Negotiations over the fiscal cliff are not going well. So far, the Republican approach has been to criticize the Democrats for not proposing any specifics... while refusing to propose any specifics. There’s a reason Republicans won’t reveal any details of their plan. The devil is in the details, and there’s a lot of devil in the Republican plans. Republicans want to get Americans to blindly go along with a plan that has absolutely no details or specifics. They tried this before with no success—it was called “the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.”
People like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are pushing the myth that President Obama wants to take your 401K. Does he have the time? I thought he was spending all his energy trying to take away your guns. President Obama is not going to take away Americans’ 401K’s. For starters, hardly any Americans have 401K’s with anything in them.
It’s already beginning to feel like Christmas—decorations are out, people are shopping, and most importantly, Bill O’Reilly is pushing the idea of a war on Christmas. This week Bill O’Reilly already had an atheist leader on to discuss what Bill called “this year’s Christmas controversy situation.” The producers of the Bill O’Reilly must have atheist leaders on speed dial during Christmas time the same way CNN has grief counselors on speed dial every time there’s a mass shooting. This time Bill made the odd assertion that government-sponsored Christmas displays are fine because Christianity is just a philosophy and not a religion. Jesus Christ would have rolled over in his tomb... if he hadn’t already have walked out of it. Do you expect Bill O’Reilly to have any grasp on what Christianity is? Everything he says or does tells you that he either doesn’t know anything that Jesus taught, or he doesn’t care.
If you’re wondering how President Obama’s lunch with Mitt Romney went, I assume that the meal was like everything else with Mitt—not very substantive. The lunch menu included white turkey chili. Somebody on the President’s staff must have gotten confused when they got instructions to arrange for the president to “have lunch with white turkey.” In any case, this meal came too late. Obama ate Mitt Romney’s lunch over three weeks ago!
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
In negotiations over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” In a plan presented to Republicans by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the President is asking for $1.6 trillion in new revenue by letting the Bush tax cuts expire on the richest 2% of Americans, and by increasing capital gains and estate taxes, which are mostly paid by very wealthy Americans like Mitt Romney. The President’s plan also calls for more stimulus spending on infrastructure and investments to help struggling homeowners refinance their homes. It also completely does away with the pesky debt-ceiling that Republicans have shown a willingness to exploit to force big spending cuts against the working class.
Under the President’s plan, the automatic spending cuts against social programs and the military will be stopped, but the President is putting up $400 billion in cuts to entitlement programs to be negotiated in 2013. Republicans responded to the proposal with outrage. Conservative Fox News talking head Charles Krauthammer called the deal worse than what General Robert E. Lee received at Appomattox after the Civil War.
At its core – this deal makes sure the wealthy pay their fair share again, it helps struggling homeowners, it puts Americans back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and it doesn’t throw grandma under the bus by destroying Social Security and Medicare…no wonder why Republicans hate it! It looks like the President has finally figured out how to negotiate and he should be willing to stick to his principles and take the nation over the made-up “fiscal cliff” if Republicans don’t want to do what’s best for the American middle class.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
President has been on a relentless campaign for fairness to the middle class in the fiscal cliff deal. He hasn’t been quite as obsessed as John McCain has been with Susan Rice, but it’s been close. The President knows that eliminating deductions and loopholes won’t accomplish anything—that’s why Republicans are suggesting that. As Obama pushes for ending tax cuts for the rich, the polls are clearly on his side. Gee, do you think Republicans will believe them this time? All I know is that when these negotiations are done and over, John Boehner will emerge totally red-faced... or at least orange-faced.
Nobody wants the fiscal cliff—it only exists because Republicans couldn’t get everything else they wanted back during the debt ceiling debate. The theory behind the fiscal cliff is to intentionally create a situation so screwed up that only a bunch of idiots wouldn’t deal with it. They forgot who they were dealing with—they were dealing with themselves. Back then John Boehner boasted “I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.” He’s not happy now. The lesson here—nobody is happy when Republicans get what they want... not even Republicans.
Mitt Romney is going to the White House to have lunch with President Obama today! Gee, I wonder if Mitt is expecting any gifts. Here’s a tidbit of advice, Mitt—try not to be as late showing up for lunch as you were delivering your concession speech. It might be nice for Obama to make some sort of gesture to Mitt Romney. Maybe he could name him ambassador to the Cayman Islands. I just want to be there for that delicious moment when Obama accidentally talks over Mitt and then says “Oh I’m sorry... please proceed, Governor!”
As we said, Republicans are attacking Susan Rice so that Obama will nominate John Kerry for Secretary of State. The remaining question for me: Is McCain & Co. acting on behalf of their long time Senate collegue John Kerry, the just ousted Scott Brown, or both?
And the latest paranoid rightwing conspiracy theory is that President Obama is going to try and get himself a third term. On a certain level, I’m glad they think that, if only because I know it must drive them up a wall. Note that I didn’t say “it must drive them crazy.” They went for that drive a long time ago.
On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is barring BP from receiving any new federal government contracts due to the foreign oil corporation’s “lack of business integrity” following the 2010 Gulf oil spill. BP recently agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines for the environmental catastrophe, which will only put a slight dent in their corporate money chest. But this latest move by the EPA could be far more harmful to the company. BP can still benefit from existing federal contracts, however the Department of Interior has also banned BP from receiving any new leases to drill on federal lands.
According to the EPA, the ban on BP will last until the company can prove it’s capable of meeting federal business standards. Our nation has a long history of putting corporations out of business when they’re operating against the best interest of their workers and the community. Only when corporations have the corporate death penalty “Sword of Damocles” hanging over their head can we make sure that workers and communities aren’t being exploited to maximize short-term profits.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
It's not always easy to connect disparate dots, and end up with a mosaic, but here goes.
Lately, we've seen several stories, here in NYC and around the country and the world, dealing with what are generally called "low wage workers". On the one hand, the bosses at several fast food chains are screaming bloody murder about whatever money they may have to spend in providing their workers with healthcare under the Affordable Care Act. Never mind their obligation doesn't start for over a year, and they have no idea what the cost will be.
The head of Papa John's Pizza bleats about raising the price of a slice or pie, and maybe even laying off workers (he later backed off that one). A Florida owner of a group of Denny's and Hurricane Hot Wings franchises got in hot water for proposing a 5% "Obamacare" surcharge. The folks who own Red Lobster and the Olive Garden say they'll cut hours below the 30 per week requirement of the Act.
Don't these people have any respect for those who work for them? I mean, they say they do in press releases after their foolishness goes viral. Yet in the not too distant future, they may have to worry about a lot more than cutting hours and imposing surcharges. Workers in such diverse areas as fast food and car washes are looking to unionize, at least here in New York. Fast food workers, nobody knows how many yet, walked off the job Thursday and picketed a couple of fast food joints in Midtown Manhattan. Car wash workers have voted to unionize at four facilities around the five boros.
Add to this the Black Friday job action by some Walmart workers, and you may be seeing the first stirrings of a low wage worker revolt against conditions we all think they suffer in silence. Here's the thing. Their success or failure will largely depend on whether their employers feel any backlash from consumers, whether they be food patrons, car wash customers, or Christmas shoppers. In other words, us.
And while we talk about workers and our own consumption, we can't forget the 112 workers in Bangladesh who lost their lives making clothes for us. Their average annual wage is $750.00, and a number of US companies did business with the factory they worked in. They'll say in a press release the work was unauthorized, but one wonders how they didn't know their goods were being made in a modern day sweatshop.
Workers are waking up. Are we?
Listen to The Mark Riley Morning Show Monday through Friday 6 AM to 9 AM on WWRL 1600. Follow me on Twitter @MarkRileyMedia.
From the “three amigos” in the Republican Party. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte continued their attacks against our UN Ambassador Susan Rice on Tuesday after the three met with her in a closed-door meeting. Republicans are accusing Rice of purposefully misleading the American people in the days after the Benghazi attack when she gave several interviews based on CIA intelligence that’s now been proven to be untrue. Senator McCain and others contend that Rice was involved in a White House conspiracy to cover up the fact that the Benghazi attacks may have been an act of terrorism.
