Christie is a failure; there is no ‘New Jersey comeback’

From Senator Barbara Buono – Politico

republished by Paddy Ryan

Here is the reality:

Christie has failed to deliver

New Jersey ranked 47th in economic growth in 2010 and 2011, and our economy shrink by 0.5 percent last year. There are 175,000 fewer jobs in New Jersey today than in December 2007, before the recession started. New Jersey lost 12,000 jobs in July alone, the highest job loss of any state in the nation.

Meanwhile, property taxes for the average New Jersey family were at a 20 percent net increase during his first two years in office, up from $6,244 to $7,519.
To be fair, Christie, like President Barack Obama and all the governors elected from 2008 to 2010, inherited an economy crippled by the Great Recession.

The question to ask however, is: What has Christie done as governor to fix it? And are his policies a model for “America’s Comeback Team,” as the presumed GOP nominee Mitt

Romney seems to think? Or a prescription to avoid?

On taking office, Christie cut state aid for education by $1.1 billion, slashed property tax relief for senior citizens and cut government worker pensions — breaking campaign promises in all three cases, as The Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper, recently reported.

In addition, Christie’s personal and political ideology has cost New Jersey billions of dollars in federal aid for education, transportation and women’s health funding.

GOP convention myths: the lie behind Love

By Paddy Ryan

If you don't already know who Mia Love is, you certainly will by next Tuesday night, after she delivers her speech at the GOP convention in Tampa.

Mia Love is the African-American, Mormon mayor of small-town Saratoga Springs, Utah. She is also the latest Republican to challenge Congressman Jim Matheson for a congressional seat in Utah.

The story of Mia Love's parents is a classic American “Rags to Riches” story. Love's parents migrated to the U.S. from Haiti in 1973 with virtually nothing.

“Her desire to serve came from her parents, who immigrated to Brooklyn in 1973 with little money and only a hope that the American dream could become a reality for them."

Love's parents were able to reach the American dream, climbing their way into the upper-middle class by the time Love reached college.

Her parents were able to climb out of poverty and achieve the American dream with the help of a society that encouraged government institutions aimed at increasing social mobility.

Now, Love wants to either end or cut those programs aimed at increasing social mobility. Today, Love thinks the same programs that helped her parents attain the American Dream are nothing more than 'entitlements' for lazy people.

Here are a few of Love's policies that would prevent poor, working, and middle class Americans from attaining the American dream:

Love will repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act, which she refers to as Obama Care, because she claims that it is 'bad policy for our country and for our future'. Love's repeal would force nearly 5.4 million seniors and people with disabilities to pay more for healthcare.

Love will fight to end medicare as we know it, privatize social security, and gut social safety programs for the poor.

“I am ready to go to Washington and work to pass the Romney/Ryan agenda"

Love will slash the Food Stamp Program by $133.5 billion - more than 17 percent - over the next ten years, ending assistance for millions of low-income families. Love's drastic cuts "would primarily affect low-income families with children, seniors, and people with disabilities."

Mia Love is a shell, nothing more than a rubber stamp for an extreme right-wing agenda.

And now that Love's own family is upper middle-class, she has no problem supporting policies that would hurt low income families. The classic GOP "too bad, I got mine" approach.

Good people of Utah's fourth Congressional District please don't support Mia Love. The last thing that our country needs is another self-righteous, hypocritical, tea-party rubber-stamp, like Mia Love, in Congress.

Creationism is a lie, by Mr. Bill Nye

From sarce - firedoglake
republished by Paddy Ryan

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka "The Science Guy," if grownups want to "deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them."

Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. I mean, we're the world's most advanced technological—I mean, you could say Japan—but generally, the United States is where most of the innovations still happens. People still move to the United States. And that's largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in that, it holds everybody back, really.

To bad the GOP isn't listening.

UPDATE: Romney makes outrageous, 'dog whistle' birth certificate joke

Hey baby I want that birth certificate!

