Author: luimbe

Valuing Access over Accuracy

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One of the most ridiculous practices of the campaign press corps is agreeing to let campaigns, already on the record, to edit their quotes after the fact:

Last week, The New York Times revealed that “quote approval” has become standard practice when reporters deal with both the Obama and Romney campaigns as well as with the Obama administration. The way it works is that a reporter interviews an official, then submits the quotes she intends to use in her stories back to the campaign, which only appear if the campaign approves them. Not only that, the campaign often edits the quotes to make them more to their liking.

source: The Power of Shame.

This is actually a both sides do it problem.

Bachmann laundering crackpot theories into

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When does the fact that a sitting congressperson used her office to call for official investigations based on conspiracy theories that accuse a current state department official and a sitting congress person of being a clandestine agent for a foreign nation’s ruling political group merit censure?

After it inspires angry protests against the Secretary of State while on a diplomatic mission to that nation?

That’s right — Bachmann’s ludicrous allegation that the Muslim Brotherhood has “penetrated” the United States government convinced anti-Islamist Egyptians that the U.S. is backing their domestic Islamist opponents. The source for Bachmann’s ravings is Frank Gaffney, a conspiracy theorist who claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the government and that shari’a law is coming to the U.S.

Non-coincidentally, one Egyptian blogger, Sara Ahmed, said that retired Lieutenant General William Boykin had evidence that the U.S. was in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood, pointing to an episode of Gaffney’s radio show in which he hosted Boykin. The retired military officer has claimed that there ought be “no mosques in America” and that Muslims are “under an obligation to destroy our Constitution.” Underscoring why such rhetoric is so dangerous, Ahmed said that a senior official of Boykin’s level “wouldn’t say such thing without proof!”

source: Bachmann’s Islamophobic Conspiracy Theory Fuels Egyptians’ Anti-Clinton Protest | ThinkProgress.

After it incites some nut in New Jersey to threaten the life of a State Department official?

The New York Post is reporting a Muslim man from New Jersey threatened Abedin after Michelle Bachman accused her of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The man was questioned by the NYPD but charges haven’t been filed.

source: Muslim Brotherhood Accusation Leads to Threat Against Huma Abedin – National – The Atlantic Wire.

When people talk about how Washington isn’t working because congressmen are pretending they don’t get along on camera or because they don’t have assigned bi-partisan seating while in session should consider the fact that Michelle Bachmann, Joe Wilson and Allen West are some of the people hanging around the water cooler.

Also, all three of those candidates are shoe-ins to be re-elected and raise money in spades every time they say that Washington is being secretly infiltrated by Muslim loving, baby killing, America hating socialist communist marxist traitor.

In the meantime, we are to believe that in being a decent human being by taking the time to defend State Dept Aide Huma Abedin Senator John McCain is showing extraordinary honor rather than asking wtf is wrong with the other 287 Republicans in congress who say nothing against Bachmann’s formal demagoguery.

The monument that should be torn down

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Before I start, a disclaimer:

I grew up right outside Harrisburg, Pa (one hour and a half from PSU and an hour forty five from Philly). My school bus, classrooms and recesses were electric with excitement after PSU beat Miami for the national championship at the Fiesta Bowl in ’87. I went to Drexel (instead of my other choice PSU) for it’s co-op program and city life (RIP Drexel Football 1973), so I root for Pennsylvania’s university football teams. I’ve had friends from various times in life who’ve played and/or worked for PSU, Pitt, Temple, Villanova or Penn’s football programs. I was fully for Joe Pa staying as long as he wanted because of graduation rates, the donations to PSU, his advocacy for philanthropy and because of his old school stubborness. When the Nittany Lions used a modified “Veer Offense” to win the Big 10 and then beat the Florida State University Seminoles, I watched the whole game and all the overtimes. I went to Temple football games before Al Golden turned the program around. I’ve been a PA taxpayer and resident for my entire life. I pull for my state’s institutions to succeed.

