So Romney made a lot of money. Anything else?

From Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post:

And Romney? Well, he has a 160-page economic plan. What he doesn’t seem to have is a compelling narrative about the kind of America he envisions and the road he will take to get us there.

This is not to say that he is necessarily incapable of developing such a narrative — or, for that matter, that he is incapable of beating Obama. The president and his advisers have at times done a mediocre job of telling the administration’s story. They need to better explain how individual decisions, such as delaying the controversial Keystone pipeline, fit into a coherent Big Picture of where the country needs to go.

No matter how much he claims otherwise, the fact is that few people are envious of Romney’s business success. We just want to know if that’s all he has to offer.

Read the rest of this post...

Romney wins all 50 Florida delegates

The view from Twitter:

“@postpolitics: ANALYSIS: Romney's clear win hurts Gingrich's try to call race choice between establishment & people: http://t.co/R5HDOZxy”

“@markos: RT @AriBerman: 1 % of GOP primary voters were Jewish, down from 3 % in '08, according to @galbeckerman. So much for Obama's "Jewish problem"”

“@HuffPostMedia: CNN shows a pic of Romney watching...CNN announce his victory in Florida. Another red flag for Tea Partiers: no Fox News! #FLprimary”

“@taylormarsh: Romney ‘Shellacks’ Gingrich in Florida; they split Tea Party vote & women went for Romney by 30 points or so. http://t.co/JgkJ652u”

“@JoeMyGod: RT @thehill: All 50 Florida delegates go to Romney; he said, “Today is the most important thing in the world ." http://t.co/HkrKWwAU #tcot”

“@HuffPostMedia: Mitt Romney won women by 51-29: 'the mother of all gender gaps,' Ari Fleischer says on CNN. #flprimary”

“@TheFix: 80% of #FLprimary voters identified themselves as Republicans. In that group, Romney 48, Newt 34.”

“@ggreeneva: .@MittRomney wins #FLprimary. It's the best victory a 65-to-1 advantage in ad time can buy. http://t.co/Jfgjmqjk”

“@downwithtyranny: Newt lost Florida women by over 20% but only lost males by 5%. I wonder why women don't like Newt.”

“@joshgreenman: Paul at just 7%. I know he didn't campaign much, but Paul support shouldn't depend upon ads and appearances.”

“@nytimespolitics: Romney Wins Big in Florida Primary http://t.co/ZypfZoD8”

“@TheFix: Electability matters: 45% of #flprimary voters said beating Obama was most impt quality in a candidate -- Romney won by 25 over Newt.”

“@newtgingrich: 46 States to Go! Donate today and help us defeat Obamneycare. 1 million dollar money bomb. https://t.co/ZDth0s3X”

“@sullydish: Second big finding of exits: almost 40% of Republicans were dissatisfied with choices available: http://t.co/X745dHBY #FLprimary #liveblog” Read the rest of this post...

Komen pro-life VP promised to defund Planned Parenthood, and they have

As I wrote earlier, the Race for the Cure has decided to stop funding breast exams at Planned Parenthood clinics after pressure from religious right anti-abortion activists and Republican House members.  Is it a coincidence that the Race for the Cure new senior vice president is a Republican anti-abortion activist?

2010: Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Karen Handel runs for governor on a platform of defunding Planned Parenthood.

2011: Republican politico and anti-choice activist Handel is hired by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an organization that runs the annual breast cancer fundraiser "Race for the Cure," and that gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood to conduct breast exams on women around the country

2012: Komen stops funding Planned Parenthood's breast exams after pressure from who?  Republicans!

It makes one wonder whether Karen Handel had a hand in accomplishing, as the senior VP at Komen, what she couldn't accomplish as a Georgia Republican anti-abortion activist - defunding Planned Parenthood.