In reality though, the “fog of war” is most likely responsible for the CIA getting intelligence wrong in the days after the attack. But just like they’ve done with the President, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Van Jones – all African Americans – Republicans are smearing the reputation of Susan Rice to scuttle her potential nomination as Secretary of State. Curiously, McCain and Graham were nowhere to be found with Colin Powell and Condi Rice lied to Congress and the UN about weapons of mass destruction in the lead up to war in Iraq.
This is all manufactured hyperventilation. Republicans want John Kerry to be Secretary of State instead of Susan Rice, so that Kerry will have to leave his Massachusetts Senate seat, and Republican oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers can buy it back for Scott Brown. This is nothing more than machine politics by Republicans who have no problem exploiting a tragedy overseas that killed a U.S. ambassador.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
John McCain and his prissy goon squad are going after Susan Rice as though she had been at Benghazi herself aiming a rocket launcher at the US consulate. McCain is determined to create the spectacle of an old Republican white guy relentlessly attacking a professional African-American woman. He’s putting an exclamation point on all the mistakes the GOP made this last election. Nobody seems to knowwhat exactly is going on in John McCain’s head... and that certainly includes John McCain.
McCain seems to have some sort of weird vendetta against Susan Rice. What’s the matter, Grandpa? Did she park in front of your house? Is McCain obsessed with Susan Rice? Hello! If they were both just private citizens, Susan Rice could get a restraining order on him.
McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte were given a special one-hour meeting with UN Ambassador Rice and the acting director of the CIA. Those three have no special status as chairs of any committee investigating Benghazi. They’re just three random Senators with bugs up their asses. As far as I can tell, the only reason those three got a special meeting with Rice and the CIA director was that they’re the members of the “I Hate Susan Rice Club.” I think they meet in a tree-house somewhere. McCain emerged the meeting saying he was “significantly troubled.” You’re troubled alright, John... but not in the way you meant.
I think the White House gave them the meeting on the theory that even John McCain can only act crazy so long. That theory was wrong. The White House responded to McCain. But before they did, I’m sure the conversation went something like “OK, he’s clearly lost his mind. How do we handle this?” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said “The focus on – some might say obsession on – comments made on Sunday shows seems to me and to many to be misplaced.” That’s a nice way of saying “Grandpa needs a nap.”
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
John McCain and his prissy goon squad are going after Susan Rice as though she had been at Benghazi herself aiming a rocket launcher at the US consulate. McCain is determined to create the spectacle of an old Republican white guy relentlessly attacking a professional African-American woman. He’s putting an exclamation point on all the mistakes the GOP made this last election. Nobody seems to knowwhat exactly is going on in John McCain’s head... and that certainly includes John McCain.
McCain seems to have some sort of weird vendetta against Susan Rice. What’s the matter, Grandpa? Did she park in front of your house? Is McCain obsessed with Susan Rice? Hello! If they were both just private citizens, Susan Rice could get a restraining order on him.
McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte were given a special one-hour meeting with UN Ambassador Rice and the acting director of the CIA. Those three have no special status as chairs of any committee investigating Benghazi. They’re just three random Senators with bugs up their asses. As far as I can tell, the only reason those three got a special meeting with Rice and the CIA director was that they’re the members of the “I Hate Susan Rice Club.” I think they meet in a tree-house somewhere. McCain emerged the meeting saying he was “significantly troubled.” You’re troubled alright, John... but not in the way you meant.
I think the White House gave them the meeting on the theory that even John McCain can only act crazy so long. That theory was wrong. The White House responded to McCain. But before they did, I’m sure the conversation went something like “OK, he’s clearly lost his mind. How do we handle this?” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said “The focus on – some might say obsession on – comments made on Sunday shows seems to me and to many to be misplaced.” That’s a nice way of saying “Grandpa needs a nap.”
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
On Monday, the Bank of England named former Goldman Sachs investment banker Mark Carney as its new chief – adding to the long list of former Goldman Sachs bankers who've seized positions of immense power all around Europe and the rest of the world. As Europe descends into an austerity-induced economic crisis, Goldman Sachs is making sure it gets all of its failed investments back. As the British newspaper The Independent reported earlier this year, the Conservative technocrats steering fiscal policy in the Greece, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, and now the UK, all hail from Goldman Sachs.
In fact, the head of the European Central Bank itself, Mario Draghi, was the former managing director of Goldman Sachs. It’s widely known that Goldman Sachs made the euro problem worse when it helped Greece hide their debt back in 2002. As the DailyKos describes the scheme Goldman is playing, “The normal scenario usually involves helping a nation hide a problem and sell its debt until the problem blows up into a bubble that bursts in a spectacular way…Goldman Sachs then puts their ‘man’ into a position of power to direct the bailouts so that Goldman gets all its money back and more, while the nation's economy gets gutted.”
The same thing has happened in the United States, as the last two Treasury Secretaries came from Goldman Sachs, and Goldman made out like a bandit in the 2008 Wall Street bailouts. Plain and simple, when a bank the size of Goldman can run the world, democracy is dying.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Happy Cyber Monday! This is the day after Thanksgiving weekend, when on-line sales jump. We have Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. How long before the TV shopping networks try to claim Sunday for something like “QVC Sunday”?
There were record sales numbers over this Black Friday weekend. Many stores throughout the country opened on Thanksgiving Day. It looks like people stuffed themselves, and then emptied their wallets. Shopping on Thanksgiving Day is becoming a regular thing for some families. Hey, for a lot of families, it sure beats talking to each other. Thousands of people spent Black Friday protesting at Wal-Marts across the country. The protests were peaceful... unlike the sales going on inside the Wal-Marts.
If Black Friday is too much for you, there’s Small Business Saturday. It’s for people whose idea of shopping doesn’t include fistfights. And if you do have a fistfight at a small retailer, you’re much more likely to receive individualized attention.
At least going to the store on Thanksgiving evening prevented a lot of families from fighting with each other. Instead, they fought with other shoppers. In Sacramento, a fight broke out between shoppers at a lingerie sale at Victoria’s Secret. People! Don’t get your panties in a bunch! At a mall in San Antonio, a man pulled a gun on another shopper who he said punched him. This being Texas, of course, the man broke no laws in doing so. Heck, in Texas that doesn’t even violate the rules of etiquette.
Videos of American shoppers fighting go all over the world. We have to stop breaking out into mass fist-fights on Black Friday! We’re acting like the Taiwanese legislature! What do people in other countries think when they see us fighting over crappy products that are made in those other countries? Maybe we wouldn’t have to fight over consumer products if we actually manufactured a few of them in this country.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Multimillionaire K-Street lobbyist, billionaire toady, and Republican anti-tax master Grover Norquist is losing his grip on power. Realizing their backs are against the wall with the so-called “fiscal cliff” looming, a number of Republicans have come forward in recent days to disavow Grover Norquists’s pledge to never raise taxes. Republican Senator Bob Corker appeared on CBS Sunday morning to say he is “not obligated” to obey Grover Norquist’s pledge. That echoes comments made by Senators Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss over the weekend who both distanced themselves from the pledge saying they would break their pledge to Norquist for the good of the country.
This morning – Norquist himself went on TV in a desperate attempt to hold his Republican lackeys in line saying, “We've got some people discussing impure thoughts on national television.” Last time I checked – there’s only one pledge that our elected Representatives should be taking – and that’s the pledge to defend the Constitution against all its enemies, foreign and domestic.
Norquist's pledge - or any other pledge to deep-pocketed lobbyist that sacrifices the economic health of our nation to grow the bank accounts of the global elite - is nothing short of supporting enemies of the Constitution. But, since the Republican Party has been the Party of the 1% ever since the 1880s, don't expect too much change anytime soon.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Despite receiving little attention from the Left or the Right during the election...
Our nation’s drone warfare program continues to inflame anti-American sentiments across the world – particularly in volatile nations like Pakistan. And we ignore this semi-covert drone war at our own peril, because in the near future, those same drones will be flying over U.S. skies, too. In fact, they already are – assisting in law enforcement and anti-immigration missions. And this week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it plans to double its fleet of Predator drones flying inside the United States.
