longer socially acceptable in any segment of society to openly say that blacks are violent or Latinos are lazy or Jews are grasping or women are genetically inferior. But it is still acceptable to say the crudest and most hate-filled things about gay people. In his 1999 book “One Nation, After All,” sociologist Alan Wolfe found that Americans were remarkably tolerant and open-minded about every controversial subject except one: homosexuality. Attitudes towards gays have become far more enlightened during the last 13 years, but Wolfe’s findings touch on a profound social reality: Many Americans still feel gays are somehow unacceptable, or scary, or immoral, or just different in some way that makes it acceptable to discriminate against them and/or openly disparage them.

That does not mean that all of the North Carolinians, for example, who voted Tuesday for an amendment outlawing same-sex marriages are homophobes. Many of them simply believe that marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples because that’s the way marriage has traditionally been defined, and they believe that defending tradition as important. But their personal views have become irrelevant. The fact is that same-sex marriage has become a national civil rights issue, and as such, it has enormous symbolic importance. To simply stand on the sidelines and not take a position on it, as Obama tried to do until Wednesday, is to tacitly accept that gay people are second-class citizens. This narrow, legalistic approach to gay marriage only encourages bigotry and stands in the way of needed progress. It was necessary for Obama to take a risk – and take a stand.

I did not think he would do it. But he did. 5.10.12 Read more at http://www.salon.com/2012/05/10/obamas_finest_hour/

3. Joe Klein: Bully Pulpit Second Thoughts

I fear that I went too easy on Mitt Romney with regard to his high school bullying escapades. It’s not the incident itself that troubles me–though it was, obviously, outrageous and disgraceful–so much as his current response: He doesn’t remember it. This is patent nonsense. How could he not remember it? Obviously, he remembers it or he wouldn’t have been so quick to issue his blanket apology yesterday for any and all hurt he may have caused at Cranbrook. And this transparent fudge once again raises questions about his character.

It comes during the same week that he claims credit for saving the auto industry, even though he opposed the bailout that made possible the “structured bankruptcy” he favored. It comes the same week that he expresses his opposition to gay marriage, even though he promised to be a more aggressive proponent of gay rights than Ted Kennedy when he ran for the Senate in 1994–of course, it’s possible that Romney has “evolved” in the opposite direction from President Obama, and most Americans, on this issue, but I doubt it. It seems that a day can’t go by without some Romney embarrassment, or bald-faced reversal of a former position.

I’m still waiting for the moment when Romney actually tells the truth about something difficult. He could have said, “You know, I’ve been troubled by the Cranbrook episode for most of my life, and I feel relieved, in a way, that it’s come out now. I did a really stupid and terrible thing. Teenage boys sometimes do such things, and deserve to be punished for them. What I most regret is that I never apologized to John, and won’t be able to now that he’s gone, but let me apologize to his family and friends. Bullying is unacceptable under any circumstances. It is especially unacceptable when prejudice–against race, ethnicity or sexual orientation–is involved. If elected President, I will try to atone for my teenage behavior by campaigning against bullying all across this country. What I did back then should be an example of how not to behave. I hope we can all learn from this. I know that I have.”

Instead, Romney has a near-perfect record of cowardice, obfuscation and downright lies. It shows enormous disrespect for the intelligence of the public. 5.10.12 Read more at http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/11/bully-pulpit-second-thoughts/

4. Mark Halperin: Why ACA Rebates Are A Big Deal

From almost the moment the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a “ObamaCare”) was signed into law, the administration has been playing defense, trying to convince a skeptical public and a hostile Republican Party that the measure has some real benefits for real people.

The White House has touted some provisions that poll well, such as ensuring coverage for pre-existing conditions and keeping adult children on their parents’ health plans into their twenties. Nevertheless, the law overall remains unpopular with the American people.