Romney birth certificate joke blasted as ‘racism’ and ‘gutterball politics’

From Muriel Kane – The Raw Story

republished by Paddy Ryan

Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki issued a scathing criticism, telling MSNBC, “This is the kind of gutterball politics that will and should turn the American people off. This is a pattern. Mitt Romney has questioned repeatedly over the last several months whether the president understands America, whether he understands freedom — he’s wrapped his arms around Donald Trump, one of the originators of the birther movement, so we’ve seen a pattern here.”

Rachel Maddow made a similar observation, pointing out on Twitter, “Today’s remarks follow 5 straight Romney ads about Obama being the president of lazy welfare recipients taking your $. Not subtle.”

However, the harshest words may have come from Andrew Rosenthal at the New York Times editorial page.

“Politicians sometimes think they can get away with saying something profoundly offensive or just plain stupid by acting like it was a joke,” Rosenthal wrote. “It never works, just like it didn’t work today when Mr. Romney shamelessly played the birther card in what seems like an increasingly desperate campaign against President Obama.”

“Today’s crack was way over the line,” he continued. “His audience laughed and applauded, probably not because they thought Mr. Romney was doing hilarious stand-up comedy, but because they knew exactly what he was up to. … It’s racism, pure and simple.”

Romney makes outrageous, 'dog whistle' birth certificate joke

By Paddy Ryan

Today, Mitt Romney made an outrageous, off-color joke regarding President Obama's birth certificate;

Ginger Gibson reports from the joint Romney-Ryan rally in Commerce, Mich.:

Starting his speech with a reflection on his love for Michigan, Romney explained that he and Ann Romney are proud natives and named the hospitals where they were born.

"Now I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital," Romney said, continuing: "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."

The crowd cheered in response.

Open those checkbooks seniors, Romney/Ryan is going to cost you!

From Igor Volsky - ThinkProgress

republished by Paddy Ryan

The Romney/Ryan proposal to transform Medicare’s guaranteed benefit into a “premium support” structure for future retirees could increase costs by almost $60,000 for seniors reaching the age of 65 in 2023, a new report from the Center for American Progress finds. Current seniors would also have to pay more for preventive, hospital, and physician services should Romney and Ryan repeal the Affordable Care Act, facing an increase in health spending of between $7,900 and $18,600 over the course of their retirement.

Current seniors will pay more. The premium support structure does not kick in until 2023, so current seniors will remain in the existing Medicare program. But should Romney/Ryan repeal the Affordable Care Act’s savings, beneficiaries will face higher cost sharing and premiums (particularly for preventive services) and seniors who have received prescription drug discounts, will now pay more for their medications. What’s more, Romney/Ryan would lower Medicaid spending significantly beginning next year, shifting federal spending to states and beneficiaries, and increasing costs for the 9 million Medicare recipients who are dependent on Medicaid.

Huckabee still set to spread his hate in Tampa

From Evan McMorris-Santoro - TPM

republished by Paddy Ryan

Democrats say Mitt Romney has a Todd Akin problem and, by extension, a Mike Huckabee problem. The conservative radio host has reaffirmed his support for the embattled Senate nominee, just before he’s set to speak in a primetime slot in Tampa Monday night. Democrats are urging the GOP to boot Huckabee, one of its biggest social conservative stars, from the lineup.

American Bridge, the Democratic tracking firm, is launching an online drive to push Huckabee from the Tampa podium next week. The group says that keeping Huckabee on the schedule suggests the GOP isn’t serious about distancing itself from Akin and his stated views on female biology.

On Thursday, Huckabee took his party to task for calling on Akin to quit the Senate race in Missouri following Akin’s “legitimate lape” implosion, making the former Arkansas governor the most prominent of Akin’s remaining conservative defenders.

Huckabee backed Akin in the three-way GOP primary, along with other social conservatives like Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann and Steve King. Huckabee hosted Akin on his radio show for the first interview after the “legitimate rape” comment blew up, and again after Republicans including Mitt Romney shunned Akin and called on him to quit. Huckabee apparently had had enough.

“Who ordered this ‘Code Red’ on Akin?” Huckabee wrote in an email to supporters Thursday. “I will join Todd as often as I can, in his fight for our Party’s pro-life policies, traditional marriage and our efforts to rein in the massive expansion of government under President Obama.”

