Colo. girl registering ‘only Romney’ voters tied to firm dumped by RNC over fraud
Eli Stokols
FOX 31 Denver
September 28, 2012
The Colorado Republican Party has terminated its contract with a firm hired to run voter registration and get-out-the-vote operations here after allegations of fraud, FOX31 Denver has confirmed.
The move came at the recommendation of the Republican National Committee, leading to the termination of contracts with Strategic Allied Consulting in seven swing states, following an investigation of voter fraud by the company in Florida...
In Colorado, the state GOP has spent $466,643 — roughly half its total budget — with Strategic Allied Consulting, the firm in question.
Already this year, the RNC has funneled more than $3.1 million to the company, just formed in June by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona voting consultant who has run other firms that have been accused of dumping registration forms filled out by Democrats and other improprieties aimed at helping Republican candidates.
And FOX31 Denver has confirmed that the young woman seen registering voters outside a Colorado Springs grocery store in a YouTube video, in which she admits to trying to only register voters who support Mitt Romney, was indeed a contract employee of Sproul’s company...
Strategic Allied Consulting was hired to do voter registration drives in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada, and had been planning get-out-the-vote drives in Ohio and Wisconsin, Sproul told the Los Angeles Times Thursday.
Reports from the Federal Election Commission show that Sproul’s other company, Lincoln Strategy Group, has been paid more than $80,000 by the Romney campaign to help register voters between November 2011 and March 2012 during the GOP primary season.
Sproul told the Times he formed Strategic Allied Consulting at the request of the RNC for publicity’s sake, given past negative media coverage of Lincoln stemming from past allegations going back to 2004, when employees in Nevada and Oregon signed up Democrats but threw out their forms instead of turning them in.
Sproul has also been linked to signature fraud this election cycle in his home state of Arizona where he was working on a ballot initiative that would allow the state to nullify any federal laws it finds to be unconstitutional.
In Florida, the state GOP fired Strategic Allied Consulting on Tuesday after election workers in Palm Beach County discovered numerous registration forms that appeared to be filled out in the same handwriting, some including wrong addresses and birthdays...
Florida GOP Election Fraud scandal spreads to ten counties
*UPDATED x3 with CO Tie-in*
Daily Kos
SEP 28, 2012
...This is sort of like our ACORN story - except that ACORN actually reported fraudulent or suspicious registrations whereas Strategic Allied Consulting has been systematically trying to engage in voter registration fraud in order to add fictitious and/or redundant GOP voters to the rolls. Disgusting.
...Third Update: As someone downthread has correctly pointed out, the young lady from El Paso County, Colorado (Colorado Springs) who was only registering Republicans was indeed working for this Strategic Alllied group - that is, Nathan Sproul's group.
And FOX31 Denver has confirmed that the young woman seen registering voters outside a Colorado Springs grocery store in a YouTube video, in which she admits to trying to only register voters who support Mitt Romney, was indeed a contract employee of Sproul’s company.
“I’m actually trying to register people for a particular party,” the girl tells a woman in the video, which has been viewed more than 417,000 times. Because we’re out here in support of Romney, actually.”
Potential voter registration fraud in Florida: GOP’s own 'ACORN' scandal?
By Patrik Jonsson
The Christian Science Monitor
September 29, 2012
Saying the party has “zero tolerance” for voter fraud, the GOP also filed complaints against the company with the Florida Secretary of State’s office. The company, run by long-time GOP operative Nathan Sproul, says a single employee was responsible for the forged signatures, though the problem, by Friday, had spread to 10 counties.
"This is an issue we take extremely seriously," RNC spokesman Sean Spicer told CBS News. "When allegations were brought to our attention we severed all ties to the firm."
While reasonable, those explanations could have trouble finding traction among the US electorate, which has watched battles erupt in mostly swing states from Florida to Ohio over control of voter rolls, and heated debates about potential disenfranchisement of key Democratic constituencies, poorer, minority, and elderly voters.
Why do Election 2012 swing states matter? 5 resources to explain.
The allegations are particularly poignant in Florida, which decided the presidential race in 2000 after a massive recount was halted by the US Supreme Court in a way that gave the election to the GOP, and where the current Republican state administration has fought with the US Department of Justice over an effort to weed out illegal immigrants from the state’s voter rolls.
Even more to the point of third-party voter registration contractors, the League of Women Voters sued Florida earlier this month after it instituted a new 48-hour deadline for turning in registration forms. The state relented, reinstating a 10-day deadline.
What’s more, the fraudulent registration findings have echoes of the 2008 controversies over the now-disbanded ACORN community activism group, which was accused by Republicans in 2008 of falsifying forms.
Brad Friedman, who runs the electoral watchdog Brad Blog, helped break the story, tying it to other emerging GOP registration controversies in California and Colorado. Other states where Sproul’s firm had been hired to gather registrations have not reported any problems.
“A massive GOP voter registration scheme, which appears to involve the upper-echelons of the national party, [has begun] to emerge,” Mr. Friedman writes.
At the center of the controversy is Mr. Sproul, a long-time GOP campaign operative, whose firm has faced allegations of questionable tactics in the past, including changing or throwing out registration forms filled out by Democrats.
Quoted by Lee Fang of the nonpartisan Republic Report, former Rep. Chris Cannon (R) of Utah, during a voter fraud hearing, admitted that “the difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn't throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out.”
Mr. Sproul has worked for a string of Republican presidential campaigns, including Mitt Romney’s. He was recommended to the Florida GOP by the National Republican Committee. Until being fired Tuesday, Sproul’s company had received $1.3 million from Republicans, including nearly $700,000 from the Florida Republican Party...
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Fighting Over God’s Image
American Protestants were once deadly serious about forbidding images of God.
Fighting Over God’s Image
By EDWARD J. BLUM and PAUL HARVEY
New York Times
September 26, 2012
THE murders of four Americans over an amateurish online video about Muhammad, like the attempted murder of a Danish cartoonist who in 2005 had depicted the prophet with a bomb in his turban, have left many Americans confused, angry and fearful about the rage that some Muslims feel about visual representations of their sacred figures.
The confusion stems, in part, from the ubiquity of sacred images in American culture. God, Jesus, Moses, Buddha and other holy figures are displayed in movies, cartoons and churches and on living room walls. We place them on T-shirts and bumper stickers — and even tattoo them on our skin.
But Americans have had their own history of conflict, some of it deadly, over displays of the sacred. The path toward civil debate over such representation is neither short nor easy.
The United States was settled, in part, by radical Protestant iconoclasts from Britain who considered the creation and use of sacred imagery to be a violation of the Second Commandment against graven images. The anti-Catholic colonists at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay refused to put images of Jesus in their churches and meetinghouses. They scratched out crosses in books. In the early 1740s, English officials even marched on an Indian community in western Connecticut, where they cross-examined Moravian missionaries who reportedly had a book with “the picture of our Saviour in it.”
The colonists feared Catholic infiltration from British-controlled Canada. Shortly after the Boston Tea Party, a Connecticut pastor warned that if the British succeeded, the colonists would have their Bibles taken from them and be compelled to “pray to the Virgin Mary, worship images, believe the doctrine of Purgatory, and the Pope’s infallibility.”
It was not only Protestants who opposed sacred imagery. In the Southwest, Pueblo Indians who waged war against Spanish colonizers not only burned and dismembered some crucifixes, but even defecated on them.
In the early Republic, many Americans avoided depicting Jesus or God in any form. The painter Washington Allston spoke for many artists of the 1810s when he said, “I think his character too holy and sacred to be attempted by the pencil.” A visiting Russian diplomat, Pavel Svinin, was amazed at the prevalence of a different image: George Washington’s. “Every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home,” he wrote, “just as we have images of God’s saints.”
Only in the late 19th century did images of God and Jesus become commonplace in churches, Sunday school books, Bibles and homes. There were many forces at work: steam printing presses; new canals and railroads; and, not least, the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Catholics who brought with them an array of crucifixes, Madonnas and busts of saints. Protestants began producing their own images — often, to appeal to children — and gradually became more comfortable with holy images. In the 20th century, the United States began exporting such images, most notably Warner Sallman’s 1941 “Head of Christ,” which is one of the most reproduced images in world history.
But there was also resistance. When Hollywood first started portraying Jesus in films, one fundamentalist Christian fumed, “The picturing of the life and sufferings of our Savior by these institutions falls nothing short of blasphemy.” Vernon E. Jordan Jr., an African-American who was later president of the National Urban League and an adviser to President Bill Clinton, recalled that white audience members gasped when he played Jesus as an undergraduate at DePauw University in Indiana in the 1950s...
Fighting Over God’s Image
By EDWARD J. BLUM and PAUL HARVEY
New York Times
September 26, 2012
THE murders of four Americans over an amateurish online video about Muhammad, like the attempted murder of a Danish cartoonist who in 2005 had depicted the prophet with a bomb in his turban, have left many Americans confused, angry and fearful about the rage that some Muslims feel about visual representations of their sacred figures.
The confusion stems, in part, from the ubiquity of sacred images in American culture. God, Jesus, Moses, Buddha and other holy figures are displayed in movies, cartoons and churches and on living room walls. We place them on T-shirts and bumper stickers — and even tattoo them on our skin.
But Americans have had their own history of conflict, some of it deadly, over displays of the sacred. The path toward civil debate over such representation is neither short nor easy.
The United States was settled, in part, by radical Protestant iconoclasts from Britain who considered the creation and use of sacred imagery to be a violation of the Second Commandment against graven images. The anti-Catholic colonists at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay refused to put images of Jesus in their churches and meetinghouses. They scratched out crosses in books. In the early 1740s, English officials even marched on an Indian community in western Connecticut, where they cross-examined Moravian missionaries who reportedly had a book with “the picture of our Saviour in it.”
The colonists feared Catholic infiltration from British-controlled Canada. Shortly after the Boston Tea Party, a Connecticut pastor warned that if the British succeeded, the colonists would have their Bibles taken from them and be compelled to “pray to the Virgin Mary, worship images, believe the doctrine of Purgatory, and the Pope’s infallibility.”
It was not only Protestants who opposed sacred imagery. In the Southwest, Pueblo Indians who waged war against Spanish colonizers not only burned and dismembered some crucifixes, but even defecated on them.
In the early Republic, many Americans avoided depicting Jesus or God in any form. The painter Washington Allston spoke for many artists of the 1810s when he said, “I think his character too holy and sacred to be attempted by the pencil.” A visiting Russian diplomat, Pavel Svinin, was amazed at the prevalence of a different image: George Washington’s. “Every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home,” he wrote, “just as we have images of God’s saints.”
Only in the late 19th century did images of God and Jesus become commonplace in churches, Sunday school books, Bibles and homes. There were many forces at work: steam printing presses; new canals and railroads; and, not least, the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Catholics who brought with them an array of crucifixes, Madonnas and busts of saints. Protestants began producing their own images — often, to appeal to children — and gradually became more comfortable with holy images. In the 20th century, the United States began exporting such images, most notably Warner Sallman’s 1941 “Head of Christ,” which is one of the most reproduced images in world history.
But there was also resistance. When Hollywood first started portraying Jesus in films, one fundamentalist Christian fumed, “The picturing of the life and sufferings of our Savior by these institutions falls nothing short of blasphemy.” Vernon E. Jordan Jr., an African-American who was later president of the National Urban League and an adviser to President Bill Clinton, recalled that white audience members gasped when he played Jesus as an undergraduate at DePauw University in Indiana in the 1950s...