But the rebate provision of the law — the fruits of the so-called “80/20 rule” — is about to kick in big time, as millions of Americans receive rebate checks or premium reductions from insurance companies who have failed to spend enough on patient care. This cash could be a true game changer in public attitudes about whether the law actually is beneficial and good public policy. The rebate provision of the law has been known and discussed in health care policy circles for months, but has largely flown below the radar in the political world and for voters—until now.

The rebates will average around $127 for the over 3 million individuals who receive them directly. Small employers covering almost 5 million people will receive around $377 million (an average break of $76), while larger employers covering about 7.5 million people will get approximately $541 million (an average of $72). According to administration officials, employers are obligated to pass those savings onto their employees.

As citizens and employers throughout the country receive their checks, the potential political impact in presidential battleground states could be significant:

The Affordable Care Act still is an issue Republicans are likely to highlight during the fall campaign, and one Democrats will continue to downplay. And in June, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law’s constitutionality, which will shake up utterly the political debate on the matter. But as the Obama campaign strives to make a case for the President’s first-term legacy, “the checks are in the mail” is a sweet phrase indeed. 5.11.12 Read more at http://thepage.time.com/2012/05/11/halperins-take-why-aca-rebates-are-a-big-deal/

5. Paul Begala on Romney: Once a Bully, Always a Bully

It is a good general principle that we ought not hold teenage wrongdoing against middle-aged people. Mitt Romney has run a business, run the Olympics, run a state, run for the Senate, and run for president. Surely we can and should judge him on his performance of those public duties.

But what if childhood conduct helps shed a light on adult behavior? Romney's teenage bullying hurts him because it is consonant with his adult record. Voters may well conclude: once a bully, always a bully; once a privileged abuser of power, always a privileged abuser of power.

If the Washington Post reports of his teenage behavior are true—and even Romney does not dispute them, except to disingenuously say he doesn't remember—what adult traits do those actions presage?

First, abuse of power. Romney was tall, handsome, and rich. But he was not athletic, at a time and a place when athleticism among young men was the coin of the realm. So he became a cheerleader. Like fellow cheerleaders George W. Bush and Rick Perry, he adopted a macho swagger, perhaps overcompensating for his lack of ability on the field. Maybe that's why he didn’t confront his nonconformist classmate alone but rather took the coward's path: assembling a posse in an episode one classmate described as like "Lord of the Flies."

There is the aura of someone who acts as if the rules don't apply to him. 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.

This is why Romney's ancient misconduct at Cranbrook haunts him today: it helps illuminate the man who seeks to become the most powerful person in the world. 5.11.12 Read more at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/11/paul-begala-on-romney-once-a-bully-always-a-bully.html

6. Andrew Leonard: Romney’s Jamie Dimon problem

Here is the most important sentence in Jamie Dimon’s Thursday afternoon conference call discussing J.P. Morgan’s colossal trading screw-up: “Just because we’re stupid doesn’t mean everybody else was.”

Dimon is not stupid. Under his tenure, JPMorgan has been the best-run of the big banks. So Dimon’s self-criticism gets it all backward. The fact that JPMorgan was so very stupid is so very scary because we can rest assured that just about everybody else is doing things even more idiotic.

The whole point of the infamous “Volcker Rule” included in the Dodd-Frank bank reform act is to restrict the banking sector’s ability to clobber the economy by doing dumb things. As the Huffington Post’s Mark Gongloff noted, if a strict version of the Volcker rule had been in place, J.P. Morgan, quite possibly, would have been prevented from making a bet that would lose the bank $2 billion — or more.

On the other hand, there could well be real political repercussions. Because if anyone is going to come out of this mess looking even stupider than Jamie Dimon, it’s got to be Mitt Romney — the presidential candidate actively campaigning on a pledge to repeal Dodd-Frank.

Barack Obama has been rightly dinged from the left for his soft approach to Wall Street, but there’s a reason why Big Capital is shunning him and pouring money into Romney’s campaign. Romney’s answer to the financial meltdown is to do absolutely nothing; to abandon even any pretense of reining in Wall Street bad behavior, to return us to the pre-crash regulatory status quo.