That set up a potentially awkward situation for Republicans, who scheduled Huckabee to speak in the same primetime block Monday night as Ann Romney.

Regional NAACP Endorses Amendment 64 in Colorado

From Jon Walker - firedoglake
republished by Paddy Ryan

Efforts to legalize and regulate marijuana in Colorado got a boost today when Amendment 64 was endorsed by the regional conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. Amendment 64 is currently on the ballot in the state. If approved by voters this November, the initiative would make marijuana legal under state law for adults over the age of 21, with it regulated and taxed in a manner similar to alcohol.

The NAACP felt compelled to endorse efforts to legalize marijuana primarily because marijuana laws are disproportionately enforced against minorities. For decades African-Americans have been more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites and more likely to face harsher punishments. This is true both nationally and in Colorado. For example, in Denver African-Americans account for over 30 percent of all arrests for private adult marijuana possession even though African Americans make up just 11 percent of the population of the city.

The NAACP endorsement helps highlight the fact that marijuana reform in addition to being about personal liberty, government fiscal responsibility, and reducing crime, is also a civil rights issue. While laws prohibiting marijuana in America are technically color blind, they were often conceived, designed and implemented in a clearly racially biased manner.

The endorsement of one of the nation’s most prestigious civil rights organizations should help the campaign in its outreach to the state’s African-American community. While African-Americans only make up 4.3 percent of the state’s population, with the initiative polling so close to even, a few percentage points could make the difference between a narrow win and a narrow loss this November.

Obama V. Romney on taxes, in under three minutes

By Paddy Ryan

Calculate your own annual family income here.

How She "Built It": Fox's RNC Theme Undercut By Key Speaker's Business Success

From Caitlin Ginley - Media Matters
republished by Paddy Ryan

The experience of a small business owner who will be promoted at the Republican National Convention sharply diverges from the right-wing media myth her speech is intended to promote.

Sher and Eli 'we built it' Valenzuela

On the day that the GOP convention will tout Fox-fueled myth "We Built It" as its primary theme, Delaware Lt. Gov. candidate and small business owner Sher Valenzuela is slated to deliver a speech about small business issues. But contrary to the evening's theme, Valenzuela's company, First State Manufacturing, has received millions of dollars in federal loans and contracts. Valenzuela has not only attributed her success in part to this outside assistance, but urged other small business owners to follow the same strategy of seeking government funds.

The "We Built It" convention theme is based on Fox's distortion of comments made by President Obama, who remarked that business owners succeed with the help of "this unbelievable American system" that includes government spending on infrastructure and education. The right-wing media has deceptively edited Obama's comments to suggest that the president was insulting small business owners, an attack promptly adopted by Republicans; according to FoxNews.com, Valenzuela's speech is "meant to directly contrast" Obama's remarks.

In fact, much as Obama suggested, Valenzuela appears to have succeeded through a combination of her own entrepreneurship and government assistance. She has in the past explained that government assistance was a vital factor in the success of her company. Earlier this year, Valenzuela gave a presentation on her small business success, crediting the use of "millions of dollars in secure government contracts."

The presentation notes that small business owners should start with a "secret weapon" -- the "no-cost/low-cost resources that you, the taxpayer, have already paid for."

Indeed, Valenzuela's company has received more than $2 million in federal loans and more than $15 million in federal contracts.

Gawker releases 'trove of documents' on Romney's secret Bain holdings

Mitt Romney’s Endless ‘Retirement’ Package

From John Cook - Gawker

republished by Paddy Ryan

Romney has long claimed, despite evidence to the contrary, that he retired from Bain Capital in 1999. The Bain documents we obtained indicate that his involvement with the company extended years past that date.

