Jack & Jill Politics

Sharing some videos with you this morning.

Rachel Maddow describes how Mitt Romney’s opponents are using his time at Bain Capital against him, to paint him as heartless and greedy at the expense of American taxpayers drawing parallels with bailout of the collapsed financial industry.

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Elizabeth Warren on the fiasco at JPMorgan.

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Martin Bashir – Grading Obama’s and Romney’s dueling commencement speeches

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By Elesha Barnette

While some continue to exert tireless effort and spend millions of tax payer dollars researching and improving upon alternative clean energy sources like wind and solar, others are wasting no time re-educating the public on the benefits of our existing clean energy source: nuclear.

As far back as his 2010 State of the Union address President Obama begin setting the record straight on what he felt nuclear energy brings to the table and why it’s a necessary part of this country’s energy portfolio:  “To create more clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.”

Building more nuclear energy facilities brings about a myriad of consumer benefits, including increased access to a reliable, less expensive form of energy. The National Academy of Sciences in a 2009 report said that the cost of nuclear power is equal to or lower than natural gas, wind, solar, or coal with carbon capture. Reactors can operate for 80 years, while wind and solar last about 25 years. And nuclear reactors operate 90 percent of the time, while wind and solar are only available about a third of the time. Reliability and cost-efficient translate into lower utility rates for consumers.

With a focus on the environment and in the wake of the Fukishima disaster, nuclear has had to battle some bad press. However, despite what extreme environmentalist might have you believe, nuclear is a clean source of energy.  Nuclear power emits zero greenhouse gases. Today it produces 20 percent of our nation’s electricity, but 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity; and due to vigorous safety inspections and regulations mandated by the industry, the United States has maintained its record of safety for over 30 years.

In the American Lung Association’s 2012 State of the Air report St. Lucie County in Florida was listed as one of America’s five cleanest in terms of air quality.  No coincidence, St. Lucie County is home to St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.

read more…

hat tip-The Obama Diary:

President Obama delivered the Commencement Address at Barnard College.

President Barack Obama hugs Britney Wilson, class of 2012, after he delivered the commencement address at Barnard College’s graduation ceremony on May 14, 2012.
—-TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GettyImages

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The report from the Pew Center on the States on the economic mobility of the states has earned some well-deserved buzz. The report fits in nicely with other research demonstrating that economic mobility in the United States is worse than in many European countries.

Even though conservatives accuse Democrats of moving to European-style socialism, you will never get conservatives to acknowledge that Europe can teach America quite a bit about economic mobility.

They do not do it through cutting regulations on business or perpetually cutting taxes on the wealthy. Instead, Europe invests in its citizens such as the 360 approach to Finnish schools.

In America, there are clear differences in economic mobility between the states. The South and Southeast are worse off than the rest of the nation. In other words, a child born poor in Louisiana, Texas, or South Carolina, has a much better chance of dying a poor adult than a poor child born in New England.

Several factors are at play, but three are critical.

First is the South’s history. We can reach back to the New Deal when southern politicians fought to ensure that agricultural workers would not receive the minimum wage. Wealthy landowners did not want their workers to receive just compensation for their labors. There are numerous other examples of Jim Crow-style racism that seeped into public policy and were designed precisely to limit African American mobility. Read Ira Katznelson’s When Affirmative Action Was White for a primer.

Second, there is a general consensus that…

From The Maddow Blog/Steve Benen:

Obama targets ‘Romney Economics’
By Steve Benen – Mon May 14, 2012 8:48 AM EDT.

Mitt Romney has spent the past couple of weeks arguing that presidential campaign has drifted too far from the “issues that matter.” Two weeks ago, this meant downplaying the significance of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, and last week, it was marriage equality and his “youthful indiscretions” that were characterized as distractions.

The Republican said he wanted the focus to be on jobs and the economy. As of this morning, the “be careful what you wish for” adage comes to mind.

The Obama campaign unveiled this two-minute long video this morning, along with the launch of a new website: RomneyEconomics.com. It marks a new offensive, in which President Obama’s re-election team is highlighting Romney’s record of orchestrating mass layoffs and the significance of the underlying “business philosophy” the Republican displayed at his private-equity firm, Bain Capital.

This is not just a web video — the above ad is a trimmed-down version of a six-minute video, and it’s slated to air in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Colorado.