That’s suicidal. The U.S. economy may well skip over JPMorgan’s folly without any serious long-term damage. But that’s not the point. What we learned from the financial crisis is that the real danger inherent in Wall Street’s endless orgy of speculative trading is the prospect that multiple bets could go bad simultaneously when there is a big external shock to the system — like the housing bust. That’s when a downturn becomes a crash.

I can’t say with certainty that Dodd-Frank will do a good job of protecting us from a replay of the great financial crash of 2008. But the prospect of electing someone as president who is promising Wall Street that he will let them blithely self-regulate? That seems even stupider than JPMorgan’s $2 billion bad bet. 5.11.12 Read more at http://www.salon.com/2012/05/11/romneys_jamie_dimon_problem/

7. Dana Milbank: Richard Mourdock and Keith Judd vs. Washington

Richard Mourdock stands a good chance of being elected to the Senate. Keith Judd is a federal inmate in Texas. And the similarities don’t end there.

Both men were beneficiaries of voter protests on Tuesday against the Washington status quo — one protest harmless, the other insidious. The benign vote went to Judd, who won 41 percent of the ballots against President Obama in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary. It was an embarrassment for the president but purely symbolic. The more worrisome protest vote benefited Mourdock, who bested six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Indiana Republican primary. That election has the potential to make the broken system in Washington more caustic and less functional.

Mourdock, a geologist by trade, is Indiana’s state treasurer. Perennial candidate Judd, who goes by the nickname “Dark Priest” and has an extremely long mullet, lists himself as a past member of the Federation of Super Heroes and is doing time for making threats at the University of New Mexico.

Yet the two men are equally irrational in their plans for changing Washington. And the two are equally likely to succeed with these plans, which is to say they have no chance at all.

Judd wants voting rights for incarcerated felons, and he proposes to abolish the income tax and fund the government with “free money.” Mourdock’s solution is just as implausible: an end to bipartisanship and compromise. “One side or the other has to win this argument,” he said the day after his primary victory, adding that “the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else.”

That Indiana voters would make such a protest statement is understandable. These are hard times, and Americans correctly perceive that the federal government has become unable to deal with problems big and small. But the Hoosiers’ proposed cure — sending to Washington an ideologue who calls for confrontation over compromise — will just make the illness worse.

Mourdock is outside the tradition envisioned by the Framers. If he thinks the way to success in Washington is to banish collegiality in favor of confrontation, he might as well grow a mullet and join the Federation of Super Heroes. It will work equally well. 5/11/12 Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mourdock-and-judd-vs-washington/2012/05/11/gIQA3EKGIU_story.html?hpid=z3

8. Robert Reich: How J.P. Morgan Chase Has Made the Case for Breaking Up The Big Banks and Resurrecting Glass-Steagall

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the nation’s largest bank, whose chief executive, Jamie Dimon, has led Wall Street’s war against regulation, announced Thursday it had lost $2 billion in trades over the past six weeks and could face an additional $1 billion of losses, due to excessively risky bets.

The bets were “poorly executed” and “poorly monitored,” said Dimon, a result of “many errors, “sloppiness,” and “bad judgment.” But not to worry. “We will admit it, we will fix it and move on.”

Move on? Word on the Street is that J.P. Morgan’s exposure is so large that it can’t dump these bad bets without affecting the market and losing even more money. And given its mammoth size and interlinked connections with every other financial institution, anything that shakes J.P. Morgan is likely to rock the rest of the Street.

Ever since the start of the banking crisis in 2008, Dimon has been arguing that more government regulation of Wall Street is unnecessary. Last year he vehemently and loudly opposed the so-called Volcker rule, itself a watered-down version of the old Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate commercial from investment banking before it was repealed in 1999, saying it would unnecessarily impinge on derivative trading (the lucrative practice of making bets on bets) and hedging (using some bets to offset the risks of other bets).