More on Komen's new Republican senior VP:

Karen Handel, Komen for the Cure Senior VP for Public Policy and Outspoken Anti-Choice Activist

Karen Handel Named Senior VP for Komen in April 2011. In April 2011, after losing the 2010 Republican primary runoff in the race for Georgia governor, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel was named Senior VP of Public Policy of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Said Komen, “In her role at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Handel will be responsible for leading the organization’s federal and state advocacy efforts, including management of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Advocacy Alliance. Handel has been working with Komen as a consultant for advocacy since January.”[Komen, 4/12/11]

Komen VP Handel Opposes Planned Parenthood

Handel Campaigned for Governor in 2010 on Anti-Choice and Anti-Planned Parenthood Platform. In a statement on her campaign website, Handel wrote, “I am staunchly and unequivocally pro-life. I believe in the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life, and I will be a pro-life governor who will work tirelessly to promote a culture of life in Georgia…. I believe that each and every unborn child has inherent dignity, that every abortion is a tragedy, and that government has a role, along with the faith community, in encouraging women to choose life in even the most difficult of circumstances…. since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.” [Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

As Gubernatorial Candidate in 2010, Handel Pledged to Eliminate Grants for Planned Parenthood to Provide Breast and Cervical Cancer Screenings. “During my time as Chairman of Fulton County, there were federal and state pass-through grants that were awarded to Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screening, as well as a ‘Healthy Babies Initiative’…Since grants like these are from the state I’ll eliminate them as your next Governor.” [Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

Handel’s Anti-Choice Positions

Handel Strongly Anti-Choice, Even Praises Unlicensed Crisis Pregnancy Centers

“I am staunchly and unequivocally pro-life… I strongly support the noble work of crisis-pregnancy centers across the state and those who compassionately and lovingly counsel women on a daily basis.” [Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

Handel Believes Government Should Intervene In Women’s Health Care Decisions

In a statement on her campaign website, Handel said, “I believe …that every abortion is a tragedy, and that government has a role, along with the faith community, in encouraging women to choose life in even the most difficult of circumstances.” [Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

Handel Opposed Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Supported Adult Stem Cell Research.In a statement on her campaign website, Handel said, “I oppose embryonic stem cell research, which creates life solely for the purpose of destroying it. I do, however, strongly support adult stem cell research, which has produced numerous scientific achievements without terminating innocent lives in the process.” [Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/15/10]

Handel Involved in 2010 Republican primary for Governor Marked by Fight Over Who Was More Anti-Choice

Anti-Choice Handel Was Endorsed By Sarah Palin; Said Handel “Walked The Walk” On Curbing Abortion Rights.

Sarah Palin stepped into the GOP primary in Georgia to endorse Karen Handel, specifically touting her anti-choice credentials. She appeared at a Handel campaign rally, saying she came from Alaska because Handel was being attacked over her anti-choice stance. Said Palin, “Despite what they're throwing at her, Karen is strongly pro-life. She'll walk the walk and protect the sanctity of life.”[Atlanta Journal Constitution, 7/12/10; WABE, 8/9/10; Augusta Chronicle, 8/9/10]

Palin Endorsement of Handel Drew Ire of Georgia Right to Life.

Georgia Right to Life was upset Palin endorsed Handel; they withheld their endorsement on the grounds that Handel “thinks pre-screening embryos for genetic disorders and abnormalities is okay,” endorsing her opponent Nathan Deal. Susan B. Anthony List held off on endorsing anyone in the Georgia Republican primary. Georgia Right to Life went so far as to say that Handel was “barren” would have supported Palin’s son with Down’s Syndrome; these statements drew the ire of many on the Right and prompted Handel to call for their leaders’ resignation. [GRTL, 7/12/10; Red State, 7/22/10; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7/26/10]

Handel Shores Up Anti-Choice Endorsements to Rebut Georgia Right to Life’s Endorsement of Her Opponent.

