via: hardworkersclub: Photo: Jacob Mooty
There should be more diners.
Daily Archives: June 25, 2012
It’s 5:00 — Wiggle time!
via: pricklylegs
President Obama on Romney’s “outsourcing / offshoring” game of semantics
Pennsylvania Republican: Voter ID law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win”
“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” – House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R), describing accomplishments of the Pennsylvania legislature at a Republican State Committee meeting in Pennsylvania this weekend.
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Time for a musical interlude
via: ybb55 | Playing for friends…
Romney 2012: Isn’t it time America had a president who’s afraid to take an opinion on anything?
quickhits: Mitt Romney 2012 — Because isn’t it time America had a president afraid to stake out an opinion on anything?
Romney’s ‘official statement’ is:
“Today’s decision underscores the need for a President who will lead on this critical issue and work in a bipartisan fashion to pursue a national immigration strategy. President Obama has failed to provide any leadership on immigration. This represents yet another broken promise by this President. I believe that each state has the duty — and the right — to secure our borders and preserve the rule of law, particularly when the federal government has failed to meet its responsibilities. As Candidate Obama, he promised to present an immigration plan during his first year in office. But 4 years later, we are still waiting.”
Steve Benen comments: ”This one paragraph helps highlight so much of that’s wrong with Romney’s approach to campaigning for the presidency. He managed to say 104 words about a Supreme Court ruling, without actually taking a side — I know no more about Romney’s beliefs on this after reading his statement than I did before reading it.”
“The irony is almost jaw-dropping. Romney is certain we need a president “who will lead” on immigration policy, while at the exact same time, Romney refuses to lead on immigration policy. Put it this way: refusing to take a stand because one constituency or another might get angry isn’t leadership; it’s cowardice (and for the Republican presidential hopeful, it’s far too common).”
Romney profits from Clear Channel and all the conservative shock jocks it broadcasts
via: gop-circus
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American mass media company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008. – Wikipedia
Conservative radio host wants nuns “pistol whipped” for disagreeing with Ryan’s budget
Another conservative mouth-breather with a tiny penis and a Clear Channel radio program. The following was said on 6/22/12:
And how did the “distinguished” Republican from Iowa, Rep. Latham, respond? He laughed.
Story here »
Contact WHO radio here »
Contact Rep. Latham here »
But both sides “do it”… right, media?
Lunch!
America before Bain Capital: Ampad in Marion, Indiana
A powerful ad featuring Mike Earnest, a former employee of Ampad in Marion, Indiana, where he describes a cruel trick that was played on the employees shortly before all three shifts at the Marion plant were laid off en masse one day.
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Transcript via DailyKos:
On Screen: Marion, Indiana
Mike Earnest: Out of the blue one day, we were told to build a 30 foot stage. Gathered the guys, and we built that 30 foot stage, not knowing what it was for.
On Screen: Mitt Romney and Bain Capital purchased the paper plant.
Mike Earnest: Just days later, all three shifts were told to assemble in the warehouse.
On Screen: The company was profitable, with three shifts working.
Mike Earnest: A group of people walked out on that stage and told us the plant is now closed and all of you are fired. I looked both ways. I looked at the crowd and ah, we all just lost our jobs. We don’t have an income.
On Screen: “there’s little question he made a forture from businesses he helped destroy.” — New York Post 2/19/11
Mike Earnest: Mitt Romney made over a 100 million dollars by shutting down our plant and devestated our lives. Turns out that when we built that stage it was like building my own coffin, and it just made me sick.
On Screen: If Mitt Romney wins, the middle class loses.
It takes a special kind of cruelty to get people to build you a stage so you can use it to tell them that their life, as they’ve known it, is over. It’s like saying “Fuck you!” with a extra big flourish, like kicking them in the head, don’t you think?
It’s almost like a not very funny prank. Oh, right…
In May, the Obama campaign put out a 5-minute web video on Ampad. Shortly after, ABC News commented on what information Bain Capital left out of its many, subsequent Ampad defenses:
[I]n 1999, Bain was actually the largest single shareholder of Ampad. In addition, as of 1999, three Bain executives were sat on Ampad’s board of directors. [...] one of the big box retailers putting pressure on Ampad was a company Romney often holds up as a Bain success story — the office supply giant, Staples.
In a 2008 Boston Globe article headlined, “As Bain slashed jobs, Romney stayed to side,” reporter Robert Gavn writes that Ampad “became squeezed between onerous debt that had financed acquisitions and falling prices for its office-supply products. Its biggest customers — including Staples — used their buying power and access to Asian suppliers to demand lower prices from Ampad.” The article also notes that Romney sat on the Staples board of directors during the period of Ampad’s slide into bankruptcy, which occurred in 2000.