Dimon argued that the financial system could be trusted; that the near-meltdown of 2008 was a perfect storm that would never happen again.

Since then, J.P. Morgan’s lobbyists and lawyers have done everything in their power to eviscerate the Volcker rule — creating exceptions, exemptions, and loopholes that effectively allow any big bank to go on doing most of the derivative trading it was doing before the near-meltdown.

And now — only a few years after the banking crisis that forced American taxpayers to bail out the Street, caused home values to plunge by more than 30 percent, pushed millions of homeowners underwater, threatened or diminished the savings of millions more, and sent the entire American economy hurtling into the worst downturn since the Great Depression — J.P. Morgan Chase recapitulates the whole debacle with the same kind of errors, sloppiness, bad judgment, and poorly-executed and excessively risky trades that caused the crisis in the first place. 5.10.12 Read more at http://robertreich.org/post/22821591303

9. Jeffrey Toobin: Money Unlimited

Six days after the Court’s Citizens United decision, President Obama gave his State of the Union address. Picking up on the issue that Ginsburg had raised in the oral argument—the possibility of foreigners buying influence in American elections—the President declared, “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections.” The Democrats in the chamber rose in a standing ovation as Obama continued, “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities.” Cameras caught Alito mouthing the words “not true” when Obama mentioned foreign corporations. Alito had a point. Kennedy’s opinion expressly reserved the question of whether the ruling applied to foreign corporations. But, as Olson had argued before the Justices, the logic of the Court’s prior decisions suggested that foreign corporations had equal rights to spend in American elections.

In any event, the implications of Citizens United were quickly apparent. In March, 2010, the D.C. Circuit ruled that individuals could make unlimited contributions to so-called Super PACs, which supported individual candidates. This opened the door for Presidential campaigns in 2012 that were essentially underwritten by single individuals. Sheldon Adelson, the gambling entrepreneur, gave about fifteen million dollars to support Newt Gingrich, and Foster Friess, a Wyoming financier, donated almost two million dollars to Rick Santorum’s Super PAC. Karl Rove organized a Super PAC that has raised about thirty million dollars in the past several months for use in support of Republicans.

These developments have drawn some criticism, but the Court appears determined to extend the deregulatory revolution that it began in Wisconsin Right to Life and Citizens United. Last year, the Court struck down Arizona’s system of public financing of elections, which the state had passed after a series of political scandals involving fund-raising. The Arizona system gave additional funds to candidates for certain state offices who were being heavily outspent by their privately funded opponents. By the customary vote of five-to-four, with an opinion by Roberts, the Court declared the system unconstitutional. As Kennedy had in Citizens United, Roberts said that governments could never take steps to equalize opportunities for candidates in electoral contests. “ ‘Leveling the playing field’ can sound like a good thing,” he wrote. “But in a democracy, campaigning for office is not a game. It is a critically important form of speech. The First Amendment embodies our choice as a Nation that, when it comes to such speech, the guiding principle is freedom—the ‘unfettered interchange of ideas.’ ” The Roberts Court, it appears, will guarantee moneyed interests the freedom to raise and spend any amount, from any source, at any time, in order to win elections. 5.21.12 Read more at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/21/120521fa_fact_toobin?currentPage=all

10. Eugene Robinson: Romney is no economic savior

Republicans say they’re eager for the presidential campaign to turn away from “distractions” and focus instead on the economy. Someone should warn them that if they’re not careful, they might get their wish.

It is true that voters’ unhappiness with high unemployment and slow growth poses a challenge for President Obama as he seeks reelection. But for Mitt Romney and the GOP to take advantage of this potential opening, they’ll have to do more than chant the word “economy” like a mantra. They have to make the case that their policies will work better than Obama’s.

And what might Romney’s proposed economic policies be? Why, they’re basically the same as those of George W. Bush, only worse.