Already, DHS has spent $250 million on a fleet of ten surveillance drones to fly U.S. skies – but according to the group California Watch, DHS signed a contract worth nearly $500 million to purchase an additional 14 drones to spy on us. DHS is also encouraging local police forces to purchase their own drones – and has dished out $4 million to local agencies to “accelerate” the purchase of unmanned surveillance drones.
According to estimates from the FAA, we might have as many as 30,000 drones patrolling American skies by the end of the decade. If the countless dead civilians from our drone strikes abroad don’t affect you, then the complete disappearance of your privacy rights at home will.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Republicans have been signaling they may be willing to deal with President Obama. In an even more shocking development, hardcore Republicans are signaling that they may be willing to deal with reality... Allen West conceded! West announced he won’t contest the outcome, although he said “many questions remain unanswered.” Yes. One of those is “How did a nutcase like Allen West get elected in the first place?” West ran ads showing his opponent’s mug-shot from when he was arrested at age 19 for “disorderly intoxication.” Allen, we would have voted against you if your opponent was still 19... and still intoxicated. I would rather have a drunken teenager representing Florida than Allen West. Pop in any “Girls Gone Wild” video from spring break at Fort Lauderdale, and then pick any person on camera at random, and they would make a better Congressman than Allen West.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio was asked how old he thought the earth was. Marco Rubio has to be careful not to offend the religious nutbag segment of the base. His very existence already offends the racist and anti-immigrant segment of the base. When asked how old the earth is, Rubio said “I’m not a scientist. I don't think I’m qualified to answer a question like that.” Then you’re not qualified to graduate from the 7th grade, either. You don’t need to be a scientist to answer how old the earth is any more than you need to be a mathematician to answer how much 2 + 2 equals.
If you haven’t heard, Hostess brands, the maker of Twinkies, may cease to exist. That’s ironic—the Twinkie itself never decays or disappears. If there was a nuclear holocaust that destroyed the rest of the earth, Twinkies would still be here, along with the roaches. And then the roaches would eat the Twinkies… and die.
Hostess is blaming their financial problems on union workers. That makes about as much sense as someone who lives on Twinkies blaming genetics for their diabetes. Twinkie production provides 18,000 jobs. And those are American jobs. I know—a lot of you thought those jobs were done by elves. No, that’s Keebler. Get your labor facts straight!
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
And you’ll hear the drug war breathing its last gasps. Following the historic passage of marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and Washington, our federal government is now under pressure to abandon its continued war on drugs – in particular its war on marijuana. Eighteen Members of Congress wrote a letter this week to the Department of Justice to allow states to be “laboratories of democracy” and create their own drug laws to address the “disproportionate impact that marijuana has on minorities.”
The letter defends the decision of voters in Colorado and Washington saying: “These states have chosen to move from a drug policy that spends millions of dollars turning ordinary Americans into criminals toward one that will tightly regulate the use of marijuana while raising tax revenue to support cash-strapped state and local governments.” Basically, lawmakers in Congress are telling the federal government to get out of the way when it comes to state drug laws.
See the petition on the White House website WeThePeople.org to support a law protecting state rights to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana.
Last Friday, two lawmakers in the House introduced legislation that would exempt states with their own marijuana laws from the Controlled Substances Act’s marijuana regulations. This isn’t about letting American get high when they want to. This is about ending a racist, ineffective, and costly drug war that has ruined the lives of millions of Americans. And we’re winning.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Last week, John McCain skipped a classified briefing on the incident in Benghazi... to hold a press conference to demand a hearing on the incident in Benghazi. John, before you run off in the morning to start your day, you might want to take a glance at your appointment book. If you listen very carefully to the video of McCain at the press conference, I bet you can hear his cell phone buzzing on vibrate mode—that would be his reminder that he should be at a classified hearing on Benghazi. The briefing that McCain skipped was top secret, but I don’t think that it was so secret that they didn’t tell the participants about it. This is like the time McCain impulsively “suspended” his campaign for president to rush back to Washington to deal with the economic crisis—and then didn’t say a word in the meetings. Well at least he showed up that time. I will allow John McCain this much—there ARE a lot of unresolved issues. Most of them are issues that McCain still has with Obama over the 2008 election.
McCain and other Republicans are attacking Susan Rice for working from the same CIA talking points that all of them received. I guess she made the mistake of reading them. If Republicans paid as much attention to the CIA talking points as they have to all the recent briefings on Benghazi, I can see how they would be unfamiliar with them. What is your point, Republicans? That we should ignore what the intelligence community says? We tried that during the Bush administration—it didn’t work out well. John, Susan Rice can’t just say go on TV and repeat whatever notion pops into her head on Benghazi. I know it’s hard for you to accept that, because that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.
Republicans spent a lot of time on the Sunday talk shows repudiating Mitt Romney... at least the ones who were willing to admit they had ever heard of a Mitt Romney. The Republican Party already needed to distance themselves from everything about Mitt Romney, so in that sense, Mitt’s comments about gifts were actually a huge gift to the Republican Party. Mitt Romney may not have given the Republican Party much, but at least he gave them a handy way to disavow him.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
That’s the warning coming from a new World Bank report that projects global temperatures increasing 4-degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The temperature increase will be felt the most along the equator in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the United States. This temperature increase will lead to scarcity in water and food resources and disruptions in biodiversity – which could force mass migrations of people out of affected areas.
Rising temperatures will also lead to rising sea levels which threaten cities located in India, Mexico, and Vietnam – as well as several African nations. The World Bank also warns that several small islands around the planet will likely be unable to sustain their populations by 2100. This is the threat that the entire planet faces if global climate change is left unchecked. Luckily – people are getting active.
On Sunday – thousands of people showed up outside the White House to protest against the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been described by climate scientists as a “ticking time bomb” for the planet. We need more people in the streets to force government to listen to the future generations that will inherit this planet rather than the oil barons that are destroying it.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
On Thursday, oil giant BP pled guilty to 14 charges related to the 2010 gulf oil spill and agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines. Despite being the largest settlement in our nation’s history, it’s nothing compared to the actual damage BP did to our nation two years ago. A senior investigator with Greenpeace said the settlement, “fails every aspect of the common accepted notion of penalty.” And a spokesperson with Public Citizens responded to the settlement saying, “We’re stunned. This settlement is pathetic…The point of the criminal justice system is twofold: to punish and deter. This does neither.”
Over the course of three months, BP’s oil well spewed 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, choking marine life, blanketing coastlines, and ruining small businesses. Public Citizen estimates that total amount of damage caused by the spill at more than $50 billion dollars, yet BP is liable for $4.5 billion, which is less money than the corporation makes in just three months. There is still possibility that two workers at BP will face manslaughter charges and take the fall for the deaths of 11 men when the oil rig exploded. But ultimately, there will be no lasting punishment for BP, which has gone back to business as usual punching holes in our Gulf of Mexico.
This was the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, and if that isn’t enough reason to give BP the corporate death penalty and revoke their corporate charter, then I don’t know what is. Corporations have run roughshod over our nation for too long, it’s time to restrain them like Teddy Roosevelt did after the Robber Baron Era.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Mitt Romney has resurfaced again... like a corpse that floats up from the bottom of a lake at the end of a horror movie. Except that what Mitt said was more disgusting than a water-logged corpse. Mitt said that Obama won the election by giving “gifts” to blacks, Hispanics, and young people. That’ll help the GOP, Mitt! Mitt not only lost in 2012—he seems determined to make sure that Republicans keep on losing forever! Mitt said Obama’s gifts were targeted for “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people.” Those are the same people that Mitt’s policies targeted... in a different sense of the word “targeted.” Then Mitt went off on a rant against each and every demographic that the GOP has to win to have any success in the future. Classic Mitt! He’s burning bridges for the Republicans before they can even get to them!
Mitt made the statement on a conference call with donors on Wednesday. Wait... Mitt still has donors? How stupid are these people? Mitt said they should keep in touch to later on influence “the selection of a future nominee, which, by the way, will not be me.” No kidding! Here’s a news flash, Mitt—you have less chance of being the future nominee for president than you do of being the future heavyweight champion of the world!
