kpete
kpete's JournalTrophy generation - by Matt Bors
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/31/1115115/-Trophy-generation
Romney Trip:“I find this entire trip borderline lunacy,” said one senior Republican strategist . . .
Mitt Romney’s foreign trip didn’t go well. Does it matter?
Posted by Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake at 06:30 AM ET, 07/31/2012
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney later today wraps up his foreign tour, a trip that drew a series of negative headlines and has left many Republicans wondering what exactly the GOP presidential nominee was hoping to accomplish.
The assessments of the trip, which saw Romney visit London, Israel and Poland over the past week, ranged from scathing to resigned among the Republican professional political class.
“I find this entire trip borderline lunacy,” said one senior Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Why on earth is he seeking to improve his foreign policy cred when there will not be a single vote cast on that subject?”
Ed Rogers, a longtime Republican operative, was more measured, but acknowledged that the trip was something short of a unqualified success.
Both party conventions snub Lieberman
Source: The Hill
Both party conventions snub Lieberman
By Alexander Bolton - 07/31/12 05:00 AM ET
Sen. Joe Lieberman has not been invited to either the Democratic or the Republican presidential convention this year, a major snub for a lawmaker who played prominent convention roles in the past.
Lieberman (Conn.), a self-described Independent Democrat, still has many powerful friends on both sides of the aisle. This week he will manage the cybersecurity bill on the Senate floor, one of the few pieces of legislation with a chance to pass Congress before the election.
But when Democrats and Republicans gather in Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., later this summer, Lieberman will receive less homage than a local councilman. He will be left out of the festivities altogether.
Some Democrats think keeping Lieberman away is a mistake. After all, he served as Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, becoming the first Jewish American to run atop a major party’s ticket.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/241157-both-parties-snub-onetime-convention-star-lieberman
"I shot me a n*****"
Port St. Joe Man Faces Attempted Murder and Hate Crime Charges
Port St. Joe - A Port St. Joe man is charged with attempted murder, with a hate crime enhancement, after admitting to shooting a black man in the head Monday night. Gulf County Sheriff's deputies arrested Walton Henry Butler, 59, just after 9pm at the Pine Ridge Apartments off Garrison Avenue. Deputies say he admitted to shooting the victim, 32-year-old Everett Gant, with a 22 caliber rifle. Gant is in guarded condition at Bay Medical Center, he is expected to survive.
Deputies say Butler had been calling black children in the apartment complex racial slurs and Gant went to talk with him about the comments. Witnesses say Butler opened the door and shot Gant in the face. Butler told deputies after he shot Gant, he shut the door, called 911 and finished cooking dinner.
When Sheriff Nugent arrived Butler told him he did not understand the problem and acted as if he was being inconvenienced. "He was brought to the investigation unit where he was interviewed and basically admitted to shooting the victim and said he shot a, used a racial slur, and said that is what he shot and acted like it was not like a big deal or anything to him," said Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent.
Butler is in the Gulf County jail. He will have his first appearance Tuesday morning.
(Video)
http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/Port-St-Joe-Man-Faces-Attempted-Murder-and-Hate-Crime-Charges-164397736.html
Froomkin: Reporters Treating-Voter ID-As Just Another Squabble-Committing Journalistic Malpracitice
For reporters to treat this issue like just another political squabble is journalistic malpractice.
Reporters Treating Voter ID As Just Another Squabble Committing Journalistic malpracitice
Dan Froomkin
Reporters Know What the 'Voter ID' Push Is Really About. Why Don't They Just Say So?
And the pursuit of this goal ostensibly in the name of voter fraud is an outrageous deception that only works if the press is too timid to call it what it really is.
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For reporters to treat this issue like just another political squabble is journalistic malpractice. Indeed, relating the debate in value-neutral he-said-she-said language is actively helping spread the lie. After all, calling for someone to show ID before voting doesn’t sound pernicious to most people, even though it is. And raising the bogus issue of voter fraud at all stokes fear. “Even if you say there is no fraud, all people hear is ‘fraud fraud fraud’,” said Lawrence Norden, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Think about it. If you were covering elections in another country, and one political party was actively trying to limit voting in the name of a problem that objectively didn’t exist, would you hesitate for a moment to call out that tactic — and question that party’s legitimacy? Hardly.