Just as Obama owns the recession and the slow recovery, Bush owns the financial crisis that sent the slumping economy over a cliff. But for all his sins — the gratuitous tax cuts, the off-budget wars, the defiance of basic arithmetic — Bush at least demonstrated a certain empathy for Americans who struggle to make ends meet. One of his budget-busting initiatives, for example, was expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs without worrying about how this much-needed new benefit would be paid for.

It’s safe to predict that Romney would never make such a gesture out of compassion for the beleaguered middle class. To this day, he refuses to take back his criticism of Obama for bailing out General Motors and Chrysler — even though letting the companies fail would have meant the extinction of the U.S.

industry and the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

It is a measure of Romney’s ideological stubbornness that, even with Chrysler rebounding under new ownership and GM reporting record profits, he still insists that his view — let the companies go bankrupt so the “creative destruction” of capitalism could work its magic — was correct. 5.14.12 Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/romneys-economic-plan-is-short-on-specifics/2012/05/14/gIQA15tkPU_story.html

11. Jamelle Bouie: Misleading, But Effective

The centerpiece of Mitt Romney’s campaign today is a web video on the human cost of the “Obama economy.” It focuses on three individuals, still out of work, and ends on this note: “Hope and change has not been kind to millions of Americans, but they still believe in this great country, and deserve a leader who believes in them: Mitt Romney.”

In this narrative, the GOP didn’t mismanage the economy into the deepest downturn since the Great Depression. Rather, the economic crisis simply happened, ex nihilo, and Obama did nothing to stop or mitigate it. What’s more, he made things worse, with government spending and an explosion of debt. Romney will rely on this version of the past when he gives a speech this morning, in Des Moines, Iowa, where he’ll focus on the “unprecented growth of government, spending and debt under President Obama.” Presumably, it’s government action—and not Republican policies followed by obstruction—that is responsible for our sluggish economy.

But this is nonsense. The Bush administration actually happened, and its actions—or rather, its active disinterest—helped create a juggernaut of risk that almost toppled the economy. The stimulus package passed in 2009 stabilized things, and the Obama administration took further efforts to extend unemployment benefits, expand food stamps, and extend more aid to states. If government spending hasn’t worked to bring the unemployment rate down to pre-recession levels, it’s because there hasn’t been enough. Even still, the economy has created 4.2 million jobs since Obama entered office, besting George W. Bush’s eight-year total by 1.2 million jobs.

Moreover, government spending hasn’t increased much under President Obama. The deficit is a product of historically low revenues and an economic downturn. When you remove both from the equation, government spending has gone down substantially under Obama; spending is nearly 2 percent lower now than it was at the beginning of his term. By contrast, government spending had climbed by 6 percent at this point in Bush’s term. Given our economic straits, this isn’t a good thing. But it’s simply false to say that we’re witnessing some unprecedented explosion in the growth of government.

The problem for Obama is that, from where most voters sit, this is fairly esoteric. No one actually cares whether Obama is really responsible for government spending, or if he’s been hampered by constant Republican obstruction. They want relief, and Mitt Romney has offered his expertise. For Obama to succeed, he needs to show—convincingly—that Romney is peddling a false narrative and failed policies. Given the degree to which the fundamentals are leaning against him, this is not an easy task. 5.15.12 Read more at http://prospect.org/article/misleading-effective

12. Ezra Klein: California’s political crisis — and ours

California’s fiscal crisis will look sadly familiar to close watchers of the national checkbook. That’s because California is not having a fiscal crisis so much as a political crisis. The trigger may have been the recession, but the root cause was written into the state Constitution, and it was visible long before the housing boom went bust.

In California, passing a budget or raising taxes requires a two-thirds majority in both the state’s Assembly and its Senate. That need not pose a problem, at least in theory. The state has labored under that restriction for a long time, and handled it with fair grace. But as the historian Louis Warren argues, the vicious political polarization that’s emerged in modern times has made compromise more difficult.