Speaking of people who lost the presidency to Barack Obama, John McCain and President Obama have been going at it over UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who Obama may want to pick to be the new Secretary of State. McCain is trying to cast doubt on Rice over handling of Benghazi. We all know how good John McCain is at making big decisions on who should fill important jobs! Susan Rice, as the U.N. ambassador, had no responsibility for consulate security or protecting diplomatic staff anywhere. John McCain knows better—he should act better. McCain and Graham defended Condoleezza Rice when she repeated faulty Bush administration intelligence about Iraq. It’s like Ann Coulter! McCain and Graham think “Our Rices are so much better than their Rices!”
Between Mitt Romney’s remarks and John McCain’s sick vendetta against Susan Rice, the guys that Obama beat in the last two elections don’t look too good. Is there something about losing to Obama that turns people into even bigger losers?
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
At least that’s how he’s spinning his landslide loss to President Obama in last week’s election. According to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, Mitt Romney convened a conference call with donors on Wednesday and blamed his loss on a President who was “very generous” and promised to give away “big gifts” to women, minorities, and the poor. Those “gifts” Romney is referring to are things like contraceptive access for women, affordable student loans for young people, health care for poor people, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who’ve been living in this country since they were children. Romney calls them gifts, while the rest of us call them basic essentials needed to make it in America.
Republican strategist Jude Wanniski was the first to label Democrats as Santa Claus back in the 1970’s for giving Americans things like Social Security and Medicare. Wanniski said Republicans had to play Santa Claus, too, by giving people tax cuts, which Republicans have stuck to ever since. Post-election, a lot of Conservative talking heads, from Rush Limbaugh to Bill O’Reilly to now Mitt Romney, have played the “gift card” against President Obama. But what they ignore is that for several generations now, we as Americans through our democracy, have voted in these policies. “We the people” have concluded that we should all be protected from old age, sickness, and unemployment - and have elected representatives to protect these programs.
Some of the millionaires and billionaires like Mitt Romney think that just because they don’t need any help, then no one in America needs help. If they want to whine about these programs now that they've lost the election, then I suggest they find a remote piece of land and begin constructing their Ayn Rand utopia far, far away from the rest of us in “we society” America.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
So according to GOP loser Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama is Santa Claus. At least that's what Romney told donors and fund raisers in a conference call Wednesday. Continuing the "us and them" mentality that lost him the White House, Romney refused to look in the mirror, and instead blamed big policy "gifts" Obama tendered to blacks, young voters, college age women, Hispanics, you know, the 47%.
Better tell these suckers it was someone else's fault rather than his own. Romney will never, ever admit that he was out organized on the ground by this president. That might lead some of the big money folks who he was conning to ask, "Gee. how'd that happen"? By contrast, Mittens told his donors he was talking about important, serious stuff. Never mind he didn't get specific about much during the campaign. Military strategy, foreign policy, and jobs creation were his issues. Who does he think buys this nonsense? His entire campaign defined the word feckless.
What Romney, and his running mate Paul Ryan are trying to promote is a fetid, backward way of thinking that only a fat cat GOP donor could believe, much less embrace. Ryan, after all, placed the blame for his ticket's loss on "the urban vote". This dog-ate-my-homework excuse making is so transparently stupid even some Republicans had to speak out to condemn it. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker did, proving he just hates unions, not everybody. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal also spoke out.
Maybe all this represents is the deranged musings of two sore losers. Republicans better hope so. Keep it up, and someone may point out all the gifts corporate America gets from government, gifts the Romney Ryan ticket had no intention of eliminating. Worse yet (for the GOP), these statements will get hung around the necks of future Republican office seekers.
Who was it that said the definition of insanity is doing (or saying) the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Or are Romney's donors and enablers the ones who are crazy?
Conservative nutcases are talking about secession. The head of the Texas secessionists said “there cannot be a union between those that esteem the principles of Karl Marx over the principles of Thomas Jefferson.” Great, with the state of the schools in Texas, nobody there knows who either of those guys is!
What’s going on with the Generals & Socialites scandal? The person whose ego might be stoked by all this has to be Jill Kelley. Paula Broadwell reportedly warned General Allen that Kelley was a “seductress.” Sweetie, I have news for you—if you “warn” a man that a woman is a seductress, you’re really just tipping him off that she’s a seductress. Even if they have no plans to do anything inappropriate, no man on earth hears “seductress” and thinks “Uh oh! Better stay away from that one!” If he’s looking for trouble, he knows she can provide it. And even if he wants to keep his hands clean, when he hears “seductress,” then he thinks of her as a test-your-skill game. I don’t know what makes a woman an irresistible seductress, but I know that being called a seductress really helps.
After the election disaster, Rush Limbaugh played Feliz Navidad to “reach out to the Hispanic community.” Great, Rush—if you meant to reach out by slapping them in the face. Meanwhile, Ann Coulter says that Hispanics don’t vote for Republicans because of “ethnic loyalty.” No Ann, Hispanics don’t vote for Republicans because of self-interest and common sense. Ann, Republicans can’t work against all the best interests of a group and then expect that group to vote for them... except for blue-collar whites, evidently.
Bill O’Reilly claims that President Obama “doesn’t really share” the “values about religion” of Hispanics. Bill, you represent a party whose “religious values” include forcing rape victims to have the babies of their rapists. The only Spanish people who share the religious values of the Republican Party are the people who put on the Spanish Inquisition 500 years ago.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
President Obama is putting forward a big number when it comes to raising revenue ahead of “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The White House is proposing $1.6 trillion in new revenue from letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the top 2% wealthiest Americans and closing deduction and loopholes. That’s nearly half of all the savings expected to come from $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years that the President is proposing in his new budget.
It’s also double what Speaker of the House John Boehner floated during negotiations last year. But it shows the President is finally going to the negotiating table with a big offer rather than an already compromised offer. He’s also talking tough – telling labor leaders on Tuesday that he’s “not going to budge” on letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. On Friday, the president will meet with Congressional Republicans to begin negotiations. Still, there are valid concerns that Medicare and Social Security could be put on the chopping block during these negotiations.
Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen hinted that Democrats are open to the idea of raising the eligibility age of Medicare and slowing cost-of-living increases with Social Security as long as it’s part of a "balanced deal." Last time I checked, Democrats won big in last week’s election – and still control the White House and the Senate on behalf of the voters. House Democratic candidates also won a half-million more Congressional votes than House Republican candidates.
That looks like a mandate to me – meaning Americans don’t want a “balanced” approach – they want a progressive approach.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
The scandal around General Petraeus keeps getting weirder, though it can’t possibly get as weird as the conspiracy theories that rightwingers are trying to spin around it. It’s a scandal with sex, intrigue, and the intelligence community—and the rightwing wants to turn it into part of their narrative that Obama is the Anti-Christ. Can’t the rightwing noise machine leave weird enough alone? It’s all about infidelity, ego, paranoia, and foolish choices. This has nothing to do with Obama. It sounds more like something out of the life of Newt Gingrich.
Now there is an investigation of General John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, for possibly inappropriate communication with Jill Kelley, the woman Paula Broadwell saw as a rival for General Petraeus. If this was a movie spy thriller, at this point you would be rewinding the DVR to get the story straight.
Everybody thought the big post-election story would be the fiscal cliff. But there’s nothing like a story about sex and somebody else to take your attention away from a story affecting your own pocketbook. This is a story about other people going over the edge of a cliff. It’s got all of the excitement with none of the real danger that the fiscal cliff poses to us all.
Allen West is refusing to believe the results of the election that he lost last Tuesday. Come on, Allen—you can’t deny reality forever. Even Mitt Romney was only able to do it for around 90 minutes on election night. There is no reason to doubt the results of the election... other than the fact that it took place in Florida, that is. But Allen West will never give up. He’s going to form a Congressional-Office-In-Exile and try to get other Republicans to recognize it as the one true House seat from his district.