I think for the overall good of Pennsylvania State University and it’s athletic programs, football should be suspended for a year. I think Mark Emmert should give PSU football the “Death Penalty”.

Joe Paterno’s statue was removed today after it became painfully clear that he and fellow PSU administrators actively covered up former PSU player and assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s molestation of boys for a over a decade. Sandusky brought his victims to team practices, bowl games and campus even after Paterno, former President Graham Spanier (a powerful figure and near legend in his own right to PSU alumni), VP of Business and Finance Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley knew Sandusky had been seen raping children in campus facilities. Sandusky attended football games with luxury access as late as Fall 2011. Many understand that victims surely do not want to see statue lionizing a man who did nothing to report child rape as to protect his legacy. Penn State Football is the real monument here.

Punishments will always hurt more than the just guilty. And they should. People against suspending a season of PSU fooball say we should not look to punish students and businesses that depend on PSU games for revenue. Not having top tier BCS college football as a class break is not the students being “punished”. It’s a penalty for the program, but class will still be held. Degrees will be awarded and research will still be funded. In this case, since players are not accused of wrong doing there will be other programs willing to accept their transfer. Getting kicked out of school is being punished. Not being allowed to go to school is being punished. This is temporarily removing an extra curricular program and then allowing it to be rebuilt from scratch. As far as businesses, tell me what other business (and college football is a business) we should protect when it’s leaders choose to actively harbor a child rapist for their own gain? Punishments are just that. A criminal gets locked up and their family and loved ones suffer. The people they supported suffer. We can’t ask justice to bend to prevent discomfort.

Even under sanction, reputation can be upheld by loyal true believers. Also, for formal sexual assault allegations against individuals on college campuses, many of us prefer swift and final sanctions. Go back and look at college athletes who have been formerly accused of sexual assault: They are quite often immediately investigated and can easily be dismissed from teams and campuses. Remember the Duke Lacrosse players? Penn state was the extreme analog of that fiasco. Paterno, Spanier, Schultz and Curley didn’t immediately expel or even investigate Sandusky. They didn’t seek out the victim assistant coach and PSU alum Mike McQueary saw being raped in the shower. Instead, they decided treat Sandusky, the child rapist, humanely and not take any action. They did everything wrong in the face of child rape for about 14 years.

Most importantly college athletics are proxies for pride and ego around the nation. Penn State is the rule, not the exception. The reputation at the heart of “We are Penn State” is that athletics are an integral part, not a supplement to University life. It was a reputation that kept recruiters from competing schools from even having a shot with players in Pennsylvania and let PSU recruiters sit down with parents of blue chip recruits nationwide and tout morality as a perk. It was a reputation that kept PSU on TV even in down years. It was a reputation coveted by the Big Ten in 1990 when PSU became a member institution of the expanding conference. The value of this football program to PSU’s reputation needs to be changed.

There may be enough players, administrators and staff in the program that will stay during the lean years caused by sanctions without suspension that insist, and believe like PSU alum, and NFL football great Franco Harris, that the allegations against Joe Paterno just can not be true:

“People down deep know the truth: that there would no way Joe would be involved in a cover up, conspiracy or anything like that..uh(sic)…dealing with these children”

Franco Harris is one of the football greats and PSU grads who considers “Joe Pa” their second grandfather. He is also a prime example of why PSU football needs to be taken away for a year and then be sanctioned and penalized going forward for 4 or more after that. This element of loyalty beyond standard needs to be rooted out. The element where a janitor sees a boy get raped, knows its wrong and fears that him reporting it to his superiors will only result in retribution against him because the rapist is the best damn defensive coordinator in school and college football history needs to be rooted out. The element where an assistant coach reports a child rape to the head football coach, then remains on staff even as the child rapist continues to be paid and honored as coach emeritus by the program. Is he the only employee or staff that looked the other way or kept quiet? Will we ever know?

