Imagine Schools take more hits
May 12, 2012
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by David Safier This isn't local news, unless you acknowledge that the justly maligned, for profit Imagine Charter Schools corporation runs 14 schools in Arizona. Six Imagine Schools in St. Louis were closed by the state because of their students' shamefully low test scores, leaving 3,800 students with no place to go. Of course, the … Read more
New Obama campaign ad: ‘Reverse’
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Remember how bad things were? Do we really want to reverse course now?
The Obama campaign released a new ad on Thursday about job creation titled "Reverse." The ad is airing in Florida. Hmmm, that chart looks familiar.
Video below the fold.
Fact Checking the mendacity of ‘Mittens’
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Time once again for Steve Benen's weekly fact checking of the pathological liar Willard "Mittens" Romney. Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XVII:
As the 2012 presidential campaign advances, impatience with Mitt Romney's penchant for falsehoods grows. Jamelle Bouie this week reflected on the the fact that "the former Massachusetts governor has no use for honesty in his campaign."
"Constant mendacity is the norm for Romney and his campaign, and odds are good that he won't suffer for it," Bouie wrote. "Campaign reporters don't have a strong incentive to challenge him on his misrepresentations, and interested parties have a hard time dealing with the deluge."
And yet, we remain undeterred, as evidenced by the 17th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.
1. At an event in Euclid, Ohio, Romney argued, "We will not forget the fact that when [President Obama] was putting in place $787 billion of borrowing in his first few months in office that he said the borrowing would keep the unemployment rate below 8%."
That's a popular claim for Romney, but it's completely untrue.
2. Romney said in the same remarks the only reason the unemployment rate dropped from 10% to 8.1% is "because of the people that dropped out of the work force."
That's demonstrably false.
3. At the event, Romney also said of the president, "[H]is vision is that it is ok for a small business to raise taxes from 35% to 40% of small businesses."
In reality, Obama has cut taxes on small businesses, and raising the top income tax rate would not adversely affect small businesses, no matter how often Republicans argue to the contrary.
4. Romney added, "You know, the number of ships in the U.S. Navy is smaller than any time since 1917."
This one again? Romney dropped this lie a while ago, but it's apparently back.
5. Romney went on to say, "Let me tell you, we will take America in a very different place. He is taking America on a path towards Europe and Europe is not working there. It will not work here."
The irony is, Europe is trying to grow through austerity, just as Romney intends to do here. He's lying in a self-refuting sort of way.
6. Romney also argued, "Syria is Iran's source of access to the Mediterranean."
Iran doesn't share a border with Syria.
7. Romney said of the American auto industry, "I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back."
Pete Hershberger on Barber, Kelly
May 11, 2012
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by David Safier We LD-26-ers certainly remember Pete Hershberger as our moderate Republican state rep who was chased out of office by the right wing that took over his party. Al Melvin beat him in a Senate primary, and the rest is part of our shameful history. Hershberger is still a Republican and still a … Read more
My solid gold, 2003 Maine quarter
May 11, 2012
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by David Safier I got a gold quarter in change yesterday. Curious, I went on eBay. Complete sets of 33 gold Commemorative Quarters are selling for $239.95 — or at least that's the asking price. A quick google search tells me these Franklin Mint-type gold plated quarters are absolutely genuine and worth about 25 cents … Read more
Congressional races shake up
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: David Crowe, the Republican-cum-Democrat who first ran for the U.S. Senate and then decided to challenge Congressman Raúl Grijalva in the new CD 3 Democratic primary, has decided to drop out of the race and endorse conservadem former state Sen. Amanda Aguirre. Raul Grijalva challenger David Crowe Robles drops out. As I've … Read more
Extreme Makeover: ‘E Coli Conservatism’ and Jesse Kelly: the pro-salmonella candidate
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
As I posted yesterday in Extreme Makeover: Jesse Kelly 2.0, "Blog for Arizona is going to go back through our posts from 2010 and repost some of them to demonstrate the "extreme makeover" the RNCC is doing to make Jesse Kelly 2.0 appear more palatable to voters in 2012."
Here is one of my favorites from 2010 (repost). "E Coli Conservatism" and Jesse Kelly: the pro-salmonella candidate:
Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly takes a look at Republican Jesse Kelly in Arizona's Congressional District 8:
Over the summer, there was a major egg recall, following at least 1,300 salmonella-related illnesses spanning 22 states over the summer. The Washington Post reported in August that the outbreak highlights the need to fix "the holes in the country's food safety net."
That truth was hard to deny, and even harder to ignore. As we learned more about the story, we saw that the salmonella problems stemmed from an uninspected producer in Iowa, with a record of health, safety, labor, and other violations that go back 20 years. The need for better regulations and enforcement has been obvious for decades, but conservative, anti-regulatory lawmakers have consistently put industry profits above public safety.
With this in mind, [Think Progress has a story] that's so astounding, it's almost hard to believe.
Although there are a diverse set of political beliefs in the United States, there are currently two major political philosophies clashing for control of the American body politic. One, the progressive view, believes in a society where a democratically elected government plays an active role in helping all people achieve the American Dream, no matter who they are. The other, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own-society that favors the wealthy, big corporations, and other privileged sectors of society.
GOP House candidate Jesse Kelly, who is running in Arizona's 8th congressional district, championed this second vision a week ago at a campaign rally hosted by the Pima County Tea Party Patriots. During a question-and-answer period, a voter asked Kelly about the recent salmonella outbreak, which led to recall of more than half a billion eggs.
Is J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. the next Lehman Brothers financial crisis?
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
For all those Tea-Publican politicians who assert that we need to repeal even the most modest of regulations on financial services institutions like Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule, this is why they are insanely irresponsible and represent a risk that we cannot afford to this country's economy and financial system. JPMorgan Falls 9% After Reporting $2 Billion Trading Loss – Bloomberg:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. fell the most in nine months after Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the firm suffered a $2 billion trading loss he attributed to “egregious” failures in a unit managing risks.
JPMorgan dropped 7.7 percent to $37.59 at 10:20 a.m. in New York, the biggest decline since Aug. 8.
The bank’s chief investment office, run by Ina Drew, 55, took flawed positions on synthetic credit securities that remain volatile and may cost the lender an additional $1 billion this quarter or next, Dimon, 56, said yesterday in a conference call with analysts. The loss originated out of the firm’s London CIO unit, an executive at the bank said.
“There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment,” Dimon said. “These were egregious mistakes, they were self-inflicted.”
The chief investment office was thrust into the debate over U.S. efforts to ban proprietary trading when Bloomberg News reported last month that the unit had taken bets so big that JPMorgan, the largest and most profitable U.S. bank, probably couldn’t unwind them without losing money or roiling financial markets. Dimon, 56, had transformed the unit in recent years to make bigger and riskier speculative trades with the bank’s money, five former employees said.
The U.K.’s Financial Services Authority, which regulates banks, is examining the role London employees played in the loss, according to two people familiar with the talks. The agency hasn’t opened a formal investigation and there was no evidence of criminal activity, these people said.
