Political Ruminations

Quote of the Day

“Well, the banks aren't bad people. They're just overwhelmed right now. The banks are scared to death, of course. They're feeling the same thing that you're feeling.”

- Mitt Romney, continues on with his “corporations are people” theme, on Monday in Florida.

Morning Quote: Mitt Romney Stands for Corporations

“Everything corporations earn, ultimately goes to the people.”

- GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, stands up for corporate greed.

Watch:

Yes, and corporations are people, too, so sayeth Mitt Romney.

H/T Kevin Drum

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Quote of the Day

Former Massachusetts governor, current candidate for the GOP 2012 presidential nomination, Mitt Romney responds to an Iowa citizen today:

“Corporations are people, my friend.”

Morning Quote: Michele Bachmann

GOP presidential hopeful, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) at her finest….making a fool of herself:

“I think clearly what this demonstrates is that the president of the United States is afraid of my candidacy. He fears me.”

Bachmann was responding to a statement from Obama campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt, who issued a statement in response to Bachmann’s campaign launch in Iowa on Monday. LaBolt said that Bachmann’s policies "would erode the path to prosperity for middle class families", and went on to paint her as someone who would work for the wealthy and corporate interests.

Cartoonish U.S. Supreme Court

The week’s cartoons mocking our corporate-bought SCOTUS’ Walmart ruling.

Cartoonist – John Darkow

Cartoonist – Pat Bagley

Cartoonist – R.J. Matson

Maddow Video: Is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Poised for Impeachment or Resignation?

Supreme Court Justices are not legally required to follow the federal code of conduct for the judiciary, but they are supposed to do so.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is embroiled in an ethics scandal because he has not followed those guidelines, nor precedent in his jurisprudence. Watch:

For your edification, the NYT piece on Crow-Thomas.

Related Posts on Political Ruminations: John Dean: Rehnquist and Mitchell Forced Justice Fortis to Resign

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (courtesy of The Maddow Show):

MADDOW:  When you are a Supreme Court justice, people tend to name things after you, even build places just to honor you.

This statue, for instance, honors Justice William Brennan in his native Newark, New Jersey.  Consider also the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston.  The Sandra Day O‘Connor College of Law in Arizona.  Brandeis University in Massachusetts named for Louis Brandeis.

LA TIMES Complains About Term “Lamestream Media”

Writer Paul Whitefield, of the LA Times, wrote (he intended this as criticism for those who constantly call the mainstream media by less flattering names, such as “lamestream”):

By regularly demonizing major, reputable media outlets, some political leaders have taken us to a very dark place, a place where people don't believe anyone: not the media, not the government, not elected officials. And that's a bad place to be.

Well, yes, it is a “bad place to be” but we the people did not get there by ourselves nor did we get there by listening to the right-wing decry the “lamestream media”. We got there because the curtain parted, and we finally see the Wizard in all his nakedness with his inglorious attributes of greed, corruption and narcissism.

I mean, are there really any “major, reputable media outlets” left? I can only think of maybe one. But only certain writers for that publication. And even on that one that I still consider 95% reliable, I always question, and frequently look for verification from other sources. And some of their writers I just won’t read.

I feel that way not because I listened to Palin, or some other loser decrying “lamestream media”, but because I have learned over the past few years that our media is not objective, and thus can not be counted on to present the facts in a truthful or secondarily important to me, objective light. After all, our mainstream media is entirely corporate owned. 

Whitefield goes on to further blame terms such as “lamestream media” for the lack of confidence in our media:

that's the real problem, because that's what this "lamestream media" nonsense has done: Too many people see political motives in everything; too many people believe anything but the truth.

Someone should remind Palin and her ilk of what Thomas Jefferson said, that given a choice between government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he'd choose the latter.

Really, Mr. Whitefield? Really? It isn’t just Palin or the right-wing who see the media as lame. And what should we see when we look at corporate owned media?

It isn’t the term “lamestream” or any other derogatory term that has undermined our confidence in media.

It is the incompetence, and the corruption that much of the media exhibits or partakes in that is the cause of our disenchantment with media. It is the media’s participation in the ridiculous “both sides meme”, and their willingness to play simpering, stupid idiots for the dollars of their sponsors and the coffers of their corporate owners.

It is why people read the blogs, preferring them to more mainstream sources, particularly for political news. It is why I and many others blog. It is not, however, that we've been sucked in to the idea of the "lamestream media" as promoted by right-wingnuts such as Sarah Palin.

Win America: Multinational Corporations Clamoring for a Tax Holiday

The multinational corporations behind the Win America campaign want a tax holiday because they chose to avoid paying their fair share of taxes by stashing much of their money in offshore tax havens.

The problem with their tax avoidance arises when they want to bring that money back in to the U.S./repatriate that money, and they consequently have to pay a statutory tax rate of 35%. To avoid paying the 35% statutory rate, they then, as history has it, initiate a concerted effort to convince Congress to give them a “tax holiday”. A tax holiday which would result in a 5.25% tax rate on the repatriated funds rather than the statutory rate of 35%. That’s quite a hefty savings.

