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Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer calls for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United
June 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
After the Supreme Court struck down a century-old Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) and Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger (R) called on Congress to overturn the court’s controversial Citizens United decision. Montana governor calls for amendment to overturn Citizens United:
“Republicans and Democrats don’t always agree on policy matters, but there is one thing we do agree on, and that is corporate money should not influence the outcome of an election,” Bohlinger said in a video uploaded to YouTube. (Video below the fold).
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On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to reconsider [Citizens United] and ruled the decision also applied to state campaign finance regulations in a 5-4 decision.
“The United States Supreme Court has just told the American people that the facts don’t matter when it comes to protecting Montana and the country from corruption of corporate money in our democracy,” Schweitzer said. “The United States Supreme Court blocked our law because they said corporations are people — I’ll believe that when Texas executes one.”
The Montana governor noted that 22 state attorneys general had supported the state’s unsuccessful effort to defend its Corrupt Practices Act.
“But the fight’s not over,” Schweitzer added. “We’re going to overrule the Supreme Court with a constitutional amendment to make it clear that we the people are in charge — not we the corporations.”
New Obama campaign ad: ‘Revealed’
June 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
With the New York Times story last Saturday, “Companies’ Ills Did Not Harm Romney’s Firm”, and the Washington Post’s pioneer-in-outsourcing story last week reporting that Bain invested in companies that were “pioneers” in the practice of shipping work overseas, the Obama campaign is stepping up its attacks on vulture capitalist Willard “Mittens” Romney’s record at Bain Capital.
This version is airing in Virginia, with the closing line: “Does Virginia really want an outsourcer-in-chief in the White House?”
Video below the fold.
Priorities USA Action ad: ‘Stage’
June 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action released a new ad over the weekend on vulture capitalist Willard "Mittens" Romney's record at Bain Capital. This is a hard-hitting, highly effective emotionally charged ad. It's part of a $10 million ad buy airing in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Video below the fold.
Arizonans can’t get rid of ‘Not intended to be a factual statement’ Jon Kyl soon enough
June 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
One of Arizona's twin embarrasments in the U.S. Senate, "Not intended to be a factual statement" Jon Kyl, has really been making a supreme ass of himself since SCOTUS ruled on SB 1070.
Steve Benen has two reports on our embarrassing senator. What Jon Kyl considers a factual statement:
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's anti-immigrant law, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R), who represents Arizona, issued a curious press release.
"I note that in his response to today's Supreme Court ruling, President Obama called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I also note that the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill I helped draft in 2007 was killed — in part — by then-Senator Obama."
Clearly, expectations for honesty are low when it comes to the politician who made "not intended to be a factual statement" famous, but even by Kyl's low standards, this is unnerving.
First, Obama, as a U.S. senator in 2007, didn't vote to kill comprehensive immigration reform; he voted for it. Kyl's version of reality is the opposite of the one the rest of us live in.
Second, though Kyl bragged yesterday about the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill he "helped draft" five years ago, if we actually look back at the Senate record, we see that the Arizona Republican voted to filibuster the bill. Jon Kyl is falsely accusing Obama of doing what Jon Kyl actually did.
Maybe yesterday's press release wasn't intended to be a factual statement, either?
How bad was the Star’s front page? A comparison.
June 26, 2012
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by David Safier
A few posts ago, I took a shot at the front page of this morning's Star for misrepresenting the Supreme Court's SB1070 ruling and for emphasizing Brewer's point — The Feds are picking on us! — over a cogent description and analysis of the decision. Here's the earlier post with a pic of the relevant section of the Star front page.
Was all the Arizona front page coverage this bad? I went to Newseum, where you can get the front page from papers around the world, to find out. The answer is, the state's two major papers were far better, and the small town papers, well, they gave the Star a run for its money. [To the Star: being compared to small town papers in Arizona is not a compliment.]
Here's the Republic front page.
Without reading the copy, you get a sense of what went on. "Turmoil Remains" sums up the post-decision situation in Arizona well. The next headline is accurate as well: "WHO WON: BOTH SIDES HAVE CLAIM." The other two headlines are good follow-ups. The Republic put some creative thought into its front page, creating a grabber that should move papers on the street and is also an accurate reflection of the situation on the ground.