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill
By MATT TAIBBI
Rolling Stone Magazine August 29, 2012
The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected.
The critics couldn't be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He's closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he's trying for something big: We've just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we've been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.
The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney's run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he's somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move. And the drama of this rhetorical high-wire act was ratcheted up even further when Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – like himself, a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who'd be honored to tell Oliver Twist there's no more soup left. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street, officially succeeded in moving the battle lines in the 2012 presidential race...
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz27VKBSAzJ
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill
By MATT TAIBBI
Rolling Stone Magazine August 29, 2012
The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected.
The critics couldn't be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He's closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he's trying for something big: We've just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we've been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.
The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney's run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he's somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move. And the drama of this rhetorical high-wire act was ratcheted up even further when Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – like himself, a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who'd be honored to tell Oliver Twist there's no more soup left. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street, officially succeeded in moving the battle lines in the 2012 presidential race...
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz27VKBSAzJ
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Team Obama releases tongue-in-cheek video taking Romney out of context
Team Obama releases tongue-in-cheek video taking Romney out of context
By Justin Sink
The Hill
09/20/12
President Obama's campaign released a new web video Thursday comprised of entirely out-of-context clips of opponent Mitt Romney, intended, they say, to illustrate that Romney's attack on Obama's "redistribution" comment was unfair.
On Wednesday night NBC News posted extended audio of Obama's remarks at a 1998 academic conference, during which he said that he "believes[s] in redistribution." But the following sentence shows Obama arguing the importance of competition and the marketplace for government services.
"In a desperate attempt to distract Americans from another disastrous week for Mitt Romney, his campaign has once again flagrantly taken the president's statements out of context to make a point that simply doesn't exist," said Obama press secretary Adam Fetcher in a statement. "After falsely accusing the president of wanting to redistribute wealth when he was actually talking about reforming government and making it more effective, it’s now come to light that they selectively removed additional context from the 14-year-old remarks in which then-Senator Obama stressed the need for competition, innovation and a strong marketplace in expanding opportunity for all Americans."
The Web video from the Obama campaign opens with on-screen text defining "context" as "the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning."
By Justin Sink
The Hill
09/20/12
President Obama's campaign released a new web video Thursday comprised of entirely out-of-context clips of opponent Mitt Romney, intended, they say, to illustrate that Romney's attack on Obama's "redistribution" comment was unfair.
On Wednesday night NBC News posted extended audio of Obama's remarks at a 1998 academic conference, during which he said that he "believes[s] in redistribution." But the following sentence shows Obama arguing the importance of competition and the marketplace for government services.
"In a desperate attempt to distract Americans from another disastrous week for Mitt Romney, his campaign has once again flagrantly taken the president's statements out of context to make a point that simply doesn't exist," said Obama press secretary Adam Fetcher in a statement. "After falsely accusing the president of wanting to redistribute wealth when he was actually talking about reforming government and making it more effective, it’s now come to light that they selectively removed additional context from the 14-year-old remarks in which then-Senator Obama stressed the need for competition, innovation and a strong marketplace in expanding opportunity for all Americans."
The Web video from the Obama campaign opens with on-screen text defining "context" as "the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning."
Sunday, September 16, 2012
What 'rogues and vagabonds' have to do with Pennsylvania voter ID law
Pennsylvania judge supports Republicans who don't want "to place the vicious vagrant, the wandering Arabs, the Tartar hordes of our large cities, on a level with the virtuous and good man.”
What 'rogues and vagabonds' have to do with Pennsylvania voter ID law
By Patrik Jonsson
The Christian Science Monitor
September 13, 2012
An 1869 ruling used by a Pennsylvania state judge in August to uphold a tough new voter ID law is providing some new and startling historical context to deliberations by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as it mulls whether to block the controversial law before the Nov. 6 presidential election.
Looking specifically at the tumult and vagrancy of 19th century city life in Philadelphia, the so-called 1869 Patterson v. Barlow decision, which in part allowed election officials to consider a voter’s “virtue” before being allowed to cast a ballot, formed the backbone of Judge Robert Simpson’s decision last month that the new law was constitutional and could go into effect immediately. The original Patterson ruling was written by state Supreme Court justices, whose legal descendants are now weighing the voter ID law.
The ruling was more of a legal side note in the actual hearing Thursday. But citation of the ruling, which used what today would be considered by many to be bigoted language to justify early curbs on the franchise, has hit a nerve among critics who say Judge Simpson’s reliance on the ruling ties modern day critiques of voter ID laws directly, and shockingly, to a historical narrative of “anachronism and … outright prejudice,” according to one legal brief filed in the case.
The Patterson decision “shows that a majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was once led to rationalize burdensome election procedures based on generalized and biased fears about fraudulent voting. That historic mistake should make the court hesitate to uphold another election law ostensibly aimed at preventing fraud when the state has offered no evidence that any such fraud has actually occurred,” writes Jessie Allen, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Painting a colorful Dickensian view of old Philadelphia, the 1869 court wrote, “Where the population of a locality is constantly changing, and men are often unknown to their next-door neighbors; where a large number is floating upon the rivers and the sea, going and returning and incapable of identification; where low inns, restaurants and boarding-houses constantly afford the means of fraudulent additions to the lists of voters, what rule of sound reason or of constitutional law forbids the legislature from providing a means to distinguish the honest people of Philadelphia from the rogues and vagabonds who would usurp their places and rob them of their rights?"
For emphasis, the court further explained that to deny the tougher voting rules for Philadelphia voters “would be to place the vicious vagrant, the wandering Arabs, the Tartar hordes of our large cities, on a level with the virtuous and good man.”...
What 'rogues and vagabonds' have to do with Pennsylvania voter ID law
By Patrik Jonsson
The Christian Science Monitor
September 13, 2012
An 1869 ruling used by a Pennsylvania state judge in August to uphold a tough new voter ID law is providing some new and startling historical context to deliberations by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as it mulls whether to block the controversial law before the Nov. 6 presidential election.
Looking specifically at the tumult and vagrancy of 19th century city life in Philadelphia, the so-called 1869 Patterson v. Barlow decision, which in part allowed election officials to consider a voter’s “virtue” before being allowed to cast a ballot, formed the backbone of Judge Robert Simpson’s decision last month that the new law was constitutional and could go into effect immediately. The original Patterson ruling was written by state Supreme Court justices, whose legal descendants are now weighing the voter ID law.
The ruling was more of a legal side note in the actual hearing Thursday. But citation of the ruling, which used what today would be considered by many to be bigoted language to justify early curbs on the franchise, has hit a nerve among critics who say Judge Simpson’s reliance on the ruling ties modern day critiques of voter ID laws directly, and shockingly, to a historical narrative of “anachronism and … outright prejudice,” according to one legal brief filed in the case.
The Patterson decision “shows that a majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was once led to rationalize burdensome election procedures based on generalized and biased fears about fraudulent voting. That historic mistake should make the court hesitate to uphold another election law ostensibly aimed at preventing fraud when the state has offered no evidence that any such fraud has actually occurred,” writes Jessie Allen, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Painting a colorful Dickensian view of old Philadelphia, the 1869 court wrote, “Where the population of a locality is constantly changing, and men are often unknown to their next-door neighbors; where a large number is floating upon the rivers and the sea, going and returning and incapable of identification; where low inns, restaurants and boarding-houses constantly afford the means of fraudulent additions to the lists of voters, what rule of sound reason or of constitutional law forbids the legislature from providing a means to distinguish the honest people of Philadelphia from the rogues and vagabonds who would usurp their places and rob them of their rights?"
For emphasis, the court further explained that to deny the tougher voting rules for Philadelphia voters “would be to place the vicious vagrant, the wandering Arabs, the Tartar hordes of our large cities, on a level with the virtuous and good man.”...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Evidence piles up that Bush administration got many pre-9-11 warnings
Evidence piles up that Bush administration got many pre-9-11 warnings
By Robert Windrem
NBC News
September 11, 2012
Video: Author Kurt Eichenwald talks about what the White House knew leading up to the attacks and how they used the intelligence information in the months after.
On the 11th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, there is mounting evidence that the Bush administration received more intelligence warnings than previously known prior to the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000. Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter, wrote in an op-ed piece in Tuesday’s newspaper about a number of previously unknown warnings relayed to the White House by U.S. intelligence in the weeks and months prior to the attacks.
Eichenwald wrote of the warnings in his new book, “500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.”
And former US intelligence officials say there were even more warnings, pointing to a little noticed section of George Tenet’s memoir, “At the Center of the Storm.”
In it, Tenet describes a July 10, 2001, meeting at the White House in the office of Condoleezza Rice, then President George W. Bush’s national security adviser. The meeting was not discussed in the 9-11 Commission’s final report on the attacks, although Tenet wrote that he provided information on it to the commission.
What’s critical to understanding the difference between this meeting and others, says one former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, is that the intelligence provided that day was fresh, some of it having been collected the previous day. And other intelligence and national security officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity, say the briefings make clear that, while Bush administration officials understood the nature of the threat, they didn’t understand its magnitude and urgency.
“This intelligence delivered on July 10 was specific and was generated within 24 hours of the meeting,” said the first official, who pointed out the text in the Tenet memoir.
Tenet wrote about how after being briefed by his counterterrorism team on July 10 -- two months prior to the attacks -- “I picked up the big white secure phone on the left side of my desk -- the one with a direct line to Condi Rice -- and told her that I needed to see her immediately to provide an update on the al-Qaida threat.”
Tenet said he could not recall another time in his seven years as director of the CIA that he sought such an urgent meeting at the White House. Rice agreed to the meeting immediately, and 15 minutes later, he was in Rice’s office.
An analyst handed out the briefing packages Tenet and just seen and began to speak. “His opening line got everyone’s attention,” he wrote, “in part because it left no room for misunderstanding: ‘There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months’!”
The team laid out in a series of slide, the concerns Tenet’s counterterrorism team had based on intelligence that included information “from the past 24 hours.” Citing his notes on the briefing, Tenet wrote, “A chart displayed seven specific pieces of intelligence gathered over the past twenty-four hours, all of them predicting an imminent attack. Among the items: Islamic extremists were traveling to Afghanistan in greater numbers, and there had been significant departures of extremist families from Yemen. Other signs pointed to new threats against U.S. interests in Lebanon, Morocco, and Mauritania.”
A second chart followed, listing a summation of the most chilling comments by al-Qaida. According to Tenet, they were:
• A mid-June statement from Osama bin Laden to trainees that there will be an attack in the near future.
• Information that talked about moving toward decisive acts.
• Late June information that cited a “big event” that was forthcoming.
• “Two separate bits of information collected only a few days before our meeting in which people were predicting a stunning turn of events in the weeks ahead.”
Another slide detailed how Chechen Islamic terrorist leader Ibn Kattab had promised some “very big news” to his troops.
There were more details, as laid out by one of Tenet’s top analysts, known in the book as “Rich B.” Tenet recounts his aide telling Rice and others, “The attack will be ‘spectacular.’ and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities and interests. ‘Attack preparations have been made,’ he said. ‘Multiple and simultaneous attacks are possible, and they will occur with little or no warning. Al-Qaida is waiting us out and looking for vulnerability.”
Rice, Tenet wrote, reacted positively to the briefing and asked her counter terrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, if he agreed with the assessment. Clarke said he did, and Tenet said he and his aides left the meeting feeling that Rice understood the threat. However, he wrote, the White House never followed up on the presidential finding that Tenet had been asking for since March, authorizing broader covert action against al-Qaida. That finding was signed by President Bush on Sept. 17, six days after the attacks.
