UP-FRONT DUMB POLITICS NUGGET!!
Romney: ‘I Like Being Able to Fire People Who Provide Services to Me’ (Philip Rucker) from the Washington Post
"Under assault from opponents painting him as a corporate predator, Mitt Romney came here Monday morning to defend his career in private equity but made a remark that seemed to underscore the narrative his rivals are pushing."
It has to be said that the context in which Romney said this is important as Greg Sargent notes. However, in this political season, this may still go down as one of the. dumbest statements EVER! It really showcases Romney's inability to really get the magnitude of human suffering that is loose in the land right now. The irony here is that Romney's attempts to justify his remarks, hinging as they do on context, sound deeply hypocritical, given his own campaign's clear misrepresentation of things Obama has said deliberately being taken out of context -- and then the Romney campaign people boasting about it! Sure as God made little green apples, first his GOP rivals and then the Dems in the general election are going to hose voters with today's little sound clip! There's almost a magic glow around today's misstatement, the justice is so cosmic!
Talking With the Taliban (Robert Dreyfuss) from the Nation
"On the United States side, the military doesn’t want to abandon the fight, and no doubt many of the generals would love to carry the war into Pakistan, too, but President Obama has given them their chance, and they’ve failed. In 2009, in agreeing to the escalation of the war (twice), Obama gave the generals enough rope to hang themselves, and so they have. Now it’s time for the adults, i.e., the diplomats, to take over."
OUR PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!!
America Abroad (Roger Cohen) from the New York Times
"U.S.-based global corporations added 683,000 workers in China during the 1999-2009 decade, a 172 percent increase, and 392,000 workers in India, a 542 percent increase. In all they added 1.5 million workers to payrolls in the Asia and Pacific region, while cutting 864,600 workers at home, according to figures from the Commerce Department. ... On one level this shift poses problems for the United States: Cash-rich companies are creating jobs elsewhere rather than at home. On another, however, the global American corporation expands U.S. power in ways that are hard to quantify but significant. They tend to propagate cultures of openness, connectedness and transparency."
There is a lot more here than this snippet suggests. Read the whole things
The Soft Bigotry of Low Employment Expectations (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"... note that there are still about 6 million fewer jobs than there were at the end of 2007 — and that we would normally have expected to have added around 5 million jobs over a four-year period. So we’re 11 million jobs down — and we need at least 100,000 jobs a month just to keep up with working-age population growth. Do the math, and you’ll see that it would take 9 or 10 years of growth at this rate to restore full employment."
William Daley to Step Down as Obama's Chief of Staff from the Chicago Tribune
"William Daley is stepping down as White House chief of staff and budget director Jack Lew is taking over the President Obama’s team as it heads into a tough election year, senior administration officials say."
Thanks. Good bye. Bad bad bad fit both for this administration and for this moment in time. I hope his replacement Jack Lew is a better fit.
Daley’s Demotion: How Washington Elites Got Obama Wrong (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"...the interesting legacy of Daley’s tenure is not his mechanical performance. It’s that he conducted an experiment based on the Washington elite view of the Obama presidency. That view, shared by business leaders, centrist pundits, and other elites, holds that Obama’s main problem has been excessive partisanship, liberalism in general, and hostility to business in particular. ... The effort failed because Daley’s analysis — which is also the analysis of David Brooks and Michael Bloomberg — was fatally incorrect."
Bush Errors Threaten Obama's Reelection (Editorial) from La Jornada [of Mexico in English]
"In the case of the country to our north, three years of Barack Obama’s Democratic government have been unable to overcome the saga of errors committed in the eight years of Bush’s Republican government: Growing inequality, environmental degradation, and as a result of the Iraq War, unprecedented disrepute for the United States, not only among Arab countries but the world at large."
Romney’s Aw-Shucks Rhetoric Rings False (Richard Cohen) from the Washington Post
"Lately, Romney has been on something of an insincerity tear. This son of a big-state governor, this Harvard Law School graduate, this multimillionaire, this hunk with the voice of an AM radio weatherman (“Good morning, Southland!”) has been portraying himself as an average guy. He said, for instance, that he, too, knows a bit about job insecurity."
For Mitt Romney, Authenticity Remains an Issue (Dan Balz) from the Washington Post
"Over the course of this presidential campaign, there has been one consistent reservation many Republican voters — and others — have expressed about GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. They question his authenticity. They don’t know if they can trust him. They wonder who he really is."
Think Again: Conservatives Prefer Reagan Fantasies to Reality (And So Did Reagan) (Eric Alterman) from the Center for American Progress
"... the real story here is the vehemence of the conservative movement’s commitment to ignoring all forms of evidence that it finds inconsistent with its ideological preconceptions, regardless of circumstances or even consequences. Ironically, tendency to ignore inconvenient facts and unwelcome evidence is actually President Reagan’s true legacy"
Romney, Gingrich, and the Long Overdue Downfall of Gordon Gekko (Andrew Leonard) from Salon
"Gingrich's scorched earth attack on Romney leaves no doubt: Reagan-era capitalism is finally on its deathbed."
INSPIRING BOOK NUGGET!!
New Book Recounts Children's Forgotten Russian Civil War Odyssey from the St. Petersburg Times
"For 800 children sent on summer vacation to the Urals in 1918, it was meant to be a three-month escape from war-torn St. Petersburg. Known as Petrograd at the time, the city was suffering chronic food shortages. But as the Russian Civil War raged, it became impossible for the children to return. They began an incredible three-year-long Odyssey around the globe — eventually returning to St. Petersburg the long way around the world via the Russian Far East, Asia, the U.S. and Europe."
Another article on this story is HERE.
BREATHTAKING MODEL CITY NUGGET!!
Metropolis II from YouTube and the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Miniature racetrack sculpture, inspired by cult sci-fi film Metropolis, takes artist four years to make and features 1,000 cars travelling at 230mph"
I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like what this guy has constructed. Watch the video to really get it!
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