A year suspension, aka The Death Penalty, will force the university to outgrow these true believers. Without a year off the stands will be full of families cheering on PSU. Penn State football fans will keep box office receipts healthy, especially if the sanctions pull games off of TV. The students, alumni, staff and fans that cheer and believe: “We Are Penn State” will know they have to go to games to see the team they love built by the coach they loved. Even if fines are levied, alumni and lifelong PSU fans will begin to tithe for the program with a fund raising spike every home Saturday. When the Nittany Lions travel, look for even greater groups of PSU fans road tripping to support this legacy. A school that has Dance Marathon (the largest student run philanthropy in the world) has no problems turning out bodies and cash in support of a cause they believe in. The believers in Joe Pa, have already started to rally:

Penn State students recently changed the name of the area where they camp out for tickets the week of home football games to “Nittanyville” from “Paternoville.”

Without a year off, alumni like Franco Harris will show up on PSU sidelines this fall to become a group of living surrogates for Joe Pa’s legend. The returning players will maintain their scholarships as scholarships to practice and play football even if replaced with scholarships from the university, they’ll see themselves as the last of Joe Pa’s recruits. The players who enrolled this year will be the neophytes of that group and they will form a gestalt of players for a legacy. They will train, practice and play harder than ever to prove that the program Joe Pa built is of unimpeachable integrity and make us forget . They will strive to be an enduring symbol of Paterno in the face of all opposing teams game after game.

They will prove they can’t readily deal with the aftermath of these crimes to committed to protect football with football being played. Not because they are bad people, or because they don’t care that kids were raped, but because “Joe Pa” was no nickname or persona, he was family to them, and many of us support if not protect our family in the face of the most heinous evidence instead of trying to cope with what the evidence means about the people we care about. Joe Pa’s legacy doesn’t need any more protectors. It needs to be stripped away so that people begin to look at what they really had and have. What they do have is an athletic program run by people who decided the legacy of a football team was more important than jailing a child rapist, preventing further injury to children or finding justice for children who had been abused.

A death penalty would be painful antiseptic and ultimately right. This talk of unprecedented penalties is welcome, but not enough. Some of the players will stay no matter what, but if football is taken away by NCAA President Mark Emmert many will take their get out of Happy Valley free cards if football is gone for a year. The players that stay, would never be convinced that things needed to change, but they will already be just students for a year by the time they return. They’ll have to adapt. The coaches who I would guess most likely to stay in the face of football under the weight of extreme sanctions without suspension are coaches who have long ties to Penn State and Paterno the idol. There would be no clean house, no clean accounting of idolization as a gateway to rationalizing an idols machinations as good and right. Under suspension, there would be no program for them to run to bolster Paterno’s image. Everyone would have to leave and acknowledge that Joe Paterno’s monument, the football program, was rotting from the inside out and the rot began with Sandusky and was allowed to fester by Paterno, Spanier, Schultz and Curley.

Is it possible Romney’s tax returns would anger the Republican Base?

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I don’t think Romney cares about the potential backlash a zero or near zero effective tax rate would have for the average undecided or independent voter. I really do believe that his campaign feels they can effectively win the amount of votes they need.

What I am wondering, and this may be me being stupid or re-stating something that may be obvious to everyone else, is if Romney has something in his tax base that would piss of his base. Maybe something in the charitable donation category that is just too liberal for tea baggers? Maybe a business deal with someone who may be a rival to a super-Pac sugar daddy like Sheldon Adelson? Or maybe he is just hiding some extreme earnings hidden from the IRS in foreign tax havens.

 

 

Mitt Romney doesn’t trust voters to be in “Quiet Rooms”

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Mitt Romney wants it both ways: money talk when it’s brought up by the Obama campaign or reporters is bad. Romney won’t tell us what spending he would cut to balance the budget in his economic plan and Romney scolds everyone and says all this money talk beginning with everyone else is for private, “quiet rooms”:

To sum up, for the video impaired: Romney thinks gripes about income inequality reflect nothing but envy, and that such topics should only be discussed in “quiet rooms.” What Romney is saying is, maybe we can debate income inequality and the abuses of Wall Street, if you insist on it, but it’s nothing to get upset about.