Roger Cressey, who was Clarke’s deputy and is now an NBC News counter terrorism analyst, says one thing that is missing from Tenet’s description of the events is that the intelligence pointed to overseas attacks. although CIA did tell officials that they couldn’t discount an attack on the US homeland.
“Everything we had (from US intelligence) pointed overseas, specifically to the Gulf,” he said. “There was no actionable intelligence that pointed to the homeland. What we did know, and what we told domestic agencies, was there was "a disturbance in the force” and we were very worried about an attack.
Still, Cressey remains critical of the lack of a response going back to the first week of the administration, saying the counterterrorism team at the National Security Council and experts elsewhere in the government were “butting our heads against the wall” in an effort to get a meaningful response from the White House.
Would action by the White House have helped? Like Eichenwald, Cressey says he isn’t sure, but notes that when similar intelligence pointed to attacks on Jan. 1, 2000, “Sandy Berger (Rice’s predecessor) and (President Bill) Clinton went to battle stations.” Did warnings prior to the millennium help thwart a number of attacks back then? Cressey believes they did.
One intelligence official also noted that after the interception of the July intelligence, there was little conversation on the al-Qaida communications network prior to Sept. 11. It wasn’t until much later U.S. intelligence understood why. “They laid low because they were waiting for Congress to come back in session,” the official said.
The reason, he said: United Flight 93 was headed for the U.S. Capitol when passengers tried to thwart the hijacking and the plane bound for Washington crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pa.
Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.
By Robert Windrem
NBC News
September 11, 2012
Video: Author Kurt Eichenwald talks about what the White House knew leading up to the attacks and how they used the intelligence information in the months after.
On the 11th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, there is mounting evidence that the Bush administration received more intelligence warnings than previously known prior to the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000. Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter, wrote in an op-ed piece in Tuesday’s newspaper about a number of previously unknown warnings relayed to the White House by U.S. intelligence in the weeks and months prior to the attacks.
Eichenwald wrote of the warnings in his new book, “500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.”
And former US intelligence officials say there were even more warnings, pointing to a little noticed section of George Tenet’s memoir, “At the Center of the Storm.”
In it, Tenet describes a July 10, 2001, meeting at the White House in the office of Condoleezza Rice, then President George W. Bush’s national security adviser. The meeting was not discussed in the 9-11 Commission’s final report on the attacks, although Tenet wrote that he provided information on it to the commission.
What’s critical to understanding the difference between this meeting and others, says one former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, is that the intelligence provided that day was fresh, some of it having been collected the previous day. And other intelligence and national security officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity, say the briefings make clear that, while Bush administration officials understood the nature of the threat, they didn’t understand its magnitude and urgency.
“This intelligence delivered on July 10 was specific and was generated within 24 hours of the meeting,” said the first official, who pointed out the text in the Tenet memoir.
Tenet wrote about how after being briefed by his counterterrorism team on July 10 -- two months prior to the attacks -- “I picked up the big white secure phone on the left side of my desk -- the one with a direct line to Condi Rice -- and told her that I needed to see her immediately to provide an update on the al-Qaida threat.”
Tenet said he could not recall another time in his seven years as director of the CIA that he sought such an urgent meeting at the White House. Rice agreed to the meeting immediately, and 15 minutes later, he was in Rice’s office.
An analyst handed out the briefing packages Tenet and just seen and began to speak. “His opening line got everyone’s attention,” he wrote, “in part because it left no room for misunderstanding: ‘There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months’!”
The team laid out in a series of slide, the concerns Tenet’s counterterrorism team had based on intelligence that included information “from the past 24 hours.” Citing his notes on the briefing, Tenet wrote, “A chart displayed seven specific pieces of intelligence gathered over the past twenty-four hours, all of them predicting an imminent attack. Among the items: Islamic extremists were traveling to Afghanistan in greater numbers, and there had been significant departures of extremist families from Yemen. Other signs pointed to new threats against U.S. interests in Lebanon, Morocco, and Mauritania.”
A second chart followed, listing a summation of the most chilling comments by al-Qaida. According to Tenet, they were:
• A mid-June statement from Osama bin Laden to trainees that there will be an attack in the near future.
• Information that talked about moving toward decisive acts.
• Late June information that cited a “big event” that was forthcoming.
• “Two separate bits of information collected only a few days before our meeting in which people were predicting a stunning turn of events in the weeks ahead.”
Another slide detailed how Chechen Islamic terrorist leader Ibn Kattab had promised some “very big news” to his troops.
There were more details, as laid out by one of Tenet’s top analysts, known in the book as “Rich B.” Tenet recounts his aide telling Rice and others, “The attack will be ‘spectacular.’ and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities and interests. ‘Attack preparations have been made,’ he said. ‘Multiple and simultaneous attacks are possible, and they will occur with little or no warning. Al-Qaida is waiting us out and looking for vulnerability.”
Rice, Tenet wrote, reacted positively to the briefing and asked her counter terrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, if he agreed with the assessment. Clarke said he did, and Tenet said he and his aides left the meeting feeling that Rice understood the threat. However, he wrote, the White House never followed up on the presidential finding that Tenet had been asking for since March, authorizing broader covert action against al-Qaida. That finding was signed by President Bush on Sept. 17, six days after the attacks.
Roger Cressey, who was Clarke’s deputy and is now an NBC News counter terrorism analyst, says one thing that is missing from Tenet’s description of the events is that the intelligence pointed to overseas attacks. although CIA did tell officials that they couldn’t discount an attack on the US homeland.
“Everything we had (from US intelligence) pointed overseas, specifically to the Gulf,” he said. “There was no actionable intelligence that pointed to the homeland. What we did know, and what we told domestic agencies, was there was "a disturbance in the force” and we were very worried about an attack.
Still, Cressey remains critical of the lack of a response going back to the first week of the administration, saying the counterterrorism team at the National Security Council and experts elsewhere in the government were “butting our heads against the wall” in an effort to get a meaningful response from the White House.
Would action by the White House have helped? Like Eichenwald, Cressey says he isn’t sure, but notes that when similar intelligence pointed to attacks on Jan. 1, 2000, “Sandy Berger (Rice’s predecessor) and (President Bill) Clinton went to battle stations.” Did warnings prior to the millennium help thwart a number of attacks back then? Cressey believes they did.
One intelligence official also noted that after the interception of the July intelligence, there was little conversation on the al-Qaida communications network prior to Sept. 11. It wasn’t until much later U.S. intelligence understood why. “They laid low because they were waiting for Congress to come back in session,” the official said.
The reason, he said: United Flight 93 was headed for the U.S. Capitol when passengers tried to thwart the hijacking and the plane bound for Washington crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pa.
Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Family feud eyed in grisly killings in French Alps
Many people are afraid of those who look different, or believe different things. But very often in this world it's brother against brother, especially when an inheritance is involved.
Family feud eyed in grisly killings in French Alps
By Jamey Keaten
Business Week
September 07, 2012
ANNECY, France (AP) — The brother of an Iraqi-born British man shot dead in the French Alps with his wife and two other people came forward to British police on Friday and denied any conflict in the family, while investigators looked into a possible money dispute among the siblings, a French prosecutor said.
Two days after the killings, authorities identified the dead as mechanical design engineer Saad al Hilli and his wife, Ikbal, based partly on the testimony of their 4-year-old daughter Zeena, who survived unhurt by hiding under her mother's skirt as some 25 automatic-handgun rounds were fired.
French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, whom authorities suspect was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was also killed in Wednesday's rampage. Investigators were working to identify a fourth victim, an elderly, Iraqi-born Swedish woman also inside the family's vehicle.
French authorities, cautious about tipping off the culprit or culprits, offered only a trickle of clues about the investigation.
Eric Maillaud, the prosecutor in nearby Annecy, said British police reported that Saad may have feuded with his brother Zaid over money.
On Friday, after learning about media reports that cited authorities' suspicion about a possible family dispute, Zaid went to British police and told them, "I have no conflict with my brother," according to Maillaud.
"This brother came forward spontaneously to investigators, first to ask simply about the state of his brother because he heard through British media that his brother was dead," Maillaud said.
But Mae Faisal El-Wailly, a childhood friend of the brothers, made available a letter written to her by Saad last year that alluded to a possible inheritance dispute. She said the brothers' father had died recently, and she described the family as wealthy and well-traveled.
"Zaid and I do not communicate any more as he is another control freak and tried a lot of underhanded things even when my father was alive," Saad wrote. The letter was dated Sept. 16, 2011.
"He tried to take control of fathers assets and demanded control," the letter says. "(A)nyway it is a long story and now I have just had to wipe him out of my life. Sad but I need to concentrate now on my wife and two lovely girls ..."
Public records show Zaid resigned from Saad's small aeronautics design firm, Shtech Ltd., last year.
Maillaud said he had not heard about any possible inheritance issue and that Zaid remains "a free man."
The prosecutor also said it was a "miracle" that the dead couple's other daughter, 7-year-old Zaina, who was shot in the shoulder and beaten, survived. She remained unconscious Friday in a medically induced coma in a Grenoble hospital, under close police guard...
Family feud eyed in grisly killings in French Alps
By Jamey Keaten
Business Week
September 07, 2012
ANNECY, France (AP) — The brother of an Iraqi-born British man shot dead in the French Alps with his wife and two other people came forward to British police on Friday and denied any conflict in the family, while investigators looked into a possible money dispute among the siblings, a French prosecutor said.
Two days after the killings, authorities identified the dead as mechanical design engineer Saad al Hilli and his wife, Ikbal, based partly on the testimony of their 4-year-old daughter Zeena, who survived unhurt by hiding under her mother's skirt as some 25 automatic-handgun rounds were fired.
French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, whom authorities suspect was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was also killed in Wednesday's rampage. Investigators were working to identify a fourth victim, an elderly, Iraqi-born Swedish woman also inside the family's vehicle.
French authorities, cautious about tipping off the culprit or culprits, offered only a trickle of clues about the investigation.
Eric Maillaud, the prosecutor in nearby Annecy, said British police reported that Saad may have feuded with his brother Zaid over money.
On Friday, after learning about media reports that cited authorities' suspicion about a possible family dispute, Zaid went to British police and told them, "I have no conflict with my brother," according to Maillaud.
"This brother came forward spontaneously to investigators, first to ask simply about the state of his brother because he heard through British media that his brother was dead," Maillaud said.
But Mae Faisal El-Wailly, a childhood friend of the brothers, made available a letter written to her by Saad last year that alluded to a possible inheritance dispute. She said the brothers' father had died recently, and she described the family as wealthy and well-traveled.
"Zaid and I do not communicate any more as he is another control freak and tried a lot of underhanded things even when my father was alive," Saad wrote. The letter was dated Sept. 16, 2011.
"He tried to take control of fathers assets and demanded control," the letter says. "(A)nyway it is a long story and now I have just had to wipe him out of my life. Sad but I need to concentrate now on my wife and two lovely girls ..."
Public records show Zaid resigned from Saad's small aeronautics design firm, Shtech Ltd., last year.
Maillaud said he had not heard about any possible inheritance issue and that Zaid remains "a free man."
The prosecutor also said it was a "miracle" that the dead couple's other daughter, 7-year-old Zaina, who was shot in the shoulder and beaten, survived. She remained unconscious Friday in a medically induced coma in a Grenoble hospital, under close police guard...
Thursday, September 06, 2012
World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder
By David Lazarus
LA Times
August 30, 2012
Just in case you were beginning to think rich people were deeply misunderstood and that they feel the pain of those who are less fortunate, here's the world's wealthiest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, with some helpful advice.