The former director of the Georgia Right to Life PAC, Adrienne Susong said, “Karen is a loyal and trusted friend to conservatives in the pro-life, pro-family movement in Georgia… I’m supporting Karen because I believe that she will be a pro-life, pro-family, conservative Governor.” Sue Everhart, Chairman, Republican Party of Georgia said, “Karen Handel is pro-life. I don’t care what any other group says.” Stephen Dillard, a district chairman in Georgia for Governor Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential run said, “Karen Handel is absolutely committed to promoting a culture of life here in Georgia.” Elaine Boyer, DeKalb County Commissioner said, “My husband and I got involved in politics through the pro-life movement in the 1980′s and I have been a pro-life office holder since 1992. I was shocked to see Georgia Right to Life’s endorsements yesterday and I found their comments about Karen Handel to be insulting. I have been and continue to be a proud supporter of my friend, and pro-life candidate, Karen Handel to be Georgia’s next Governor.” [Karen Handel Campaign Blog, 7/14/10]

Handel Attacked Opponent Over His Vote to Fund Planned Parenthood.

In the GOP primary runoff, Handel attacked former Representative Nathan Deal over his vote in 1993 to approve $500 million in funding for Planned Parenthood. Said Handel in a debate, “I would like to point out that, you know, while he carries the Georgia Right To Life endorsement, he, too, voted to give funding to Planned Parenthood to the tune of $500 million. Yes, that's a half a billion dollars.” [Associated Press, 7/24/10]

Planned Parenthood Was An Issue In The 2010 Republican Gubernatorial Primary.

Handel and her Republican opponent, Nathan Deal, traded attacks over each other’s past vote in favor of funding for Planned Parenthood, in order to gain the vote of social conservatives. In 2005, while she was the chair of the Fulton County Commission, Handel voted to direct $425,568 of a federal block grant towards Planned Parenthood for the purposes of preventive health care. In 1993, Deal, as a Democrat in Congress, voted in favor of funding for Planned Parenthood. [Athens Banner-Herald, 7/26/10] Read the rest of this post...

"Race for the Cure" organizer dumps Planned Parenthood following pressure from religious right, GOP

UPDATE: How Komen hired a Republican anti-choice activist and suddenly they're now dropping Planned Parenthood.
______

Perhaps it's time Komen renamed its event "Running Away from the Cure."

How committed to preventing breast cancer are you if you stop funding breast exams because of pressure from the religious right and Republicans in the House?

From AP:

The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

Planned Parenthood says the move results from Komen bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress — a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups.

Aun, the Komen spokeswoman, said such pressure tactics were not the reason for the funding cutoff and cited Stearns’ House investigation as a key factor.

So Komen is claiming it's the House Republicans who convinced it to kill funding for breast exams.

I'm all for helping to cure breast cancer - who isn't? (well, I guess House Republicans aren't) - but I'm not so sure I'd want to give my money to a fundraiser that is helping the Republican party turn Planned Parenthood into the next ACORN.  The Republican attempt to destroy Planned Parenthood is going to have larger implications for women's health than one race, albeit one very large race. Read the rest of this post...

Florida has cost Romney independents

Michael Shear at the NYT:

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll last week, 49 percent of the respondents nationwide held an unfavorable view of Mr. Romney, while only 31 percent had a favorable one. That is a reversal from last September, when more people held a favorable view of Mr. Romney than an unfavorable one.

Independents, in particular, now have a less favorable opinion of Mr. Romney, with favorable opinions dropping from a high in the mid-40s in late November to a low of 23 percent last week, according to the Post/ABC News poll.

The drop in Mr. Romney’s favorability comes as Mr. Gingrich and his allies have hammered away at Mr. Romney’s character — accusing him of being a dishonest politician who cannot be trusted to tell people the truth.

