One of Mitt Romney’s biggest challenges as presidential candidate may be to win public acceptance of a Protestant sect that is poorly understood by a majority of the public. Its practices, historically, have differed dramatically from those of mainline denominations, particularly during the 19th century, when its members engaged in odd sexual behavior and upended the conventional family structure. Even today, other Christians are apt to regard it as a friendly but decidedly alien cult.
It was inevitable. No sooner had word gotten out that Knight Capital (KCG) had managed to find a way to survive, and the focus of debate has changed to something more sinister. As stupid or careless as Knight's admitted software glitch or mistake was, it would never have happened had it not been for the legion of computer-assisted, high-speed traders who prowl the markets in search of opportunities exactly like this - then pounce. Knight's blunder was their bounty.
Whether you call them high frequency traders, H-F-T's or algos (shorthand for algorithmic or computerized trading programs), by any name they are "parasites" says Kenny Polcari, Managing Director at ICAP.
NEW YORK (AP) — Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has filed a defamation lawsuit in New York against the National Jewish Democratic Council and top officials, saying they made libelous statements regarding his political contributions.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan seeks $60 million in damages. Adelson is chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. and donates to Republican campaigns.
The lawsuit alleges the Washington-based Council said Adelson personally approved of prostitution in resorts owned by Sands China Limited, a subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands. The suit accuses the Council of "assassinating" Adelson's character.
The Council said its reports referenced mainstream press accounts and were "wholly appropriate."
The press accounts described claims by a fired former Sands China executive. Adelson has denied the claims.
The Vietnam War ended over 35 years ago, but not before some 1 million people died. And the toxic chemical Agent Orange, used by US forces to burn away parts of the jungle, still lingers in the area, poisoning the environment and human bodies.
Only now, 51 years after the first spraying, is Washington acknowledging the devastation it caused with Agent Orange to Vietnam’s ecosystem and the health of the Vietnamese.
On Thursday, the two countries are launching the first ever joint decontamination program on part of Danang International Airport, located in one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. The deadly defoliant was stored at Danang airbase and sprayed from US military planes to strip trees of their foliage and expose communist troops along the border with Laos.
How the high-flying tech company just nabbed the largest corporate tax exemption in the state's history.
If corporate America is going to lead the way out of the recession, then Apple would seem to be its Horatio Alger. The expansion of the nation's most lucrative tech company into cloud computing is driving demand for vast data centers and the workers needed to build and maintain them. Just last week, Apple gained approval to build a $1 billion server farm in Reno, Nevada—a state that suffers from the nation's worst budget deficit and highest unemployment rate.
But Apple's move will do little to nothing to solve Nevada's employment and budget woes. To the contrary, before Apple would agree to break ground in the Silver State, it demanded and received $88 million in state and local tax breaks—the largest corporate tax exemption in Nevada history. What's more, the deal doesn't even require that Apple create new jobs or hire locals.
A new book by discredited partisans is meant to rile GOP voter vigilantes.
Right-wingers are in a tizzy over excerpts from a new book by two of the GOP’s leading voter-fraud hucksters alleging that Minnesota’s Democratic Senator Al Franken would not have won a statewide recount in 2009 were it not for ex-felons voting illegally. [...]
The problem with this assertion—from a new book by The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund and George W. Bush Justice Department attorney Hans von Spakovsky—is that it is not just factually wrong
Losses include charges related to plan to split off publishing assets from more lucrative film and TV sectors.
News Corporation made a loss of $1.6bn (£1.2bn) in the last quarter as it absorbed $2.8bn in charges related to a plan to spin off its ailing publishing businesses.
The loss compared with a profit of $683m in the same period a year ago and came as revenues dipped 6.7% to $8.4bn, hit by a slide in audiences for TV shows including American Idol and disappointment at the box office for its Hollywood studio. The results were below analysts' expectations and the company's shares fell in after-hours trading.
Andrea Saul is the press secretary and chief spokesperson for Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. But before Romney hired her, Saul worked for a DC-based public affairs and lobbying firm that worked to undermine climate science on behalf of corporations like ExxonMobil, according to a detailed new report from Greenpeace's Polluter Watch project.
A key troubling public manifestation of Romney's apparent insensitivity to tax obligations is his role in Marriott International's abusive tax shelter activity.
Romney has had a close, long-standing, personal and business connection with Marriott International and its founders. He served as a member of the Marriott board of directors for many years. From 1993 to 1998, Romney was the head of the audit committee of the Marriott board.
During that period, Marriott engaged in a series of complex and high-profile maneuvers, including "Son of Boss," a notoriously abusive prepackaged tax shelter that investment banks and accounting firms marketed to corporations such as Marriott. In this respect, Marriott was in the vanguard of a then-emerging corporate tax shelter bubble that substantially undermined the entire corporate tax system.
The Romney campaign has turned to a strategy of swamping the public with flat-out, blatant lies, one after another, again and again, endlessly and lavishly repeated. They do this because they are making a calculation that it will work! So what is going on? And can democracy survive this assault?
This week's lie is the "Obama gutted welfare reform" nonsense. See Bill Scher's must-read response, Romney's Welfare Lie: A Betrayal Of Conservatism. The reporting conveys the Romney message, like this: Romney accuses Obama of dismantling welfare reform. The lie is driven home by a massive $$-driven carpet bombing of ads.
The next-most recent lie was the "Obama is trying to keep military families from voting" lie. This lie, repeated over and over, coordinated with outside groups, reinforces the "Democrats are anti-military" narrative.
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