"If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain," she said in a magazine piece. "Do something to make more money yourself -- spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working."
Yeah, let them eat cake.
Rinehart made her money the old-fashioned way: She inherited it.
Her family iron ore prospecting fortune of $30.1 billion makes her Australia's wealthiest person and the richest woman on the planet.
"There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she said by way of encouragement.
"Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others."
Boom. Almost too easy.
Why are people poor? Rinehart blamed what she described as "socialist," anti-business government policies, and urged Australian officials to lower the minimum wage and cut taxes.
"The millionaires and billionaires who choose to invest in Australia are actually those who most help the poor and our young," she said. "This secret needs to be spread widely."
And now it's out there.
Thank you, rich people. We're not worthy.
Richest woman: Africans who work for $2 a day are an inspiration
Andy Johnson
CTVNews.ca
Sep. 5, 2012
The world's richest woman isn't backing away from earlier remarks that poor Australians should smoke and drink less, in fact she's issued a new statement praising Africans who are willing to work for just $2 a day.
Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart made the comments in a rare video statement. "We must get realistic, not just promote class warfare. Indeed if we competed at the Olympic Games as sluggishly as we compete economically there would be an outcry," said the woman who inherited her family's iron ore fortune.
She went on to urge her country to look to Africa for inspiration and guidance. "Africans want to work and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 a day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future," Rinehart said.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard quickly dismissed the comments.
"It's not the Australian way to toss people $2, a two-dollar gold coin, and then ask them to work for the day. We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions for Australian people," Gillard told reporters.
Things we learned from Day Two of the DNC
Five things we learned from Day Two of the DNC
By Peter Hamby, Ashley Killough and Paul Steinhauser
CNN
September 6, 2012
...[#5]Paul Ryan a bigger thorn in Romney's side than Bain?
Mitt Romney faced a tsunami of attacks this summer over his business background and former private equity firm, Bain Capital. A pro-Obama super PAC particularly hammered Romney, spending $20 million on commercials in crucial swing states painting Romney as a greedy corporate raider.
And while speakers addressed Bain during prime time, Democrats seemed to be more fired up about another target Wednesday night: his running mate.
Fact or fiction? Paul Ryan's RNC speech
Speech after speech dealt several zings at Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan, a proposal widely backed by the GOP and one that favors tax cuts coupled with large entitlement cuts.
Sister Simone Campbell especially hammered home the point. The nun has led other nuns on a nine-state bus tour this summer, campaigning against Ryan's plan as a measure that stands in the way of the church's moral teachings.
"Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are correct when they say that each individual should be responsible. But their budget goes astray in not acknowledging that we are responsible not only for ourselves and our immediate families," she said. "Rather, our faith strongly affirms that we are all responsible for one another."
Her comments were carried further by U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who serves on the same House Budget Committee chaired by Ryan. Van Hollen, who's been tapped to play the role of Ryan in debate prep for Vice President Joe Biden, said Romney and Ryan's "obsession with tax breaks for the wealthy is part of a rigid ideology."
"But this theory crashed in the real world. We all lived through the recession when jobs went down and the deficit went up," he said. "So when they say they'll turn around the economy, beware. They mean a U-turn back to this failed theory that lifted the yachts while other boats ran aground."
Wednesday night's program certainly highlighted Romney's time at Bain, especially when three laid-off workers took the stage to blast the GOP nominee as a heartless businessman motivated only by profit.
But a stronger theme threaded throughout the night could be found in Ryan's sweeping budget proposals and Democrats' fervent opposition to it.
Political observers say Romney's pick in Ryan was risky, given the congressman's highly polarizing policy proposals. Watching the convention this week, it seems those attacks fuel plenty of fire against Romney, one that may not die down anytime soon.
By Peter Hamby, Ashley Killough and Paul Steinhauser
CNN
September 6, 2012
...[#5]Paul Ryan a bigger thorn in Romney's side than Bain?
Mitt Romney faced a tsunami of attacks this summer over his business background and former private equity firm, Bain Capital. A pro-Obama super PAC particularly hammered Romney, spending $20 million on commercials in crucial swing states painting Romney as a greedy corporate raider.
And while speakers addressed Bain during prime time, Democrats seemed to be more fired up about another target Wednesday night: his running mate.
Fact or fiction? Paul Ryan's RNC speech
Speech after speech dealt several zings at Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan, a proposal widely backed by the GOP and one that favors tax cuts coupled with large entitlement cuts.
Sister Simone Campbell especially hammered home the point. The nun has led other nuns on a nine-state bus tour this summer, campaigning against Ryan's plan as a measure that stands in the way of the church's moral teachings.
"Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are correct when they say that each individual should be responsible. But their budget goes astray in not acknowledging that we are responsible not only for ourselves and our immediate families," she said. "Rather, our faith strongly affirms that we are all responsible for one another."
Her comments were carried further by U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who serves on the same House Budget Committee chaired by Ryan. Van Hollen, who's been tapped to play the role of Ryan in debate prep for Vice President Joe Biden, said Romney and Ryan's "obsession with tax breaks for the wealthy is part of a rigid ideology."
"But this theory crashed in the real world. We all lived through the recession when jobs went down and the deficit went up," he said. "So when they say they'll turn around the economy, beware. They mean a U-turn back to this failed theory that lifted the yachts while other boats ran aground."
Wednesday night's program certainly highlighted Romney's time at Bain, especially when three laid-off workers took the stage to blast the GOP nominee as a heartless businessman motivated only by profit.
But a stronger theme threaded throughout the night could be found in Ryan's sweeping budget proposals and Democrats' fervent opposition to it.
Political observers say Romney's pick in Ryan was risky, given the congressman's highly polarizing policy proposals. Watching the convention this week, it seems those attacks fuel plenty of fire against Romney, one that may not die down anytime soon.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Why Do Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan Tell Small, Dumb Lies?
Why Do Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan Tell Small, Dumb Lies?
Robert Schlesinger
US News and World Report
September 1, 2012
Paul Ryan caught a lot of guff last week—correctly—for delivering a vice presidential acceptance speech which was festooned with lies and false assertions. It was so bad that when the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein and his staff scoured the speech looking for truth, lies, and misleading statements—they produced a grand total of two “true” policy items. Two.
But what intrigues me today isn’t the big lies like the ones for which Ryan has been excoriated recently. Right now I’m more interested in the smaller variety of lie whose triviality raises questions about their deployment. I’ll give you two examples.
Ryan caught notice last week when he told the conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had run a sub-three hour marathon. This is apparently an impressive enough figure that Runner’s World wanted to find out more. What they found out was that his actual personal best time was a hair over four hours. I’m no runner (I follow my wife’s dictum: Run only when chased), but even I know that a difference of more than an hour in a marathon time is a big deal.
So why tell the lie?
As James Fallows writes:
You're on a nationwide show. You're one of the handful of people most prominently in the national eye. You know that everything you say is going to be recorded, parsed, and examined. And still -- last week, not at a freshman mixer or in a Jaycees speech somewhere -- you happily reel off a claim that is impressive enough to get people's interest and admiration, and specific enough to be easily testable.
I don't understand this. I can understand, while obviously deploring, why Bill Clinton brazenly said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" on national TV. It was a flat-out lie that to him might have seemed necessary to his survival. I can understand the little embellishments politicians and everyone else make -- especially when these occur in early days of the campaign, or in odd corners where you think no one is listening.
Or I’ll give a more contemporary large-lie example: I understand why Romney has made a fabrication about President Obama’s welfare policy a centerpiece of its campaign; I condemn it, but I can see the anything-to-win reasoning behind it (for more, see Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s blunt explanation).
But if big lies have a purpose, what’s the point of trivial untruths?
Here’s another example, from way back in November. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer opened a GOP presidential debate he was moderating by telling the crowd that “yes, that’s my real name.” Romney in turn introduced himself by saying, “I'm Mitt Romney and yes, Wolf, that's also my first name.” Except that it’s not. His first name is in fact Willard.
So what was the point of claiming otherwise?
This isn’t a partisan thing. I’m not trying to draw conclusions about Ryan’s and Romney’s personal veracity here (though I think there’s an abundance of evidence that their campaign is setting a new standard for political mendacity). I’m just really curious—why tell small, dumb lies?
Robert Schlesinger
US News and World Report
September 1, 2012
Paul Ryan caught a lot of guff last week—correctly—for delivering a vice presidential acceptance speech which was festooned with lies and false assertions. It was so bad that when the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein and his staff scoured the speech looking for truth, lies, and misleading statements—they produced a grand total of two “true” policy items. Two.
But what intrigues me today isn’t the big lies like the ones for which Ryan has been excoriated recently. Right now I’m more interested in the smaller variety of lie whose triviality raises questions about their deployment. I’ll give you two examples.
Ryan caught notice last week when he told the conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had run a sub-three hour marathon. This is apparently an impressive enough figure that Runner’s World wanted to find out more. What they found out was that his actual personal best time was a hair over four hours. I’m no runner (I follow my wife’s dictum: Run only when chased), but even I know that a difference of more than an hour in a marathon time is a big deal.
So why tell the lie?
As James Fallows writes:
You're on a nationwide show. You're one of the handful of people most prominently in the national eye. You know that everything you say is going to be recorded, parsed, and examined. And still -- last week, not at a freshman mixer or in a Jaycees speech somewhere -- you happily reel off a claim that is impressive enough to get people's interest and admiration, and specific enough to be easily testable.
I don't understand this. I can understand, while obviously deploring, why Bill Clinton brazenly said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" on national TV. It was a flat-out lie that to him might have seemed necessary to his survival. I can understand the little embellishments politicians and everyone else make -- especially when these occur in early days of the campaign, or in odd corners where you think no one is listening.
Or I’ll give a more contemporary large-lie example: I understand why Romney has made a fabrication about President Obama’s welfare policy a centerpiece of its campaign; I condemn it, but I can see the anything-to-win reasoning behind it (for more, see Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s blunt explanation).
But if big lies have a purpose, what’s the point of trivial untruths?
Here’s another example, from way back in November. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer opened a GOP presidential debate he was moderating by telling the crowd that “yes, that’s my real name.” Romney in turn introduced himself by saying, “I'm Mitt Romney and yes, Wolf, that's also my first name.” Except that it’s not. His first name is in fact Willard.
So what was the point of claiming otherwise?
This isn’t a partisan thing. I’m not trying to draw conclusions about Ryan’s and Romney’s personal veracity here (though I think there’s an abundance of evidence that their campaign is setting a new standard for political mendacity). I’m just really curious—why tell small, dumb lies?
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Cleric held in blasphemy case for adding burned Quran pages to evidence against girl
Cleric held in blasphemy case
iAfrica.com
02 Sep 2012
A Pakistani cleric who accused a young Christian girl of blasphemy in a case that sparked international concern was remanded in custody Sunday on suspicion of evidence-tampering and desecrating the Quran.
The girl, Rimsha, has been held in prison since being arrested in the poor Islamabad suburb of Mehrabad more than two weeks ago accused of burning papers containing verses from the Koran, in breach of Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws.
A medical report last week said she had a mental age of less than 14 and her case has prompted concern among Western governments and anger from rights groups who say Pakistan's strict blasphemy legislation is often abused to settle personal scores.
Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, the imam of the mosque in Rimsha's area, who first gave police the burned papers as evidence against her, was detained by police on Saturday evening.
