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: John McCain

“I predict to you that there will be huge scandals associated with this huge flood of money.”

- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), commenting on the ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010(Citizens United) that allowed the introduction of Super PACs into our politics.

Mitt Romney in His Own Words - 10 Important Mitt Romney Quotes

Mitt Romney, Wall Street’s Candidate, is the ONLY candidate on either side whose top 5 largest contributors are Wall Street firms:

Goldman Sachs: $367,200
Credit Suisse Group: $203,750
Morgan Stanley: $199,800
HIG Capital: $186,500
Barclays: $157,750

It’s little wonder that Mitt Romney, the cofounder of private-equity firm Bain Capital, has banked more than $1.1 million from the financial-services industry for his presidential run. Romney still has strong ties to Wall Street, and each year his own bank account benefits to the tune of millions of dollars, per his retirement agreement with Bain.

1. Romney likes to fire people, New Hampshire, January 2012:

“I like being able to fire people.....”

2. Romney’s idea of relating to unemployed Floridians, June 2011.

“I should tell my story. I’m also unemployed.”

3. Romney defends low corporate taxes in Iowa, August 2011.

“Corporations are people, my friend.”

4. Romney’s response when asked why he wouldn’t raise the cap on Social Security taxes, or promise not to cut Medicare benefits, Iowa, August 2011:

“If you want to speak, you can speak. But right now, it’s my turn.”

5. Romney in a GOP primary debate, October 2011, whose own tax plan is heavily weighted to benefit the very rich:

“If I’m going to use precious dollars to reduce taxes, I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people.”

6. Romney stands for corporate greed, January 2012:

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

7. Romney, the out of touch elitist, offers to bet Rick Perry $10,000 dollars during a debate in Iowa, December 2011:

“Rick, I'll tell you what, 10,000 bucks, $10,000 bet.”

8. Romney slaps down notion of higher taxes on the rich, proceeds to lie about how his tax plan helps the middle class, quotes Margaret Thatcher, January 2012:

“The best way that I can help middle income Americans is to become president of the United States, to cut taxes for middle income Americans, which is what my proposal does [Romney’s tax plan does virtually nothing for the middle class].

I know that there are some who say, ‘Let’s just get more money from the higher-income people, let’s just tax them some more,’ and I understand that’s popular in a lot of people’s minds. But just don’t forget that old Margaret Thatcher line, ‘Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.’ ”

9. Romney lies when he claims during a debate that he is not a career politician (he’s been running for one office or another since the 1990s), January 2012:

“This for me, politics, is not a career.”

10. Romney employs a popular GOP dog whistle, implying that he would do away with the welfare system, RNC convention speech, 2008:

“It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.”

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RELATED POSTS:
. The Character of Presidents and Potential Presidents Conveyed in Images
. 6 Quotes About Mitt Romney
. Full Video: When Mitt Romney Came to Town
. Mitt Romney - Champion of the Middle Class

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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RELATED POSTS:
. Mitt Romney in His Own Words - 10 Important Mitt Romney Quotes. The Character of Presidents and Potential Presidents Conveyed in Images
. 6 Quotes About Mitt Romney
. Full Video: When Mitt Romney Came to Town

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.”

Koch Industries Attempted to Coerce Fifty Thousand Employees to Vote Their Way in 2010

Is there anything that the Koch brothers won’t do to make an extra buck? From Think Progress:

Koch Industries mailed a letters to 50,000 employees instructing them on who to vote for in the 2010 midterm elections. The Koch packet given to employees included candidate names, a letter from a Koch lobbyist, and a right-wing screed from the company and the Washington Examiner, an outlet owned by Phil Anschutz, a billionaire who is close to the Koch family. (View a copy of the packet here.)

Up until 2010, this activity was patently illegal. However, the Citizens United ruling in January of 2010 made it possible for corporations to interfere in our elections in previously illegal ways. Propagandizing to their employees is one of them.

Corporate coercion of employees is perhaps the most profound repercussion from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year. The Nation spoke to several law experts who noted that “Citizens United frees Koch Industries and other corporations to propagandize their employees with their political preferences.” Before the decision, businesses were prohibited from instructing their employees to vote a certain way.

The Koch brothers, were of course, financially involved in the Citizens United case.

Morning Quote: Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow on the Wisconsin protests

If you break the public unions in Wisconsin you can break them everywhere.

And as Maddow points out in the video, the Democratic Party can not survive with out the unions. (thank you again, SCOTUS, for the Citizens United ruling).

Quote of the Day re Clarence Thomas and the Citizens United Ruling

It turns out that Clarence Thomas should have recused himself from the Citizens United case because it now appears that the corporatist right wing supreme court justice was a shill for Citizens United, a right wing organization. Bob Cesca:

So Citizens United runs a favorable ad for Thomas. Then Thomas decides in favor of Citizens United. This decision has to be vacated. It's obvious -- now more than than ever -- that Thomas shouldn't have been allowed to plunk himself anywhere near the Citizens United case. Ads, Koch Brothers money, spousal associations. This is more egregiously wrong than just about any Supreme Court decision in a long, long time -- even worse than Bush v Gore.

Impeachment, and VACATE the damn decision! both get my vote.