Grover Norquist says that President Obama won the election by portraying Mitt Romney as a “poopy head.” What Grover does not address is whether the President accurately portrayed Mitt Romney as a poopy head. I think that Grover is saying that the President’s strategy was childish. That’s rich, coming from a man whose only political philosophy in life is “Don’t touch my toys!”
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
In the last month – two homeowners facing eviction in Spain have committed suicide prompting the Spanish banking association to freeze all eviction orders in cases of “extreme hardship” for the next two months. As one judge said, “This cannot be allowed to go on. It’s a problem which has been talked about for some time. The time for talk is over and steps must be taken for something to happen.” Protesters reacted to the suicide by taking to the streets and placing stickers on ATM machines that read “murderers.” The police union has promised to stand by its members to who refuse to carry out an eviction.
This same compassion is lacking in the United States where numerous Americans have turned to suicide instead of foreclosure. According to a recent study from the Center for Disease Control – there’s a direct correlation between rising suicide rates and economic crises. And another study out of Princeton University found that for every increase of 100 foreclosures in states like Arizona, California, New Jersey, and Florida, attempted suicides increased 39%.
This is a moral crisis, which deserves a moral response from our government. Yet the Republican Party and elements of the Democratic Party are committed to more austerity for working people rather than relief for working people. It’s time to stop the insanity and violence of austerity. It’s time to bailout the homeowners.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
And Republicans are openly acknowledging they have a much weaker hand post-election. One of the top Conservative thinkers, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, criticized his party on Sunday morning for its obsession with defending tax cuts for the rich. Kristol advised Republicans to take President Obama’s deal to immediately pass a tax cut extension for 98% of Americans while allowing the top tax rate on the richest 2% to go up. Kristol said, “It won’t kill the country if Republicans raise taxes a little bit on millionaires…the Republican party is gonna fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic, and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile to Republicans?”
Kristol is right – though he’s forgetting the pledge of allegiance the Republican Party has sworn to anti-tax master and millionaire K-Street lobbyist Grover Norquist. But if Democrats hold firm and let everyone’s taxes go up after January 1st, then Norquist’s pledge is irrelevant and Republicans won’t have a choice but to extend tax cuts for the middle class. Everyone needs to keep an eye on what happens over the next few weeks. And Democrats in particular need to remember they have the upper hand in this fight and they should not compromise on their principles. That means no grand bargain that shreds Social Security, Medicare, and social welfare programs for the poor.
As President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1940, “the Democratic Party has received the support of the electorate only when the party, with absolute clarity, has been the champion of progressive and liberal policies and principles of government.” It’s time for the Democrats to be that Party again.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
It’s the second day after the election, and the first thing I want to say is that if you are still in line, stay in line! It’s still important! Stay strong, Florida.
Seriously, the news from Florida is not to expect anything soon. Don’t worry—we never expect anything from Florida... except chaos. The truly sad thing is that Florida is already the poster child for election incompetence. You can’t blast Florida with an analogy, because Florida IS the analogy! What are you going to say? “Congratulations, Florida—you have now become the Florida of elections!”
They say the race could still be close enough to trigger a recount in Florida. I guess my first question would be “What exactly does it take to trigger an initial count in Florida?” Now Florida is an embarrassment to the entire United States. It’s like the rest of the world is looking at us and saying “Hey America, your fly is unzipped, and your Florida is hanging out.” Right now, the electoral map for this election is all red and blue, except for Florida, which is gray, or black, or yellow, or whatever color that particular news outlet uses to signify a state that can’t count. The worst are the maps where Florida is a sickly dark color, dangling out there in the ocean like some sort of malignant growth that the doctors tied off so that it would wither and fall off. They say the last voter in Florida voted around 1 a.m., but I bet there are still more voters out there, waiting to be discovered like Japanese soldiers on some Pacific island 20 years after the end of World War II. 30 years from now, they’ll still be pulling Florida voters out of abandoned polling places: “What’s going on? Is the 2012 Florida election still on? Is Obama president?” “The election’s been over for 30 years! This is 2042... and the President of the United States is Sasha Obama.”
Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS got knocked right off the map last night! Conservative activist Richard Viguerie said that “in any logical universe” Rove “would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again.” Luckily for Karl Rove, Republicans do not live in any logical universe. In the folklore of the blues, the Crossroads is where a person goes to sell their soul to the Devil. When you think of it that way, Karl Rove couldn’t have come up with a better name for his super PAC—because when you make a deal with the Devil, you always get burned.
Lisen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
That’s the essence of what Vice President Joe Biden said following the Democrats’ big wins on Election night. Speaking to a pool of reporters on Wednesday, Biden said Democrats clearly have a “mandate” on tax reform. And this issue of taxes will have to be settled soon, as Congress returns for its lame duck session next week and the so-called fiscal cliff looms at the end of the year. Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who was the architect of the Democrats election strategy in the Senate, argued that Democrats now have a much stronger hand after the election as they head into negotiations with Republicans over what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts and automatic spending cuts coming down the pike.
Murray told reports, “If we can’t get a good deal—a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share—then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013.” In other words, Democrats aren't caving this time. Unless the Republican Party is still living in an alternate reality – which is likely – they have to accept that they failed at making President Obama a one-term President by stifling the economy. They should take Tuesday’s election as a rejection of their obstructionist agenda and strike a deal with Democrats to raise taxes on the wealthy.
If they don’t – and if they continue their economy-crashing agenda – then they’re committing political suicide and, tragically, risk taking the country down with them.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
So now that election 2012 is history, it's time to take up what individuals and groups won, and which ones lost. Trust me on this, it's a little more difficult than simply saying President Barack Obama won and Mitt Romney lost. There are those who will celebrate longer than they should, and those who will lick their wounds and plot to take up the battle on another day. Here then, in no particular order, are my lists of winners and losers.
WINNERS
Former President Bill Clinton- The Man From Hope has still got it, and he put it all on the line for a man some thought he didn't care that much for. If I were President Obama, my first call after my victory speech would have been to President Clinton, and I would say, "whatever you want, Mr. President, including unequivocal support for your wife if she chooses to run for years from now".
Nate Silver- If you don't know who he is, you should. The Five Thirty Eight blogger for the New York Times predicted an Obama victory using a model based on mathematics and not the usual insider narrative that pundits make their living from. For this he was vilified, and things took a turn for the bizarre when he was called out by his own public editor at the Times for making a jocular bet on the outcome of the voting with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. Silver is the future of predictive politics, and those who would dog him out had best watch their step. He's no joke.
Women- Tuesday's election ushered in a new wave of women in the Senate. Six were re-elected, while four will take their place ion the upper chamber for the first time. Add to that the fact that the Senate will be 20% female next term, and that an openly gay woman won in Wisconsin, and you get the picture. Has anyone noticed the entire New Hampshire congressional delegation will be women as well? So much for "legitimate rape".
The LGBT community- Four states considered same sex ballot referenda Tuesday. Three of them passed, with Washington state still not decided. This is the first time the issue has been settled in the affirmative before voters. There are now nine states that allow same sex couples to marry. There ought to be 50.
Weed- Again, four referenda, and only Oregon's didn't win. Colorado and Washington did, in a big way. Only trouble is, marijuana use, whether medical or recreational, runs afoul of the feds. Maybe somebody could talk to President Obama and Eric Holder about getting Uncle Sam to chill. And how about a reclassification away from weed as a Schedule 1 substance? Just asking…..
LOSERS
The Punditocracy- The gasbags and blowhards who either called the race for Romney three weeks ago or breathlessly mouthed the standard media line (too close to call) got their collective comeuppance from Nate Silver. The idea that talking inside the Beltway echo chamber to people you've known for years, then spouting pure conjecture as fact on a cable news show has been tired for awhile. Some of these people actually had the nerve to say if Silver got his prediction wrong, he'd be a one cycle wonder. How's that working out now, folks? Ready to give up all that tv time?
Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock- These clowns had no business seeking high office in the first place, but Tuesday showed there is some justice in the world. For two men, in the 21st. century, to talk of legitimate rape and rape being God's will is testament to their unfitness. Women in Indiana and Missouri weren't fooled. Despite both states going for Romney, both Akin and Mourdock will have to find other ways to spend their time. Please, please don't let them anywhere near a college classroom, either of them!