"The imam was arrested after his deputy Maulvi Zubair and two others told a magistrate he added pages from the Koran to the burnt pages brought to him by a witness," police investigator Munir Hussain Jaffri said.
Zubair and the two others, Mohammad Shahzad and Awais Ahmed, said they had urged Chishti not to interfere with the papers, Jaffri said.
"They protested that he should not add something to the evidence and he should give the evidence to the police as he got it and should not do this," Jaffri said.
"But they said Chishti said, 'You know this is the only way to expel the Christians from this area.'"
On August 24 Chishti told AFP he thought Rimsha had burned the pages deliberately as part of a Christian "conspiracy" to insult Muslims, and said action should have been taken sooner to stop what he called their "anti-Islam activities" in Mehrabad.
Jaffri said the cleric was arrested at his home on Saturday under the blasphemy law.
"By putting these pages in the ashes he also committed desecration of the Holy Quran and he is being charged with blasphemy," he said...
iAfrica.com
02 Sep 2012
A Pakistani cleric who accused a young Christian girl of blasphemy in a case that sparked international concern was remanded in custody Sunday on suspicion of evidence-tampering and desecrating the Quran.
The girl, Rimsha, has been held in prison since being arrested in the poor Islamabad suburb of Mehrabad more than two weeks ago accused of burning papers containing verses from the Koran, in breach of Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws.
A medical report last week said she had a mental age of less than 14 and her case has prompted concern among Western governments and anger from rights groups who say Pakistan's strict blasphemy legislation is often abused to settle personal scores.
Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, the imam of the mosque in Rimsha's area, who first gave police the burned papers as evidence against her, was detained by police on Saturday evening.
"The imam was arrested after his deputy Maulvi Zubair and two others told a magistrate he added pages from the Koran to the burnt pages brought to him by a witness," police investigator Munir Hussain Jaffri said.
Zubair and the two others, Mohammad Shahzad and Awais Ahmed, said they had urged Chishti not to interfere with the papers, Jaffri said.
"They protested that he should not add something to the evidence and he should give the evidence to the police as he got it and should not do this," Jaffri said.
"But they said Chishti said, 'You know this is the only way to expel the Christians from this area.'"
On August 24 Chishti told AFP he thought Rimsha had burned the pages deliberately as part of a Christian "conspiracy" to insult Muslims, and said action should have been taken sooner to stop what he called their "anti-Islam activities" in Mehrabad.
Jaffri said the cleric was arrested at his home on Saturday under the blasphemy law.
"By putting these pages in the ashes he also committed desecration of the Holy Quran and he is being charged with blasphemy," he said...
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Murder charges stun and enrage South African miners
UPDATE:
Murder Charges Dropped Against South African Miners
By LYDIA POLGREEN
September 2, 2012
JOHANNESBURG – Prosecutors provisionally dropped murder charges against the 270 jailed miners who had been accused under an obscure legal doctrine of killing 34 of their own colleagues when the police opened fire on them while engaged in a wildcat strike.
The police fired live ammunition into a crowd of about 3,000 platinum miners armed with clubs and machetes while trying to disperse the illegal strike on Aug. 16. When the firing stopped, 34 miners were dead and South Africa was outraged by the bloodiest confrontation between police and civilians since the end of apartheid. The police have claimed they acted in self-defense.
The outrage grew when prosecutors announced last week that under a legal doctrine known as “common purpose,” the miners themselves would be charged with murdering their colleagues. Under the doctrine, which was frequently used in the waning days of apartheid to charge members of protesting crowds with serious crimes committed by a few individuals, people in a mob can be charged as accomplices.
In a hastily arranged news conference Sunday, officials from the National Prosecuting Authority said that they would await the outcome of further investigations into the shootings, but did not rule out bringing murder charges again...
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Murder charges stun and enrage South African miners
LYDIA POLGREEN
LUANDA — The New York Times News Service
Aug. 30 2012
Two weeks after the police opened fire on a crowd of 3,000 workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine near Johannesburg, killing 34 people in the bloodiest labour unrest since the end of apartheid, prosecutors are bringing murder charges against a surprising set of suspects: the miners themselves.
Using an obscure legal doctrine frequently relied upon by the apartheid government in its dying days, prosecutors did not accuse the police officers who shot and killed the strikers as they surged forward, machetes in hand. Instead, officials said Thursday that they were pursuing murder charges against the 270 miners who were arrested after the dust settled and the shooting stopped.
It was the latest astonishing turn in a saga that has gripped South Africa, unleashing a torrent of rage over deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment.
The shootings have fed a growing sense of betrayal at the country’s governing party, the venerable African National Congress, many of whose senior members have joined a wealthy elite a world away from the downtrodden masses whose votes brought them to office at the end of apartheid in 1994. Now the prosecutors’ decision to charge the miners in the killings threatened to intensify that rift.
Murder Charges Dropped Against South African Miners
By LYDIA POLGREEN
September 2, 2012
JOHANNESBURG – Prosecutors provisionally dropped murder charges against the 270 jailed miners who had been accused under an obscure legal doctrine of killing 34 of their own colleagues when the police opened fire on them while engaged in a wildcat strike.
The police fired live ammunition into a crowd of about 3,000 platinum miners armed with clubs and machetes while trying to disperse the illegal strike on Aug. 16. When the firing stopped, 34 miners were dead and South Africa was outraged by the bloodiest confrontation between police and civilians since the end of apartheid. The police have claimed they acted in self-defense.
The outrage grew when prosecutors announced last week that under a legal doctrine known as “common purpose,” the miners themselves would be charged with murdering their colleagues. Under the doctrine, which was frequently used in the waning days of apartheid to charge members of protesting crowds with serious crimes committed by a few individuals, people in a mob can be charged as accomplices.
In a hastily arranged news conference Sunday, officials from the National Prosecuting Authority said that they would await the outcome of further investigations into the shootings, but did not rule out bringing murder charges again...
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Murder charges stun and enrage South African miners
LYDIA POLGREEN
LUANDA — The New York Times News Service
Aug. 30 2012
Two weeks after the police opened fire on a crowd of 3,000 workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine near Johannesburg, killing 34 people in the bloodiest labour unrest since the end of apartheid, prosecutors are bringing murder charges against a surprising set of suspects: the miners themselves.
Using an obscure legal doctrine frequently relied upon by the apartheid government in its dying days, prosecutors did not accuse the police officers who shot and killed the strikers as they surged forward, machetes in hand. Instead, officials said Thursday that they were pursuing murder charges against the 270 miners who were arrested after the dust settled and the shooting stopped.
It was the latest astonishing turn in a saga that has gripped South Africa, unleashing a torrent of rage over deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment.
The shootings have fed a growing sense of betrayal at the country’s governing party, the venerable African National Congress, many of whose senior members have joined a wealthy elite a world away from the downtrodden masses whose votes brought them to office at the end of apartheid in 1994. Now the prosecutors’ decision to charge the miners in the killings threatened to intensify that rift.
Mitt Romney comes out as a birther; wants to be birther-in-chief
See also post about Mitt Romney's foreign-born father.
Obama Makes Birther Joke
The Daily Beast
Sept. 8, 2012
First he owned Obamacare, next birther attacks? At a stop on the campaign trail in Orlando on Saturday, Obama poked fun at the birther conspiracy theories that have plagued his presidency.
An adult told the president that a young boy at their table in a local sports bar was born in Hawaii. “You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?” Obama joked, to laughter from the table.
Mitt Romney recently came under fire after making a birther joke during a rally, which the Obama campaign jumped at, saying, “America doesn’t need a birther in chief.”
Romney's 'birther' line is no joke CNN.com
By Donna Brazile
CNN.com
August 27, 2012
"No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that I was born and raised."
With that comment to a crowd in Michigan, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney officially embraced the "birther" movement and touched off a firestorm of protest across the airwaves and internet...
As I said, we shouldn't be surprised by Romney's remark. Trying to pretend that somehow Obama is not an American-born leader, or questioning his patrioism, or his values by using the Big Lie often speaks in code. But let's decode some of the implications:
-- Show us your birth certificate, but I won't show you my tax returns.
-- You need to prove your identity to vote, but my super PAC allies don't need to identify their donors.
-- I'll lie about Obama's plans, but won't explain my own.
-- I'll blame Obama for the problems he didn't cause, and take credit for his solutions that work.
Romney's birther remark was less a surprise than a confirmation that his moral compass is off center.
Mr. Romney, America's not an aristocracy. It's not where you were born -- in a cabin or a mansion -- or how you were raised -- in poverty by a single parent or with money and privilege -- that matters.
It matters where you go and what you do. It's who you help, what you're willing to sacrifice, and how honest you are.
Obama Makes Birther Joke
The Daily Beast
Sept. 8, 2012
First he owned Obamacare, next birther attacks? At a stop on the campaign trail in Orlando on Saturday, Obama poked fun at the birther conspiracy theories that have plagued his presidency.
An adult told the president that a young boy at their table in a local sports bar was born in Hawaii. “You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?” Obama joked, to laughter from the table.
Mitt Romney recently came under fire after making a birther joke during a rally, which the Obama campaign jumped at, saying, “America doesn’t need a birther in chief.”
Romney's 'birther' line is no joke CNN.com
By Donna Brazile
CNN.com
August 27, 2012
"No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that I was born and raised."
With that comment to a crowd in Michigan, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney officially embraced the "birther" movement and touched off a firestorm of protest across the airwaves and internet...
As I said, we shouldn't be surprised by Romney's remark. Trying to pretend that somehow Obama is not an American-born leader, or questioning his patrioism, or his values by using the Big Lie often speaks in code. But let's decode some of the implications:
-- Show us your birth certificate, but I won't show you my tax returns.
-- You need to prove your identity to vote, but my super PAC allies don't need to identify their donors.
-- I'll lie about Obama's plans, but won't explain my own.
-- I'll blame Obama for the problems he didn't cause, and take credit for his solutions that work.
Romney's birther remark was less a surprise than a confirmation that his moral compass is off center.
Mr. Romney, America's not an aristocracy. It's not where you were born -- in a cabin or a mansion -- or how you were raised -- in poverty by a single parent or with money and privilege -- that matters.
It matters where you go and what you do. It's who you help, what you're willing to sacrifice, and how honest you are.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The Veil of Opulence
The Veil of Opulence
By BENJAMIN HALE
The New York Times
August 12, 2012
More than 40 years ago the philosopher John Rawls, in his influential political work “A Theory of Justice,” implored the people of the world to shed themselves of their selfish predispositions and to assume, for the sake of argument, that they were ignorant. He imposed this unwelcome constraint not so that his readers — mostly intellectuals, but also students, politicians and policy makers — would find themselves in a position of moribund stupidity but rather so they could get a grip on fairness.
Rawls saw clearly that principles of justice like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion.
Rawls charged his readers to design a society from the ground up, from an original position, and he imposed the ignorance constraint so that readers would abandon any foreknowledge of their particular social status — their wealth, their health, their natural talents, their opportunities or any other goodies that the cosmos may have thrown their way.
In doing so, he hoped to identify principles of justice that would best help individuals maximize their potential, fulfill their objectives (whatever they may happen to be) and live a good life. He called this presumption the “veil of ignorance.”
...Meanwhile, we give little thought to how challenging this can be for those who suffer from chronic illnesses or disabling conditions. What Rawls also saw clearly was that other classic principles of justice, like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion precisely because we tend to do this.
