Romney campaign caught lying about crowd at campaign event

What the Romney campaign claimed:

What actually happened:

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Did hackers steal Romney's tax returns? Secret Service investigating.

If this story is true it could be a bombshell for the campaign. The key graph in the pastebin posting from the hackers:

Romney's 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney's tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.

A little while later the same party sent a ransom demand for $1 million in bitcoins, a purportedly untraceable digital currency.

Before people get too excited about this they should remember an earlier episode in which tapes of Bush preparing for his debate with Al Gore were stolen. The GOP managed to turn a negative story for them into a scandal for the Democrats. This could be a dirty trick intended to neutralize the Romney Tax Returns issue by linking the Democrats to the extortion demand.

The one conclusion that is probably safe to draw from this affair is that there will be renewed government interest in shutting down bitcoin exchanges. The fact that the Secret Service is investigating rather than the FBI suggests that something of the sort may be in progress. The Secret Service was originally formed to safeguard the US currency against counterfeiters and they took the lead role in shutting down the eGold exchanges that preceded bitcoin.

$1 million would be a very large transaction for the Bitcoin network to handle. While the Bitcoin float is allegedly close to $100 million, this figure seems to be inflated by hoarding. It is unlikely someone could buy that much in bitcoins without the fact being noticed. Read the rest of this post...

Romney didn't talk about troops because he didn't think they were important

The Democrats savaged Mitt Romney last night at the Democratic Convention for not even mentioning the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, let alone thanking them for their service, during his speech at the Republican Convention last week.

Today, Romney was asked about that criticism, and he explained that he didn't talk about America's service members in harm's way because he only wanted to talk about "important things."

Via ThinkProgress:

BAIER: To hear several speakers in Charlotte … they were essentially saying that you don’t care about the U.S. military because you didn’t mention U.S. troops and the war in Afghanistan in your nomination acceptance speech. … Do you regret opening up this line of attack, now a recurring attack, by leaving out that issue in the speech.

ROMNEY: I only regret you’re repeating it day in and day out. When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important and I described in my speech, my commitment to a strong military unlike the president’s decision to cut our military. And I didn’t use the word troops, I used the word military. I think they refer to the same thing.

Well, that clears things up.

In fact, the criticism started with conservative Bill Kristol. Read the rest of this post...

In Romney-land, horses are now people too

Horses are people too.

A longtime friend writes:

Dear John:

I was invited to a fabulous "Women for Mitt" event happening this morning in Leesburg, VA. (For some reason, I'm on their call list). Ann Romney will be there!

And it's a marvelous example of their tin ears.

It's at a riding academy in Leesburg. Yep, that's where so many Americans hang out nowadays --a riding academy!

The instructions on the long automated phone invite warned me: "wear casual, barn friendly attire."

Upon going to the Website we see that the academy's employees are listed: two white women "instructors." OK. But wait, there's more -- more staff. More "staff" in terms of horses. Nine "equine staff" are listed, and even 6 "Horses no longer with us but not forgotten." No other staff is mentioned.

Wow, those two women must spend all their time mucking out stalls. Or maybe those horses are potty trained? Because certainly, if there were other staff people, say of the Hispanic or darker persuasion, doing any real work, certainly they would be listed as staff since, you know, they're listing animals as staff. Wouldn't they?

Wouldn't a candidate even vaguely in touch with the American people see how elitist this 'free, open to the public' event -- at a snooty riding academy -- appears?

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Gov. Brown - Defy The Brewers of the World

We didn't see much of the immigrant-hating Governor Brewer at the RNC and it seems, with good reason:

“Voters generally aren’t thrilled with Jan Brewer’s job performance, but they don’t dislike her enough to recall her,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

I am lucky to live in a state that has tried to differentiate itself from Arizona's racist policies. For example, the legislature just passed a bill to allow some undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license. Now a new bill, The TRUST ACT, is sitting on Governor Jerry Brown's desk. It would prevent illegal immigrants from being detained and possibly deported for relatively minor legal entanglements such as traffic infractions and misdemeanors. Under the bill, arrestees who have previous convictions for a serious or violent felony will still be detained.

The measure’s sponsor, San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, is quoted in a New York Times editorial and puts it this way: “We want police to distinguish between the woman selling tamales and the gang member who has a record.”

That draws a pretty clear line for Gov. Brown as he ponders whether to approve or veto the Act. If he waves it through, he will not only be doing the right thing, he will reap political rewards from the state's growing Latino electorate. If he opts for a veto, he will conversely be sowing seeds of distrust among Latinos and a sense of betrayal from immigrant rights organizations. That's what one expects from Brewer, not Brown. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Elizabeth Warren at the DNC - "The system is rigged"

As much as I like Elizabeth Warren, I wasn't sure how good her speech would be but wow, she was fantastic. And yes, the system is rigged and that needs to change.

“Republicans say they don’t believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends,” she said. “Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people. No Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids . . . They live, they love, and they die. And that matters.”

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