Romney owns a stake in Sankaty Credit Opportunities L.P., a Delaware-based partnership. According to its financial statements, it had $201 million in assets in 2009 and a $52 million gain on the year—that's after a stunning $91 million loss in 2008. But what's interesting about Sankaty Credit Opportunities is that, according to his 2012 financial disclosure, Romney's interest in the entity was part of his retirement package: It was made "pursuant to an agreement with Bain Capital regarding Mr. Romney's retirement" in 1999. But according to its audited financial statement, Sankaty Credit Opportunities didn't exist yet when Romney retired: "Sankaty Credit Opportunities, L.P., is a Delaware limited partnership which commenced operations on August 12, 2002." In other words, Romney's 1999 retirement agreement included an investment in an entity created in 2002—in fact, was created in the heat of his first gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts. When Romney explained at an October 29, 2002, debate in Massachusetts that he wasn't responsible for Bain's actions after his 1999 retirement, it was just 8 weeks after the creation by Bain of a fund that was part of his retirement agreement.

Even more drastic, Sankaty Credit Opportunities IV—of which Romney owns more than $1 million in his IRA and which earned him between $50,000 and $100,000 in 2011, and which is likewise described as an investment made pursuant to his retirement package—wasn't even created until July 2008. That's nine years after his retirement from Bain and five months after he withdrew from the 2008 GOP primary.

Romney's defenders have claimed that the abundant evidence that his involvement with Bain extended past 1999—and therefore implicated him in some of the firm's more controversial actions—was a smokescreen, and that the various SEC forms listing him as "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president" of Bain were mere formalities while his retirement was being negotiated. That may be true, but it's difficult to explain an apparent $1 million-plus payment from Bain, made in 2008, as being pursuant to a retirement package that was negotiated in 1999.

A clear choice; new ad from Bill Clinton

GOP: 'We Built This!' live from government funded convention center

By Paddy Ryan

This Tuesday, Republicans are hosting their “We Built This” night, live from the Tampa Bay Times Forum arena. Tuesday night's theme, and the list of speakers, will be used to celebrate the American entrepreneurial spirit and to attack the President's comments which were made in July, and have since been taken way out-of-context.

Government built 62 % of this!

Kelly Ayotte, John Kasich, and Bob McDonnell will bash the President's comments, and describe how business is successful without any government help whatsoever. These GOP speakers will proudly take the stage at the Tampa Bay Times Forum arena, declaring to the world that government isn't responsible for the success of the private sector.

There's one problem though. The Tampa Bay Times Forum arena wouldn't have been built without government help. The arena was funded and built primarily with government money. In fact, 62 percent of the building project was financed with government money.

"The Tampa Bay Times Forum arena, which houses the Tampa Bay Lightning, was built in 1996 as the 'Ice Palace' with 62% government funds. The total budget for the project was $139 million, of which public money accounted for $86 million and team money accounted for $53 million."

Maybe the GOP should think about renaming Tuesday's session, the “we only built 38 percent of this” night.

We're All Subsidizing Free Lunches for America's CEOs

It's time to close the tax loopholes that subsidize runaway executive compensation.

by Scott Klinger and Sam Pizzigati from CommonDreams

republished by Paddy Ryan

A generation ago, on National Secretary's Day, America's top corporate executives used to take their prized office assistants out to lunch.

Times change, and National Secretary's Day has become Administrative Professionals' Day. But something else has changed. These days, CEOs are getting the free lunches. Secretaries and all the rest of us are picking up the tab. And not at Burger King either.

Our current tax code has everyone in America essentially subsidizing the pay of millionaire and billionaire CEOs. Deductions, tax credits, and other executive-compensation loopholes total $14.4 billion annually, the equivalent of $46 for each of America's 311 million citizens.

That figure appears in "The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket," a new report we helped write for the Institute for Policy Studies. Our research team dug deep into the tax code's weeds and pulled out one glaring example after another of tax code provisions enriching our already rich — at the expense of average Americans.

Our tax code, for instance, lets corporations deduct all "reasonable" costs of doing business. But what's "reasonable"? Over the years, corporate chiefs have stretched that definition beyond all reason. Years ago, they even claimed three-martini lunches as "reasonable" business expenses.

Congress eventually cracked down on that unpopular giveaway. Back in 1993, amid rising public outrage over sky-high executive compensation, lawmakers also tried to crack down on tax deductions for CEO pay. Under a new rule, corporations could only deduct up to $1 million on their tax returns for any individual executive's annual pay.