Nowadays, the veil of ignorance is challenged by a powerful but ancient contender: the veil of opulence. While no serious political philosopher actually defends such a device — the term is my own — the veil of opulence runs thick in our political discourse. Where the veil of ignorance offers a test for fairness from an impersonal, universal point of view — “What system would I want if I had no idea who I was going to be, or what talents and resources I was going to have?” — the veil of opulence offers a test for fairness from the first-person, partial point of view: “What system would I want if I were so-and-so?” These two doctrines of fairness — the universal view and the first-person view — are both compelling in their own way, but only one of them offers moral clarity impartial enough to guide our policy decisions.
Those who don the veil of opulence may imagine themselves to be fantastically wealthy movie stars or extremely successful business entrepreneurs. They vote and set policies according to this fantasy. “If I were such and such a wealthy person,” they ask, “how would I feel about giving X percentage of my income, or Y real dollars per year, to pay for services that I will never see nor use?”
We see this repeatedly in our tax policy discussions, and we have just seen the latest instance of it in the Tax Policy Center’s comparison of President Obama’s tax plan versus Mitt Romney’s tax plan. “He’s asking you to pay more so that people like him can pay less,” Obama said last week, “so that people like me pay less.” Last Monday he drove the point even harder, saying that Romney’s plan is like “Robin Hood in reverse.” And certainly, Romney’s selection on Saturday of Paul Ryan as his running mate will keep this issue in the forefront of our political discourse.
Of course, the veil of opulence is not limited to tax policy. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia advanced related logic in their oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act in March. “[T]he mandate is forcing these [young] people,” Justice Alito said, “to provide a huge subsidy to the insurance companies … to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else.” By suggesting in this way that the policy was unfair, Alito encouraged the court to assess the injustice themselves. “If you were healthy and young,” Justice Alito implied, “why should you be made to bear the burden of the sick and old?”
The answer to these questions, when posed in this way, is clear. It seems unfair, unjust, to be forced to pay so much more than someone of lesser means. We should all be free to use our money and our resources however we see fit. And so, the opulence argument for fairness gets off the ground.
It is one thing for the very well off to make these arguments. What is curious is that frequently the same people who pose these questions are not themselves wealthy, nor even particularly healthy.
Instead, they ask these questions under the supposition that they are insisting upon fairness. But the veil of opulence operates only under the guise of fairness. It is rather a distortion of fairness, by virtue of the partiality that it smuggles in. It asks not whether a policy is fair given the huge range of advantages or hardships the universe might throw at a person but rather whether it is fair that a very fortunate person should shoulder the burdens of others...
By BENJAMIN HALE
The New York Times
August 12, 2012
More than 40 years ago the philosopher John Rawls, in his influential political work “A Theory of Justice,” implored the people of the world to shed themselves of their selfish predispositions and to assume, for the sake of argument, that they were ignorant. He imposed this unwelcome constraint not so that his readers — mostly intellectuals, but also students, politicians and policy makers — would find themselves in a position of moribund stupidity but rather so they could get a grip on fairness.
Rawls saw clearly that principles of justice like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion.
Rawls charged his readers to design a society from the ground up, from an original position, and he imposed the ignorance constraint so that readers would abandon any foreknowledge of their particular social status — their wealth, their health, their natural talents, their opportunities or any other goodies that the cosmos may have thrown their way.
In doing so, he hoped to identify principles of justice that would best help individuals maximize their potential, fulfill their objectives (whatever they may happen to be) and live a good life. He called this presumption the “veil of ignorance.”
...Meanwhile, we give little thought to how challenging this can be for those who suffer from chronic illnesses or disabling conditions. What Rawls also saw clearly was that other classic principles of justice, like the golden rule or mutual benevolence, are subject to distortion precisely because we tend to do this.
Nowadays, the veil of ignorance is challenged by a powerful but ancient contender: the veil of opulence. While no serious political philosopher actually defends such a device — the term is my own — the veil of opulence runs thick in our political discourse. Where the veil of ignorance offers a test for fairness from an impersonal, universal point of view — “What system would I want if I had no idea who I was going to be, or what talents and resources I was going to have?” — the veil of opulence offers a test for fairness from the first-person, partial point of view: “What system would I want if I were so-and-so?” These two doctrines of fairness — the universal view and the first-person view — are both compelling in their own way, but only one of them offers moral clarity impartial enough to guide our policy decisions.
Those who don the veil of opulence may imagine themselves to be fantastically wealthy movie stars or extremely successful business entrepreneurs. They vote and set policies according to this fantasy. “If I were such and such a wealthy person,” they ask, “how would I feel about giving X percentage of my income, or Y real dollars per year, to pay for services that I will never see nor use?”
We see this repeatedly in our tax policy discussions, and we have just seen the latest instance of it in the Tax Policy Center’s comparison of President Obama’s tax plan versus Mitt Romney’s tax plan. “He’s asking you to pay more so that people like him can pay less,” Obama said last week, “so that people like me pay less.” Last Monday he drove the point even harder, saying that Romney’s plan is like “Robin Hood in reverse.” And certainly, Romney’s selection on Saturday of Paul Ryan as his running mate will keep this issue in the forefront of our political discourse.
Of course, the veil of opulence is not limited to tax policy. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia advanced related logic in their oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act in March. “[T]he mandate is forcing these [young] people,” Justice Alito said, “to provide a huge subsidy to the insurance companies … to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else.” By suggesting in this way that the policy was unfair, Alito encouraged the court to assess the injustice themselves. “If you were healthy and young,” Justice Alito implied, “why should you be made to bear the burden of the sick and old?”
The answer to these questions, when posed in this way, is clear. It seems unfair, unjust, to be forced to pay so much more than someone of lesser means. We should all be free to use our money and our resources however we see fit. And so, the opulence argument for fairness gets off the ground.
It is one thing for the very well off to make these arguments. What is curious is that frequently the same people who pose these questions are not themselves wealthy, nor even particularly healthy.
Instead, they ask these questions under the supposition that they are insisting upon fairness. But the veil of opulence operates only under the guise of fairness. It is rather a distortion of fairness, by virtue of the partiality that it smuggles in. It asks not whether a policy is fair given the huge range of advantages or hardships the universe might throw at a person but rather whether it is fair that a very fortunate person should shoulder the burdens of others...
California lawmaker promises fix after Israel flap
California lawmaker promises fix after Israel flap
HANNAH DREIER
Associated Press (AP)
August 29, 2012
A state lawmaker on Wednesday promised to introduce a fix to an Assembly resolution that stirred controversy a day earlier because it urged California colleges and universities to crack down on demonstrations against Israel.
Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal said she would work on a resolution that affirms free speech rights on campus when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
"I'm not sure what all it's going to say, but I think it will boil down to a celebration of the First Amendment," the Long Beach Democrat said in a statement. "And it will make clear in no uncertain terms that students in our universities should feel safe to have differing opinions."
Lowenthal and 66 of the Assembly's 80 lawmakers provoked a storm of criticism after they approved a resolution Tuesday that condemned anti-Semitism but also asked administrators at California's public colleges and universities to combat anti-Israel actions.
Republican Assemblywoman Linda Halderman did not mention Israel when she introduced House Resolution 35, which is symbolic and does not carry policy implications.
Most of the instances of anti-Semitism the resolution cited were related to the Israel-Palestine debate on college campuses. Among other things, it condemned the campaign to pressure the University of California system to divest from Israel and the suggestion by some students that Israel is a "racist" state.
Free-speech advocates and Muslim groups took umbrage because the resolution appeared to label criticism and protest of Israel as anti-Jewish hate speech. On Wednesday, several groups sent letters to lawmakers condemning the resolution, including the Council on American Islamic Relations, the National Lawyers Guild and Jewish Voice for Peace...
HANNAH DREIER
Associated Press (AP)
August 29, 2012
A state lawmaker on Wednesday promised to introduce a fix to an Assembly resolution that stirred controversy a day earlier because it urged California colleges and universities to crack down on demonstrations against Israel.
Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal said she would work on a resolution that affirms free speech rights on campus when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
"I'm not sure what all it's going to say, but I think it will boil down to a celebration of the First Amendment," the Long Beach Democrat said in a statement. "And it will make clear in no uncertain terms that students in our universities should feel safe to have differing opinions."
Lowenthal and 66 of the Assembly's 80 lawmakers provoked a storm of criticism after they approved a resolution Tuesday that condemned anti-Semitism but also asked administrators at California's public colleges and universities to combat anti-Israel actions.
Republican Assemblywoman Linda Halderman did not mention Israel when she introduced House Resolution 35, which is symbolic and does not carry policy implications.
Most of the instances of anti-Semitism the resolution cited were related to the Israel-Palestine debate on college campuses. Among other things, it condemned the campaign to pressure the University of California system to divest from Israel and the suggestion by some students that Israel is a "racist" state.
Free-speech advocates and Muslim groups took umbrage because the resolution appeared to label criticism and protest of Israel as anti-Jewish hate speech. On Wednesday, several groups sent letters to lawmakers condemning the resolution, including the Council on American Islamic Relations, the National Lawyers Guild and Jewish Voice for Peace...
Nut-throwers ejected from Republican National Convention
Here's the shocker: it wasn't protesters who threw the nuts.
Nut-throwers ejected from Republican National Convention
BBC
29 August 2012
Two attendees were ejected from Republican National Convention on Tuesday for throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman.
The individuals told her "this is how we feed animals" as they threw the nuts, multiple witness said.
Convention security and police removed the two from the convention centre shortly after the incident.
In a statement, convention officials said the attendees had "exhibited deplorable behaviour".
"Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated."
The identities of the two ejected was unclear. News broadcaster CNN confirmed the incident but had no additional comment.
The incident happened on Tuesday in the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where delegates officially nominated Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to face President Barack Obama in the November presidential election.
Nut-throwers ejected from Republican National Convention
BBC
29 August 2012
Two attendees were ejected from Republican National Convention on Tuesday for throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman.
The individuals told her "this is how we feed animals" as they threw the nuts, multiple witness said.
Convention security and police removed the two from the convention centre shortly after the incident.
In a statement, convention officials said the attendees had "exhibited deplorable behaviour".
"Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated."
The identities of the two ejected was unclear. News broadcaster CNN confirmed the incident but had no additional comment.
The incident happened on Tuesday in the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where delegates officially nominated Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to face President Barack Obama in the November presidential election.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Mitt Romney's "Son of Boss" reveals truth about Romney and taxes
Did Romney enable company's abusive tax shelter?
By Peter C. Canellos and Edward D. Kleinbard
August 8, 2012
(CNN)
Mitt Romney's refusal to release tax returns in the critical years of his income accumulation has done little to dispel the legitimate concern that arises from hints buried in his scant disclosure to date: Did he augment his wealth through highly aggressive tax stratagems of questionable validity?
Opinion: Why won't Romney release more tax returns?
One relevant line of inquiry, largely ignored so far, is to examine what exists in the public record regarding his attitude toward tax compliance and tax avoidance. While this examination is hampered because his dealings through his private equity company, Bain Capital, are kept shrouded, there are other indicators.
A key troubling public manifestation of Romney's apparent insensitivity to tax obligations is his role in Marriott International's abusive tax shelter activity.
Romney has had a close, long-standing, personal and business connection with Marriott International and its founders. He served as a member of the Marriott board of directors for many years. From 1993 to 1998, Romney was the head of the audit committee of the Marriott board.
During that period, Marriott engaged in a series of complex and high-profile maneuvers, including "Son of Boss," a notoriously abusive prepackaged tax shelter that investment banks and accounting firms marketed to corporations such as Marriott. In this respect, Marriott was in the vanguard of a then-emerging corporate tax shelter bubble that substantially undermined the entire corporate tax system.