The Ryan Romney ticket- Yeah I know they lost, but there's something deeper here. For the first time since George McGovern and Sergeant Shriver back in 1972, a ticket lost both their home states, with both Massachusetts and Wisconsin going for Obama. Worse still, Romney lost the state of his birth, Michigan. Still want to let Detroit go bankrupt, Mittens?
The Tea Party- Some in the GOP are blaming the Tea Party, the darlings of just two years ago, for their failure to wrest the Senate from Democratic control. I the House, the true repository of Tea Party power, obnoxious Congressman Allen West lost his seat to Patrick Murphy. It's truly a case of addition by subtraction. Michele Bachmann managed to eke out a victory, but it's a long way from the presidential campaign trail she traveled earlier this year. Not an epic fail for the Tea Party, but precious little to show for their so-called revolution.
The Voting Process- When everyone is done analyzing the election of 1012, somebody ought to start a serious conversation about how to make America's voting process more inclusive and less chaotic. While confusion might have been expected in the NY Metropolitan Area due to Hurricane Sandy, how come there were people in Miami Dade still waiting to vote at 1:00 in the morning? The entire industrialized world is laughing at us.
There are other winners and losers, but I figure I might as well quit while I'm ahead. If you have some I left out,. please share them.
SPOILER ALERT! Obama won. I mention the spoiler alert just in case somebody was looking who had only been watching Fox News. For the rest of you—Hello America! We just elected our first black president... for the second time. The first time we made history. Now we’re making it a habit.
It took Mitt Romney quite a while to concede. I can just picture him huddled with advisors, all of them wondering if there was some way they could lie their way out of this. The Romney campaign famously said they would not be dictated to by fact checkers. You can ignore the fact checkers, but eventually the facts themselves will catch up with you. Goodbye Mitt Romney, we will not see your like again... except when we have to deal with a butthole boss or a slimy car salesman or a bank manager who is foreclosing on our home.
As in 2008, one of the best parts of an Obama victory is watching the spectacular crash that occurs when Fox News collides head on with reality! Fox News definitely had trouble deciding at what exact point to jump off of the crazy train. Guys, please move all your clocks ahead a half century from 1962! Karl Rove kept saying that any call on Ohio would be “premature.” Hey Fox News, maybe it’s not such a good idea to have a political “analyst” who has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on the thing he’s supposedly giving you an objective opinion on. Megyn Kelly actually walked down the hall to question the decision desk about their decision. Well, if you’re going to hire spokes-models instead of journalists, you might as well have them walk down a hallway in heels once in a while. Thank you very much for that leggy strut, Megyn. And that concludes the “professional outfit” portion of the election coverage. We’ll be right back with the evening gown and swimsuit competitions.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
With a landslide election victory Tuesday night. Like every election, it was all going to be determined in the battleground states. Shortly after 11pm, the key battleground state of Ohio was called for President Obama - pushing him over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. But he didn’t need Ohio. All eight battleground states went the President’s way Tuesday night – he also won the popular vote. Plain and simple – this is a mandate.
As the President said in his victory speech last, “Tonight, you voted for action, not politics as usual.” But as the President also alluded to in his speech, his action will depend on our action. As he said, “The role of citizens in our democracy does not end with your vote.” While the President may have accomplished a lot in his first term in the face of unprecedented, fierce political obstruction – there’s no question he needs to do more and be bolder in a second term. And it’s up to all of us to push him to do just that.
Just as a movement elected the President, movements will be needed to drive legislation on climate change, corporate personhood, union rights, ending the drug war, bringing home our military – you name it. Let’s get to work.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Well, it’s Election Day, or as we call it in Florida, “day number four in the voting line.” What’s the old joke—Vote early and vote often? In Florida we vote once, but we do it over a span of many, many hours. The polls in Florida don’t really tell you anything. But then the actual election results in Florida don’t often tell you anything.
Oh, and all you undecided voters—if you’re still undecided, you do realize that you have to decide today, right? Starting tomorrow, all you undecided voters will stop being the center of everyone’s attention. You’ll just go back to being annoying, like when you ask the waiter to go through the menu specials just one more time before you make up your mind. Next time you see some undecided idiot staring at the menu board at Burger King and holding up the entire line, remind yourself that Mitt Romney spent millions of dollars trying to get that person to make up their mind.
Poll analyst Nate Silver gives President Obama a 91 percent chance of winning the Electoral College. With only an 9 percent chance of winning, the only way that Mitt Romney can win is if something goes very wrong. And if Mitt Romney does win, that means a lot more things are going to be going very wrong. With the numbers the way they are, Republicans have to rely on generating voter enthusiasm… for Mitt Romney. It would be easier to generate sexual desire for Mitch McConnell.
The Washington Post has gathered all the election predictions in one place. They account for every possible outcome—and quite a few impossible ones too. The people who predict elections to get it right all predict Obama. The people predicting Romney are those who predict the results just to influence the results. A prediction of a Romney victory isn’t a prediction at all. It’s something between a wish and desperate magic spell.
Mitt Romney’s campaign strategy has been to rely entirely on white voters. You can’t win with only white people. The NBA knows it. The NFL knows it. And today it’s time for the GOP to learn it.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
A hugely-wealthy casino tycoon--whose empire is the subject of government investigations and media scrutiny--pours huge sums of money into the presidential campaign of the Republican nominee, while the ostensibly anti-gambling Mormon church looms in the background. Sound familiar? That scenario doesn’t just apply to Mitt Romney and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson—it also describes the support that billionaire Howard Hughes gave to Richard Nixon, decades earlier.
What this article points out for the first time is that Adelson’s Sands Corporation is the same company that billionaire Howard Hughes once used to funnel his “contributions” to Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Howard Hughes originally bought the Sands with the help of Mafia don Johnny Rosselli, whom long-secret Watergate files released only this year show was central to the Watergate scandal that ended Nixon’s presidency (as documented in Waldron’s recent book, Watergate: The Hidden History).
Just as it might seem odd in 2012 that the conservative Mormon Romney would accept massive support from a gambling tycoon like Adelson, the decision of Hughes in 1970 to shift of control of the Sands and his other Las Vegas casinos to what has been described as a Mormon business cabal put prominent church members in the odd position of running what was in the 1970s a Mafia-linked casino empire.
Even more, the Hughes-Mormon alliance helped lead to the events of Watergate, when Mormon Washington PR man Robert Bennett became the new link between Nixon and the Hughes casino empire. CIA files confirm that Bennett’s Washington PR firm provided much assistance to the Agency, while Bennett provided cover employment for White House consultant E. Howard Hunt, who soon masterminded the Watergate burglaries. Declassified files also show that Bennett himself leaked information to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward; Bennett later became a prominent Senator from Utah.
The odd repeating of history of the Nixon-Hughes-Sands-Mormon connection and the alliance forty years later of the Romney-Adelson-Sands-Mormon group is only one of several key parallels between Romney and Nixon. Those parallels aren’t immediately obvious to many, because the image of Nixon held by most Americans is of the post-Watergate hearings Nixon, that of the increasingly besieged President. Often forgotten is how popular Nixon was for many months after the Watergate arrests, not just with the public, but even more so with the press.
Just as the mainstream press seemed for months to have little interest in Romney’s many homes and murky income tax situation--and left many subjects unresolved, from Romney’s extremely lucrative I.R.A. situation to his supposedly blind trust--the press in 1972 was overwhelmingly supportive of Nixon. Watergate was barely in the news for most of America’s journalists for many months after the arrests.
Though the culpability of Nixon and his White House seems obvious in hindsight, the scandal had zero effect on the election, which occurred less than five months after the Watergate arrests. The efforts of a few media outlets, like the Washington Post and CBS, to investigate the scandal are well-known today.