If the message seems familiar, it’s because campaign watchers heard plenty about this during the Republican primaries, when Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and others targeted Romney for his callous, anti-worker “vulture” capitalism. Indeed, this has been a lingering issue for Romney for quite a while — in 2004, then-rival Mike Huckabee said, “I want to be a president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off.”

We know, of course, that these criticisms did not derail Romney’s primary campaign, but the message is more likely to resonate with a broader, national audience than with GOP voters exclusively.

It also underscores one of the great ironies of the 2012 campaign: voters consider job creation the nation’s #1 issue, and arguably Mitt Romney’s weakest issue and biggest vulnerability is … job creation.

——————————————————————————–

When we think about Romney’s record on jobs, the natural focus is on his tenure as governor, when he had a chance to put his job-creation know-how to good use. Regrettably, his efforts didn’t work in Massachusetts, and his state’s record on job creation was “one of the worst in the country,” ranking 47th out of 50 states in job growth. It’s one of the reasons Romney left office after one term deeply unpopular with his constituents.

But with Romney generally content to pretend his one term in office simply never occurred, and focusing almost exclusively on his private-sector background, his habit of making millions from companies by laying off their workers is politically problematic, to put it mildly.

What’s more, Democrats have some partisan cover on this — while the Romney campaign will almost certainly push back against this offensive by insisting that Obama’s criticisms are some kind of “attack on capitalism,” the fact remains that the president’s new tack isn’t much different than what Gingrich and Perry were saying a few months back.

Politico said the push casts Romney as “a greedy, job-killing corporate titan with little concern for the working class.” That’s true, but the president’s campaign can back up that characterization with ample evidence, all of which makes the Republican look pretty bad.

Romney has spent the last year urging voters to focus on his business record. Team Obama appears eager to oblige.
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Last week, President Obama publicly supported same sex marriage and liberals celebrated. Many black bloggers and intellectuals heralded it as a historic leap forward for humanity. Not me. I don’t care what the media says. Right is right and wrong is wrong. I will never support same sex marriage.

In this secular and hedonistic society, religion and morality have become irrelevant. Although I am flawed, God is primary in my life. Everything else is secondary. Islam, Christianity and Judaism condemn homosexuality as a sin. No ultra-liberal distortion of scripture can negate that fact. Here are a few verses from the Holy Quran, Surah 7:

80. We also (sent) Lut:
He said to his people:
“Do ye commit lewdness
Such as no people
In creation (ever) committed
Before you?”

81. “For ye practice your lusts
On men in preference
To women: ye are indeed
A people transgressing
Beyond bounds.”

82. And his people gave
No answer but this:
They said, “Drive them out
Of your city: these are
Indeed men who want
To be clean and pure!”

83. But We saved him
And his family, except
His wife: she was
Of those who lagged behind.

84. And we rained down on them
A shower (of brimstone):
Then see what was the end
Of those who indulged
In sin and crime.

The Holy Bible contains similar verses in Genesis 19. Leviticus 20:13 states that:
“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable…”

Yes. The Bible was deliberately misinterpreted to justify slavery and Jim Crow. However, like its stance against adultery and fornication, the Bible’s opposition to homosexuality is unambiguous. It is not a question of exploitation or misinterpretation of the Bible. Calling someone a “sexual redneck” does not change that reality.

Since the critics are unable to refute holy scripture, they mock God, scripture and believers. They desperately scour the Bible for other “objectionable” verses and exploit those verses to try invalidate the Bible. No one uses those “objectionable” verses to justify adultery or fornication. So why do they drag out those verses to justify homosexuality? For those of us who believe, God’s word is infallible and timeless. We are not fazed by current trends. God’s word is not subject to Gallup polls.

When that hustle does not work, people try to draw comparisons between the plight of African Americans and the plight of the LGBT community. However, such comparisons don’t hold. Unlike homosexuality, racial diversity and oneness of humanity are celebrated in holy scripture. Moreover, race is an immutable and obviously visible biological characteristic. One cannot hide one’s racial identity. Africans were enslaved, robbed of their identity, brutalized, lynched, segregated and humiliated just because of the color of their skin.

The oppression of LGBT people in America does not approach the scale and scope of the oppression of black people. Sexuality is a behavior pattern. Whether or not homosexuality is innate or learned is debatable. Unlike race, sexuality is not necessarily a visible trait. One can easily conceal one’s sexuality. However, one cannot hide being black. It is outrageous for anyone to exploit our history of suffering and pain to further their own unique and unrelated agenda.