Son of Boss and its related shelters represented perhaps the largest tax avoidance scheme in history, costing the U.S. many billions in lost corporate tax revenues. In response, the government initiated legal challenges that resulted in complete disallowance of the losses claimed by Marriott and other corporations.
In addition, the Son of Boss transaction was listed by the Internal Revenue Service as an abusive transaction, requiring specific disclosure and subject to heavy penalties. Statutory penalties were also made more stringent to deter future tax shelter activity. Finally, the government brought successful criminal prosecutions against a number of individuals involved in Son of Boss and related transactions not associated with Marriott, including principals at major law and accounting firms.
In his key role as chairman of the Marriott board's audit committee, Romney approved the firm's reporting of fictional tax losses exceeding $70 million generated by its Son of Boss transaction. His endorsement of this stratagem provides insight into Romney's professional ethics and attitude toward tax compliance obligations... Editor's note: Peter C. Canellos, a lawyer, is former chair of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section. Edward D. Kleinbard is a professor at Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California. He is the former chief of staff of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation.
By Peter C. Canellos and Edward D. Kleinbard
August 8, 2012
(CNN)
Mitt Romney's refusal to release tax returns in the critical years of his income accumulation has done little to dispel the legitimate concern that arises from hints buried in his scant disclosure to date: Did he augment his wealth through highly aggressive tax stratagems of questionable validity?
Opinion: Why won't Romney release more tax returns?
One relevant line of inquiry, largely ignored so far, is to examine what exists in the public record regarding his attitude toward tax compliance and tax avoidance. While this examination is hampered because his dealings through his private equity company, Bain Capital, are kept shrouded, there are other indicators.
A key troubling public manifestation of Romney's apparent insensitivity to tax obligations is his role in Marriott International's abusive tax shelter activity.
Romney has had a close, long-standing, personal and business connection with Marriott International and its founders. He served as a member of the Marriott board of directors for many years. From 1993 to 1998, Romney was the head of the audit committee of the Marriott board.
During that period, Marriott engaged in a series of complex and high-profile maneuvers, including "Son of Boss," a notoriously abusive prepackaged tax shelter that investment banks and accounting firms marketed to corporations such as Marriott. In this respect, Marriott was in the vanguard of a then-emerging corporate tax shelter bubble that substantially undermined the entire corporate tax system.
Son of Boss and its related shelters represented perhaps the largest tax avoidance scheme in history, costing the U.S. many billions in lost corporate tax revenues. In response, the government initiated legal challenges that resulted in complete disallowance of the losses claimed by Marriott and other corporations.
In addition, the Son of Boss transaction was listed by the Internal Revenue Service as an abusive transaction, requiring specific disclosure and subject to heavy penalties. Statutory penalties were also made more stringent to deter future tax shelter activity. Finally, the government brought successful criminal prosecutions against a number of individuals involved in Son of Boss and related transactions not associated with Marriott, including principals at major law and accounting firms.
In his key role as chairman of the Marriott board's audit committee, Romney approved the firm's reporting of fictional tax losses exceeding $70 million generated by its Son of Boss transaction. His endorsement of this stratagem provides insight into Romney's professional ethics and attitude toward tax compliance obligations... Editor's note: Peter C. Canellos, a lawyer, is former chair of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section. Edward D. Kleinbard is a professor at Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California. He is the former chief of staff of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation.
Friday, August 03, 2012
Colorado baker refuses to make wedding cake for gay couple
Lakewood Cake Shop Refuses Wedding Cake To Gay Couple
July 28, 2012
CBS Local(CBS4)
Chick-fil-A’s president spoke out against gay marriage last week, sparking a huge uproar in the gay community, and now the issue is spilling over to a Colorado bakery.
The owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood refused to bake a wedding cake for a local gay couple and now people are pushing a boycott against the owner.
Shop owner Jack Phillips probably didn’t think he was going to be wading into a civil rights debate a week ago when he told the gay couple that he would not make a cake for their wedding, but that’s exactly what has happened...
July 28, 2012
CBS Local(CBS4)
Chick-fil-A’s president spoke out against gay marriage last week, sparking a huge uproar in the gay community, and now the issue is spilling over to a Colorado bakery.
The owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood refused to bake a wedding cake for a local gay couple and now people are pushing a boycott against the owner.
Shop owner Jack Phillips probably didn’t think he was going to be wading into a civil rights debate a week ago when he told the gay couple that he would not make a cake for their wedding, but that’s exactly what has happened...
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Nuns Weigh Response to Scathing Vatican Rebuke
The Pope sees differing beliefs as the work of "the enemy." Would that enemy be Satan? Has Satan flourished as democracy has grown in the world? No, obviously not. Democracy creates far more good than evil. I think the Pope and his close associates are a bit too fond of having arbitrary power.
I doubt that the Vatican will start respecting women any time soon.
I think the nuns should start a separate organization that does not answer to the Vatican.
Nuns Weigh Response to Scathing Vatican Rebuke
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
July 28, 2012
American nuns are preparing to assemble in St. Louis next week for a pivotal meeting at which they will try to decide how to respond to a scathing critique of their doctrinal loyalty issued this spring by the Vatican — a report that has prompted Roman Catholics across the country to rally to the nuns’ defense.
The nuns will be weighing whether to cooperate with the three bishops appointed by the Vatican to supervise the overhaul of their organization, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of women’s Catholic religious orders in the United States.
The Leadership Conference says it is considering at least six options that range from submitting graciously to the takeover to forming a new organization independent of Vatican control, as well other possible courses of action that lie between those poles.
What is in essence a power struggle between the nuns and the church’s hierarchy had been building for decades, church scholars say. At issue are questions of obedience and autonomy, what it means to be a faithful Catholic and different understandings of the Second Vatican Council.
Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the Leadership Conference, said in an interview that the Vatican seems to regard questioning as defiance, while the sisters see it as a form of faithfulness.
“We have a differing perspective on obedience,” Sister Farrell said. “Our understanding is that we need to continue to respond to the signs of the times, and the new questions and issues that arise in the complexities of modern life are not something we see as a threat.”
These same conflicts are gripping the Catholic Church at large. Nearly 50 years after the start of Vatican II, which was intended to open the church to the modern world and respond to the “signs of the times,” the church is gravely polarized between a progressive wing still eager for change and reform and a traditionalist flank focused on returning to what it sees as doctrinal fundamentals.
The sisters have been caught in the riptide. Most of them have spent their lives serving the sick, the poor, children and immigrants — and not engaged in battles over theology. But when some sisters after Vatican II began to question church prohibitions on women serving as priests, artificial birth control or the acceptance of same-sex relationships, their religious orders did not shut down such discussion or treat it as apostasy. In fact, they have continued to insist on their right to debate and challenge church teaching, which has resulted in the Vatican’s reproof.
The former head of the church’s doctrinal office, Cardinal William J. Levada, said after his last meeting with the nuns’ leaders in June, just before he retired, that they should regard his office’s harsh assessment as “an invitation to obedience.”
“I admire religious men and women,” Cardinal Levada said in an interview with The National Catholic Reporter. “But if they aren’t people who believe and express the faith of the church, the doctrines of the church, then I think they’re misrepresenting who they are and who they ought to be.”
The sisters say they see no contradiction in embracing the Catholic faith while also being open to questioning certain church teachings based on new information or new experiences. The Leadership Conference has not taken a stand in favor of the ordination of women or the acceptance of gay relationships, but it has discussed such topics at its meetings. Members insist that open discussion of church doctrine is not only their right but is also healthy for the church.
They say their approach is no different from that of many Catholic priests and laypeople, not just those in the United States. As evidence, they cite messages of support they have received from Catholic religious orders of men and women all over Europe, Asia and Latin America — as well as in the United States.
“We make our vows, but our obedience isn’t blind,” said one mother superior, who, like others, did not want to be identified while the future of the Leadership Conference is in limbo. “Obedience comes from listening.”
Vatican II led to dramatic changes now taken for granted by many Catholics: allowing worship in local languages instead of only Latin, encouraging the participation of laypeople, and cooperating with other churches and faiths.
The council also approved a document, “Perfectae Caritatis” (“Perfect Love”), that instructed men and women in religious orders to study their orders’ founders and original sources, and use that inspiration to re-evaluate and renew their mission. The sisters say they took the instruction to heart.
“We were the ones who probably took Vatican II and ran the fastest and the farthest with it,” said Sister Janice Farnham, a retired professor of church history at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. “Sometimes our church leaders forget, we were tasked to do these things by the church. The church said jump, and we said, how high?
“The church said update, renew, go back to your sources, and we did it as best we could. We did it with a passion, and we paid dearly.”
The sisters after Vatican II had access as never before to higher education, and they went on to become scholars and theologians, chief executives of hospitals, legal aid lawyers, social workers and martyrs in countries like El Salvador. They took on issues including economic injustice, racism, women’s rights, immigration, interfaith relations and environmentalism — which for many years put them in collegial working relationships with bishops who were also engaged in those causes.
But the two popes who reigned for the last 34 years — first John Paul II and now Benedict XVI — appointed bishops who are far more theologically and politically conservative than their predecessors. Drawing on these popes’ teachings, this new generation of American bishops has steered the church’s social priorities toward opposition to abortion, gay marriage and secularism.
The Leadership Conference was a thorn in the Vatican’s side even before 1979, the year its president at the time, Sister Theresa Kane, welcomed John Paul to Washington with a public plea to ordain women in the priesthood. The group has remained unified despite pressure from the Vatican by making decisions only after consulting its membership. It is hardly the small splinter group that some conservative critics have recently tried to portray.
The disciplinary action against the nuns comes just as American bishops are struggling to reassert their authority with a wayward flock. The bishops are in the midst of a campaign to defend against what they see as serious threats to religious liberty — especially a government mandate to provide employees of Catholic institutions with health insurance that covers contraception. But the prelates are well aware of polls showing that about 95 percent of Catholic women have used birth control at some point in their lives, and 52 percent support same-sex marriage — little different from the public at large.
The dissonance is of great concern to American bishops and the Vatican.
“The church must speak with one voice,” Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States, said in an address in June to American bishops at their meeting in Atlanta. “We all know that the fundamental tactic of the enemy is to show a church divided.”...
I doubt that the Vatican will start respecting women any time soon.
I think the nuns should start a separate organization that does not answer to the Vatican.
Nuns Weigh Response to Scathing Vatican Rebuke
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
July 28, 2012
American nuns are preparing to assemble in St. Louis next week for a pivotal meeting at which they will try to decide how to respond to a scathing critique of their doctrinal loyalty issued this spring by the Vatican — a report that has prompted Roman Catholics across the country to rally to the nuns’ defense.
The nuns will be weighing whether to cooperate with the three bishops appointed by the Vatican to supervise the overhaul of their organization, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of women’s Catholic religious orders in the United States.
The Leadership Conference says it is considering at least six options that range from submitting graciously to the takeover to forming a new organization independent of Vatican control, as well other possible courses of action that lie between those poles.
What is in essence a power struggle between the nuns and the church’s hierarchy had been building for decades, church scholars say. At issue are questions of obedience and autonomy, what it means to be a faithful Catholic and different understandings of the Second Vatican Council.
Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the Leadership Conference, said in an interview that the Vatican seems to regard questioning as defiance, while the sisters see it as a form of faithfulness.
“We have a differing perspective on obedience,” Sister Farrell said. “Our understanding is that we need to continue to respond to the signs of the times, and the new questions and issues that arise in the complexities of modern life are not something we see as a threat.”