More from Karoli, at Crooks and Liars

Former Justices Stevens and O’Connor on the Citizens United Ruling

We knew that Justice Stevens held a poor opinion of the ruling as he was one of those who dissented. Justice O’Connor, however, was retired at the time of the ruling, and it appears now that she also has concerns about the ruling. And well she should. From a Newsweek interview:

O'Connor: I suppose the court has had occasion to change its view on certain issues over a period of years. Do you see any on the horizon that you think the court might well reexamine as things go on?

Stevens: Well, you know, Sandra, I dissented in a lot of cases, and I'd like [the court] to reexamine them all [laughs]. I don't expect them to, but I think they made a serious mistake in the [Citizens United] campaign-finance case, in which they overruled the portion of an opinion you and I jointly authored [on the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law]. And I think you might share my view.

O'Connor: I notice that myself, and when I am asked about it, I often say, "Well, the court overruled part of what I wrote." And leave it there. It is a source of concern today, the extent of campaign contributions and whether corporations and unions must be held to the [same] standard as an individual. These are tough issues for the nation and the court.

According to a report by the office of New York City Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio, groups that protect the identity of their donors, and/or are allow to spend unlimited amounts, spent $132.5 million to influence the vote during the 2010 election cycle, which amounts to approximately a third of the spending by all outside groups on the midterms, or 15% of all federal election spending in 2010.

RACHEL MADDOW: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is Urging Members to Outsource Jobs

The hypocrisy, the blatant anti-Americanism of the far Right Wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce is enough to make your blood boil. Watch it, and let the rage begin.

 

THINK PROGRESS: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a Far Right Lobbying Group

A far right lobbying group which accepts donations from foreign interests, which are then used to smear Democrats. From the always on target, Think Progress, emphasis mine:

Since the 70s, the Chamber has been a far right lobbying group, representing mostly multinational corporations like ExxonMobil and CitiGroup. Last year, nearly half of the U.S. Chamber’s entire budget came from large health insurance companies. As Think Progress reported, the Chamber also recently began a secretive effort to attract donors from foreign corporations, including the Bahrain Petroleum Company and the Bank of India.

Morning Quote: Frank Rich on Tom DeLay Conviction and Wall Street

Oddly enough, the crime for which Tom DeLay was finally convicted last week, money laundering and conspiracy to launder money, well, that’s no longer a crime thanks to the SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United. Frank Rich on NYT:

It’s an industry that can buy politicians as easily as it does dwarfs, which is why government has tilted the playing field ever more in its direction for three decades. Now corporations of all kinds can buy more of Washington than before, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and to the rise of outside “nonprofit groups” that can legally front for those who prefer to donate anonymously. The money laundering at the base of Tom DeLay’s conviction by a Texas jury last week — his circumventing of the state’s post-Gilded Age law forbidding corporate campaign contributions directly to candidates — is now easily and legally doable at the national level.

VIDEO: Who is Secretly Buying Our Elections?

Chilling. And as someone else said [can't remember exactly who], this election is for all of the marbles. VOTE.

 

Update: FEC Filing of Concerned TaxPayers of America

The group which garnered national attention when they intervened in the DeFazio race in Oregon, Concerned Taxpayers of America, consists of only two people/entities. From the Washington Post:

Daniel G. Schuster Inc., an Owings Mills, Md., concrete firm, gave two donations to the group totaling $300,000, new disclosure records show. New York hedge fund executive Robert Mercer gave the group $200,000.

And that's the extent of the financial support reported by Concerned Taxpayers, which says it was formed in September "to engage citizens from every walk of life and political affiliation" in the fight against "runaway spending."

The group's rapid creation - and its narrow funding base - illustrates how one or two wealthy donors can have a dramatic impact on political races, particularly in the wake of recent court rulings that have swept away many traditional spending limits. The situation also underscores how the precise motivations and goals of many independent groups can remain stubbornly opaque, even when disclosure is required.

The Concerned Taxpayers, which lists a Capitol Hill townhouse as its address, has spent $450,000 on television advertising targeting just two lawmakers: Reps. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Frank M. Kratovil Jr. (D-Md.).

Are these two donors acting as fronts? We may never know. We desperately need public financing of all elections.

Grover Norquist and Americans For Tax Reform Make Large Ad Buys in Michigan

NOTE: I’ll be updating this as I source further information.

There's a new ad on network television attacking the 9th district Democratic incumbent in Michigan, Gary Peters. The $225,000 ad buy was made by Americans For Tax Reform yesterday.

Americans For Tax Reform is an anti-government advocacy group, located in Washington D.C. on 7th Street, and is run by right wing scourge, Grover Norquist. Norquist and Americans For Tax Reform are most well known for laundering money for Jack Abramoff—and they did so at a profit. The Washington Post [2006]:

Newly released documents in the Jack Abramoff investigation shed light on how the lobbyist secretly routed his clients' funds through tax-exempt organizations with the acquiescence of those in charge, including prominent conservative activist Grover Norquist.

The federal probe has brought a string of bribery-related charges and plea deals. The possible misuse of tax-exempt groups is also receiving investigators' attention, sources familiar with the matter said.

Among the organizations used by Abramoff was Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. According to an investigative report on Abramoff's lobbying released last week by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Americans for Tax Reform served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. As the money passed through, Norquist's organization kept a small cut, e-mails show.

PR RELATED POSTS: Grover Norquist’s Group, Americans for Tax Reform, is Making Large Ad Buys Against Democrats