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Romney Stays On the Offense With Gingrich, The NY Times, January 26, 2012, by Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zelany, excerpts quoted verbatim:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mitt Romney, facing his greatest challenge of the campaign so far, relentlessly pressed Newt Gingrich on Thursday night in their final debate before the Florida primary, seeking to regain the offensive against an insurgent challenge that has shaken his claim to inevitability.
On immigration, personal finances and the grand ideas that have been the trademark of Mr. Gingrich’s candidacy, Mr. Romney gave his rival no quarter, giving prime time voice to his campaign’s all-out, round-the-clock assault on Mr. Gingrich here.
In a debate in which Mr. Romney could ill afford to allow Mr. Gingrich another triumphant night, he delivered sharp lines that gave him an advantage usually held by Mr. Gingrich: applause from the audience.
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Mr. Gingrich started the week with all the momentum here after his victory in South Carolina. But he has subsequently come under relentless pounding from the Romney campaign and its supporters, a battering that appears to have had some impact….
WASHINGTON — Members of Newt Gingrich’s campaign accused Mitt Romney’s campaign of packing the audience for the Republican presidential candidate debate on Thursday night in Jacksonville, Fla., with its own supporters to ensure that the dynamics would be favorable to Romney….
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich sparred here Thursday night over immigration, taxes and wealth, lobbying, and colonizing the moon in a debate that underscored the potential consequences of a loss for either of the leading Republican presidential candidates in Tuesday’s high-stakes Florida primary.
Romney went on the offensive, as he had in a forum on Monday. The former Massachusetts governor said it was “repulsive” for the former House speaker to label him “the most anti-immigrant” candidate in the field. He blasted Gingrich’s moon proposal, saying that if someone had brought it to him, his response would have been “You’re fired.” He goaded his rival into a discussion of his taxes.
A few debates ago, when the Republican candidates for president gathered in Florida, the then-frontrunner Rick Perry expressed compassion for illegal immigrants on stage ended up publicly apologizing and never recovering.
Lesson learned: stick to the hardline when it comes to immigration. Well, that was then. At the Thursday night’s debate — the last before Florida’s primary on Jan. 31 — Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney got into a very spirited debate about who would be nicer to grandmothers who happen to be in the United States illegally.
Mitt Romney is making the homestretch of the Florida primary race in part a battle over Newt Gingrich’s mental state.
Greg Sargent snagged a copy of a Romney mailing going out in Florida that paints this in stark terms: Gingrich is “Unethical. Erratic. Reckless.” the mailer reads.
But this is just the latest in a string of less-than-veiled hits on Gingrich’s mental condition coming from Romney surrogates and Romney himself.
At a press conference in Tampa, FL Monday before the NBC News debate, Romney described Gingrich this way:
“I think as you look at the speaker’s record over time, it’s been highly erratic…You know, he voted in favor of establishing the Department of Education, and yet he gets in a debate and says we should get rid of the Department of Education and send all the education issues back to the states. He’s opposed vehemently to the Massachusetts health care system, and yet just a couple years ago wrote about what a superb system it was.
He’s gone from pillar to post almost like a pinball machine, from item to item in a way which is highly erratic…It does not suggest a stable, thoughtful course, which is normally associated with leadership.”
Commentary by Paul Evans: You know, I can’t quite decide whether or not the attacks on Gingrich’s “erratic” proposals are a brilliant tactic by Romney’s people or not. In any case I hope Obama’s people are paying close attention to these somewhat factual accusations, as it seems to me that using Gingrich’s state of mind and mental inconsistencies over the years, would be an effective line of attack in the general election. If you are a Democrat, you really have to hope that Gingrich might win the nomination. There are plenty of lines of attack there open for Obama.