These same conflicts are gripping the Catholic Church at large. Nearly 50 years after the start of Vatican II, which was intended to open the church to the modern world and respond to the “signs of the times,” the church is gravely polarized between a progressive wing still eager for change and reform and a traditionalist flank focused on returning to what it sees as doctrinal fundamentals.
The sisters have been caught in the riptide. Most of them have spent their lives serving the sick, the poor, children and immigrants — and not engaged in battles over theology. But when some sisters after Vatican II began to question church prohibitions on women serving as priests, artificial birth control or the acceptance of same-sex relationships, their religious orders did not shut down such discussion or treat it as apostasy. In fact, they have continued to insist on their right to debate and challenge church teaching, which has resulted in the Vatican’s reproof.
The former head of the church’s doctrinal office, Cardinal William J. Levada, said after his last meeting with the nuns’ leaders in June, just before he retired, that they should regard his office’s harsh assessment as “an invitation to obedience.”
“I admire religious men and women,” Cardinal Levada said in an interview with The National Catholic Reporter. “But if they aren’t people who believe and express the faith of the church, the doctrines of the church, then I think they’re misrepresenting who they are and who they ought to be.”
The sisters say they see no contradiction in embracing the Catholic faith while also being open to questioning certain church teachings based on new information or new experiences. The Leadership Conference has not taken a stand in favor of the ordination of women or the acceptance of gay relationships, but it has discussed such topics at its meetings. Members insist that open discussion of church doctrine is not only their right but is also healthy for the church.
They say their approach is no different from that of many Catholic priests and laypeople, not just those in the United States. As evidence, they cite messages of support they have received from Catholic religious orders of men and women all over Europe, Asia and Latin America — as well as in the United States.
“We make our vows, but our obedience isn’t blind,” said one mother superior, who, like others, did not want to be identified while the future of the Leadership Conference is in limbo. “Obedience comes from listening.”
Vatican II led to dramatic changes now taken for granted by many Catholics: allowing worship in local languages instead of only Latin, encouraging the participation of laypeople, and cooperating with other churches and faiths.
The council also approved a document, “Perfectae Caritatis” (“Perfect Love”), that instructed men and women in religious orders to study their orders’ founders and original sources, and use that inspiration to re-evaluate and renew their mission. The sisters say they took the instruction to heart.
“We were the ones who probably took Vatican II and ran the fastest and the farthest with it,” said Sister Janice Farnham, a retired professor of church history at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. “Sometimes our church leaders forget, we were tasked to do these things by the church. The church said jump, and we said, how high?
“The church said update, renew, go back to your sources, and we did it as best we could. We did it with a passion, and we paid dearly.”
The sisters after Vatican II had access as never before to higher education, and they went on to become scholars and theologians, chief executives of hospitals, legal aid lawyers, social workers and martyrs in countries like El Salvador. They took on issues including economic injustice, racism, women’s rights, immigration, interfaith relations and environmentalism — which for many years put them in collegial working relationships with bishops who were also engaged in those causes.
But the two popes who reigned for the last 34 years — first John Paul II and now Benedict XVI — appointed bishops who are far more theologically and politically conservative than their predecessors. Drawing on these popes’ teachings, this new generation of American bishops has steered the church’s social priorities toward opposition to abortion, gay marriage and secularism.
The Leadership Conference was a thorn in the Vatican’s side even before 1979, the year its president at the time, Sister Theresa Kane, welcomed John Paul to Washington with a public plea to ordain women in the priesthood. The group has remained unified despite pressure from the Vatican by making decisions only after consulting its membership. It is hardly the small splinter group that some conservative critics have recently tried to portray.
The disciplinary action against the nuns comes just as American bishops are struggling to reassert their authority with a wayward flock. The bishops are in the midst of a campaign to defend against what they see as serious threats to religious liberty — especially a government mandate to provide employees of Catholic institutions with health insurance that covers contraception. But the prelates are well aware of polls showing that about 95 percent of Catholic women have used birth control at some point in their lives, and 52 percent support same-sex marriage — little different from the public at large.
The dissonance is of great concern to American bishops and the Vatican.
“The church must speak with one voice,” Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States, said in an address in June to American bishops at their meeting in Atlanta. “We all know that the fundamental tactic of the enemy is to show a church divided.”...
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Why Mitt screws up
Why Mitt screws up
Let's put Romney on the shrink's couch: His disastrous London gaffes reveal a deep-seated anxiety
BY JUSTIN FRANK
Salon.com
July 28, 2012
People are asking, “What’s with Mitt Romney’s trip to the London Olympics?” He has made so many gaffes that the Daily Mail’s political editor asked, “Do we have a new Dubya on our hands?”
That question is most important for the American voter. What drove Dubya were anxiety and fear, much of which he masked with his tough-guy swagger and rhetoric – and with his disarming sense of humor. When asked direct questions by the press, however, Bush would often freeze like a deer in the headlights. His slips of the tongue became the stuff of talk-show hosts, magazine articles and even books.
Now we have Mitt Romney, the putative Republican candidate for president in the 2012 election. His gaffes are different from the 43rd president’s; they don’t involve mispronouncing words or frequently issuing nonsensical sentences. They are more social gaffes, ones that seem to be made without much thought – if any. Bush was trying to say things he couldn’t say. Romney is not trying to say anything in particular, other than answer questions or make comments when called upon to do so. In fact he is too casual, and what comes out is often carelessly hostile.
When Brian Williams asked him what he thought about the London games, Romney first tried to answer the question directly – something most politicians usually don’t do. He said, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out.” He then began to talk about his own work running the 2002 SLC winter Olympics in what seemed like a canned response. What strikes me is the confidence with which he spoke and the remarkable lack of thought he exhibited. This has become a pattern for him, and not just on this trip. But it is more noticeable than before because he is largely left to his own devices, without prepared remarks that he could use in informal conversation.
That he was mocked and even rebuked by British leaders is less important to me than what lay beneath their criticism. Both the Mayor of London and the British Prime Minister commented separately about what they felt to be Romney’s insults regarding how Great Britain was running the games.
Psychoanalysts look for patterns of behavior and the meaning behind those patterns. But we also — especially in the case of public figures — look at the pressures brought to bear on the individual, both internally (what I do in my consulting room) and externally (social pressures that affect behavior). In Romney’s case, he is competing in his own Olympics against President Obama, who also happens to be the most internationally popular American leader in generations. So the pressure is on for him to prove himself.
Part of that pressure is self-generated, since a central component of Romney’s claim to greatness is that he ran the winter Olympics in 2002. Thus, he is under pressure to let people know that he can do it better – and he gave that impression in London. He has to prove to himself and others that he is indeed a superstar – especially since he knows he can’t touch Obama in a British popularity contest.
Salon’s Joan Walsh has remarked over the months about Romney’s seeming indifference to answering questions. His casualness led her to use the psychiatric term “dissociated” when describing his style. I think her observations are most trenchant, though it is hard for me to move into the territory of diagnosis.
But what is not hard to do is to think about what most likely motivates this behavior that puzzles so many in the media – including supporters who are frustrated with Romney’s unwillingness to disclose more of his tax returns. I think the force behind this behavior is massive anxiety, pure and simple. He is anxious about revealing who he is and about interacting with people he doesn’t know. He appears to have much less experience than Obama in interacting with people from all walks of life. Basically, he is uncomfortable except within his own family and in the presence of those who share his wealthy background and Mormon faith. There are many ways to defend against overwhelming anxiety, one of which is to act certain about every answer given.
What comes out besides this sense of smiling certainty are signs of anxious contempt toward others – whether it is how the British run their Games or saying that kids who can’t afford college should borrow money from their parents. Put together, these and many similar statements – his pleasure at firing people or his belief that corporations are people (is that why he can comfortably bankrupt some?) – are all evidence of a hostility not dissimilar to stories about his bullying of others during his prep school days. At this stage, I suspect Mitt Romney is too anxious to be an effective president.
Let's put Romney on the shrink's couch: His disastrous London gaffes reveal a deep-seated anxiety
BY JUSTIN FRANK
Salon.com
July 28, 2012
People are asking, “What’s with Mitt Romney’s trip to the London Olympics?” He has made so many gaffes that the Daily Mail’s political editor asked, “Do we have a new Dubya on our hands?”
That question is most important for the American voter. What drove Dubya were anxiety and fear, much of which he masked with his tough-guy swagger and rhetoric – and with his disarming sense of humor. When asked direct questions by the press, however, Bush would often freeze like a deer in the headlights. His slips of the tongue became the stuff of talk-show hosts, magazine articles and even books.
Now we have Mitt Romney, the putative Republican candidate for president in the 2012 election. His gaffes are different from the 43rd president’s; they don’t involve mispronouncing words or frequently issuing nonsensical sentences. They are more social gaffes, ones that seem to be made without much thought – if any. Bush was trying to say things he couldn’t say. Romney is not trying to say anything in particular, other than answer questions or make comments when called upon to do so. In fact he is too casual, and what comes out is often carelessly hostile.
When Brian Williams asked him what he thought about the London games, Romney first tried to answer the question directly – something most politicians usually don’t do. He said, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out.” He then began to talk about his own work running the 2002 SLC winter Olympics in what seemed like a canned response. What strikes me is the confidence with which he spoke and the remarkable lack of thought he exhibited. This has become a pattern for him, and not just on this trip. But it is more noticeable than before because he is largely left to his own devices, without prepared remarks that he could use in informal conversation.
That he was mocked and even rebuked by British leaders is less important to me than what lay beneath their criticism. Both the Mayor of London and the British Prime Minister commented separately about what they felt to be Romney’s insults regarding how Great Britain was running the games.
Psychoanalysts look for patterns of behavior and the meaning behind those patterns. But we also — especially in the case of public figures — look at the pressures brought to bear on the individual, both internally (what I do in my consulting room) and externally (social pressures that affect behavior). In Romney’s case, he is competing in his own Olympics against President Obama, who also happens to be the most internationally popular American leader in generations. So the pressure is on for him to prove himself.
Part of that pressure is self-generated, since a central component of Romney’s claim to greatness is that he ran the winter Olympics in 2002. Thus, he is under pressure to let people know that he can do it better – and he gave that impression in London. He has to prove to himself and others that he is indeed a superstar – especially since he knows he can’t touch Obama in a British popularity contest.
Salon’s Joan Walsh has remarked over the months about Romney’s seeming indifference to answering questions. His casualness led her to use the psychiatric term “dissociated” when describing his style. I think her observations are most trenchant, though it is hard for me to move into the territory of diagnosis.
But what is not hard to do is to think about what most likely motivates this behavior that puzzles so many in the media – including supporters who are frustrated with Romney’s unwillingness to disclose more of his tax returns. I think the force behind this behavior is massive anxiety, pure and simple. He is anxious about revealing who he is and about interacting with people he doesn’t know. He appears to have much less experience than Obama in interacting with people from all walks of life. Basically, he is uncomfortable except within his own family and in the presence of those who share his wealthy background and Mormon faith. There are many ways to defend against overwhelming anxiety, one of which is to act certain about every answer given.
What comes out besides this sense of smiling certainty are signs of anxious contempt toward others – whether it is how the British run their Games or saying that kids who can’t afford college should borrow money from their parents. Put together, these and many similar statements – his pleasure at firing people or his belief that corporations are people (is that why he can comfortably bankrupt some?) – are all evidence of a hostility not dissimilar to stories about his bullying of others during his prep school days. At this stage, I suspect Mitt Romney is too anxious to be an effective president.
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