Romney involved in business that disposed of aborted fetuses

So between blatant lying and investing in a medical waste business that disposed of aborted fetuses, which one do you think the radical right will find more offensive? At least Mitt has been consistent in that he has never been able to stay consistent with his stories. Anything that he said yesterday has no relevance to what he's going to say or do today.

More from Mother Jones on the Bain Capital and Mitt Romney lies.

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate's reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.

But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue. But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission—and obtained by Mother Jones—list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also contradict the official account of Romney's exit from Bain.

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Video: Joe Stiglitz talks about US inequality

For some reason, the issue of inequality has yet to take root among the political class. When the land of opportunity is no longer the land of opportunity, there's a problem and it needs to be addressed. Addressing anything serious requires a discussion and as long as the obstructionist party remains as is. Read the rest of this post...

Florida's GOP governor to refuse Obamacare

There's the old obstructionist GOP that we all know by now. There's a big conflict of interest at play here since he made his money in the highly lucrative healthcare industry. Is Rick Scott blocking Obamacare because it's bad for the people of Florida or because his healthcare business will make less profit?

Scott said the state will not expand the Medicaid program in order to lower the number of uninsured residents, nor will Florida set up a state-run health exchange, a marketplace where people who need insurance policies could shop for them.

"We care about having a health care safety net for the vulnerable Floridians, but this is an expansion that just doesn't make any sense,'' he told Fox host Greta Van Susteren.

Scott has gone back and forth on the issue after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Congress cannot withhold federal Medicaid funding from states that opt out of a requirement in the overhaul to expand coverage to those just above the poverty line.

Thankfully the decision is not completely his to make so part of the battle will be fought in the Florida legislature. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Victims of Obamacare (from Second City)

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Could Trevor Thomas have 'a substantial lead' over Steve Pestka in U.S. House race?

You read the headline correctly. Trevor Thomas, real progressive and candidate for western Michigan's 3th-district House seat, may easily have a substantial lead over anti-woman Dem candidate Steve Pestka.

(Yes, in this year of Dem fundraising on the "War Against Woman" theme, Pestka is blatantly anti-woman — click to see why.)

Mlive.com has the Trevor–Pestka polls story (h/t Towleroad):

A leading national pollster says underdog Democrat Trevor Thomas can move into a substantial lead in his primary showdown against Steve Pestka, if Thomas can raise the money to spread his message in the district.

Mark Mellman’s firm says a recent 400-person survey of registered Democrats shows Thomas with lower name recognition and overall favorability rating than Pestka.

But when presented with what the firm and the Thomas camp say is a fairly worded description of both men, Thomas surges to a 22-point lead from a 21-16 point deficit.

"Trevor Thomas has a fantastic opportunity to defeat Steve Pestka in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District in what begins as a close race with a huge number of undecided voters,” Mellman wrote in a memo to the Thomas campaign. "Our poll confirms Thomas has a powerful set of messages at his disposal if he can raise the funds to get that message out."

I've heard this in several places, that Pestka is fading and that Trevor has a terrific chance to win.

To do that though, he needs financial help. He needs your help, unless you've completely lost your faith.

There are three ways to do that:

1. Go to Thomas's campaign site: www.trevorforcongress.com.

2. Click the contribute link here (that classy thermometer you see to the right).

3. Take part in Howie Klein's opportunity to win amazing swag. The drawing for the Madonna platinum award plaque for Vogue will be this coming Thursday (July 5).

You can enter for this drawing by contributing through this ActBlue page.

Madonna not your cup of tea? There's more:

So you can still sign up for the Madonna platinum record here, the signed 2PAC book by Fred Johnson here or the Mr. Holland Opus signed script here.

Three ways to act; three ways to help a progressive brother try to move the needle your way.

Whatever you decide to do, thanks for considering this appeal.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Video: Mitt Romney explains why health insurance mandate is necessary

It's what Mitt called the "personal responsibility principle" back when Obamacare was known as Romneycare. Romney explained how it was your personal responsibility and how he was going to mandate that people had insurance.

Oh the difference a few years of the GOP moving to the extreme right can have on someone. Read the rest of this post...

Boehner ready to eliminate popular aspects of Obamacare

The GOP is fired up and ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's unclear why it makes sense to eliminate the entire program if they're primarily against the unpopular individual mandate. Since the GOP has made it clear that they have no plan to do anything about healthcare, anything Boehner says about keeping the popular parts of the plan can't be taken seriously.

The GOP owned Washington during most of the Bush years when the problem of healthcare was exploding yet they chose to ignore the issue. Why is anything Boehner says taken seriously, since he's not a serious person? Bloomberg:

Boehner said he supported letting people under 26 stay on their parents’ insurance when out of a job, one of the measures included in the law. He said many of the provisions can be replaced.

“All of those provisions, popular provisions, many of them very sound provisions, can in fact be done in a common sense way,” he said. “But not in 2,700 pages that no one read.”

The nation’s spending programs will need to be adjusted to reduce the federal debt, Boehner said. How it will be done is “going to be the subject of a great debate as we get into this election cycle and as we get into the post-election cycle,” he said.

Boehner now sounds like Romney, saying whatever he thinks people want to say at that moment. If he wanted these provisions, why couldn't he have offered constructive input during the debate rather than focus on changing the system? There's absolutely no reason to believe Boehner or any Republican that they will be honest negotiators with healthcare reform. They've been all about obstructionism and have shown no interest in negotiating anything, so what's different now? Read the rest of this post...

This week in Not-Rule of Law

I've said it before, but it bears repeating.

The writer Masaccio — a former state securities commissioner, mind you — has a nice post that reminds us of this:

• The actual Constitution of any country is not (yes, not) the written Constitution. It's the written Constitution as practiced.

That's not snark, but fact. The British Constitution is almost a thousand years of documents and practices, dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215.

I would argue, it is the same with the American Constitution. As evidence, I offer the following question:

• If an act is illegal by statute, but never enforced by any party (or Party), which is the law of the land?

Which brings us back to the writer Masaccio, from "This Week in Financial Not-Crime" (my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

What would it take to get the candy-ass prosecutors in the Department of Justice to indict banksters?

We already knew that securities fraud wasn’t sufficient, but that got reinforced today with news that a hedge fund operator got off with civil case for taking money from the fund to pay his taxes and for manipulating the price of stocks and bonds. Phillip Falcone is facing a civil suit instead of leg shackles.

Also today we learn that manipulating LIBOR isn’t a crime. Barclays Bank paid $450 million to settle charges that it deliberately manipulated the bench-mark interest rate used to establish how much people pay on $350 billion worth of credit cards, student loans and mortgages.

It’s also good news for other banksters who haven’t even been sued, like HSBC, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and other firms that are being looked at by regulators around the world.

Apparently the manipulation ran both ways, to increase the rate artificially for direct profit, and to reflect a lower rate to hide the fact that [some] banks were charging Barclays more than other banks because of [Barkley's] perceived weakness.

Still, it’s hard to see a connection between a $450 million fine and the massive profits that could come by increasing LIBOR even fractionally. If LIBOR were .1% higher on $350 billion of debt, that comes to $350 million per year. The fraud went on for at least 4 years, which in my example means $1.4 billion in profits, all going directly to the bottom line. ...

Joe Nocera points out that none of the banks that enabled Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme had to give back a nickel, despite the fact that they knew or should have known that he was a fraud. ...

Read on to read why. It's a fascinating manipulation of law to produce not-law.

Is my case rested? I think so — rested and ready.

That tension between the law as written and the law as practiced, by the way, is the central problem in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Can the government that allowed practiced law to drift radically away from its own written law, be the same government that returns to written law?

In Shakespeare's Vienna, the Duke who enabled the drift has to abdicate — if only temporarily — to legitimize a change. In the Duke's case, that produced (semi-)comic consequences.

But you can see the implications for our own real-world case, can't you? Can Obama's government return to actual Rule of Law, having enabled and supported the opposite?

If not, what American government can do that?

I'll leave you to ponder. It seems to me, however, the choices are narrow.

If you rule out the Republicans — who are already Ground Zero for destruction of Rule of Law (click to learn why) — that leaves ... hmm. 2016 and a reform administration, at best. And something seriously else, at worst.

We've already changed the Constitution. Changing it back, however accomplished, will be a revolutionary act — literally.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Barclays scandal takes down Chairman, CEO remains for now

The latest banking scandal (manipulating Libor rates by Barclays) has now claimed its first senior director, though most want more. Compared to previous banking scandals, the call for those at the top to go has been swift and strong. (Let's remember that Jamie Dimon is not only still running JPMorgan, but he still remains on the board of the New York Federal Reserve.)

At Barclays, the CEO Bob Diamond is still holding on by a thread though his days may also be numbered running the bank. The Tory government is struggling themselves to hold onto legitimacy, changing positions and trying anything they can do turn back the inevitable decline due to austerity. This is not a climate that gives them much room for normal Conservative apologist behavior for the banks. On the other side, Labour can sense that this is a key moment and they're jumping all over this latest banking ripoff.

Bob Diamond may still tough it out and hang on but at this point, his chances look increasingly slim. Talk of criminal prosecutions for market manipulation is heating up and unless something even bigger pops up soon to distract the media and public opinion, Diamond is probably going to be gone soon.

More on the ongoing scandal at Barclays via The Guardian.

But Monday's resignation did not puncture the political pressure on the bank with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, calling on the bank's chief executive, Bob Diamond, to quit and stepped up his efforts to force the government to set up a Leveson-style inquiry into banks by bringing forward an amendment in parliament.

"I think there needs to be more a more general change of leadership including the chief executive, Bob Diamond," Miliband told ITV Daybreak.

The bank put board director Sir Michael Rake, the former top accountant and serial company director, in the new key role of deputy chairman to oversee an audit of the bank's business practices, the findings of which will be published.

For those of you with a spare 25 minutes, check out Max Keiser's report on this problem. He does a great job putting it into perspective. If Barclays and other banks can get away with this behavior, there is no rule of law left for the well connected.

I wonder how everyone now feels about the "Barclays bikes" of London now? It would be nice if governments could regain some self respect and scrap these disgusting deals where they give away the marketing rights to corporate interests. New York is doing something similar with Citibank for their new bike system but many other cities are falling victim to begging for money this way. Even my original home town, Charm City, is now eyeing such offensive programs. This is what happens when the corporate world dominates and it's not pretty. Read the rest of this post...