Gingrich might get away with rhetorical tricks now, or for the time being have some success with his ability to use the English language, with which he has some facility, to twist the facts around, but he is open to attacks and problems from his personal life….I can see Obama’s people “licking their chops” in anticipation. And he won’t get away with B.S. accusations such as those he’s tried to pin on Romney, nor these weird ideational flights that he sometimes comes out with, such as a base on the moon. It does seem that Gingrich comes up with these high flown ideas and doesn’t vet them, he just puts them straight out there, without proper evaluation. I suppose it has something to do with his intellectual egoism. Overall, his record strikes me as raw meat that Obama and his people would chew up and spit out in the event of his nomination.
It’s not that Gingrich isn’t intelligent, it just seems to me that he belongs in some well-funded think tank, and not really on the national stage or as the GOP nominee. Unless you are a strong Democrat, in which case you would probably be hoping for Gingrich’s success (until the general election).
Also See Newt + Tea Party = Obama Landslide, Daily Kos, January 26, 2012, by yngindpt.
Evans Liberal Politics, August 12, 2010, compiled and commentary by Paul Evans
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BBC News, August 12, 2010, photo © BBC News: The head of a Russian dairy company has threatened to sack Russian Orthodox Christian employees who have abortions or refuse a religious marriage.
Vassili Boiko-Veliki, president of Russkoe Moloko, said staff married in a civil ceremony had until 14 October to undertake a religious wedding.
Critics said the rules violated labour laws and the constitution.
The Russian Orthodox Church has experienced a revival since the fall of the officially atheist Soviet Union.
Mr Boiko-Veliki said those women who had had abortions, or chose to have one in the future, would face dismissal.
“Abortion is the murder of someone,” he told the radio station, Ekho Moskvy. “We do not want to work with murderers.”
Mr Boiko-Veliki was also quoted as saying that newly-hired employees who had been married in civil ceremonies would be given three months to have a religious wedding.
Even employees from other religions would be obliged to receive instruction about Russian Orthodox culture, he said.
According to Ekho Moskvy, Mr Boiko-Veliki has said that the record heatwave that hit Russia in recent weeks was divine retribution for sins committed in the past.
Russkoe Moloko has some 6,000 employees.
Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: I have mixed thoughts about abortion myself, but this is something handled through the laws of the state, not private corporate policy. In the United States, as well as elsewhere in the world, corporations are being enthroned with near God-like rights while individual rights are swept under the rug. If the lines between the state, corporations and any sort of “national” church are blurred, as is occurring in Russia, this is a strong loss of basic civil rights. It also violates the sorts of natural laws that Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and our own founding fathers felt were a justification to break away from the mother nation of England.
I am a religious man myself. But this occurrence reported for Russia hits home to the extent that, if that sort of thing were occurring here in the United States, I would very strongly consider emigrating to another country. It’s that bad. Moreover, the religious right is pushing the same sorts of changes in the basic nature of church and state separation, and other human rights, right here and now. Take this for instance:
Speaking at a rally sponsored by Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, GOP state house candidate in Florida, Marg Baker, endorsed building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants:
We can follow what happened back in the 40s or 50s. I was just a little girl in Miami, and they built camps for the people that snuck into the country, because they were illegal. They put them in the camps, and they shipped them back. We can do that.
Go to Think Progress to watch video on this subject.
(UPDATE: Ms. Baker has won the trifecta today. She beat out Rush Limbaugh and John McCain, taking the top spot in Keith Olbermann’s "Worst Person in the World" award! See, there IS justice in the world!)
Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: For a great summary from back in April of just how badly things are going here in the US, check out The Grim Truth. (Maybe we should inter all the conservatives in Texas-Louisiana-Mississippi-Alabama and then build a wall to keep them down there, huh? Maybe it was the wrong idea fighting the Civil War and we should have booted their asses out right then and there when we had the chance. Alternatively, I believe I mentioned something about emigrating.)