Unfortunately, this new rule came with a built-in loophole. Any executive pay over $1 million linked to "performance" could still be deducted. You can guess what happened next: an explosion of "performance-based" CEO compensation.

Corporate titans soon started landing annual performance pay deals worth tens of millions. Last year, Larry Ellison pocketed $76 million in "performance-based pay" for running Oracle, the giant business software company. That ploy saved Oracle $26 million in taxes. Overall, unlimited tax deductions on CEO pay cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $10 billion a year.

CEOs regularly partake in a variety of other tax-avoiding games that all share one element in common: CEOs always win, the rest of us always lose.

How outrageous have these CEO victories become? Try visualizing this: The IRS offers you a refund on all the taxes you've previously paid and then informs you that you also won't have to pay taxes on your future income for years to come. Sweet deal. Corporations get it all the time — by paying their executives in stock options.

That's just what Facebook did in a move that saved the company an estimated $5.6 billion, including an approximately $500 million return of previously paid taxes. But let's not pick on Facebook. Apple used this loophole to save $260 million on its 2011 taxes alone, and hundreds of other corporations have played this same game.

Add up all the Facebooks and Apples out there, compute the cost of the tax giveaways they use to stuff the pockets of their top executives, and you end up with corporate tax bills over $14 billion a year less than they should be. With this $14 billion, our nation could provide health care for 7.3 million low-income kids or rehire over 200,000 laid-off public school teachers.

Warren Buffett famously quipped that he has a lower tax rate than his secretary. But that's an understatement. The secretaries of America's CEOs are actually subsidizing their bosses' pay.

Let's end this free lunch for CEOs. It's time to close the tax loopholes that subsidize runaway CEO pay.

5 Reasons The Romney-Ryan Economic Plan Would Be a Disaster

By Diane Sweet from Crooks and Liars

republished by Paddy Ryan

Robert Reich breaks down the Romney-Ryan economic plan into 5 measures that all spell disaster for America.

1. More unemployment through austerity measures.

2. Taking from the poor to give to the rich. Higher federal taxes on lower income taxpayers, slashing medicaid, food stamps, and children's health care in order to give up to a $500k tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.

3. Turns Medicare into vouchers that won't keep up with the rising cost of health care and shifting the burden onto seniors, ending their guaranteed health care, and leaving them at the mercy of private insurers. By contrast, Obama's Affordable Care Act saves money on Medicare by reducing payments to providers such as hospitals and drug companies.

4. Add money to defense spending. The plan would add money to defense spending while cutting spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research and development.

5. Debt: The Romney-Ryan budget doesn't even reduce the federal budget deficit. While adding to military spending, giving tax cuts to the rich, and stifling economic growth by cutting spending too early, the plan would push public debt to over 175% by 2050.

No wonder Mitt Romney doesn't want to talk about his budget until after the election!

Human Rights Campaign: Family Research Council is a hate group

By Eric W. Dolan from The Raw Story

republished by Paddy Ryan

The president of the Human Rights Campaign has refused stop labeling the Family Research Council as a hate group, even after a LGBT activist was charged with shooting a security guard at the organization’s Washington headquarters.

Family Research Council still a hate group

“Designating the Family Research Council a hate group has nothing to do with disagreements about marriage equality, nondiscrimination laws or any other policy debate,” HRC President Chad Griffin wrote in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post. “The real issue is the Family Research Council’s well-documented and continuous pattern of hateful rhetoric.”

Following the shooting, the Southern Poverty Law Center and LGBT rights groups faced criticism from conservatives for labeling the FRC as a hate group.

The Southern Poverty Law Center had labeled the organization a hate group since 2010 “because of its dissemination of false and demonizing propaganda about gays and lesbians.”

National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown called on the Southern Poverty Law Center and LGBT rights groups to withdraw the “harmful and dangerous labels.” The Christian Broadcasting Network wondered “Did ‘hate group’ label stir FRC shooting?” FRC President Tony Perkins accused the Southern Poverty Law Center of giving the shooter a “license” to commit the act.