I suspect the problem is at least two-fold. First, the attacks from both Gingrich and the Democrats have started to eat in to Romney's Mormon-choirboy image. Second, the more people see Romney the more Romney risks showing them his snippy side. If you push Romney just enough, as first Perry and now Gingrich have during the debates, he stands a little taller, the blood rushes out of his face, and his inner patrician priss comes out, and it ain't pretty. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Kitten vs Pitbull (funny as hell)

Read the rest of this post...

Want to moderate a panel at Netroots Nation 2012? Get your panel submission in today

It's now or never, baby. Read the rest of this post...

Rick Santorum puts church full of young children to sleep

Best photo ever. Read the rest of this post...

Poor one-quarter billionaire Mitt Romney plays the victim card

Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed:

Mitt Romney says he was "outgunned" in South Carolina, blaming attacks from Newt Gingrich for his defeat there earlier this month.

But the truth is that Romney outspent Gingrich about 2-1 in South Carolina, and over 4-1 in here the Sunshine State. Romney has also deployed an army of surrogates to bombard Gingrich with negative soundbites and statements. And Gingrich unilaterally withheld from running negative ads in Iowa, and saw his poll numbers collapse in the state amid millions of dollars in attacks from a pro-Romney Super PAC.

Yeah, it must be tough to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars and be so rich that you honestly have no idea exactly how much money you have.  And don't forget that Romney also trucked tons of Mormon youth in to South Carolina to provide fake astroturf grassroots support at his campaign stops, and he still lost. More on the millions Romney is spending in Florida, far outweighing Gingrich. Read the rest of this post...

GOP NJ Gov. Christie says black leaders in 1950s-60s would have welcomed popular vote on their rights

The Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, says that civil rights leaders in the south during the 50s and 60s would have preferred to have people vote on their civil rights rather than having to march in the streets.

Yes, let's put civil rights to a vote in Mississippi, for example, where nearly half of Republicans still wanted to ban inter-racial marriage less than a year ago. Just imagine how they'd have voted in 1964.

Keep in mind, Chris Christie is considered a moderate Republican. Just imagine how bad the rest of them are. Read the rest of this post...

Wall Street lobbying hard to keep derivatives trading outside of regulation

Of course they are. They know that they have the Republicans who will do whatever they want and way too many Democrats who will join the party. Let's remember that Dodd-Frank is already a weak attempt to regulate and still nowhere near the old regulations that Clinton and the GOP shredded in the late 1990's. This is an industry that remains above the law and this really has to stop.

More than half of the derivatives- trading business of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley and three other large banks could fall largely outside the Dodd- Frank Act if they succeed in lobbying regulators to exempt their overseas operations, government records show. The debate over the reach of Dodd-Frank has been among the most contentious aspects of the regulatory overhaul enacted by President Barack Obama after the 2008 credit crisis. The banks have met with regulators, testified to Congress and filed dozens of letters contending that they will suffer a competitive disadvantage if the regulations apply to their foreign arms. Banking lobbyists have been gaining traction with their argument that a combination of U.S. supervision of their holding companies and foreign supervision of their operations abroad is sufficient to oversee risk to the financial system.

Read the rest of this post...

Taibbi on Schneiderman's task force—plus a primer on mortgage fraud

Matt Taibbi has a very nice piece on Obama's brave new populism: "Is Obama's 'Economic Populism' for Real?".

The title is itself a topic, and I'll leave that for later. Further in the article Taibbi also discusses New York AG Eric Schneiderman and the bank fraud task force proposed by Obama in his State of the Union address.

The Schneiderman appointment raised a lot of questions. Is he selling out? Is he putting himself in better position to push his prosecutions? Is he being "ring-fenced" by a wily Obama? Will the fact that he's only co-chair dilute his effectiveness?

Most of these questions still aren't settled, but Taibbi does make some things clear (my emphasis throughout):

Some people have been confused about Schneiderman’s new role. The new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses will not be investigating the same abuses covered in the foreclosure settlement. When the public thinks about corruption in the housing markets on the part of the big banks, what it mostly thinks of is robosigning and the other mass-perjury issues, which is the stuff targeted in the foreclosure settlement.