This topic got me to thinking. I remembered something I posted back in late December of last year, which chilled me to the bone at that time. Maybe not concentration camps, but in this case secret prisons, which are reality here and now in the United States. I don’t want to live in a country where secret prisons run by the immigration service are a reality, right now:
Evans Liberal Politics, December 23, 2009, from The Nation:
“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present was Amnesty International’s Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report “Jailed Without Justice” and said in an interview, “It was almost surreal being there, particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn’t believe he would say it so boldly, as though it weren’t anything wrong.”
Pendergraph knew that ICE could disappear people, because he knew that in addition to the publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is also confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces revealing no information about their ICE tenants–nary a sign, a marked car or even a US flag. (Presumably there is a flag at the Veterans Affairs Complex in Castle Point, New York, but no one would associate it with the Criminal Alien Program ICE is running out of Building 7.) Designed for confining individuals in transit, with no beds or showers, subfield offices are not subject to ICE Detention Standards. The subfield office network was mentioned in an October report by Dora Schriro, then special adviser to Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, but no locations were provided.
Read the full article, here.
Makes me sick to my stomach. ~ Paul Evans
HEY, kudos to @watergatesummer on Twitter for this:
"SHOUT:" SHOUT – Tears For Fears SHOUT OUT: "I want Canadian style health care now!" — 5:52
Straight from the "REAL" Insomniac’s Vent Hole with Craig Ferguson on Daily Kos. Muchas Gracias:
"Insomniac’s Vent Hole:" We bring you (free of charge) The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and Betty White. Because she really IS a national treasure. — 5:27
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Bill McCollum unveils controversial immigration reform plan, © The Miami Herald, August 12, 2010, by Christina Silva, excerpt quoted verbatim:
GOP front-runner Rick Scott says his rival can’t be trusted to be tough on immigration issues after Bill McCollum proposed a law that goes beyond Arizona’s controversial measure.
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Florida Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum unveiled a sweeping immigration bill Wednesday that in some ways goes further than Arizona’s controversial law to apprehend undocumented workers and residents.
The move could propel Florida to the forefront of a heated national debate on immigration policy.
“Arizona is going to want this law,” McCollum said. “We’re better, we’re stronger, we’re tougher and we’re fairer.”
The proposed law would require immigrants to carry valid documentation or face up to 20 days in jail and would allow judges to hand down stiffer penalties to illegal immigrations who commit the same crimes as legal residents.
Florida’s diverse population and dismal unemployment rate provide a unique setting for an Arizona-spawned policy that could grow local law enforcement budgets, transform low-wage industries and draw the ire of federal justice officials who have already deemed Arizona’s law unconstitutional.
The Legislature’s Republican leadership is divided on the issue, with its Hispanic members issuing the strongest rebukes of the proposed law. The Florida Chamber of Commerce and law enforcement leaders, unsure of its potential effects, also greeted the bill with mixed reviews.
McCollum announced the legislation in Orlando Wednesday alongside a raft of state House Republicans, including its sponsor, Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart.
“We have the police powers, not the federal government,” McCollum said.
McCollum stressed that the law prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin, and that police already have the right to ask about immigration status in the course of their duties.
Reasonable suspicion to inquire about immigration status might include an altered driver’s license or an admission of illegal residency in the country, he said.
But some of McCollum’s Republican allies questioned whether the legislation could justly be put into practice.
“I am concerned that this could jeopardize civil liberties,” said state Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, who is the House’s majority whip and is of Cuban descent.
Brendon Hensler, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the organization would challenge the bill if it became law, just as it challenged the Arizona law.
“It is un-American and against our American values to mandate that police officers use racial profiling when they are performing their day to day duties,” he said.
Called the “Florida Immigration Enforcement Act,” the 29-page bill mirrors Arizona’s law in that it would require officers to verify a suspect’s immigration status during all lawful stops, detentions and arrests, including municipal violations, when reasonable suspicion exists. A federal judge struck down a near-identical requirement in Arizona last month.
Read the full article, here.
Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: Can there be any doubt that many Republicans and right wingers are racists and bigots? If there were any doubt left, stunts like GOP Mike Pompeo, the Republican congressional candidate for KS-4 and RNC committeeman, just pulled tend to obliterate doubt about this. See Kansas GOP Candidate Removes Tweet Attacking Indian-American Challenger As An ‘Evil’ ‘Turban Topper’, Think Progress, August 12, 2010, by Amanda Terkel. Much as these guys USE minority singers, and even spokesman and have a few token minorities at their rallies, basic sorts of bigotry like this jump out at any unbiased observer as proof positive of their racist beliefs. And there’s something like this almost every day, isn’t there. Forty-one percent of Republicans buy into the birther cr*p. Makes me sick to my stomach. There’s no place for beliefs — and people — like this in America.
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Gulf coast fishermen increasingly desperate as BP begins legal wrangling, Agence France-Presse on The Raw Story, July 29, 2010, by Agence France-Presse, used with permission, quoted verbatim:
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US spill chief Thad Allen failed Thursday to reassure desperate fishermen about their Gulf of Mexico oil clean-up jobs, while BP began the legal wrangling in a massive civil trial.
As engineers prepared next week’s vital operations to permanently kill the capped BP well, Allen met with parish presidents and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in New Orleans to discuss how to safeguard local jobs going forward.
With little oil now floating in the Gulf, there are fears the popular “Vessels of Opportunity” program that employs fishing boats to skim crude off the surface of the sea might have to be scrapped.
Allen pledged to redeploy as many skippers as possible to other tasks, but could give no firm indication of how many of the 1,500 boats would still be working in the Gulf after next month.
“Obviously as we transition into a point where there’s not the threat of a spill, the involvement of Vessels of Opportunity is going to necessarily change,” he said after the meeting.
Allen said that over the next 10 days he would work with parish presidents and the governor to hammer out a plan for the fishermen and what to do with the program through to the end of August.
A large portion of the Gulf waters remain closed to commercial and recreational fishing and with lingering doubts about seafood safety, fishermen could effectively end up losing their jobs for a second time.
“The fishermen have missed a year, and we don’t know what the impact is going to be next year, or the year after that,” said Marty O’Connell, an environmental scientist at the University of New Orleans.
Many are worried it could be months or even years before they can fish again, and there are no guarantees the fish will be there in the same numbers when they do, or that they will be safe to eat.
“If BP uses the capping of the well as an excuse to minimize its clean-up operations, then shame on them,” said Mike Frenette, whose five boats in Venice, Louisiana missed an entire summer’s fishing due to the disaster.
Frenette had to apply four times before getting two of his five boats onto the program, which pays between 600 and 3,500 dollars a day, depending on the size of the boat.
“All that our Vessels of Opportunity work is doing is counting against our compensation claim. We’re not making any money, here, we’re just trying to keep our heads above water.”
Many disgruntled fishermen are expected to seek compensation for lost earnings and personal injury in the courts, and in Boise, Idaho on Thursday lawyers for disaster victims opened the first stage in a massive civil trial.
The hearing brought together a wide array of people and players linked to the disaster triggered by an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.
Plaintiffs range from the families of the 11 workers killed in the explosion to Gulf fishermen whose catch has been contaminated by the spill, threatening them with financial ruin.
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A seven-judge panel will decide over the next few weeks whether to consolidate the litigation into one or several cases, and where the trial or trials should take place.
BP and other firms named in the claims argued for the venue to be the oil headquarters of Houston, Texas, but victims’ lawyers said it should be somewhere closer to those hit hardest by the disaster, like New Orleans. Joining BP in court were Transocean, which leased the rig to BP, Cameron International, which manufactured the blowout preventer, the device which should have shut down the well but failed to work properly, and Halliburton, the oil services company which had finished cementing the well only 20 hours before the rig exploded.
BP hopes to begin a “static kill” operation as early as this weekend to plug the capped well with drilling mud and cement. Five days later a “bottom kill” through a relief well should finish the job once and for all.