Certainly, Martin Luther King, Jr. employed the nonviolent tactics and example of Gandhi to further the Civil Right Movement in America. Both movements shared many similarities. Both movements were fighting against racism and white supremacy. Therefore, a comparison between those two movements is more justified. Furthermore, Dr. King did not use Gandhi’s movement to morally justify the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, Dr. King relied on the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to morally inspire the movement. I wish the LGBT community would stop pimping our movement to further their cause.

In addition to love, the primary purpose of marriage and sex is reproduction of the human species. In order to sustain strong communities, we must rebuild the most basic and fundamental component of society, the traditional nuclear family. With more than half of all black children being raised in single parent households, our focus should be on rebuilding the traditional family, not jumping on the same sex marriage bandwagon.

Finally, we must understand that this whole spectacle is just election year politics as usual. Other than sparking a conversation and gaining the political support of the gay community, the President’s statement did not make any practical difference. In fact, he essentially said that same sex marriage should be left to the states. Approximately thirty states ban same sex marriage. The President’s statement does not change any of that. I fear that he has only given the Right a reason to rally around Mitt Romney.

This article is cross-posted on New Possibilities. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter @NewPossBlog.

By Jeneba Ghatt

Not that you’d know about this, but African and indigenous South American women have been wearing their babies in wraps on their backs, and breastfeeding their kids through early childhood for centuries.  And many modern single moms, out of necessity, have been co-sleeping with their children through late childhood years since forever.

However, when a world renowned doctor and parenting expert Dr. Sears assembles those practices along with 6 other steps for growing confident children it is called “Attachment Parenting,” making news and going viral. It also gets a coveted TIME magazine cover.

The magazine this week released a  cover story about Dr. Sear’s attachment parenting theory which featured a 26-year old young White mom nursing her 3-year old child as he stood on stool.  Reaction has been mixed, but people are primarily outraged by what they see as a child too old to be noshing on his mama’s breasts.  Breastfeeding experts are perturbed because the image  could  cause more people already ambivalent and uncomfortable with nursing to solidify their negative impressions of a very human and natural practice.

And as perception can easily overshadow reality, had the woman on the cover been Latina, the response may have quickly turned into dialogue about so-called “anchor babies,” illegal immigration and…

Read more…

The First Lady did the Commencement Address at North Carolina A&T.

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It’s time for Willard’s Lies of the week.

Once again, I will point out the site on the blog roll: Romney The Liar: because there are Liars, Damn Liars, and then there’s Mitt Romney.

Steve Benen, now at The Maddow Blog:. Here’s last week’s entry of Chronicling Mitt’s mendacity:

The opening:

Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity, Vol. XVII
By Steve Benen – Fri May 11, 2012 3:49 PM EDT.

As the 2012 presidential campaign advances, impatience with Mitt Romney’s penchant for falsehoods grows. Jamelle Bouie this week reflected on the the fact that “the former Massachusetts governor has no use for honesty in his campaign.”

“Constant mendacity is the norm for Romney and his campaign, and odds are good that he won’t suffer for it,” Bouie wrote. “Campaign reporters don’t have a strong incentive to challenge him on his misrepresentations, and interested parties have a hard time dealing with the deluge.”

And yet, we remain undeterred, as evidenced by the 17th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt’s mendacity.

1. At an event in Euclid, Ohio, Romney argued, “We will not forget the fact that when [President Obama] was putting in place $787 billion of borrowing in his first few months in office that he said the borrowing would keep the unemployment rate below 8%.”

That’s a popular claim for Romney, but it’s completely untrue.

2. Romney said in the same remarks the only reason the unemployment rate dropped from 10% to 8.1% is “because of the people that dropped out of the work force.”

That’s demonstrably false.

3. At the event, Romney also said of the president, “[H]is vision is that it is ok for a small business to raise taxes from 35% to 40% of small businesses.”

In reality, Obama has cut taxes on small businesses, and raising the top income tax rate would not adversely affect small businesses, no matter how often Republicans argue to the contrary.

Just sharing some videos.

Tamron Hall Kicks Tim Carney Off Her Show

What Mitt Romney’s ‘Gay Bullying’ Tells Us

Chris Matthews and Barney Frank vs. Tony Perkins…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!!