But in fact those problems were a tawdry little sideshow to the more serious crimes of the housing crisis.

Taibbi then quotes Schneiderman himself on this difference:

Schneiderman said Wednesday his dual roles — raising concerns about a multi-state settlement with the major banks and investigating the mortgage problem — wouldn’t be at odds.

“These are abuses in the foreclosure process. Our working group is focusing on the conduct related to the pooling and the creation of mortgage-backed securities and issues relating to the conduct that created the crash, not the abuses that happened after the crash.”

Keep in mind the mortgage business, as it evolved during the housing bubble, had two ends and a middle. Fraud related to the mortgage market crash occurred at each end.

The two ends are — (1) The consumer end. Home-buyers contracted with banks and mortgage sellers like Countrywide for loans. These are debt contracts. (2) The banking end. Banks sold "securities" using bundles of mortgages as the underlying "thing of value" to its largest (and often, most gullible) customers. There's fraud at both ends.

(The middlemen were the people buying mortgages from people like Countrywide, creating the bundles (the so-called "RBMSs"), then selling them wholesale to the banks — for a very fine fee of course. Those guys are SOL these days — that business is dead — but to my knowledge they're not being investigated for fraud.)

In simple terms, here's what happened. It actually started at the banks-selling-to-customers end, with what a brilliant This American Life documentary calls "The Global Pool of Money". (If you've never heard this documentary and its two follow-ups, you should. They are masterpieces of clarity and research.)

The "Global Pool of Money" means all of the big-boy investment money in the world — the sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, massive investment trusts, hedge funds, bank investment funds, the whole lot — all sloshing around looking for a place to park itself at a profit. After the high-tech crash, much of that investment money (a great many trillions) just sat, going nowhere, earning almost nothing.

As you can imagine, the advisers and directors of these investment funds are not strangers to each other. Far from it — they golf together; they ride in each other's jets; they date each other's wives; they hire politicians to strew roses in each other's footpaths. They use the same tailors, bribe the same corrupt officials, hire the same chauffeurs, and tell each other tall tales behind walls of houses in communities you're not even allowed to know the names of.

It doesn't take much for word to get around in this small group. One day, they discovered "securities" backed by RBMSs (mortgage bundles) — all paying tons of money in a nicely booming housing market — and the race was on. All those trillions of dollars suddenly could not buy enough slices of RBMS-backed securities as sold by the banks.

(Who was the first little bird that whispered the first little news into the first global shell-like ear? Likely a man named Greg Lippmann, a senior trader at DeutscheBank; see below.)

The Global Pool became immediately hungry for this stuff, which created a serious problem for the banks. What kind of problem? Imagine you have a hotdog stand, you buy 1000 hotdogs a day, and mostly sell out. One day, one million people line up in front of you looking for a hotdog. Needless to say, you try your best not to disappoint.

In the case of the banks, they "failed to disappoint" by telling the small-time shops (the middlemen who were creating the RBMSs for them) — "Can you speed it up? Like, Now?" The RBMS shops, who were taking a very sweet slice of the pass-through business, said, "No prob." They in turn went to mortgage lenders like Countrywide, creators of the mortgages themselves, and said, "Big prob — the Global Pool is hungry, and the banks want more mortgages than exist in the world right now."

Countrywide smiled and said, "Got you covered." Then they (not Fanny and Freddie) put anyone with a pulse into a mortgage, sold the paper to the RBMS shops, who rebirthed them into "securities" and sold them to the banks, who in their turn, bundled, tranched and sold the result to the real customer — the Global Pool of Money.

The whole thing was made of tulip bulbs, but prices kept going up, the sales and pass-through fees were huge (seriously; that's where much of the money always is), and there was an enormous side business "insuring" these monstrosities, which meant even more fees. Global "wall street" was swimming in cash and bonuses; the Global Pool thought it had found pieces of old King Midas, all by itself.

