Newt’s response to Juan Williams question about black kids getting off food stamps and going to work brought the largely white South Carolina audience to its feet. Gee, white people in South Carolina, getting excited about putting the blacks to work. Yep, color me surprised:

I realize many on the right are celebrating Newt’s dominance of this issue, but it is foolish and shortsighted. This is blatant racism. He wasn’t talking about “the poor.” Nope. He makes it about race. When Newt says, “Blacks Don’t Have to Be Pimps, Prostitutes or Drug Dealers,” he’s asking for trouble. Read the rest

Are Conservative Republicans nuts? I understand the discomfort with Mitt Romney. If you are going to win an election and govern in the State of Massachusetts then you will have to make some compromises that don’t sit well with bedrock conservatives. But now that the quest to select a candidate to run against Barack Obama is in full tilt, it is stunning that, apart from Romney, the Republican field is so weak.

Let’s start with Newt Gingrich. He’s fun in verbal sparring. He has a quick mind and years of experience slugging it out in heated partisan debates. If that was all one needed to do in order to win an election or govern then, hands down, Newt would be king. But that is fantasy. Newt is thin skinned and prickly. Newt is intellectually sloppy and inconsistent. Newt is the consummate Washington insider, having parlayed his stint as Speaker into a lucrative consulting business. Most importantly, Newt is unorganized. While terrific with big ideas and thinking outside of the box, he is terrible at taking care of details and putting together a ground game.

Yet, the media continues to fan the flames of hope that Newt will endure. Why? They need conflict to drive ratings. Their hope is that the Republicans will beat themselves bloody until June. That may not serve the interests of the Republican Party but it will make for dandy TV and hot ratings. Read the rest

“With Huntsman gone from the Republican presidential primary race and throwing his support to Romney, five candidates will square off Monday in pivotal Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate ahead of South Carolina vote.” – from Fox News Network’s home page today. In the pre-debate story, “Conservatives talk social issues in South Carolina, but money is still on their minds“:

Saturday [January 21, 2012] is only the third vote of the nominating season, but one that could all but wrap the process, and while social issues have dominated Iowa and taken up much of the conversation in South Carolina, the economy is still the deciding factor for many voters.

“This is a very volatile field, and it’s had its leaks and valleys and ebbs and flows,” said Amy Kremer, head of the Tea Party Express. … “Right now (Rick) Santorum is surfing … the people of South Carolina are going to have to make the decision and what they can all agree on is the economy is the most important issue.”

Read the rest

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So this is Stephen Colbert’s notion of a knee-slappin’, rollickin’ chuckle of a joke about Mitt Romney’s view of corporations as humanoids? Okay, I can see how that could be amusing. But my problems with Colbert’s poking fun at Romney are 1) the attempt at humor doesn’t work because it just isn’t funny, and 2) the “joke” is, in reality, a highly negative portrayal of Romney. Serial killer? Jack the Ripper style? Really? Read the rest

NY Times reports that Jon Huntsman is calling it quits and will endorse Mitt Romney:

Jon M. Huntsman Jr. informed his advisers on Sunday that he intends to drop out of the Republican presidential race, ending his candidacy a week before he had hoped to revive his campaign in the South Carolina primary. . . .

Matt David, campaign manager to Mr. Huntsman, confirmed the decision in an interview Sunday evening. “The governor and his family, at this point in the race, decided it was time for Republicans to rally around a candidate who could beat Barack Obama and turn around the economy,” Mr. David said. “That candidate is Gov. Mitt Romney.”

So? Read the rest

Will we learn in 2012 if Mary Schapiro, current chair of the SEC, and other then senior executives at the Wall Street self-regulatory organization, FINRA, engaged in a fraud?

The case addressing this question, Standard Chartered v FINRA, has been appealed to the highest court in our land. As such, one might think that most Americans would care to learn if our nation’s top financial regulator did, in fact, engage in a fraud which had a monetary value of between $175-$350 MILLION plus. Not exactly chicken feed.

Why hasn’t this case received more attention? 

For the very simple reason that our major financial media have spent little to no time focused on it. If you don’t think our media is controlled in this country, then you may want to ask why this case has not received more meaningful coverage.

I first addressed this case in the fall of 2009. I personally believe it belongs on the front page of every business section in our country. Why? This case addresses the core of what I have long defined as the Wall Street-Washington incest. The $175-350 million which FINRA retained — rather than having appropriately distributed to its member firms — allowed the major firms on Wall Street and selected FINRA executives to benefit at the expense of smaller broker-dealers. Sound a little incestuous perhaps? You think? Read the rest

Obamabots are in denial. They keep insisting that the economy is doing swell, that job creation essential for an economic rebound is going full steam. I truly wish that was the case, not because I want Obama to succeed, but because of the pain this stagnating economy is inflicting on too many American families. Two things have to happen to turn the economy around–a genuine turn around in the housing market and strong exports. On both counts we are in trouble and the situation is getting worse.