But at the time of the election, they had made no dent in Nixon’s popularity or in persuading most of the nation’s press to seriously investigate the matter. American newspapers overwhelmingly endorsed Nixon in the fall of 1972, at a rate far exceeding Nixon’s support among voters. White House tapes show that Nixon was fond of talking about “the ten thousand” editors, producers, and journalists who could always be counted on to back Nixon, and they were never more effective than in the 1972 election.
Romney and the Republicans’’ tactic of making many well-documented false and misleading statements—to mislead voters, muddy the waters, and take the oxygen out of efforts to look into other aspects of Romney’s business and personal life—was actually perfected by Nixon. When Richard Nixon was proclaiming “I am not a crook,” while knowing that’s exactly what he was, Nixon was simply continuing a pattern he’d begun with his very first run for Congress in 1946.
In that campaign, and all of his later ones, Nixon perfected the art of lying to and misleading voters. For example, he claimed to be the “law and order President,” while spawning a massive criminal operation in the White House that would eventually see dozens of his officials indicted or convicted. Likewise, when Nixon publicly claimed in the 1968 presidential race to have a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War, the public didn’t know that he was secretly torpedoing President Lyndon Johnson’s effort to end the war, committing what Johnson himself later termed “treason” and leaving Nixon responsible for almost half the total casualties in the conflict.
Nixon’s willingness to do anything to win election or reelection seems to be playing out again today, with the massive Republican efforts to suppress the rights of legitimate voters and groups who tend to vote Democratic. Only the coming days will tell us if the election crimes apparently committed in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 are going to be topped by GOP actions in those states and others in 2012.
This brief article can only scratch the surface of the many parallels between Nixon and the tactics of Romney’s Republican Party in 2012. Romney’s well-documented reluctance to release all of his taxes filings is no doubt because he remembers how Nixon was pilloried for paying a tax rate far below that of the working people who put him in office.
In many ways, Fox News—run by Nixon’s former media advisor, Roger Ailes—has created a 24-hour Nixonian propaganda operation, which creates its own reality (or unreality), just as Nixon often did. The “dirty tricks”—as Nixon liked to call his election crimes—currently being practiced by GOP supporters and operatives, as detailed by the Huffington Post and experts like New York University media professor Mark Crispin Miller, have an all too familiar ring to anyone who has studied Nixon’s tactics through the years.
The parallels between Romney’s campaign and Nixon also show us what could be expected if Romney wins.
Massive corporate support generating massive corporate handouts; foreign dictatorships having an increasing role in US elections; more US military involvement to generate more profits for Republican backers, etc.. (When Howard Hughes gave Nixon large sums of cash for the 1968 campaign, he said he wanted the Vietnam War continued, so the could get a good return on his helicopter contacts with the US government. )
One wonders what will happen to the investigations of Sheldon Adelson, in the US and overseas, if Romney manages to become president. (We want to point out that, unlike Nixon and Hughes, Adelson has no ties to the Mafia, and he purchased the Sands corporation in 1988.)
The result of Romney’s use of Nixonian tactics may be known by tonight, or it may take days or weeks, or even months, depending on how close the election is. Regardless of the outcome, if there’s no change in the increasing sums of “dark money” flowing into campaigns and the massive tide of misleading propaganda in the form of ads and PR, the dark shadow of Richard Nixon will continue to fall over all US elections to come.
Radio & TV host Thom Hartmann and author Lamar Waldron have written two books about the JFK assassination and its aftermaths, the most recent being “Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination ,” soon to be made into a major motion picture by Warner Brothers, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Waldron’s most recent book is Watergate: The Hidden History. Hartmann’s most recent book is Threshold: The Progressive Plan to Pull America Back From the Brink.
The election is tomorrow. But in another sense—the election only begins tomorrow. The way lines look in Florida and Ohio, people aren’t going to be done voting until sometime on Thursday.
On this day before Election Day, the state of the race looks very good for President Obama. And that’s because the real “state” of the race is Ohio—and Obama is clearly leading there. Nationally, Obama and Romney may be neck-and-neck, but in the swing states, it’s Mitt Romney’s neck that’s on the line.
Brit Hume is confused by the fact that national polls are about tied, but swing state polls show Obama with a lead. Britt, that’s because Obama didn’t have the time or money to tell everyone what a liar Mitt is. Hume said “the discrepancy is unmistakable and puzzling.” Maybe that’s because it’s not a discrepancy, Brit.
Republicans are already trying to put the blame for tomorrow’s loss on Hurricane Sandy. Sandy was destructive, but what was really destructive was that your candidate was on record saying he would privatize FEMA. Oh guys, by the way—if massive hurricanes tend to remind people that Republicans suck at getting things done... you really only have yourselves to blame. Haley Barbour said “The hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum.” Momentum? Sorry Haley, but when the hurricane hit the beach, the stinking carcass of Mitt Romney’s campaign was already lying on the sand. Besides—the storm itself didn’t help Obama. It was Obama’s reaction to the storm that gave him any lift he got. Hurricanes only help presidents who know how to help hurricane victims. You will note that the head of FEMA is not some guy who used to run the Arabian Horse Association. Karl Rove said that thanks to Sandy, “there was a stutter in the campaign.” Yeah, I think it went like this—“I would get rid of F-F-F-F-EMA.”
Finally, Chris Christie has gone back to Mitt Romney. Hopefully for the both of them, Chris got his wild oats out, and this will end up making their relationship stronger. Christie told the press “I’m a Republican and I have endorsed Mitt Romney, I support him and I intend to vote for him on Tuesday.” Yes Chris... but do you love him? At least Christie didn’t have one of those news conferences where he made his injured spouse publicly stand beside him in front of all the news cameras. That’s good—I don’t want to see what Mitt Romney looks like in a leopard-print dress.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday thgrough Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
It's not even election day yet and we’re already seeing the effect of Republican efforts to restrict the vote. It was voting chaos in Florida over the weekend, as voters tried to cast their ballots early. Nightmarishly long lines at polling places forced voters to wait in line for as many as nine hours. At one polling place, more than 180 voters had their cars towed away while they were waiting to vote. This is all the result of Republicans in the state legislature deciding to cut down the number of early voting days this year from 14 down to 8.
Republican Governor Rick Scott rejected calls to keep polling places open longer to accommodate for the influx of voters, but he refused saying that only a natural disaster would warrant extending voting hours. On Tuesday, more chaos is expected as fewer polling places will be open around the state than in 2008 – thanks to budget cuts. Similarly long line were reported in Ohio – where Republican Secretary of State John Husted also cut down on early voting hours.
There are many ways to rig an election – cutting down on early voting is just one of them. Stay tuned.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
The last jobless numbers before the election are out, and they should pose no danger of President Obama losing his job. We added a healthy 171,000 jobs (+184K private-sector / -13K public-sector) in October. Despite the job gains, the unemployment rate ticked up slightly by one-tenth of a percentage point, or as Republicans will undoubtedly say, “the bottom fell out of the job market!” The jobless rate inched up because encouraged job seekers began flooding the job market. So that slight uptick in unemployment was caused by economic success, not failure—and that’s one thing that Mitt Romney could change in a hurry.
President Obama heads into the final weekend of the campaign with a clear advantage... and perhaps the clearest advantage he has is that he is not Mitt Romney. The Obama campaign spent a lot of time and money early on defining Mitt Romney for swing state voters. And it helped a lot that Obama’s definition of Mitt Romney was completely accurate. Obama could air all of his negative ads about Romney early in the campaign, because they were all true. Obama didn’t have to worry about Romney debunking any of it, because none of it was bunk. On the other hand, Mitt has to dump all of his negative ads against Obama at the last minute—none of them are true, and he can’t give Obama time to point that out.
The Barack Obama/Chris Christie bromance continues. Now Obama has left New Jersey, so there are no more PDA’s. That’s probably a good thing. I’ve heard the press corps shout all kinds of things during presidential appearances, but Obama’s appearance with Christie was the first time I expected someone to shout “Get a room!” If I liked Obama before this, I like him even more now. He’s with a man who clearly has some weight issues, but Obama totally sees past that.