A cap stopped the flow on July 15 after between three and 5.2 million barrels (117.6 million and 189 million gallons) had gushed out, making it likely the disaster is the biggest ever accidental oil spill.
See Incoming BP CEO: Time for ‘scaleback’ in cleanup, July 30, 2010, by The Associated Press.
ABC News Update on the Gulf oil spill and the apparent degradation and disappearance of most of the oil. — 2:18.
MSNBC’s Papantionio insists BP officials are looking at prison time over the Gulf Coast oil spill (The Ed Show) — 4:21.
"Drill Baby Kill," a rockin’ Gulf Coast relief and protest song — 5:10.
"Oil Is Blood," a heavy metal Gulf Coast oil spill protest song — 3:51.
"Cry For The Fishermen," (Gulf Oil Spill Disaster) – song — 3:30.
"Melodeego’s Rolling BP Concert Series" song. — 3:05
"Song in Protest of the BP oil spill," with Christian overtones. — 3:00
U2 sings their favorite protest song “Silver and Gold” in this live performance. — 5:50
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BP fails to put money in promised escrow account, Think Progress, July 24, 2010, by Nina Bhattacharya, quoted verbatim:
LISTEN to "BP defaults on $20 billion escrow account." – from GoLeftTV – 9:07
In a deal negotiated last month, President Obama and BP officials agreed the company would pay $5 billion annually over the next four years into an escrow account for damage its oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused. Ken Feinberg, who was appointed to administer oil spill claims out of the escrow fund, has said he “hasn’t been able to start writing claims checks” because BP PLC has failed to deposit any money into the $20 billion fund it promised to create:
Feinberg, who was appointed to administer oil spill claims out of the fund, said he doesn’t have the authority to force BP to deposit the money, but his hands are tied until it does. “I don’t want the checks to bounce,” he said.
The day after the escrow account’s establishment in June, BP CEO Tony Hayward told Congress that BP is “unwavering in our commitment to fulfill all our responsibilities” and the company “won’t stop spending until the job is done.”
See BP misses deadline to fund $20 billion escrow account, Las Vegas Democrat Examiner, July 25, 2010, by David Phillips.
Maybe they ARE thinking of paying this money though: See BP replaces CEO and posts $17 billion quarterly loss, Reuters, July 27, 2010, by Tim Bergin, excerpt quoted verbatim:
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Reuters) – Oil giant BP Plc launched a plan to repair its battered image in the United States on Tuesday, ditching its gaffe-prone chief executive and promising to slim down by trebling an asset sale target to $30 billion.
However, the company, the target of public anger over its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, tempted further ire by denying it needed cultural change and by offsetting the costs of the spill, including expected fines, against its taxes.
The tax move will cost the U.S. taxpayer almost $10 billion.
BP said Tony Hayward would stand down in October, to be replaced by American Bob Dudley, as it unveiled a $17 billion quarterly loss due to the costs of the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
“I believe that it is not possible for the company to move on in the United States with me remaining as the face to BP,” Hayward told reporters on a conference call.”
…SNIP….
BP shares traded up down 0.6 percent at 1247 GMT, against a 0.68 percent rise in the oil sector. Investors had cheered reports of Hayward’s imminent departure on Monday, sending BP shares up nearly 5 percent in London and New York.
Around $70 billion has been wiped off the London-based company’s market value since the rig blast.
UPDATE: See BP Envisions a Leaner Future Under Its New Chief Executive, The New York Times, July 27, 2010, by Julia Werdigier and Jad Mouawad.
UPDATE: See On the Surface, Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast; Concerns Stay, The New York Times, July 27, 2010, by Justin Gillis and Campbell Robertson, excerpt quoted verbatim:
The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: Yeah, I’m sure the plumes at depth are disappearing fast. And on the surface of it, a 17 billion quarterly loss seems to imply that BP is planning on paying its money into the escrow account. It would be hard to rack up that kind of losses otherwise…. Time will tell.
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