When Romney talks about money, he vigorously states that we should implicitly accept that he knows what’s best for the economy because of the nature of his tenure at Bain capital:

My whole life has been learning to lead, from my parents, to my education, to the experience I had in the private sector, to helping run the Olympics, and then of course helping guide a state. Those experiences in totality have given me an understanding of how America works and how the economy works. Twenty five years in business, including business with other nations, competing with companies across the world, has given me an understanding of what it is that makes America a good place to grow and add jobs, and why jobs leave America – why businesses decide to locate here, and why they decide to locate somewhere else. What outsourcing causes – what it’s caused by, rather. I understand, for instance, how to read a balance sheet. I happen to believe that having been in the private sector for twenty-five years gives me a perspective on how jobs are created – that someone who’s never spent a day in the private sector, like President Obama, simply doesn’t understand.

It’s clear what Romney is saying is that this money talks is not for the rest of us.

Ribbon UI still in Office? Not worth the trouble.

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The “Ribbon UI” (what I would call the “Tabbed Ribbon UI”) is miserable. It’s been miserable since they rolled it out in Office 2007 and makes me dread any new office products . Microsoft threw out interface conventions everyone was comfortable with and then introduced a brand new user interface that requires significant learning for experienced users to access common features. Even more frustrating is that one tab can have it’s own separate ribbon format and orientation (the e.g. the File tab in Microsoft Office). New and old users were all new to the “Tabbed Ribbon UI” in 2007 and they blew it. I also work mainly on a notebook at home and that means already limited screen space is wasted by a bunch of commands I never or rarely use placed to obscure all the commands I like use often.

It was enough to permanently move me to try other Office suites (Open Office and Google Docs). I use Google Docs and now I only use Microsoft Office sparingly at work (Excel and Word) and occasionally at home (say on the rare occasion someone only has Word and needs a document from me). With additional scripting capability added to Google Docs, I am extremely comfortable using it as my main Office suite.

As long as the “Tabbed Ribbon UI” is implemented in the current fashion, I will continue to use Microsoft Office products less and less.

Who they protect….

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Does the Yankees suspension of team advisor Reggie Jackson for speaking the truth about Alex Rodriguez and the effects of his steroid use on his legacy and the game make you believe MLB front offices had more or less to do with the steroids era?

Federer!

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Roger Federer has won Wimbledon going through world number one Novak Djokovic and Scotsman Andy Murray in what basically amounted to an away match. He’s 30 years old and still a winner and he’s back at number one.

“I’m used to Roger breaking my records, that’s the way it’s been for a number of years. There’s nothing I can do about it. I just sit here being impressed at what Roger’s been able to do,
[…] know how hard it is to stay on top for many years. The fact that it’s Roger will make it a little bit easier for me to take. Roger’s done incredible things on and off the court and really deserves all the accolades of being a great champion,”

–Pete Sampras

Hats off to Andy Murray. He played hard for his country today and he didn’t try to do it the easy way. He really has put it on his back and that’s a lot of pressure. There’s no solace in that, but it was a great match today. The crowd is rewarding them with cheers, applause and encouragement during his post match interview on Centre Court.

The thing about this era of tennis with Federer at the vanguard again and Nadal and Djokovic taking turns being #1 is that you kind of root for them all and then you just sit back and enjoy the fireworks. Even better Murray, Ferrer, Roddick, Del Potro, Tsonga and a few others are consistently worthy 2nd and 2a fiddles. If it’s not two of the big three in a final, these other guys are game. The tournaments are must see earlier and earlier every year.

Derek Thompson with facts: “2 of the Last 3 GOP Presidents Signed Larger Tax Increases Than Obamacare”

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The Affordable Care Act is not “the largest tax increase in the history of the world,” despite what you might have heard on The Rush Limbaugh Show. In fact, it’s not even the largest tax increase in the history of The Rush Limbaugh Show. Two years after Rush’s national syndication, President George H. W. Bush signed a slightly bigger tax increase in 1990. And Reagan’s tax increase from 1982 was bigger than both of them.

source: Business – Derek Thompson – 2 of the Last 3 GOP Presidents Signed Larger Tax Increases Than Obamacare – The Atlantic.