If you don’t plan to vote, here’s a video of people who plan to vote for Mitt Romney that will scare you into getting to the polls. None of the Romney supporters that they talk to seems to know anything about what Romney’s plan is. That tells you one thing—Romney’s plan is working! One guy says “I can’t think of anything about Mitt Romney that I just don’t really like.” The feeling is mutual, my friend—Mitt Romney can’t think of anything about Mitt Romney that he doesn’t really like too!
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
They simply scrub them away from the view of the public. With the main debate in Washington these days centered on how much the rich should pay in taxes, the Congressional Research Service issued a report last September on the effect of upper income tax rates on economic growth. The CRS report found that low taxes on the rich did not spur economic growth – but instead fueled wealth inequality. Republicans – led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – protested the report since it undermines their main political talking point that rich people are “job creators” who need to be coddled with low tax rates.
CRS bowed to the pressure and withdrew the report this week. However the reports author told TPM on Thursday that he had nothing to do with the decision and the he continues to stand by the finding in his report. Democratic Congressman Sander Levin released a statement in response to the scrubbing of the report saying, “It would be completely inappropriate for CRS to censor one of its analysts simply because participants in the political process found his or her conclusion in conflict with their partisan position.”
Whether they’re facts about taxes, climate change, healthcare – you name it – if they do not jibe with the Billionaire Class – then Republicans just ignore them.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program live Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
President Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie toured the flooded areas of New Jersey. Obama and Christie both had a job to do, and right now it’s the same job—which is to help the people of New Jersey. That contrasts with Mitt Romney—the only job he has ever had is to help Mitt Romney. Politicians get a bad rap, but give them this—when things go terribly wrong, politicians know they have to work together. CEO’s never really seem to grasp that lesson.
Christie and Obama were effusive in their praise for each other. Christie said more good things about President Obama yesterday than he did about Romney in his keynote speech at the Republican convention. In fairness to Christie, there are a lot more good things to say about Obama than there are about Romney. I’m glad Chris Christie is pleased with President Obama. He’s going to be working with him for another four years. And I’m sure Governor Christie is more than good with that. He knows that if Mitt Romney is elected President, after his first term, we wouldn’t see another Republican president in our lifetimes.
Maybe it’s a good thing for Mitt that he’s not planning to tour the disaster zones. It’s definitely a good thing for the people in the disaster zones! Mitt compared the relief efforts to when they had to clean up the high school football field after a big celebration. Great analogy, Mitt! Just how many people were still trapped on the football field? Mitt said that when the football field was dirty, they just lined people up every few yards, and everybody took a lane to clean up. Damage from Hurricane Sandy stretches from the Carolinas to New England—that’s a lot of lanes, Mitt. Still, I wouldn’t want to be the person whose lane included the pier with the amusement park that fell into the ocean in New Jersey. And some unlucky sucker is going to get stuck with the lane that includes the subways of lower Manhattan. I hope that person brought a bucket!
Mitt recalled that when victims of Katrina were flown to Cape Cod, the locals brought them food, clothing, and even TV sets. Mitt said that kind of giving was “the American way.” True. So is massive government intervention to do things like repair broken levees in Louisiana or rebuild boardwalks in New Jersey. It’s not that Americans aren’t generous. But all the TV sets in the world aren’t going to suck the seawater out of the New York City subway system.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 PM to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
How a man who’s been lying to the American people for over a year – has offshore bank accounts – and pays a lower tax rate on his hundreds of millions of dollars than most working Americans – is somehow neck and neck in the polls to be President of the United States? The answer…a lot of corporate money. If Mitt Romney wins the presidency next week – he’ll have a lot of investors to thank for it. New data from the Federal Elections Commission shows that massive amounts of SuperPAC money, made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, is flowing into the Romney campaign.
More than $840 million has been spent so far on this election by SuperPACs and other political creatures – and the vast majority of that spending has benefited Republicans. About $577 million has been spent by Conservatives – which is 69% of the total outside money spent. With spending expected to accelerate in this final week – total outside spending will top a billion dollars for the first time in our nation’s history.
What’s worse is we have no idea who these secret oligarchs are that are investing huge amounts of money in helping Mitt Romney get elected. While SuperPACs do have to disclose their donors, many non-profit groups don’t. And those non-profits that favor Republicans have outspent Democratic nonprofits 8-to-1 this election. If it all pays off for the oligarchs, then they’ll have one of their own in the White House – a pirate equity guy who has made his living devouring the American economy for his own personal gain.
This is a freak show election – and should wake us all up to the dangers of too much money in politics. Go to MoveToAmend.org.
Listen to The Thom Hartmann Program live Monday through Friday 3 PM to 6 PM on WWRL 1600.
Mitt Romney spent yesterday reaching out to storm victims. He’s going to need quite a reach if he expects to touch the affected areas all the way from the swing states. Yesterday, Mitt tried to rebrand his campaign rallies as “storm relief” events. The only relief they were interested in was relieving President Obama of a job. But while President Obama was coordinating a massive multi-state rescue and recovery effort, Mitt Romney was posing beside little stacks of soup cans and pancake mix. Mitt’s “relief” events were nothing but his same vitriolic rallies of angry conservatives, except now he’s telling them to bring some soup cans along with their anger.
Nobody has been more effusive in their praise of Obama’s handling of the crisis than Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. President Obama will visit New Jersey today and tour damaged areas with Christie. Christie knows that if he’s in a bunch of news footage with Obama looking presidential, then Christie could look “next-presidential.” Christie said he didn’t care if Mitt Romney came to New Jersey or not. But then, what can Mitt Romney say in New Jersey anyway? “Hey the trees here are all the right height... even if most of them seem to be lying on the ground.” The only thing Mitt would want to do in New Jersey right now is to punch Chris Christie in the nose... and Mitt is afraid to do that.
Mitt Romney is doubling down on his lies about Chrysler moving jobs from Ohio to China. Mitt’s new ad says “Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs, but they’re planning to double the number of cars built in China, which means 15,000 more jobs for China.” Mitt’s cynical campaign ad attacks the auto industry as much as it attacks Obama! Is Mitt angry at them for surviving and hurting his chances of getting elected with their robust recovery? Chrysler had to send an email out to all its workers reassuring them that their jobs are not being shipped to China. Don’t worry, folks! That’s just something Mitt Romney is saying—it won’t really happen unless he is President Mitt Romney. Chrysler said Mitt’s twisting of the truth “would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” At this point, Mitt is way past the circus acrobats. What he’s doing is more like what the elephant parade leaves behind.
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show Monday through Friday 6 Pm to 8 PM on WWRL 1600.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced a so-called comprehensive immigration plan. And, as usual, Democrats conceded to Republican demands in the name of compromise. Over the last five days, the Judiciary Committee members considered over...
I must admit, I've never been to Oklahoma. I have family friends from there, but it's one part of the Great Plains I've managed to avoid in my life. Yet that didn't stop me from feeling quite a bit of empathy with those folks in...
For over a week, Republicans have refused to focus on anything but so-called scandal. And, it turns out, that's exactly the way they want it. On Thursday, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, sent a letter to...
A new CNN poll shows Obama's favorability rating at 53 percent. That's up from 51 percent in April, and up from the 51.1 percent from the poll that really counted last November. Like before the scandals, 45 percent of people disapprove of the...
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have made their point – they hate Obamacare. And, just in case anyone didn't get the message the first 36 times they made that point, they're about to waste even more taxpayer...
It turns out the IRS was investigating conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. Duh! And the TSA has been looking at people seeking to get on airplanes. None of the conservative organizations that the IRS was "targeting" were...
The Associated Press has accused the Justice Department of "massive and unprecedented intrusion." That's according to one of the AP's top executives, after learning that the government secretly acquired two months of the news...
It seems that the Republicans won't stop until their attacks over Benghazi are as vicious as the attack in Benghazi. The Republicans would have you believe that the Obama administration altered the talking points on Benghazi out of political...
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, Monsanto has the right to control our food supply. In a unanimous ruling released this morning, the nine Justices sided with the agricultural giant, and held that an Indiana farmer violated Monsanto's...
Yesterday, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives postponed all floor votes so they could hold their ninth hearing about Benghazi. Instead of working on any number of pressing issues effecting Americans, Republicans spent nine...
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