Jan Brewer in the rewrite on SB 1070
June 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I was gobsmacked yesterday by how much of the corporate media got the decision in Arizona v. United States completely WRONG in their reporting. The initial reporting all tracked along the GOPropaganda talking point, led by our delusional Governor Jan Brewer, that this was a "victory" for SB 1070, and the "heart" of SB 1070 had been "upheld."
(As David Safier pointed out in the previous post, the Arizona Daily Star continues this inaccurate GOPropaganda talking point reporting on its front page today. Ironically, the editorial opinion in the Star today gets it right. High court ruling no clear victory for SB 1070.)
All day long when I saw this crappy reporting I had to ask out loud in disbelief, "Did you people even read the opinion? Because what you are reporting in not what the opinion actually says!" (That's why I posted the syllabus from the opinion).
This just demonstrates the extent to which the GOPropaganda machine directs the corporate media news coverage in this country.
It also demonstrates why we should not have reporters who are not trained in the law and do not understand the substantive and procedural posture of a case reporting on Supreme Court decisions. (At one time the networks actually had Supreme Court reporters).
If all we are going to get from our media villagers is parroting of GOPropaganda talking points, then the public is lost in a propaganda campaign of disinformation.
The first accurate reporting I saw all day was from Judge Napolitano on FAUX News Fraudcasting, the Rachel Maddow Show and Lawrence O'Donnell's Last Word. It took until late in the day before the Court's opinion was reported accurately. That is a sad commentary on the sorry state of our media in this country.
I dread the mass confusion from crappy reporting about to be unleashed on the public when SCOTUS announces its decision on the Affordable Care Act.
Lawrence O'Donnell gives a good summary of how the Court's ruling on SB 1070 was a smack-down to the state of Arizona and nothing remains of SB 1070. The remaining provision is certain to be held unconstitutional when it reaches the Court in the future, as the Court intimated in its opinion. (Video below the fold).
Ass backwards
June 26, 2012
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by David Safier The morning Star the day after the Supreme Court's SB1070 ruling should begin its coverage of the story with the SB 1070 ruling from the court. After that, cover the ramifications. But that's not how the Star handled it on the front page. Brewer's spin of the news was, SB1070 triumphed in … Read more
Financial Trouble in Imagine City?
June 25, 2012
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by David Safier
NOTE: This is the sixth in a series of recent posts examining Imagine Schools. (Here are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.) If you have ideas or information to add, please leave comments at the end of the post or email me at safier@schooltales.net. I keep all email correspondence confidential.
Let's leave aside Imagine Schools' problems in Arizona for a moment and look at the overall financial picture of Imagine's 73 schools across the country. We may be looking at a charter empire in the early stages of financial decay.
The Missouri Board of Education just closed 6 Imagine Schools in St. Louis. That means Imagine Schools has 6 unoccupied buildings on its hands which aren't generating revenue. When they were filled with students, the schools were paying a total of about $6.7 million a year in rent. Unless Imagine can figure out how to rent those school buildings to someone else, that's about $560,000 a month in lost revenue. That's a hell of a lot of money.
But there could be hope Imagine Schools won't take a hit for all those empty buildings, because 5 of the 6 schools are actually owned by another company, Entertainment Properties Trust (EPT), which bought them from SchoolHouse Finance, the real estate arm of Imagine Schools. In most situations, that would mean EPT paid Imagine for the schools, owns them outright and is now left holding the bag for the missing rent. Except it looks like that's not how it works in this case.
Ken Libby has been following the Imagine Schools situation on his blog in a more financially wonky way than I have. He posted about EPT's first quarter report for 2012. Lots of the report dealt with the closed St. Louis Schools. I'm going to try and translate what I read from high-finance-speak into a version of English human beings can understand. I believe I've got it substantially correct.
True, EPT owns those 5 closed St. Louis Imagine School buildings, as well as four Imagine Schools in other cities that are closed or will be closing soon, making a total of 9 empty, non-producing properties. But EPT's risk is minimal, because through some contractual maneuver ("the cross-default nature of the master lease"), Imagine Schools is still responsible for the rent whether the schools are operational or empty. Either Imagine has to keep making monthly payments on the properties to EPT, or it has to exchange the unoccupied schools for occupied schools. Either way, EPT assures its investors, revenue will keep on flowing into its coffers.