Just the facts.

The Smartest

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If JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon is the smartest or one of the smartest CEOs on wall street, I think Matt Yglesias’ question is pertinent:

Which reminds me that in all the ruckus around these events there’s been remarkably little focus on what I think is the most important political issue of them all—does the Dodd-Frank bill provide a workable framework for resolving the bankruptcy of a large multinational bank or doesn’ it?

source: What Really Matters In JP Morgan’s Trading Losses.

If Jamie Dimon is one of the best, and for the sake of argument I’ll take the word of those folks who’ve said that he is, then what JP Morgan’s “ironclad balance sheet” shows that even for geniuses the desire to roll the dice and bet big also matters. Money Makin’ Dimon made JP Morgan 15b, $2b $9b in loss was all due to Dice Rollin’ Jamie.

If he’s the smartest and that happened: shouldn’t we expect to learn of some other bank CEO who is letting risk run amok for the thrill of the bet and the upside of being right? After the last 10 years, I would say yes. Can we expect them to be less of a money maker and more of dice roller than Dimon? I would say yes.

Probably. So again, this question is key: in practice, not theory, if a bank of this size fails can the CFPB properly wind them down and protect the economy?

Mitt Romney Challenges gender roles on a jet ski

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When I see Romney white knuckle the back of that jet ski while Ann Romney squires him about the bay, all I can think is: Mittens, you’ve come a long way baby! What a way to show women that he considers them equals. Especially when it becomes clear, Ann Romney is the Romney most likely to mount up and regulate and Mitt’s okay with that. Especially when Ann is all: “kill Romney? Best not bring that mess in my houses!”:

This campaign shake up has done wonders already! more Ann in Charge here.

And it’s not echos of John Kerry. John Kerry was windsurfing. Romney is luxuriating while riding along while Ann jet skis.

“He treated us like one of the brothers”

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Ann’s Place 24 hour Restaurant owner Josephine “Ann” Harris, 70 met the president in her diner than passed away shortly after the interview above. That quote stuck out to me and during the interview, you can see she struggled to get to the diner to meet the President.
Note: I’m not going to re-type the low class, cowardly comments that were posted below stories about her death, but YAFB has a rundown here and I’ll just say: small business owners are revered by Republicans until that business owner is an Obama supporter, then they are to be ridiculed even in death.

Serena for 5

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Serena Williams rebounds from dangerous blood clot a year ago, wins her 5th Wimbledon Championship and her 14th Grand Slam.

She clambered into the players’ box to celebrate with her family, and then said: “I can’t describe it. I almost didn’t make it when I was in that hospital, but here I am again and it’s so worth it.
“I never dreamed of being here when I was so down but I never gave up.”
Williams then turned to her family and friends, in particular dad Richard, mum Oracene, sister Venus and physiotherapist Esther Lee, and said: “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
“I could never have done this without you when you were with me in the hospital. Thank you so much.”
Wimbledon 2012: Serena Williams wins fifth Wimbledon title – The Washington Post.

Right now Venus and Serena are playing for their 5th doubles championship after two years off from doubles. They are also slated to play singles and doubles for the USA in the Olympics.

The value of the ACA

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Not white people’s problems, not rich people problems, but people’s issues are being addressed by this law.

If you are pissed off because you think it didn’t go far enough (it didn’t..and not for lack of trying) or isn’t what people deserve (it’s not, they deserve better…and not for lack of trying) it’s pretty damn good (aka a BFD). Read Dave Weigel’s short and sweet article How We Found Out over at Slate.