Sen. Orrin Hatch Wants to Raise Taxes on the Poor and the Middle Class

On the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) suggested raising taxes on the poor and the middle class:

Well, Bastiat, the great economist of the past said, the place where you’ve got to get revenues has to come from the middle class. That’s the huge number of people that are there. So the system does need to be revamped. As far as, I think I made the point that if you just go with what the president says about the wealthy, you might get $36 billion compared to the $1.5 trillion expenditure this year, or should I say deficit this year. And the problem with that is that you hit about 800,000 small businesses where the jobs are created that would hopefully get enough people to pay taxes. So, yeah, we have an unbalanced tax code that we’ve got to change.

I tell you, if we get control of that committee, the Finance Committee, I intend to see that it’s changed. Not to hurt the poor. We should help the poor. But to make sure that there’s a civic duty on the part of every one of us to help this government to, uh, to be better.

Think Progress, emphasis mine:

GOP Priorities Exposed

Once again, the GOP tells the American people that we don’t matter.

But tax cuts for milionaires, big oil subsidies (going to the same industry that loves to bilk us for every dime), and tax breaks for offshoring companies…….these things matter. To the GOP.

All this, even as almost every single House Republican voted to end Medicare as we know it, making 165 billion in cuts under the Ryan plan. 

Pitchforks and torches anyone?

Chart via DCCC

The Corporatization of Michigan

Via Laura Conway, writing for Maddow Blog, I learned today that there is pushback from a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette regarding Maddow’s position on the events occurring in Benton Harbor. .

The reporter, Julie Mack, writes:

What's worse for Benton Harbor: A financial manager with dictatorial powers or an utterly dysfunctional city government? Are Benton Harbor residents better served by 90 acres of parkland, or 68 acres and a new source of revenue for cash-strapped city coffers? Is it insensitive to build an upscale development in a downtrodden community, as Maddow suggests? Or does it show that the business community hasn't turned its back on Benton Harbor?

Yes, Ms. Mack apparently thinks (or was told to write by her corporate bosses) that both the governor, and his wealthy cronies behind the golf club, are doing Benton Harbor a favor.

I strongly disagree. Here's why.

Robert Bobb, Detroit Schools EFM, Attempts to Sell His Treatment of Teachers, Charter Schools, and School Reform in a Video Interview

The videos are from an interview (aired just a few minutes ago) with Robert Bobb, the Detroit School District's Emergency Financial Manager,  and conducted by Carolyn Clifford, a reporter for the local ABC affiliate in Detroit.

Presented without comment.

Watch:

Part 1

SCOTUS Rules Against Innocent Man in Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit

Yesterday, Antonin Scalia evidently caused a 4-car accident on his way to court, possibly salivating, in his frenzy to dismiss, and/or mock the female plaintiffs in the Wal-Mart v. Dukes case on the days docket.

(I should add that Scalia was only fined $70, which does not begin to compare to what my son was recently fined ($500) when he was ticketed for being 5 miles over the speed limit, and a registration that was a day late in being re-upped--but that's another story of inequity in the case of the People v. the Elites)

But the mocking of people with lady parts was possibly minor when you consider the ruling of our right-wing Supreme Court in the case of Connick v. John Thompson, wherein, the Court ruled against John Thompson, and thus ensured that there would be no repercussions when prosecutors withhold evidence, and innocent people go to jail, and in Thompson's case, to death row for 14 long years. No damages were allowed Mr. Thompson, and simple human decency was notably absent.

A bitterly divided Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out a jury verdict won by a New Orleans man who spent 14 years on death row and came within weeks of execution because prosecutors had hidden a blood test and other evidence that would have proven his innocence.

The 5-4 decision delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas shielded the New Orleans district attorney's office from being held liable for the mistakes of its prosecutors. The evidence of their misconduct did not prove "deliberate indifference" on the part of then-Dist. Atty. Harry Connick Sr., Thomas said.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized her disapproval by reading her dissent in the courtroom, saying the court was shielding a city and its prosecutors from "flagrant" misconduct that nearly cost an innocent man his life.
"John Thompson spent 14 years isolated on death row before the truth came to light," she said. He was innocent of the crimes that sent him to prison and prosecutors had "dishonored" their obligation to present the true facts to the jury, she said.

In the past, the high court has absolved trial prosecutors from any and all liability for the cases they bring to court. The key issue in the case of Connick vs. John Thompson was whether the district attorney could be held liable for a pattern of wrongdoing in his office and for his failure to see to it that his prosecutors followed the law.

Also...too....apparently, DAs may now be held innocent regarding any wrongdoing in their offices, and prosecutors need no longer follow the law.

H/T Kevin Drum and MrBrink

Adding………Irrelevant but of interest; the district attorney in the case, Harry Connick Sr. is the father of singer, Harry Connick Jr..

Republicans Caught: They DO Want a Government Shutdown

Although Republicans keep on saying that they don’t want a government shutdown, and although Republicans will try to blame it on Democrats when they do actually shut down the federal government (rest assured, they will shut it down in April), but yet….here they are, recently caught on tape spewing in favor of a federal government shutdown.

Transcript of remarks made by Republican lawmakers in favor of a federal government shutdown below the video.

Watch:

Morning Quote: Anthony Weiner

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) talking to a TPM reporter (after an address at the Center for American Progress) on what may happen re the Affordability Care Act if any of the current lawsuits end up in our corporatist, predominantly right-wing, Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court unfortunately is a corporate-dominated arm of the Republican Party right now. I put nothing past them. But they would have to take a Bush v. Gore like leap to strike down the constitutionality of the whole law. Even the mandate is a pretty thin reed.

I second the bolded sentiments. Nothing.