Friday the 13th lived up to its bad luck reputation with things turning worse in Europe. Most of the major European countries are in double dip now. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of France, Italy and seven other European countries. Greece is on life support and is on the verge of default as talks between Greece and commercial banks broke down on Friday:

“Discussions with Greece and the official sector are paused for reflection on the benefits of a voluntary approach,” the Institute of International Finance, which negotiates on behalf of the banks, said in a statement on Friday, after its leader, Charles Dallara, left Athens.

“Unfortunately, despite the efforts of Greece’s leadership, the proposal put forward,” the statement added, “has not produced a constructive consolidated response by all parties.”

The New York Times reports: Read the rest

In its 2010 “Citizens United” decision, the US Supreme Courts held that:

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“When a corporation farts, I’ll believe it’s a human being.” – Dylan Ratigan said Friday (01/13/12) on Morning Joe, referring to the Supreme Court decision that gives corporations the same First Amendment rights as individuals, permitting corporations (and very wealthy individuals) unfettered abilities to “speak” with unlimited cash donations during election contests. As you all know, the SCOTUS decision has spawned SuperPACs, which are changing how politics is played and are turning off the microphone of individuals who send in small donations.

BELOW, there’s more from the anti-corruption warrior Ratigan, and I’ve also added an update on the latest polls coming out of South Carolina and Florida. Read the rest

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While driving my truck and listening to Bloomberg Radio, I almost gagged on my coffee.

What caused my knee jerk reaction? Let me set the table as to what I heard, prompted my thinking, “You have got to be kidding me,” and why I feel compelled to write this commentary today.  

I believe it is a foregone conclusion that the Republican Party will critique the Obama administration for little meaningful “change” in how Washington operates.

In a similar fashion, we already see political interests from both ends of the spectrum attacking Mitt Romney — whom I believe is the presumptive Republican nominee — and the tenets of free market capitalism embedded within private equity and venture capital.

In an attempt to parry the critique of his administration and his ability to bring real change to Washington, President Obama was on the stump recently in his hometown of Chicago. Read the rest

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Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Rudy Guiliani:

Ignorant people on both the left and the right can revel in the nonsense of populism, but the actual task of raising capital and creating jobs sometimes goes awry. During the last four years, for example, I have invested in two separate companies and both investments failed. If those investments had succeeded I might have scored some major economic victories and earned returns worth $2 million dollars. Instead, I lost the money I invested. That’s called capitalism. Read the rest

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As you know, CMS (Medicare) governs the medical profession. Appointed and hired bureaucrats who have little or no experience in the health-care business interpret the rules and regulation without oversight.   

Health care providers are now subject to audit of Medicare charges.  These “audits” are performed by private contractors who only are paid if they find errors or violations in the records of patients receiving Medicare benefits.  These audits are called RAC Audits.  

Let me emphasize that these are performed by persons who have a vested interest in finding error because that’s how they get paid.  They also appear to have the power to interpret Medicare rulings to fit their own ends.  This smacks of conflict of interest in its basic form.

Yet they continue to perform without regulation and without apparent opportunity for appeal. Essentially, these audits are performed by hired guns … companies which are hired to do the audit … and are not paid a fee for the service.  They are paid for infractions or errors found during the audit.  The companies that do these audits make their own interpretations of Medicare rules and guidelines. Read the rest

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Americans have grown accustomed to being lied to. Take inflation stats, for example. The Feds claim to measure inflation but exclude food and fuel from the calculation. That’s like claiming to measure one’s weight gain by excluding all weight added from eating and drinking. Food and fuel make a critical difference in people’s lives. If the cost goes up then individuals have to spend more money on those items and have less for other expenditures. If you are elderly and on a fixed income do you think excluding food and fuel makes you better off?

So let’s take a look at today’s numbers on unemployment claims filed in the last week. You are told that the SEASONALLY ADJUSTED NUMBER is 399,000. This is not good news. Economists and many pundits expected the number to come in at around 350,000. This means more people have lost jobs.

Okay. Ready for a shocker? The actual number (i.e., NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED) is Read the rest

I know that many readers here dislike Jon Stewart. But the following piece illustrates the genius of his show. He indirectly comes to the aid of the Tea Party. Can you believe it?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
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That, boys and girls, is brilliant satire combined with rapier like political analysis. Read the rest

New video from North Korea, DPRK, starring Kim Jong Un playing his father in the walk-and-talk-with-the-bosses scenes that serve as a regime opera.

The many faces of military cadres is the best evidence available of who is in charge of the Kim cult. What is striking is how closely KJU imitates his father’s casual haberdashery and regal gestures, as if he is trying out for the role of Big Kim. Read the rest