Larry Craig: Infamous bathroom trip was "official business"

So that's what the kids are calling it now. From HuffPo:

Craig is hoping to avoid repaying $217,000 in campaign funds the Federal Election Commission claims he misused to defend himself.

The FEC sued Craig in June in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging he converted the campaign money to personal use by spending it on his legal defense after he was accused of soliciting sex in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom. The commission argues Craig's defense had no connection to his campaign for federal office.

Craig counters that money tied to his airport bathroom trip was for neither personal use nor his campaign, but fell under his official, reimbursable duties as senator because he was traveling between Idaho and the nation's capital for work.

He cites a U.S. Senate rule in which reimbursable per diem expenses include all charges for meals, lodging, hotel fans, cleaning, pressing of clothing – and bathrooms.

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Did Romney hide money from the Mormon church?

From Democratic strategist Bill Buck writing at CBS:

But the source coming to Harry Reid for these revelations adds a level of intrigue. Reid just happens to be the highest-ranking member of the Mormon Church in the history of this nation.

It is likely that Senator Reid’s source shares the Mormon religion with Reid and Romney.

That message will not be lost on Romney. If the Bain fortress is not a fortress; if people are talking, Romney knows that trouble lies ahead.

And the motivation for this leak may not be political. It is likely personal and tied to the Mormon Church.

Specifically, if Romney was hiding money from the IRS he may have hidden money from his church.

It is expected that members of the Mormon Church tithe a minimum of ten percent of their incomes. But if Romney was not paying taxes and hiding money, then his disclosure – which itemizes deductions, including to the church – would tip off his actual income to the IRS.

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Porn star Jenna Jameson endorses Romney: 'When You're Rich, You Want A Republican In Office'

Don't forget that part of Romney's fortune comes from Marriott, where in-room porn has been a lucrative business. More from HuffPo.

"I'm very looking forward to a Republican being back in office," Jameson said while sipping champagne in a VIP room at Gold Club in the city's South of Market neighborhood. "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."

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VIDEO: How to have a better memory

It's an interesting TED speech. I'm going to google the guy some more and find out more about him. Really interesting stuff.

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Maddow on the "Devil's Advocate" — Romney's disaster manager

Here's a nice Rachel Maddow Show segment on PR firms that shine the devil's doorknob, so to speak.

The official term for them is "crisis managers" — people who come in when you've destroyed your "brand" (often by getting caught being who you are) and help you re-confuse people so the money can start flowing again.

Maddow's hook for the segment is the (apparently) conscienceless crew that's helping Romney recover from Taxes-gate.

By the way, those of you who want to see classic Maddow Show structure, watch it through, then watch it twice. Note the second time through how the start — 1:30 of fun Paul Bremer stuff — keeps you from knowing exactly where she's headed.

That technique is deliberate. The heart of the current affairs story starts at about 5:00, but there's great info getting there. For me, of course — and I suspect for Maddow as well — the heart of the real story is the soulless profession itself, the Devil's Advocates of which she says much.

Note that the title "Devil's Advocate" makes its first appearance at 8:48 (!).

I'll have more about this idiosyncratic structuring after the segment. Watch — Maddow on how some people make their money (click here to open big in a new tab):



About that unique structure, I found this explanation in a good Maddow profile in Rolling Stone (my paragraphing and the odd asterisk):

[Executive Producer Bill] Wolff says it took the better part of a year for the Verdict staffers to remake themselves in Maddow's image – readjusting their focus away from the news cycle, shifting their storytelling from revved-up to slow-burn.

The perfect Maddow segment, he says, begins with some obscure image from the fringes – "a bird covered in oil in 1979," say – and then slowly winds its way into the heart of the political debate. "Eventually, you realize that the story of that bird is all about Mitt Romney," he says, "and it f*cking blows your mind."

This kind of indirection – starting with the obscure and working toward the headlines – goes against the most basic rules of television, but for Maddow it can have a rare seductive power.

"It's really important that in the top third of the segment you don't say 'Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,' or 'military tribunal,' or 'Guantánamo,'" Maddow says. "Because as soon as you say those things, people think they know what the story is.

If you don't edit mercilessly to keep out all of the words that make people leap to conclusions about what you're going to say, you'll never persuade people that you're going to tell them something they don't already know.

Just a few tidbits for the structure fans. I'm definitely one of you.

There's nice info in this clip about the here and now (or the near and how). And Michelle Davis is a good backroom name to watch.

But for the profile of an industry —

"that most morally repellent indefensible thing" ...

"this open sewer that runs through American culture" ...

"when Evil needs public relations, Evil has [these guys] on speed dial"

— this is excellent. (There's a point to be made, by the way, about singular vs. plural — Devil's Advocate vs. Devil's Advocates — as the title of this piece. But I'll chalk that up to Maddow's clever misdirection.)

A note to you conscienceless young — stay in school; there's more work like this than you can ever shake a stick at when you get out.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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