'Bully' Documentary Director: Romney Should Lead On This Issue
Wall St. Scandal Raises Tough Questions For Obama Admin
Walker Weighs In On ‘Divide And Conquer’ Vid
TPM Editors’ Blog Opinions, Context & Ideas from TPM Editors
A Silk Purse From A Sow’s Ear
The director of the controversial Bully tells TPM: “What I see is an opportunity for Mitt Romney to lead and really be an advocate for decreasing bullying.”
I May Be Mormon, But This Obama Guy …
Mitt Romney tries to thread the needle with evangelicals in a commencement speech at Liberty University. Our Evan McMorris-Santoro was there.
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Cynical …
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), on Obama: “Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his views on marriage could get any gayer.”
Recapping The Week
The short, snappy, and always fun Week In 100 Seconds. Plus … Paul Werdel does The Wrap.
Great Moments in City Council Crazy
If you haven’t seen this video of a woman speaking out against a LGBT rights ordinance in Lincoln, Nebraska, well it’s a unique experience. Video after the jump …
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Fail Whale
Watch our special CNBC-only edition of The Day In 100 Seconds as the biz talk net tackled the JP Morgan debacle.
The TPM Interview
This week’s installment is with The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal.
Readers Share Their Stories
TPM Reader BW shares her own citizenship story …
After reading Josh’s post ”Citizenship Matters” I wanted to share my perspective as a dual citizen of the United States and Switzerland, and on the question of citizenship generally, which in my family is rather complicated.Read More →Both my parents, my two U.S.-born brothers, and I are all Swiss citizens, but I am the only one who was actually born on Swiss soil.
Tricky For Obama
In its statement to TPM a short time ago, the Obama campaign knocked Mitt Romney’s opposition to financial reform but stopped short of tying him to the JP Morgan mess, or even mentioning it specifically. That’s because the JP Morgan losses are a very sticky issue for the Obama administration. Financial regulatory reform was intended to prevent the kinds of trading JP Morgan was engaging in, but the rules as written by Obama administration regulators may not actually prohibit it, as JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was quick to point out yesterday. Brian Beutler explains.
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JP Morgan Mess Enters Prez Campaign
The Obama camp takes it first shot at Mitt Romney since the JP Morgan debacle over his opposition to financial reform.
MSNBC Boots Reporter Off the Show
MSNBC host Tamron Hall kicks right-wing Washington Examiner reporter off her show live on the air.
The Schlump-In-Chief
When you’re the President, you get to have Sofia Vergara come by the office on a Saturday. But, dude … is that a track suit?
Citizenship Matters
I got in a bit of an argument on Twitter earlier this week about my belief in the importance of unitary citizenship – or to put it another way, thinking dual citizenship is really not okay.
Read More →Finding Signals In The Noise
Researchers hunting for the elusive Higgs Boson particle are going to have to wade through an unprecedented volume of particle collision data now that the Large Hadron Collider powered up to a higher level.
Great Moments In Geraldo History
Geraldo on Fox and Friends this morning: “The last time I flew to Afghanistan, I got manually raped by a guy.”
Video after the jump.
Read More →No ‘Counterculture’ Hair At Liberty U.
Mitt Romney makes the required pilgrimage Saturday to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where “Hair and clothing styles related to a counterculture (as determined by the Student Affairs Deans’ Review Committee) are not acceptable.”
Backed Into a Paradox?
Is Mitt’s lack of any political core or center, paradoxically, making it hard to tack to the center post-primaries?
Question of the Day
I think virtually anything can be written off from a politician’s high school days, as long as there’s some reckoning with it. What surprised me most about yesterday’s revelations was that the Romney campaign did not choose to address this on its own terms.
Read More →The Dog That Didn’t Bark
I started to do a post yesterday on how muted the right wing response has been to President Obama’s same sex marriage shift. Back in the day, the House conference would have held a candlelight vigil for traditional marriage on the Capitol steps, protests would have been organized, right wing groups would have leaped at the fundraising opportunity, and the entire wingnut Wurlitzer would have been cranked up to maximum volume. It’s a sign of how far we come that not even Fox News could rouse itself to make a big deal about it, as Jon Stewart brilliantly points out. Watch.
Pressure Makes Dimons
If you’re playing catch-up on the JPMorgan debacle like I am, Heidi Moore’s explainer is a good place to start.
Don't Expect A Sister Souljah Moment From Mitt Romney
Romney’s recent refusal to take a stand on gay marriage or immigration shows he is backed into a far-right corner.
