Indian Catholics try to throw man in jail for doubting "sign from God"

If only the Catholics were so quick about throwing pedophiles in jail.

Via Slate:

Sanal Edamaruku faces a Catholic backlash after insisting that the "holy" water dripping from a statue of Christ in Mumbai, India, came from a leaky drain.

You now face possible arrest. Why?

Leaders of two Catholic laity organizations have launched charges against me under Section 295A of the Indian penal code. This charges a person with "deliberately hurting religious feelings and attempting malicious acts intended to outrage the religious sentiments of any class or community.” It is absurd to claim that I did anything of the sort.

Read the rest of this post...

Romney isn't a liar, he is just economical with the truth

Brad DeLong nails the idiotic attempt to claim Mitt isn't lying when he claims to have retired from Bain in 1999:

It would be very unusual for somebody to have the titles of not just "CEO" but "President", "Chairman of the Board" and be "sole stockholder" and to have no responsibilities whatsoever. In fact, I defy Glenn Kessler to come up with any example of anybody anywhere--save for Mitt Romney--who has been characterized to the SEC as "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president" and also claimed to have no responsibilities whatsoever and to have merely been a passive investor.

But the Romney campaign is continuing in post-truth mode. Demanding retractions from those that dare to suggest that either Mitt must have been lying when he claimed to still be working at Bain in 2002, or he must by lying now when he claims to have retired in 1999 (he made both claims in federal documents that require the truth, under penalty of law).

While the political strategists seem to think this is genius, I think the average voter can tell when a politician is desperate to change the subject after being caught in a lie. Take his CBS interview Friday:

JAN CRAWFORD: Governor Romney, the Obama campaign is saying that you either committed a felony by lying to the SEC or you are lying to the American people about when you left Bain capital. What do you say to that?

GOV. MITT ROMNEY: Well, I think this kind of statement from the Obama team is really shocking, it's, it's ridiculous, and it's beneath the dignity of the presidency. Look we just had a report come out that millions of Americans remain unemployed. [Ignores question completely]

Crawford tries repeatedly to get a straight answer out of Romney without success:

GOV. ROMNEY: I was the owner of a, of the general partnership but there were investors which included pension funds and various entities of all kinds that owned the, if you will, the investments of the firm. But I was the owner of an entity which was a management entity. That entity was one which I had ownership of until the time of the retirement program was put in place. But I had no responsibility whatsoever after February of '99 for the management or ownership - management, rather, of Bain Capital.

Now this might appear to be a vigorous denial on camera, but what has Romney actually said? All he denies is having 'responsibility for the management' of Bain. He's splitting hairs. Romney was the sole shareholder, so the only person he would be 'responsible' to was himself.

What Romney is deliberately obscuring is the fact that since he was never replaced as CEO of the partnership, he remained an executive officer of the partnership and every other executive officer of the partnership remained responsible to him.

What matters to most voters is not whether a politician's statements are the literal truth but whether they can trust him. Voters don't find a prevaricator any more trustworthy than a liar.

Romney has already defined himself as a man who changes his policy positions as often as his neckties.  Now he's defining himself with the voters as someone who is economical with the truth.  And that won't win him many votes. Read the rest of this post...

Democrats ask AG Holder for tougher Libor investigation

Notice who is asking for an investigation and who is sitting by quietly? The Democrats have plenty of deep links to Wall Street and Wall Street campaign money but the GOP has become the voice of Wall Street since the 2008 economic meltdown. The GOP sees their boot licking as a way to raise money and destroy the economy, all for political gain.

Out in the real world, people remain furious that Wall Street has learned nothing and they continue to do whatever they want to do. Wall Street pays good money to own the government and at the moment, they're getting their money's worth. Will Holder bother to lift a finger this time since he's done nothing so far?

The senators, including Carl Levin, Jack Reed and Dianne Feinstein, said investigators should also look into allegations that U.S. and foreign bank regulators may have been aware for years of wrongdoing in the setting of the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR.

Lawmakers in the United States have slowly become more outspoken about the allegations, which already have caused an uproar in London. The letter represents the toughest political pressure yet on U.S. investigators to find and punish banks and regulators that may have been involved in the scandal.