How good were the mortgages really? A great many weren't even recorded, and a great many people were lied to in the process of getting them sold. That's the consumer-side scandal (under the umbrella terms "robosigning" and "foreclosure") that the AG settlement duel is about. NY AG Schneiderman is a major thorn in the side of that wrist-slap attempt (pushed by the banks, and ultimately, the Obama administration).

Now ask yourself — How good could those "securities" be, which were sold into the frenzied maw of the Global Pool of Money? Only as good as the mortgages themselves. That gigantic hunger, and the underlying shakiness of those RBMS-backed "securities," is what the 2008 crash was all about.

Investors woke up when the housing market finally turned down, a possibility no one in that world thought ever would happen. (Proof that rich doesn't mean smart, I guess.) At that point smart investors realized the bankers (and the ratings agencies) had lied.

In the new declining housing market, most of that "AAA-rated" stuff turned out to be worth far less than the banks had said they were. The Global Pool of Money lost its global shirt, the people insuring the Global Pool lost their shirts as well (that's the AIGs of the world, plus some banks and hedge funds); and everyone who held these things in their portfolio — including lots of banks — were stuck with investments no one wanted to value because no one wanted to know how low the number was.

The party was over, and everyone who bought this stuff knew they were up a creek.

How much fraud was involved at the banking end? It looks like a lot. And that's what Obama's shiny new task force, if it performs true to its purpose, will go after.

That's the big enchilada. How big? Back to Taibbi:

My first thought, when I heard about this deal, was that Schneiderman was deciding to compromise on robosigning and other post-securitization abuses, in exchange for a mandate to go after the much bigger crimes, which took place in the origination/securitization stages.

The securitization offenses were massive criminal conspiracies, identically undertaken by all of the big banks, to defraud investors in mortgage-backed securities. If you’re looking for an appropriate target for a massive federal investigation, one that would get right to the heart of the corruption of the crisis era... well, they picked the right target here.

If they were to do a real clean sweep on securitization, the federal prisons would end up literally teeming with senior executives from the biggest banks. A lot of very big names would end up playing ping-pong and cards in Otisville and Englewood.

The question is, how real of an investigation will we get? The fact that Schneiderman’s co-chairs are Lanny Breuer and Robert Khuzami make me extremely skeptical. I’m actually not sure that both men, in an ideal world, wouldn’t be targets of their own committee’s investigation.

Taibbi goes on to talk about Khuzami and Breuer. Khuzami got on our own radar in this story. As Yves Smith wrote (quoted in that earlier story):

[Khuzami] was General Counsel for the Americas for Deutsche Bank from 2004 to 2009. That means he had oversight responsibility for the arguable patient zero of the CDO business, one Greg Lippmann, a senior trader at Deutsche, who played a major role in the growth of the CDOs, and in particular, synthetic or hybrid CDOs ...

A "CDO" (collateralized debt obligation) is just the banking term for what this whole article is about — the "security" created by the banks, using RBMSs as the underlying thing of value. (Individual mortgages got packaged into RBMSs; RBMSs got bundled, sliced and sold as CDOs.)

What Smith is saying is that Khuzami was the boss of the guy who first created the hunger for mortgage-backed "securities" in the Global Pool of Money.

And as Khuzami's apparent reward, Thank You Street has convinced Barack Obama to make him Schneiderman's co-chair in investigating this mess, where he can perhaps do still more damage.

See why people are scratching their heads over this?

Bottom line — It really is the big enchilada if the Task Force does its job. Every big bank in the country will have execs in jail, and as our Matt Browner Hamlin pointed out recently, the banking industry itself could collapse and need restructuring. Matt argues, along with others, that the restructuring should have happened already, in 2008, so it's long overdue.

This is the biggest story in the country you probably can't wrap your brain around, but we're trying to help out. Please stay tuned. We sure will.