No ‘Counterculture’ Hair Allowed At Liberty U.
Romney this weekend at Liberty University will be spared the kind of long, floppy hair that reportedly so angered him in H.S.
Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters
Mitt Romney Makes Appeal To Evangelicals At Liberty University
LYNCHBURG, Va. – Mitt Romney directly addressed his religious differences with evangelicals in a commencement address at Liberty University Saturday. But speaking before a staunchly conservative audience placed him back in politically volatile territory, forcing him to focus on both same-sex marriage and “religious freedom,” which has become code in GOP circles for opposition to President Obama’s requirement that employer health benefits include contraceptive coverage for female…
‘Bully’ Documentary Director: Romney Should Lead On This Issue
Mitt Romney’s prep-school days have been under intense scrutiny this week after a report detailed an incident where he held down a classmate and cut his hair. But instead of dismissing the incident as long-ago “hijinks,” the former Massachusetts governor should use the attention as an opportunity to lead on the issue of bullying, said Lee Hirsch, the director of “Bully”, a new documentary that focuses on bullying in U.S. schools. “What I see is an opportunity for Mitt Romney to lead…
The Week In 100 Seconds: May 7-11
It was another busy week with, amongst other things, France electing a new president, a midnight endorsement from Rick Santorum, gay marriage positions to be clarified and for a hot second, Michele Bachmann as a Swiss Citizen.
Relive the highlights of this week in under two minutes:
The Battle To Replace Old Incandescent Light Bulbs With LEDs
Updated 8:12 am ET, Saturday, May 12 Battle lines were drawn in Las Vegas, Nevada this week at the 23rd annual Lightfair International trade show, an exposition of the latest in artificial lighting technology. Spurred in part by the controversial, misunderstood, national phase-out of energy inefficient incandescent bulbs that began in January, companies are racing to develop light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that meet the new energy standards, and yet will provide the same lighting…
JP Morgan Scandal Raises Tough Questions For Obama Administration
Mitt Romney will probably have a harder time defending his intent to repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law in the wake of JP Morgan’s stunning disclosure that it lost at least $2 billion betting on the economy. But it also raises important substantive questions about the effectiveness of the new financial reforms themselves, particularly the one provision specifically intended to end just this sort of trading. On a Friday conference call with reporters, Sens. Carl…
Obama Campaign Knocks Romney In Wake Of JP Morgan Debacle
The Obama campaign is seizing on the news that financial giant JP Morgan lost billions of dollars trading derivatives with customer funds to attack Mitt Romney for wanting to repeal the 2010 law meant to curtail these kinds of risky bets. “Rolling back Wall Street reform, as Mitt Romney proposes, would be reckless,” says Obama camp spokeswoman Lis Smith in a statement to TPM. “The law promotes transparency, limits the types of risky investments that can be made with deposits insured…
Consultant Convicted In Ehrlich Election Day Robocall Case
Republican campaign consultant Julius Henson was convicted of conspiracy on Friday in a case involving robocalls to Maryland voters apparently intended to keep black voters from the polls in 2010, the Associated Press reports.
The election day robocalls told voters to “relax” and that Gov. Martin O’Malley and President Obama had won. “The only thing left is to watch on TV tonight.”
Facebook Not Required To Disclose Reported FTC Probe To Investors
The drama surrounding Facebook’s upcoming debut on the stock market has encompassed more than just critiques of the CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fashion sensibilities. Facebook’s $1 billion deal to purchase the popular mobile photo sharing app Instagram, announced in April, two months after Facebook filed documents for an initial public offering of stock, is reportedly the target of an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, according to a Financial Times article published, but…
Walker On ‘Divide And Conquer’ Video: ‘I Don’t Remember The Particulars Of That Discussion’
Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) is responding to the controversy over a newly-released video, in which he told a wealthy donor that he would take a “divide and conquer” strategy to take down organized labor and potentially make Wisconsin a right-to-work state – a video clip that could have a major impact on the ongoing recall election against him. At a campaign stop on Friday, Walker explained to reporters that he made the comments in the contest of meeting with the local economicMilwaukee …
The Washington Post Responds To Right-Wing Criticism Over Romney Prep School Piece
Updated: 3:46 p.m. ET Conservatives are piling on what they call a “hit piece” by the Washington Post on Mitt Romney’s prep school days, accusing the paper of inaccurate reporting. The Breitbart site Big Journalism Friday morning called attention to an updated online version of the story . The Post rolled out the piece online Thursday morning but held it from the print edition until Friday to avoid juxtaposing it with President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage. The storyGQ…
Brookhaven National Lab Solves Hydrogen Fuel Puzzle With Nanotech
TINA CASEY A team of researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, has opened the door to a future of clean, cheap hydrogen fuel by ditching a popular platinum catalyst in favor of one based on two low cost alternatives, nickel and molybdenum. Until now, the manufacture of hydrogen gas has faced a huge and somewhat ironic obstacle: Though hydrogen gas is produced from a chemical reaction in plain water, one of the cheapest and most abundant substances imaginable, …
New Wall Street Scandal Threatens Romney
A surprising development on Wall Street Thursday could magnify a little-discussed but key difference between President Obama and Mitt Romney – one with enormous consequences for public policy. On a conference call with analysts, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon announced that his firm had lost $2 billion investing in the same species of derivative that exacerbated the 2008 financial crisis. Dimon claims the company is prepared to absorb the loss, but it puts the reputation of one of the …
Big Bang Machine Scientists Prepare For ‘Data Overload’
Scientists using the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, to try and locate the missing so-called “god particle” Higgs Boson, are preparing to deal with an unprecedented onslaught of particle collision data this year, now that the accelerator has been cranked up another power level. “Last year, on average, 10 protons colliding simultaneously, this year we might end up with 30,” said Andre David Tinoco Mendes, a scientist with the…
No ‘Counterculture’ Hair Allowed At Liberty University
When Mitt Romney stands up at Liberty University Saturday to deliver the school’s commencement address, he’s unlikely to be faced with the kind of long, floppy hair that reportedly so angered him in high school. Liberty, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, is known in politics as the place Republican candidates concerned about their connection to evangelicals go to make amends. John McCain famously shunned the school during his 2000 campaign, only to cozy up to it when he ran for …
Don’t Expect A Sister Souljah Moment From Mitt Romney
Vice President Joe Biden picked the right week to “get out over his skis” and force President Barack Obama to take an historic leap in supporting gay marriage. The administration quickly went from reluctant supporter of marriage equality to a campaign eager to pick a fight with Mitt Romney over gay rights, say GOP observers. Romney is still bringing the Republican base to his cause, and has so far been hesitant to take on the right for fear their wariness toward him will keep…
Colbert: Jesus Opposed Gay Marriage So Much He Was Speechless About It
Stephen Colbert on Thursday was still “reeling” from President Obama’s announcement this week that “he is gay.” “I have to assume that’s the reason he supports gay marriage,” Colbert said. But Colbert is a marriage “originalist” – he believes it’s a relationship between one man and that man’s rib. Colbert wanted to read viewers Jesus’ words on homosexuality, but he never said anything about it. “Evidently Jesus was so filled with rage that he was speechless,” Colbert said. “I am…
Carrier IQ Wants Smartphone Users To See What It Tracks
Updated 10:49 am ET, Friday, May 11
Carrier IQ, the beleaguered California software company that was accused of logging smartphone users’ keystrokes without their knowledge or permission in late 2011, is planning to rehabilitate its image with new applications that will allow consumers to see exactly what data the company is accessing, and what it is storing and transmitting to users.
Jon Stewart Traces Fox News’ Evolution On Gay Marriage
Jon Stewart seemed genuinely surprised that Fox News’ Shep Smith embraced President Obama’s support of same-sex marriage. After the president’s historic news aired on Wednesday, Smith welcomed Obama to the “21st century.” “Come on, Fox,” Stewart said. “It’s same-sex marriage, the most divisive cultural issue of our time, remember?” So how did we get here? Conservative commentators on Fox once claimed that same-sex marriage would lead to marriages with multiple spouses and even…
TPM Interview: The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal
The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal – a senior editor who covers technology – answered TPM’s questions about his own relationship with tech and what to pay attention to in the years to come. What’s an average day as Atlantic Tech editor like? I live out in the Bay Area, so I get up around 6 to get prepared for our morning meeting, which happens to occur at 6:30 a.m. my time. As soon as the meeting starts, I put my phone on mute and make a pot of French press coffee for my wife and me. …
‘Nothing Changes’: How Sheriff Joe Arpaio Went To Battle Against Civil Rights Laywers Back In 1997
Joe Arpaio has been here before. At another time, during another Democratic administration, the tough talking Arizona sheriff was hit with a federal civil rights lawsuit designed to end the abusive practices of his agency. It was 1997 when the sheriff, then 65, took to a press conference in Phoenix to react to news that the U.S. Justice Department was suing him for what it alleged was a longstanding mistreatment of inmates in his jails. According to news reports from the time, he…