"Just like the banks and executives they oversee, regulators who were involved should be held to account for any failures to stop wrongdoing that they knew, or should have known about," the senators said in a letter dated Thursday to Holder, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

It's still disturbing that four years down the road from the crash, Washington has not had a single conviction on Wall Street. Anyone in the political class that doesn't think that's important to the real world is kidding themselves. At the same time, anyone in the real world who thinks the political class cares is probably kidding themselves.

The serious issue that Wall Street now has is that they're likely looking at billions of dollars in fines due to Libor manipulation in an already troubled banking industry. The room for manoeuvre by the political class is limited due to voter outrage, so Wall Street could find itself in a very tough situation this time. If they need help again (and there's a good chance of that) they probably won't see the same support for their luxurious lifestyle and bonuses as they did in 2008. Read the rest of this post...

Romney wants Pres. Obama to apologize for being mean

That's the best he's got?

First Romney called Obama a liar in a campaign ad this week, now he's demanding an apology.  Those are pretty much the two sure signs of a floundering candidate: calling the other guy a liar and then demanding an apology.  The American people don't tend to reward candidates who whine.  Probably because it suggests weakness.  It makes you sound like a kid.  Weak.  Ineffectual.  Wimpy.

(Not to mention, it's more than ironic that Mitt Romney, the man who's first political ad intentionally misquoted the President in order to make it appear that he said something that everyone agrees he did not - Obama was quoting John McCain, Romney then claimed the quote as Obama's - is now concerned about "lying.")

The larger issue is that Mitt Romney still hasn't explained why he filed two different forms with the federal government, one that claimed he had retired from Bain Capital in 1999, and the other which claimed he was the president, CEO and chair of the board of Bain well past 1999.  Lying on such forms is a felony.  And Romney can play the "apology" card all he wants, it still doesn't explain why he filed two conflicting documents with the federal government - something that if you and I did, we'd be facing a criminal investigation.

Of course, Mitt Romney's entire political career is defined by conflicting positions.  He's waffled on abortion, gay rights, gun control, immigration, the bailout, health care reform, and even about Ronald Reagan.  Mitt Romney's reality is whatever's necessary at the moment.  And for whatever reason, it was beneficial to Romney to be both the head of Bain, and gone from Bain, at the same time, so he chose Option C, "all of the above."

The only problem is that it's one thing to lie to the American people, it's another to lie to the federal government in federal filings.  And the best explanation Romney can muster is "yes, it is a crime, so I obviously didn't do it."

It just doesn't work that way, outside of Mitt Romney's head.  In Romney-world, corporations aren't just people, they're better than people.  They, and the people who run them - the people who are them - can do no wrong. Read the rest of this post...

Five Questions: Chris Pearson, VT state legislator and Progressive Party member

Another interview in our series, Five Questions, about American history, progressives, Democrats and the future.

Today's interviewee is Christopher Pearson, state legislator from Vermont and member of that state's Progressive Party — yes, Virginia, some states have a Progressive Party.

Chris's fifth question has to do with the future of Vermont's state-specific health care law, a version of single-payer. Interesting answer.

Note that Pearson is concerned, as I am, about global warming (climate catastrophe). Very thoughtful responses.

Five questions, Christopher Pearson with Gaius Publius, recorded at Netroots Nation 2012. Enjoy:



The full list of "Five Questions" interviews includes the following. Links to names will take you to previously-published interviews.

• Alan Grayson, former (and perhaps future) U.S. Congressman
• Marcy Wheeler, of emptywheel.net
• Cliff Schecter, who comments regularly with Sam Seder at Majority.fm among many other places
• Tom Tomorrow, cartoonist with DailyKos and This Modern World
• Alex Lawson of StrengthenSocialSecurity.org
• Josh Orton, with Russ Feingold's Progressives United
• Frances Causey, producer–director of Heist, the documentary
• Chris Pearson, a Progressive Party Vermont state legislator
• Susan Smith, Progressive Caucus chair of the Florida Democratic Party
• Sarah Burris, labor activist and progressive youth organizer

These interviews will be concluded this week. Thanks for listening to them.

(If you have trouble with this audio, please let me know in the comments and I'll address it as quickly as I can. Thanks.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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