By now many of you have heard all about Paul Ryan’s Big Medicare Lie, er, Talk at Florida’s largest retirement complex, The Villages, which provides foundation for Republican candidates, and like Willard Romney may (which we’d know if he’d ever release his tax returns), have a few IRS problems of its own. Via the L.A. Times:
Billionaire developer H. Gary Morse, whose family built The Villages on more than 30 square miles of farmland, is a co-chairman of Romney’s Florida finance committee. Along with family members and his corporation, Morse has given more than $1 million to the Romney campaign and a “super PAC” supporting him.
But how many of you knew that Team Ryan appeared to try to get all those Republican seniors drunk enough to cheer his speech? Ply ‘em with alcohol and they’re all yours:
Major Garrett was on NPR's Diane Rehm show today. The host was not Diane Rehm but was Tom Gjelten.
A caller called in and asked the panel why we should believe Romney is telling the truth about anything he says about his Tax Returns when he was caught lying on and about his 1999-2001 Tax Returns.
After the caller outlined that in June 2002 Romney got caught lying on and about his Federal and State 1999-2001 and explained that for months Romney and his campaigned had been telling the people of Massachusetts to "trust me" regarding Romney's Tax Returns only to find out in June 2002 that Romney had not only lied to the people of Massachusetts for months on end, but actually had lied on his 1999-2001 Federal and State Tax Returns so he had to Amend them retroactively.
This fall, all the boxes will be checked for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Consider this Aug. 1 statement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that “there are risks in the situation today . . . [but] it’s infinitely more dangerous . . . to deal with a nuclear Iran in the future.” When President Shimon Peres added his voice to the public opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike this fall, an associate of Netanyahu accused Peres of having “forgotten” the role of Israel’s president. Israeli logic holds that it must choose between, as the media reports put it, the bomb and the bombing.
Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.
Ryan claims that he likes Rage's sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.
While criticisms of a president are normal, even healthy and desirable if a democracy is to thrive, the admonitions ought to have some basis in reality. The recent formation of the SuperPAC, Fight Bigotry, has gone off the deep end accusing President Obama of being racist against white people. They’ve become a one-stop shop for actual racists to consolidate their financial power against the president under the guise of combating bigotry. It’s quite Orwellian. What better way to hide your own racist inclinations than by throwing out false accusations and sucking up as many donations as you can for it? Considering this President has been incredibly stalwart in his response to unmitigated racism from large portions of the American public, the notion that he harbors bigotry towards white people is laughable. There is no better evidence than how invariably race-neutral he has been in his policies (some may say too neglectful of the need to proactively address race issues in policy). Overall
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US media report that a network of Iraqi financial institutions and oil smuggling operations provide Iran with a crucial flow of dollars to overcome the squeeze the Iranian economy is suffering as a result of sanctions against its nuclear program. The network is made up of members of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s clique. It obtains for Iran goods in short supply and helps sell its oil overseas as Iraqi products. The media stress the Obama administration’s extreme reluctance to disclose Iraq’s aid to Iran so soon after US troops left the country.
Top Mitt Romney surrogate Rick Santorum said Sunday that Vice President Biden was “playing the race card” when he said last week that Republicans want to deregulate Wall Street and put people “back in chains.”
Biden’s comment, made in front of a southern Virginia audience that included many African-Americans, has drawn fire from Republicans who say it was racially insensitive.
Santorum went a step further, saying Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” that the comment amounted to race baiting.
The weak economy is helping to drive thousands more college graduates into the U.S. military.
Since the recession began in 2007, there's been a steady increase in the number of college graduates joining the armed forces. The Navy and Army have seen the biggest jumps. About 60 percent more college grads joined the Navy last year than in 2007.
For some of them, it's a job some would never have imagined for themselves just a few years ago.
Iceland holds some key lessons for nations trying to survive bailouts after the island’s approach to its rescue led to a “surprisingly” strong recovery, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief to the country said.
Iceland’s commitment to its program, a decision to push losses on to bondholders instead of taxpayers and the safeguarding of a welfare system that shielded the unemployed from penury helped propel the nation from collapse toward recovery, according to the Washington-based fund.
“Iceland has made significant achievements since the crisis,” Daria V. Zakharova, IMF mission chief to the island, said in an interview. “We have a very positive outlook on growth, especially for this year and next year because it appears to us that the growth is broad based.”
Enbridge, a beleaguered Canadian oil pipeline company, has spilled more than 50,000 gallons of light crude oil in rural Wisconsin — shortly after the company said it had implemented safety reforms after a massive 2010 spill in Michigan.
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