Featured Stories
Condi? Yeah, Right
July 13, 2012
by
Posted by Bob Lord The punditry now is all abuzz that Romney is considering Condi as his VP pick. The conventional wisdom is that the Condi possibility is thrown out there as a distraction from Mitt's Bain mess, but that he ultimately won't pick her for a number of reasons (she's pro-choice, she'll distract too … Read more
The GOP War on Women: Lawsuit to block Arizona’s most restrictive abortion law in the nation
July 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Earlier this year our Tea-Publican legislature pased the most restrictive abortion law in the nation. It bans abortions after 20 weeks, but has a unique provision for calculating the start of the 20 weeks from the date of the woman's last menstrual period. As critics pointed out at the time, this means that a woman could be deemed pregnant two weeks before having had sexual intercourse — talk about your miraculous conception!
On Thursday, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the ACLU sued on behalf of three doctors to halt the new law from going int effect in August. Lawsuit challenges Arizona abortion restrictions:
Three Arizona abortion providers went to federal court Thursday to try to block an Arizona law that bans most abortions beginning at 20 weeks.
They are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the law before it takes effect Aug.2.
The suit alleges the legislation violates the protections outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision, which permits abortions before a fetus is viable. Medical experts and abortion clinics typically consider a fetus viable at 22 to 24 weeks. The suit states that the only exception to the new 20-week ban in the Arizona law is so narrow it "places significant burdens on the health of some women seeking abortion care."
Mitt’s Bad Week
July 13, 2012
by
Posted by Bob Lord My buddy Mitt may have had his worst week so far this week. It looks like expedience, dishonesty, flip-flopping and that pesky oppo book have come together to create quite a mess for him. For those of you who haven't figured this out yet, if you're looking for factual presentation, you … Read more
(Update) The GOP war on voting in the D.C. Circuit Court
July 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The trial has wrapped up with closing argments on Friday morning. Based upon this reporting from the Dallas Morning News, it isn't looking good for the state of Texas — the judges appear inclined to uphold the voting rights of minority voters under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Texas Voter ID Trial: Closing Arguments:
A 3-judge panel will now decide whether to let Texas implement its controversial voter ID law.
In closing arguments at federal court, a lawyer for the state, John Hughes, insisted that even if non-white Texans lack an acceptable photo ID under the law, the “ultimate question” for the judges to consider is whether that disparity translates into people being turned away from the polls.
* * *
“People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily obtain it,” he insisted repeatedly. He noted that the Justice Department – which refused to let the state implement the law, prompting the state to turn to the federal courts – claims that 1.5 million Texas voters lack an acceptable photo ID.
* * *
The judges seemed deeply skeptical. “The record does tell us that there is a substantial number of registered voters that lack photo ID,” said U.S. Circuit Court Judge David Tatel.
And District Court Judge Robert Wilkins noted that there was uncontested evidence that some Texans would have to travel 120 miles one way to the nearest state office where they could obtain a voter ID card – and that federal court rules bar subpoenas for anyone more than 100 miles from a courthouse on grounds that would be “unduly burdensome.”
Robert Reich: What’s at stake in the 2012 election
July 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Robert Reich lays it out simply and clearly as a choice between progressive and regressive movements in the country. Do we go "Forward" or backward? Video below the fold.
The ‘less-than-do-nothing’ Tea-Publican 112th Congress: Worst. Congress. Ever.
July 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Back in October 2006, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone wrote about the Republican-led Congress in power at the time. He called it the "Worst Congress Ever." That was then, this is now. In a must-read opinion, Ezra Klein today makes a convincing case that the "less-than-do-nothing" Tea-Publican 112th Congress is the "Worst. … Read more
Fact Checking the mendacity of ‘Mittens’
July 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Time once again for Steve Benen's weekly (he skipped last week for the 4th of July) fact check of the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar, Willard "Mittens" Romney. Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXV: After more than six months of marveling at Mitt Romney's propensity for falsehoods, I have to admit it was … Read more
Fact Checking jumps the shark
July 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Washington Post's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, is committing the same sin that has destroyed PolitiFact, and quite possibly FactCheck.org, as credible fact checkers — he inserts his own subjective opinion to provide "context" to facts that either are or are not accurate. This blurring of facts into subjective opinion to produce a "questionable" call or even to produce the opposite of what the stated facts are has undermined fact checking of late.
As an aside, I believe this is the goal of the Romney campaign's "big lie" propaganda campaign. Their goal is to lie with such unrelenting frequency and impugnity that fact checkers are overwhelmed, thereby producing questionable fact checks that the public will disregard and in exasperation conclude that no one can be believed to tell the truth. And that is fertile ground upon which "big lie" propaganda can thrive. The Romney campaign is succeeding at its goal with help from media villagers like Kessler.
Glenn Kessler, who "in an earlier life covered Wall Street," has been a defender of the banksters of Wall Street and most recently of Willard "Mittens" Romney, putting him at odds with his own newspapers' investigative reporting on Romney's outsourcing/offshoring experience at Bain Capital. Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas. It is important to note that the Washington Post editors stood behind the reporting of its reporters, refusing the Romney campaign's request for a correction.
At the same time, Kessler is standing by his "fact check," recent revelations by other news organizations that uindermine his "fact check" be damned. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it," in effect.
In today's fact check column by Glenn Kessler, Do Bain Capital’s SEC documents suggest Mitt Romney is a criminal?, he states:
As we wrote yesterday, we are standing with our assessment that Mitt Romney left the helm of Bain Capital in 1999, when he departed to run the Salt Lake City Olympics. The date is important because some questionable investments by Bain took place between 1999 and 2002, when he ran for governor.
Kessler dismisses the SEC documents discussed in the Boston Globe report as just "boilerplate": "much of the language saying Romney was 'sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president' was boilerplate that did not reveal whether he was actually managing Bain at the time."
The point of Kessler's fact check is parsing between "operational control" and "legal" control. For Kessler, he finds that Romney was not engaged in making the day-to-day "operational control" decisions of Bain Capital or its managed companies during the 1999-2002 period reported by the Boston Globe. His conclusion is based almost entirely on statements from the Romney campaign and from Bain Capital, and the 2002 Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission report that certified that Romney could run for governor.