[Update: Corrected for my bad spelling, plus some added links and cleanup.]

GP Read the rest of this post...

Romney millions helped seal the deal in Florida GOP primary today

It's good to be king.  And have a billionaire faith behind you.

USA Today:

If Mitt Romney does win tomorrow's Florida primary, the ad war he and his allies are waging in the Sunshine State will surely have made a difference.

Politico:

Newt Gingrich has been outspent on the Florida airwaves by a nearly $12 million margin, according to a source monitoring the Sunshine State ad war.

Remember, the Florida GOP primary is today. Stay tuned for results this evening. Read the rest of this post...

Complete schedule of the 2012 Republican presidential primaries

When is the next Republican presidential primary? Here you go:

January 3, 2012          Iowa (caucus)
January 10, 2012        New Hampshire (primary)
January 21, 2012        South Carolina (primary)
January 31, 2012        Florida (primary)

February 4, 2012        Nevada (caucus)
February 4–11, 2012  Maine (caucus)
February 7, 2012        Colorado (caucus)
                                   Minnesota (caucus)
                                   Missouri (primary) - Per the Houston Chronicle: "Voters can cast ballots that day, but Missouri Republicans will use a caucus process starting in mid-March to select their delegates to the national convention."
February 28, 2012      Arizona (primary)
                                   Michigan (primary)

March 3, 2012            Washington state (caucus)
March 6, 2012 - Super Tuesday
                                   Alaska (caucus)
                                   Georgia (primary)
                                   Idaho (caucus)
                                   Massachusetts (primary)
                                   North Dakota (caucus)
                                   Ohio (primary)
                                   Oklahoma (primary)
                                   Tennessee (primary)
                                   Vermont (primary)
                                   Virginia (primary)
March 6-10, 2012       Wyoming (caucus)
March 10, 2012          Kansas (caucus)
                                   US Virgin Islands (caucus)
March 13, 2012          Alabama (primary)
                                   American Samoa (caucus)
                                   Hawaii (caucus)
                                   Mississippi (primary)
March 17, 2012          Missouri (caucus) More on Missouri's confusing GOP vote/caucus here.
March 18, 2012          Puerto Rico (primary)
March 20, 2012          Illinois (primary)
March 24, 2012          Louisiana (primary)

April 3, 2012              DC (primary)
                                   Maryland (primary)
                                   Texas (primary)
                                   Wisconsin (primary)
April 24, 2012            Connecticut (primary)
                                   Delaware (primary)
                                   New York (primary)
                                   Pennsylvania (primary)
                                   Rhode Island (primary)

May 8, 2012               Indiana (primary)
                                   North Carolina (primary)
                                   West Virginia (primary)
May 15, 2012             Nebraska (primary)
                                   Oregon (primary)
May 22, 2012             Arkansas (primary)
                                   Kentucky (primary)

June 5, 2012               California (primary)
                                   Montana (primary)
                                   New Jersey (primary)
                                   New Mexico (primary)
                                   South Dakota (primary)
June 26, 2012             Utah (primary)

To be determined        Northern Marian Islands, Guam

There's much more detail over at Wikipedia, including whether each is an open or closed primary, and how many delegates there are per state. Read the rest of this post...

Four Murdoch reporters arrested - but don’t worry, no phone hacking, they just bribed cops

Via Slate:

Police arrested four current and former journalists for British tabloid the Sun along with one serving police officer as part of an investigation into a cash-for-information scheme. Making it clear that the investigation is far from over, police also searched offices of the newspaper’s publisher, News International, as part of a probe into widespread corruption and illegal phone hacking, reports the Guardian.

The arrests effectively spread the scandal that has already resulted in the closing of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World “to Britain’s best-selling newspaper,” notes the Associated Press. Yet the Guardian cites sources emphasizing that the arrests had nothing to do with phone hacking and were solely linked to allegations that police officers received payments in exchange for information.

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