Take a profitable American company, take out numerous loans against it and pocket the money; now make it compete against low-wage Asian companies (that you may have an interest in) to supply other businesses you own — and fire the employees when it can’t compete; finally close down the company in bankruptcy (can’t compete, heavily in debt) and walk away with an overall profit for yourself.
Romney knows “why jobs come and why they go,” and now, according to Mitt Romney’s and Bain Capital’s formula for success, so do we.
These two
Fast & Furious: the NRA (aka the GOP-led House) votes this week to hold AG Holder in contempt
Fast and Furious in a nutshell: “U.S. guns have been widely used by Mexican drug cartels. While U.S. gun dealers aren’t supposed to sell weapons to the cartels, a lot of dealers have been selling guns to straw purchasers who smuggle the guns to the cartels. The ATF could arrest and prosecute some individual gun smuggler, but solving the problem requires building a case against the big fish gun dealers who know their guns are going to the cartels. The idea was to follow the little guys until they meet up with the big bad guys. This sometimes meant preventing local law enforcement from arresting the guy they were using as bait. In the end, they were supposed to…arrest everybody and grab all the guns. Then they could build a legal case against some seriously bad guys.” Read more
Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan of Politico report this morning: “[T]he House is expected Thursday to vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to fork over thousands of pages of internal Justice Department documents detailing why federal officials allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. [...] If the House approves the measure, it will be the first time in U.S. history that one of the chambers has voted to hold a sitting attorney general in contempt. Adding to the political pressure: The National Rifle Association said in a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that it would use the contempt vote in its influential political scorecard.“
From a former ATF agent: “The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful lobbies in the US, has relentlessly tried to destroy the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) since it was created in 1972. They came close under Ronald Reagan in 1981, when the NRA pushed legislation to abolish the agency. Realizing that federal gun law enforcement would transfer to the then much esteemed Secret Service, the NRA scuttled the proposal. [... the NRA's] support of the national database for criminal background checks was conditioned on prohibiting local ATF offices or other law enforcement agencies from accessing this information… the NRA also required that all records pertaining to the background checks be immediately destroyed. The NRA’s Republican allies in congress also blocked legislation that would ban cop-killer bullets and assault weapons and close the gun show loopholes.”
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa admitted yesterday: The congressman heading an investigation into a botched gun-trafficking case said on Sunday he had no evidence the White House was involved in a cover-up about the operation or in providing misleading information to Congress. That’s despite what “several Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), charged last week that President Obama’s decision to invoke executive privilege over documents related to the probe suggested that top administration officials were involved in withholding information.”
History: ATF ran a series of “gunwalking” sting operations between 2006 and 2011. This was done under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, a project intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico by interdicting straw purchasers and gun traffickers within the United States…
Chris Weyant/The Hill (06/21/2012) via: randomactsofchaos
How to walk your human
pleatedjeans: how to walk your human [video]
High Park Fire: 6/25 update: 83,205 acres burned — Colorado ablaze with 7 more wildfires
Current Situation: Monday firefighters will continue to strengthen the line on the north side of the fire. Firefighters will also monitor areas with structures and other areas throughout. Staffing will be heavy in the southwest portion. Reinforcing lines and mopping up areas will also take place. Crews continued to work throughout the night. [...] The total number of homes lost is now 248 after additional homes were lost late last week in the Glacier View and Hewlett subdivisions. Details of this are available in the assessment article to the right.
| Total Personnel | 2,037 |
|---|---|
| Size | 83,205 acres |
| Percent Contained | 45% |
| Gallons of water dumped to date | 2.2 million gallons |
| Cost to date | $29.6 million |
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Wildfires punish Colorado – thousands evacuated – SFGate – Wildfires moved in on some of Colorado’s most popular summer tourist destinations over the weekend, demolishing nearly two dozen homes and other structures near Rocky Mountain National Park and emptying hotels and campgrounds at the base of Pikes Peak. With eight wildfires burning, including a fire that has scorched more than 118 square miles and destroyed at least 248 homes near Fort Collins, Colorado is having its worst wildfire season in a decade.
Eight wildfires roaring across Colorado – Boulder Daily Camera – On the hottest day of the year so far, wildfires erupted throughout Colorado on Saturday, producing fast-moving fires that burned down homes in Estes Park, forced evacuations in Colorado Springs and shut down state highways in southern Colorado. Firefighting officials are girding for more of the same as a hot and dry weather pattern likely won’t lift until midweek. A jetliner full of firefighters has been summoned to the Western Slope, where buses will take them throughout the state; firefighting planes and helicopters are being positioned around Colorado to be ready to strike; and fire managers are set for a tough battle over the next few days. “We are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best,” said Steve Segin of the Rocky Mountain fire-incident team. “We just have to hope Mother Nature gives us a break.”
image: wildfiretoday
When Republicans destroy the middle class…
destroythegop: When the Republicans destroy the American Middle Class, who will eat at Applebees?
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