“The logic that the Southern Poverty Law Center or LGBT organizations are to blame is preposterous, outrageous and irresponsible,” Griffin wrote. “No matter one’s political views, we can all agree that acts of violence are never justified and should always be condemned.”

Griffin noted that Perkins had claimed that pedophilia was a “homosexual problem.” Other people associated with the FRC have called for deporting gay people from the U.S. and making homosexuality a crime, Griffin said.

HRC is the largest LGBT advocacy group in the nation.

Romney's religious cult, his “most important treasure”

By Paddy Ryan

Mitt Romney's Mormon faith is a major issue. It raises red flags about his fundamental beliefs. Since President Obama's faith is fair game, then I think Mitt Romney's faith, which was founded on trickery and con-artistry, should be fair game too.

Mitt Romney, who is a certified bishop in the Mormon church, has built his entire life around the Mormon faith. In a little-known commencement speech to his prep school alma-mater, Mitt Romney described his Mormon faith as “one of the most important treasures of my life.”

A religion, started less than 200 years ago by a con-man, a religion that has been exposed as a cult (by all sides of the political spectrum), is Mitt Romney's “most important treasure”. Comforting.

Here are some wacky, out-of-this-world beliefs that Romney and his fellow Mormon's hold:

- God is a man, made of flesh and blood, and he lives on the planet Kolob.

- There is no hell, but there are three heavens.

- The punishment for being a bad Mormon is that you don’t get to reach the third heaven, where God dwells.

- Lucifer was Jesus’ brother, back on the original earth, where God and Jesus dwelled.

- The biblical characters Adam and Eve once lived in America, which is where the Garden of Eden was really located.

- We were all spirit children together with God in the 'pre-existence'.

- People of African descent are "cursed with a skin of blackness” and the curse was based on their performance in the pre-existence.

- Baptism happens for children at age 8 and at age 12 they are allowed to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead, these posthumous "blessings" are intended to "save" ancestors and others who weren't baptized in life or were baptized "without proper authority."

- There will be a literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes, Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent.

- Christ will reign personally upon the earth, and the earth will be renewed and receive its 'paradisiacal glory'.

Although most of Romney's religious beliefs are strange, I think that one of his strangest is the belief in secretive posthumous baptisms. This issue fascinates me.

"A Mormon may propose the baptism of another person posthumously. Church members have performed the ritual on Buddha, Catholic popes, 9/11 hijackers, William Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, Elvis Presley, President Obama's mother and even reportedly Jesus Christ. In 2002, the managing director of the Mormon's family and church history department told The New Yorker magazine that as many as 200 million dead people had been baptized as Mormons.

In 1994, an Israeli genealogist researching her family in the Mormons' computerized International Genealogical Index made a startling discovery. Her grandfather, a religiously observant Jew killed in the Holocaust, had been posthumously baptized as a Mormon. Distraught, she alerted other Jewish genealogists who soon learned that some 380,000 Holocaust victims, including Anne Frank, had been baptized. Plus, Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, and scientist Albert Einstein had received this treatment."

Wow. If that doesn't sound like some shady medicine man, rainmaker, voodoo-magic wizardry, than I don't know what does. How can any sane, rational, intelligent minded person, like Mitt Romney, ever take these beliefs to heart?

Last Monday, top Romney advisor Kevin Madden said,

“The governor’s faith is part of who he is, … It’s informed how he’s raised his family, it’s informed how he’s had a strong marriage.”

I am not a religious person. I understand that all different religious beliefs can sound a little outrageous, but Mormons are definitely in the major leagues when it comes to sounding ridiculous.

Call me crazy but, I'm not comfortable with a President who believes that God is a flesh and blood man living on the planet Kolob, a President who believes that Zion will be built upon the American continent and believes that people of African descent are "cursed with a skin of blackness” based on performance in some fairytale 'pre-existence'. I don't feel comfortable with a President who refers to his faith, which includes these fundamental pillars of Mormonism, as his “most important treasure”.