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The GOP has taken increasingly radical positions, confident that the media’s aversion to taking sides will protect it from too much negative coverage. But failing to call out the voter ID push is like covering the civil rights movements and treating “separate but equal” as if it was said with sincerity.
.......
more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-froomkin/reporters-know-what-the-v_b_1719778.html
KRUGMAN: "Obama Has to Say Government by Blackmail Not Acceptable Way to Run the Country"
KRUGMAN: Well, I mean, it's a game of chicken. And I actually think if Obama's re-elected, I think that there's a quite good chance that for a month or two we actually will go off the cliff, which doesn't do that much harm. It's brief, because I think Obama if he is re-elected, he has to say government by blackmail, it's not an acceptable way to run this country. And so, I'm going to call you guys bluff and let the people who are paying for your campaigns come running and demanding that you make a compromise with me. So I actually -- I would put, you know, pretty substantial odds that we will in fact, at least temporarily, see those rates go up. And then -- then it's a different game.
plus video:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/krugman-obama-has-say-government-blackmail
Romney Sounds Medicated
Romney Sounds Medicated
by BooMan
Mon Jul 30th, 2012 at 02:37:39 PM EST
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Talking Points Memo received a transcription of Romney's remarks from his campaign. Reading it made me wonder if Romney is taking some kind of powerful medication because his words are almost nonsensical.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/romney-israel-palestine-gdp-culture.php
And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States. I noted that part of my interest when I used to be in the world of business is I would travel to different countries was to understand why there were such enormous disparities in the economic success of various countries.
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And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. One, I recognize the hand of providence in selecting this place.
I’m told in a Sunday school class I attended— I think my son Tagg was teaching the class. He’s not here. I look around to see. Of course he’s not here. He was in London. He taught a class in which he was describing the concern on the part of some of the Jews that left Egypt to come to the promised land, that in the promised land was down the River Nile, that would provide the essential water they had enjoyed in Egypt. They came here recognizing that they must be relied upon, themselves and the arm of God to provide rain from the sky. And this therefore represented a sign of faith and a show of faith to come here. That this is a people that has long recognized the purpose in this place and in their lives that is greater than themselves and their own particular interests, but a purpose of accomplishment and caring and building and serving.
There’s also something very unusual about the people of this place. And Dan Senor— And Dan, I saw him this morning, I don’t know where he is, he’s probably out twisting someone’s arm—There’s Dan Senor, co-author of ‘Start-up Nation,’ described— If you haven’t read the book, you really should— Described why it is Israel is the leading nation for start-ups in the world. And why businesses one after the other tend to start up in this place. And he goes through some of the cultural elements that have led Israel to become a nation that has begun so many businesses and so many enterprises and that is becomes so successful.”
I can kind of follow along with what he's saying, but it's a whole lot of bullshit. There's nothing particularly important about what he had to say, except that it revealed a lot about how he thinks. And it is one more demonstration that Romney has a gift for insulting people unintentionally.
more:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/7/30/143739/934
German Media Writes Mitt's Obit: 'Romney Has Already Disqualified Himself'
'Romney Has Already Disqualified Himself'
"Travel educates. As a result one should assume that Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger of Barack Obama, wants to learn something during his visit to Israel. Wrong! Almost everything that the candidate organized in Jerusalem fuels the impression that he doesn't want to try understanding how complicated the Middle East situation is. Instead, Romney paints the crisis region in black and white: Israel is good and the rest -- the Palestinians and the mullahs in Iran -- are lumped together."
"This one-sided world view is less dumb than it is coldly calculated. Romney is soliciting campaign donations in Jerusalem (the minimum price for two plates at breakfast is $50,000.) And he is ensnaring Jewish voters at home."
"The trip to Israel may help Romney in the short-term. But in the long-term the Republican has done damage. The Middle East needs the US as a mediator. As such, the presidential hopeful has already disqualified himself."
The rest:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/german-media-slams-mitt-romney-s-tour-abroad-a-847155.html
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