All of this, however, has been visible for a long time. Polarization isn’t a new story, nor were California’s budget problems and constitutional handicap. Yet the state let its political dysfunctions go unaddressed. Most assumed that the legislature’s bickering would be cast aside in the face of an emergency. But the intransigence of California’s legislators has not softened despite the spiraling unemployment, massive deficits and absence of buoyant growth on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. The minority party spied opportunity in fiscal collapse. If the majority failed to govern the state, then the voters would turn on them, or so the theory went.

That raises a troubling question: What happens when one of the two major parties does not see a political upside in solving problems and has the power to keep those problems from being solved?

In another system of government, that wouldn’t much matter. In our system of government, which requires a supermajority in the Senate for most projects, it matters a lot. On Jan. 20, for instance, the Senate is expected to vote on raising the debt ceiling. Generally, this is a bipartisan vote, as the debt is a bipartisan creation. This year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told Majority Leader Harry Reid that if he wants an increase in the ceiling, he owns it and needs to find the votes for it. That’s the sort of budgetary brinksmanship that brings us back to California.

The lesson of California is that a political system too dysfunctional to avert crisis is also too dysfunctional to respond to it. The difficulty is not economic so much as it is political; solving our fiscal problem is a mixture of easy arithmetic and hard choices, but until we solve our political problem, both are out of reach. And we can’t assume that an emergency, or the prospect of one, will solve the political problem for us. If you want to see how that movie ends, just look west, as we have so many times before. 5.15.12 Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/californias-political-crisis--and-ours/2012/05/15/gIQAyNRZRU_blog.html

13. Jonathan Chait: Romney’s Budget Fairy Tale

Mitt Romney delivered a speech today about the budget deficit. It’s hard to wrap your arms around Romney’s argument, because it’s an amalgamation of free-floating conservative rage and anxiety, completely untethered to any facts, as agreed upon by the relevant experts.

In the real world, the following things are true: The budget deficit was projected to top $1 trillion even before President Obama took office, and that was when forecasters were still radically underestimating the depth of the 2008 crash. Obama did propose temporary deficit-increasing measures, an economic approach endorsed in its general contours, if not its particulars, by Romney’s economists. These measures contributed a relatively small proportion to the deficit, and their effect is short-lived. Obama instead focused on longer-term measures to reduce the deficit, including comprehensive health-care reform projected to reduce deficits by a trillion dollars in its second decade. Obama put forward a budget plan that would stabilize the debt as a percentage of the economy. Obama has hoped to achieve deeper long-term deficit reduction by striking bipartisan deals with Congress, and he has tried to achieve this goal by openly endorsing a bipartisan deficit plan in the Senate and privately agreeing to a more conservative plan with John Boehner, both of which were killed by Republican opposition to any higher revenue.

The story told by Romney is one in which all of these things are either untrue or could not possibly be true.

Romney elides some inconvenient facts — for instance, by asserting “Then there was Obamacare. Even now nobody knows what it will actually cost,” which is literally true in the sense that precise cost estimates are always impossible, but sounds to his audience like a claim that the program will swell the deficit in vast, unknowable ways. But most of Romney’s speech doesn't even refer to the facts stated above. It's simply orthogonal to facts. It’s a story, one in which Obama increased the deficit because he loves big government and Europe and hates the private sector.

Not only does Romney elide vast swaths of established facts about the deficit, it’s fairly clear that he does not operate within the mainstream understanding of the term “deficit” at all. As Jonathan Bernstein has repeatedly explained, modern Republican behavior and even language in relation to the deficit is completely nonsensical if you understand “the deficit” to mean the gap between revenue and outlays. Republican use of the term only makes sense if you define “the deficit” to mean “spending Republicans don’t like.” That’s why Republicans consider it impossible to believe that one could simultaneously extend health insurance to the uninsured while reducing the deficit. 5.15.12 Read more at http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/05/romneys-budget-fairy-tale.html

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