Norquist, Luntz, Murdoch and Limbaugh

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Tax Policy, Messaging, News and Ideology. Norquist, Luntz, Murdoch and Limbaugh are the people that dictate Republican politics. Luntz is at it again:

I can’t give it a Catch of the Day because I’ve already done one of those today, but I’ll note a nice item by Dave Weigel pointing out all the Republicans using a Frank Luntz-tested phrase about health care reform: “patient-centered health care.”

A plain blog about politics: Ach, Luntz.

It’s not that health care doesn’t focus on patients, it’s that it is too expensive and confusing for patients to actually utilize health care.

 

“Liberal elite journalists like Juan Williams”

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It kinda shocks me that the author of the very excellent “Eyes on the Prize” is sitting on Fox News debating against propoganda. Note his statement in response to his firing from NPR:

He accused the organization of trying to “demean me and make me appear like a lunatic” when he was dismissed, said that NPR — in its statement about Weiss — treated her far better than he was treated, and said that “the real story is that you can’t go around treating people like trash.”

source: Review Of Juan Williams’ Firing Done; NPR News Exec Resigns : The Two-Way : NPR.

Keep that in mind and watch Juan Williams squabbling with Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin:

 

Proof Cory Booker screwed up: Biden, Strickland and Obama on the trail

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I’m going to keep harping on this because it was just a completely nutty argument Newark Mayor Cory Booker made on MTP to defend Mitt Romney’s record at Bain. Cory Booker, Lanny Davis and Harold Ford, Jr. must be disappointed by such “They Don’t Get Us” rhetoric from VP Joe Biden aimed at GOP nominee Mitt Romney:

Romney is a nice guy, Biden said, but “he doesn’t get what’s at the core of all this. It’s about people’s dignity.”

Here is video of this icky populism:

Friends of Bain (Booker et al) must be sickened by former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland:

“Oh, what a contrast, my friends, between these two men who would be president!” Strickland said, standing outside the Wolcott House Museum. “President Obama is betting on America and American workers, and Mitt Romney is betting his resources in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Switzerland and God only knows where else he is putting his resources.”

[…]

“Think about it, think of this, a man who wants to be the president of the United States took his great wealth, and instead of investing that great wealth in America, the country he hopes to lead, he somehow chose to find the tax haven, Switzerland, where he opened up a bank account,” Strickland said. “He invested in the Cayman islands, has a corporation in Bermuda, and he took money from shadowy south American investors when he started Bain Capital and now my friends, he conveniently has decided that he will not release his income tax returns. Doesn’t it make you wonder what Mitt Romney is trying to hide from the American people?”

[…]

“President Obama is the in-sourcer of jobs and Mitt Romney is the outsourcer of jobs,” Strickland added

source: Obama Campaign Co-Chair in Ohio Slams Romney’s Off-Shore Accounts* – ABC News.

I mean Obama just kept talking about this in Ohio emphasizing the theme “Betting On America” in the wake of news that Romney used tax havens in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda

The horror! Why oh why would they do this?

Polls show that linking Romney to the outsourcing of U.S. jobs when he was at Boston-based Bain Capital LLC, which he co- founded, is an effective approach with voters in the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Obama will end the trip.

“If the election’s about Romney and Bain, then the president’s going to win,” said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report in Washington. “For Romney, it has to be about Obama: Obama and jobs, Obama and leadership, Obama and the economy, and Obama and health-care.”

[…]

Obama led Romney by nine percentage points in Ohio and six in Pennsylvania, according to a “Swing State Poll” conducted June 19-25 by Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University. The poll of 1,237 Ohio voters and 1,252 Pennsylvania voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent. In 2008, Obama beat Republican John McCain in Ohio by five percentage points and in Pennsylvania by 11.

source: Obama Hammers Romney Bain Record With China on Ohio Bus Trip – SFGate.

When polling on each candidate, Romney only beat Obama in public opinion regarding his perceived capability to help the economy as president based upon his time at Bain Capital and as head of the Winter Olympics committee. They’re now even in some polls. These “Bain” attacks are indeed personal, but not to Romney. They are personal to the voter who has been laid off and herded out the door with their future in doubt: