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Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Can Romney cope in a crisis?
Last Wednesday the Presidential campaign began for real. Next Wednesday it will take a two week break as the whole planet watches the London Olympics. Romney is trying to sell himself as a seasoned business executive who knows how to take tough decisions in a crisis situation. He now has seven days to turn his campaign around before the narrative defined by Team Obama sticks.
Team Romney was hoping to seize the media narrative by announcing their choice of Vice President. Instead they are going to spend the next seven days explaining why it is unfair for Romney to be held responsible for Bain Capital, why he won't release his donor lists and why voters should trust a corporate raider who won't reveal his tax returns.
The Romney campaign exhibits the same care and planning as his advisors put into the Iraq war. Obama's attack on Bain was certainly savage but it should not have been unexpected.
'Etch-a-Sketch' was an embarrassing but understandable slip of the tongue, a momentary slip of the tongue that unintentionally summed up Romney's post-truth campaign style. Gillespie used the phrase 'Retroactive Retirement' in a prepared response to a question he knew was going to be asked. It wasn't an accidental slip of the tongue, it was the best response that Team Romney could come up with.
The whole notion that business 'crises' remotely resemble government crises is nonsense. Worst case in the typical business crisis is you miss your numbers for the quarter and your bonus. Its a very rare business crisis where your job is on the line. I work in security and so we occasionally have situations that are rather more serious but they only rarely rise to the level of the A&E department at the local hospital.
The Presidency is in a completely different league. There is always at least one serious crisis in progress, often more, those crises develop in hours or days rather than months or years and the stakes are much more than mere money.
Another big difference between government and business is goodwill. When Romney went in to save the US Winter Olympics from the corruption scandal, pretty much everyone involved wanted him to succeed. In government there are more than a few people in your own party wanting to see you fail, let alone the opposition or a foreign government.
Nobody doubts Obama's ability to respond in a crisis, he has been doing the job for four years. Why should anyone believe that Romney can cope when he can't managed to run a political campaign which is the only thing he has been doing for the past six years? Read the rest of this post...
Team Romney was hoping to seize the media narrative by announcing their choice of Vice President. Instead they are going to spend the next seven days explaining why it is unfair for Romney to be held responsible for Bain Capital, why he won't release his donor lists and why voters should trust a corporate raider who won't reveal his tax returns.
The Romney campaign exhibits the same care and planning as his advisors put into the Iraq war. Obama's attack on Bain was certainly savage but it should not have been unexpected.
'Etch-a-Sketch' was an embarrassing but understandable slip of the tongue, a momentary slip of the tongue that unintentionally summed up Romney's post-truth campaign style. Gillespie used the phrase 'Retroactive Retirement' in a prepared response to a question he knew was going to be asked. It wasn't an accidental slip of the tongue, it was the best response that Team Romney could come up with.
The whole notion that business 'crises' remotely resemble government crises is nonsense. Worst case in the typical business crisis is you miss your numbers for the quarter and your bonus. Its a very rare business crisis where your job is on the line. I work in security and so we occasionally have situations that are rather more serious but they only rarely rise to the level of the A&E department at the local hospital.
The Presidency is in a completely different league. There is always at least one serious crisis in progress, often more, those crises develop in hours or days rather than months or years and the stakes are much more than mere money.
Another big difference between government and business is goodwill. When Romney went in to save the US Winter Olympics from the corruption scandal, pretty much everyone involved wanted him to succeed. In government there are more than a few people in your own party wanting to see you fail, let alone the opposition or a foreign government.
Nobody doubts Obama's ability to respond in a crisis, he has been doing the job for four years. Why should anyone believe that Romney can cope when he can't managed to run a political campaign which is the only thing he has been doing for the past six years? Read the rest of this post...
How the Onion scooped George Bush
George W. Bush the other day:
“Eight years was awesome and I was famous and I was powerful,” Bush told the Hoover Institute’s Peter Robinson.The Onion's fake story about George W. Bush in 2009:
"I was president," murmured Bush, his mind returning again and again to the thought of "eight years" as he emitted a series of short, guttural laughs that reportedly grew in volume the longer he lingered on his time in office. "That was what I did for a living. Me. George W. Bush. For almost a decade."Read the rest of this post...
"I did that," Bush added. "As my job."
Continued Bush, "I'll be damned if I wasn't the president of the United States of America."
Obama ad takes on Romney's horse and taxes
Another excellent ad from the Obama folks.
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Wouldn't it be neat if Romney's VP were an exorcist?
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| Exorcism by Shutterstock. |
No, really. Jindal himself wrote about the experience in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, in an article entitled "Beating a Demon: Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare." The short of it is that, while Jindal was an undergraduate, his close friend, Susan, with whom he had maintained a wholly non-romantic relationship, began acting strange. One might attribute this to the fact that she was undergoing treatment for cancer. Jindal assumed she had been possessed. A sample:Kiss that one goodbye. Read the rest of this post...
Maybe she sensed our weariness; whether by plan or coincidence, Susan chose the perfect opportunity to attempt an escape. She suddenly leapt up and ran for the door, despite the many hands holding her down. This burst of action served to revive the tired group of students and they soon had her restrained once again, this time half kneeling and half standing. Alice, a student leader in Campus Crusade for Christ, entered the room for the first time, brandishing a crucifix. Running out of options, UCF had turned to a rival campus Christian group for spiritual tactics. The preacher had denied our request for assistance and recommended that we not confront the demon; his suggestion was a little late. I still wonder if the good preacher was too settled to be roused from bed, or if this supposed expert doubted his own ability to confront whatever harassed Susan.College, right?
...
The crucifix had a calming effect on Susan, and her sister was soon brave enough to bring a Bible to her face. At first, Susan responded to biblical passages with curses and profanities. Mixed in with her vile attacks were short and desperate pleas for help. In the same breath that she attacked Christ, the Bible's authenticity, and everyone assembled in prayer, Susan would suddenly urge us to rescue her. It appeared as if we were observing a tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange evil force. But the momentum had shifted and we now sensed that victory was at hand.
The problem for Jindal going forward is that the absolute last thing that Romney wants, as the first-ever Mormon presidential nominee from a major party, is to spend even more time talking about a religious tradition that many Americans view with suspicion.
Did Romney pay no taxes at all in 2009?
When a sports team says that they have won three out of their past five matches you can be pretty sure that they won three of the last six matches as well. If they had won that other match they would want to include it so they can claim a four out of six record.
Romney has released his 2010 return and has promised to release his 2011 return when he files it. There is clearly a reason for the fact that Romney will only release two years when the bare minimum requirement for Senate confirmation hearings is three. The question then is not if Romney's 2009 return is damaging but how damaging it must be for Romney to need to hide it.
Joshua Green writing in Business Week suggests that what with the financial markets crashing in 2008-9, it is quite possible that Romney paid no taxes at all in 2009. Read the rest of this post...
Romney has released his 2010 return and has promised to release his 2011 return when he files it. There is clearly a reason for the fact that Romney will only release two years when the bare minimum requirement for Senate confirmation hearings is three. The question then is not if Romney's 2009 return is damaging but how damaging it must be for Romney to need to hide it.
Joshua Green writing in Business Week suggests that what with the financial markets crashing in 2008-9, it is quite possible that Romney paid no taxes at all in 2009. Read the rest of this post...
AT&T; to charge iPhone users to use Facetime over 3g
Facetime is a cool app on the iphone that lets you have a video phone call with another person who also has the app, either on their phone, ipad, or I believe computer. It's quite cool.
Well, the latest is that AT&T may be planning on charging its iphone customers an extra fee is they use Facetime on AT&T's network. Why? Because, as the vulgar joke goes, they can.
AT&T, along with Verizon, already gouges Americans, charging them an exorbitant price to use the iphone as compared to what you pay when using other non-iphone phones that seem to work equally well. (I'd been an AT&T customer for 11 years, including with the iPhone from the beginning, and only recently switched to Verizon because AT&T's coverage is a disaster in the Chicago suburbs - Verizon while not perfect in that locale, at least works.)
I'd written in May about the cost of an iphone plan in France as compared to the price in the states. I have a better plan here in France for nearly 20 euros a month (25 bucks) than I have in the states with Verizon for $90 a month (same price with AT&T). And that's the "cheap" plan I have in the states.
But, not happy with simply charging Americans nearly four times what you'd pay in Paris for an iphone plan with MORE coverage, AT&T now wants to charge people who use Facetime.
Why? I'm sure because AT&T claims that it fears that people will use Facetime instead of making calls on AT&T. And that, my friends, is a bunch of bull.
1. Smartphones are already far more than telephones. There's a reason I pay $90 a month, and it's not for phone service or I'd dump both AT&T and Verizon. I want a phone that can surf the web well. I don't ever use all of my phone minutes in any given month because that's not the main thing my phone does for me anymore. So were I to shave my phone usage by using Facetime, I'd still be paying the exact same monthly fee for the same monthly number of phone minutes (450, I believe) - so AT&T wouldn't be losing a dime.
2. It's doubtful that Facetime will cut into real phone traffic. Kids today text, they don't make phone calls. And adults aren't going to start making significant numbers of video calls any time soon (I tried to get my mom to skype with me and she said she didn't want to because then she'd have to get dressed up).
3. AT&T's Internet bandwidth would get bogged down, they may claim. Well that's their problem. AT&T, and Verizon, promise you a couple of gigs or so of bandwidth a month - nay, they didn't just promise, they SOLD ME 2 gigs a month. It should matter to them HOW you spend you Internet time, all that matters if that they give us 2 gigs a month and we can use it as we please. They have no right to charge me for spending my time online doing one thing versus another - that is the essence of the Net Neutrality argument, stopping companies from regulating what you can and can't do online simply because they think they can make more money by forcing you to do something else.
Now, if AT&T wants to claim that, sure, they SOLD me 2 gigs a month, but they don't really HAVE 2 gigs a month because they never thought I'd actually USE 2 gigs a month, well, then we have a little fraud claim to file, don't we. Not to mention, how is charging, say, 5 bucks a month going to change the bandwidth usage of Facetime?
This is typical of the shoddy customer service Americans get from a lot of our companies, especially telecommunications. Chris has written before about the absurdly expensive cable TV bills we all pay in the states - in Europe, 30 euros ($38) a month will get you cable TV, super-fast cable Internet, and phone service with free calls in country and free calls to dozens of countries worldwide. In the states we pay, what, for just (slower) Internet and TV - $150 a month, $180?
We are being cheated, folks. And most people, while sensing in their gut that something's unfair, have no idea what it's like in the rest of the developed world.
As with the outrageous prices Americans are charged for prescriptions drugs, these companies cheat us on a daily basis because they can. Read the rest of this post...
Well, the latest is that AT&T may be planning on charging its iphone customers an extra fee is they use Facetime on AT&T's network. Why? Because, as the vulgar joke goes, they can.
AT&T, along with Verizon, already gouges Americans, charging them an exorbitant price to use the iphone as compared to what you pay when using other non-iphone phones that seem to work equally well. (I'd been an AT&T customer for 11 years, including with the iPhone from the beginning, and only recently switched to Verizon because AT&T's coverage is a disaster in the Chicago suburbs - Verizon while not perfect in that locale, at least works.)
I'd written in May about the cost of an iphone plan in France as compared to the price in the states. I have a better plan here in France for nearly 20 euros a month (25 bucks) than I have in the states with Verizon for $90 a month (same price with AT&T). And that's the "cheap" plan I have in the states.
But, not happy with simply charging Americans nearly four times what you'd pay in Paris for an iphone plan with MORE coverage, AT&T now wants to charge people who use Facetime.
Why? I'm sure because AT&T claims that it fears that people will use Facetime instead of making calls on AT&T. And that, my friends, is a bunch of bull.
1. Smartphones are already far more than telephones. There's a reason I pay $90 a month, and it's not for phone service or I'd dump both AT&T and Verizon. I want a phone that can surf the web well. I don't ever use all of my phone minutes in any given month because that's not the main thing my phone does for me anymore. So were I to shave my phone usage by using Facetime, I'd still be paying the exact same monthly fee for the same monthly number of phone minutes (450, I believe) - so AT&T wouldn't be losing a dime.
2. It's doubtful that Facetime will cut into real phone traffic. Kids today text, they don't make phone calls. And adults aren't going to start making significant numbers of video calls any time soon (I tried to get my mom to skype with me and she said she didn't want to because then she'd have to get dressed up).
3. AT&T's Internet bandwidth would get bogged down, they may claim. Well that's their problem. AT&T, and Verizon, promise you a couple of gigs or so of bandwidth a month - nay, they didn't just promise, they SOLD ME 2 gigs a month. It should matter to them HOW you spend you Internet time, all that matters if that they give us 2 gigs a month and we can use it as we please. They have no right to charge me for spending my time online doing one thing versus another - that is the essence of the Net Neutrality argument, stopping companies from regulating what you can and can't do online simply because they think they can make more money by forcing you to do something else.
Now, if AT&T wants to claim that, sure, they SOLD me 2 gigs a month, but they don't really HAVE 2 gigs a month because they never thought I'd actually USE 2 gigs a month, well, then we have a little fraud claim to file, don't we. Not to mention, how is charging, say, 5 bucks a month going to change the bandwidth usage of Facetime?
This is typical of the shoddy customer service Americans get from a lot of our companies, especially telecommunications. Chris has written before about the absurdly expensive cable TV bills we all pay in the states - in Europe, 30 euros ($38) a month will get you cable TV, super-fast cable Internet, and phone service with free calls in country and free calls to dozens of countries worldwide. In the states we pay, what, for just (slower) Internet and TV - $150 a month, $180?
We are being cheated, folks. And most people, while sensing in their gut that something's unfair, have no idea what it's like in the rest of the developed world.
As with the outrageous prices Americans are charged for prescriptions drugs, these companies cheat us on a daily basis because they can. Read the rest of this post...
Romney alleged to have brought ringers to NAACP speech
Romney was concerned that blacks might not be receptive to him, so he reportedly brought his own blacks to the NAACP speech. Or worse, he planned the entire thing so he could tell Fox that he spoke with a lot of blacks who weren't going to vote for Obama, without acknowledging that they were ringers. From the Atlanta Black Star:
An official with the NAACP suggested that Republican challenger Mitt Romney brought his own black supporters to the NAACP speech yesterday to give the appearance that NAACP members were applauding him. And when Romney later told Fox News that black people at the event gave him a standing ovation and said in a private meeting they would vote for him because of dissatisfaction with Obama, they were actually his own people, the official suggested.Read the rest of this post...
Sheldon Adelson and "the gambling capital of the world": Using big Chinese bucks to buy American elections
This is one of those patented Maddow Show first segments. It starts one place, moves to another place, and suddenly ties everything together with a bang.
Macao is introduced at the 1:00 mark. Once you get past the athletes-and-smog reference, you're into the main part. If you really feel the need to speed along, start at 2:10 — but be sure not to miss China-U.S. population graph at 2:10.
That population ratio — 4:1 — is the key to the whole segment. 4:1 helps define the size of the gold mine Sheldon Adelson is working.
"Macao ... is the gambling capital of the world" (3:20; my emphasis). That's a whole lot of gold to work with.
Maddow's bottom line has to do with the risk of Adelson being prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
My bottom line is that the Chinese government is pumping money as fast as it can into the pockets of Las Vegas–and–Macao casino owner Sheldon Adelson. And with that money Adelson is buying as much U.S. election as he can.
Any guesses whether Obama and his seemingly White House–directed Justice Dept. will actually do anything like a meaningful prosecution. (Hint: Jon Corzine is still a free man, and last I heard, still an Obama fundraiser.)
Watch (to watch large in a separate tab, click here). Stay at least through the start of the interview at 12:00, though the interview with ProPublica is excellent.
A reminder:
Adelson is mining for gold the casino gambling jones of the whole of China. A good part of that gold is going straight to the 2012 election. And the Chinese know it.
Any guess what side-deals Adelson has with the Chinese government if Romney wins? Any bets how he says Thank you?
When foreign money buys your elections, you're a "client state" (look it up). This is what we did and do to our colonies. Now it's being done to us.
Spelling note just for fun.
"Macao" is the original Portuguese name and spelling, and the region (a peninsula and a small group of islands) was the location of the first Portuguese (and first western) settlement in China (mid-1500s under the Ming, a strong dynasty).
Later Chinese emperors became weaker and weaker vis-Ã -vis the west, and after the Opium Wars, Macao became first a wholly-controlled city (1864) and then a straight-up Portuguese colony (1887), similar to British-controlled Hong Kong and Singapore.
"Macau" is a more modern Portuguese spelling than "Macao" but both are used (my paragraphing):
Nor are the Portuguese respelling any of their liquid -ão words, like coracão (heart).
So I like the -ao in Portuguese, and I'm keeping it. Lord knows why the Chinese former-colony was respelled and not Curaçao, for example, but that's on them. As the wikipedia says:
GP
To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
Read the rest of this post...
Macao is introduced at the 1:00 mark. Once you get past the athletes-and-smog reference, you're into the main part. If you really feel the need to speed along, start at 2:10 — but be sure not to miss China-U.S. population graph at 2:10.
That population ratio — 4:1 — is the key to the whole segment. 4:1 helps define the size of the gold mine Sheldon Adelson is working.
"Macao ... is the gambling capital of the world" (3:20; my emphasis). That's a whole lot of gold to work with.
Maddow's bottom line has to do with the risk of Adelson being prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
My bottom line is that the Chinese government is pumping money as fast as it can into the pockets of Las Vegas–and–Macao casino owner Sheldon Adelson. And with that money Adelson is buying as much U.S. election as he can.
Any guesses whether Obama and his seemingly White House–directed Justice Dept. will actually do anything like a meaningful prosecution. (Hint: Jon Corzine is still a free man, and last I heard, still an Obama fundraiser.)
Watch (to watch large in a separate tab, click here). Stay at least through the start of the interview at 12:00, though the interview with ProPublica is excellent.
A reminder:
- U.S. industrial policy — Enrich global billionaires at the expense of the American people (true for both parties).
- Chinese industrial policy — Enrich global billionaires to the benefit of the nation of China.
Adelson is mining for gold the casino gambling jones of the whole of China. A good part of that gold is going straight to the 2012 election. And the Chinese know it.
Any guess what side-deals Adelson has with the Chinese government if Romney wins? Any bets how he says Thank you?
When foreign money buys your elections, you're a "client state" (look it up). This is what we did and do to our colonies. Now it's being done to us.
Spelling note just for fun.
"Macao" is the original Portuguese name and spelling, and the region (a peninsula and a small group of islands) was the location of the first Portuguese (and first western) settlement in China (mid-1500s under the Ming, a strong dynasty).
Later Chinese emperors became weaker and weaker vis-Ã -vis the west, and after the Opium Wars, Macao became first a wholly-controlled city (1864) and then a straight-up Portuguese colony (1887), similar to British-controlled Hong Kong and Singapore.
"Macau" is a more modern Portuguese spelling than "Macao" but both are used (my paragraphing):
The form "Macao" was the original Portuguese spelling, and has been retained in most European languages. ... [Thus] "Macao" is the traditional English spelling.So why do I stick with "Macao"? Because the sound "ao" and its nasal version "ão" are so common in Portuguese — and so lovely — that it marks the language for me. Plus the Portuguese, in their wisdom, haven't respelled any of those other "-ao" places (like Curaçao, Bilbao [which is admittedly in Spain, but Portuguese-sounding], or even Makawao, a Portuguese cowboy town on Maui).
However since the handover of administration from Portugal to China in 1999, the government of Macau considers both "Macao" and "Macau" to be acceptable English spellings of the name, whereas in Portuguese "Macao" has long been abandoned and just "Macau" remains the official spelling.
Nor are the Portuguese respelling any of their liquid -ão words, like coracão (heart).
So I like the -ao in Portuguese, and I'm keeping it. Lord knows why the Chinese former-colony was respelled and not Curaçao, for example, but that's on them. As the wikipedia says:
The present Chinese name [of Macao is] æ¾³é, Ãomén.I'll switch to that spelling when the rest of the world does. In the meantime, we all know how to spell Adelson — m-o-n-e-y.
GP
To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
Read the rest of this post...
This just in... Syrian defense minister killed in suicide bombing
Wow. They also killed the president's brother in law. It was apparently a member of the security detail. Which is wild. From Reuters:
Syria's defense minister and President Bashar al-Assad's brother in-law were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Damascus on Wednesday, in the most serious blow to Assad's high command in a 16-month-old revolt.TIME strikes a note of concern:
Besides a government crackdown, rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several massive suicide attacks this year suggest al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the fray.And, big surprise, who's one of the main impediments to peace? Russia.
The key stumbling block is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions and tied to Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.Read the rest of this post...
Russia is adamantly opposed to any mention of sanctions or Chapter 7. After Security Council consultations late Tuesday on a revised draft resolution pushed by Moscow, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Pankin said these remain “red lines.”
TSA confronts man over his suspiciously large "member"
As Josh Barro wrote on Twitter, "sounds like the start of a terrible/amazing porn." From CBS SF:
"New York native Jonah Falcon, 41, said that he was returning from a weekend in San Francisco on July 9 when he was delayed by TSA agents who became curious about the bulge in his pants.Read the rest of this post...
“TSA didn’t know what to make of the massive bulge on my thigh. Even after I went through that body scanner that shows you naked,” Falcon wrote on his Twitter page.
“They asked me if that’s a growth – and i said no, that was my..."
Funny Shell Oil spoof site
A very nice site spoofing Shell oil: http://arcticready.com
You can submit your own Shell ads, using their images. Here are a few submitted by folks.
Read the rest of this post...
You can submit your own Shell ads, using their images. Here are a few submitted by folks.
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