Trayvon Martin’s Mom, Sybrina Fulton’s Mother’s Day Message

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Way back in 1965, when I was a senior at Beach High School in Savannah, I led a group of boys following an unsuspecting student going home when school let out for the day. He took a route though some nearby woods, and when he entered them, we jumped him. My boys held him down and he whimpered and pled as I, with trusty scissors I’d borrowed for the occasion, clipped his afro.

That didn’t happen. Not really.

I would have been sympathetic to the afro. I’d worn one myself as a junior, along with three associates who also took Malcolm’s message of black pride to heart. We wore black armbands when he was assassinated. If it was about an afro, it would have been one of us who would have been assaulted.

Or did it happen? Was I part of a posse that harmed someone–and I just don’t remember it? Maybe Malcolm’s philosophy wasn’t that important to me a year later. I could have done a 180 on the afro by then. And I could be rebellious, sometimes seemingly for its own sake. I’ll not divulge the riskier stuff. I live in Georgia and I’m not sure there’s a statute of limitations for anything in this place. Anyway, no matter how I mentally toss it about, I find it hard to see anyone forgetting an assault perpetrated against him or her or one he or she perpetrated—unless an emotion like shame or guilt demanded the death of that memory.

Mitt Romney can’t recall if he led a mob of fellow private high schoolers to capture a peer and then have Mitt cut the guy’s too long and dyed blond hair. Understand. Mitt’s not saying he didn’t do it. He’s just saying he can’t recall if he did. He did do some crazy stuff back in that old private high school, he admits, and maybe all that could have been part of it. Plus, Mitt apologized if he offended anybody with his offensive behavior.

Talk about taking lying mothafukka to a new level.

It’s good that his literal partners in crime didn’t forget so that they could tell us what happened now. It’s sad the guy they jumped died a few years ago and can’t tell his side. But according to one of Mitt’s boys, who ran into the victim when they were adults years later, the guy never did forget it either.

The boy was attacked because they thought him gay, according to those who have since fessed up. Mitt says that even if he did what he can’t recall what everyone else involved can, it wouldn’t have been because he thought the boy was gay. People weren’t concerned about such things in 1965, Mitt said. Hey, “f——” were left alone. No one bothered them.

Wow. The new level has just been replaced.

This guy is good.

“Caveman.” That’s what my wife says she sees when she sees Mitt. Me see. Me take. Interesting image, especially for a guy associated with well-tailored, oh so civilized suits.

I guess I’d never thought of him beyond being a typical majority society guy who feels entitled to run a major something. A lot of hard work went into construction of this enterprise, and it takes a special someone—someone, say, from the group that has benefitted most from all that blood, sweat, and theft—who can appreciate it enough to keep it running.

The Washington Post broke the piece about young Mitt’s rambunctiousness. It also said there is no evidence that Mitt has been a bully since he was a teen.

I don’t know. The very adult Mitt made his fortune heading a business that often profited from the failure of another business that his took over, leaving all those sappy employees behind. That’s hardly for the faint of heart. I think bully is great training for that position.

The piece also mentioned that Mitt led cheers for his high school football team. Wasn’t Bush a cheerleader too? A noble profession, to be sure, but not one typically confused with more virile pursuits such as the one representing the guys they cheered for or even ditch digging.

Bush’s overcompensation is the stuff of legend now.

Don’t even get me started on its legendary criminality.

Mob-jumping an innocent is not bombing brown people to show you’re tough, or to pilfer their resources, but it’s a crime nonetheless, whether the little rich kids go to jail for their crimes or not. And maybe you can find another name for a man who reportedly relished blowing up jobs to increase profits for the few. But knowing what we now know, does not this history provide some (disturbing) insight into such a character wishing to wield so much power?

Is Dr. Freud in?

The new “balance” of the mainstream media the right-wing rails against for daring to publicize a story that makes a rightwinger look bad is to say something bad about a Democrat. Did you hear that Obama said he sometimes forgets how harsh the recession is? They’re both, you see, equal. Right, CNN?

Really, is Dr. Freud in?

President Obama urges Congress to act on “To-Do” List

Refusing to accept the belief that Washington can’t get anything done, President Obama took to this week’s address with a “To-Do” List, asking Congress to jump on board. As the President discussed, the “To-Do” List focuses on jobs, mortgage refinancing, small businesses, tax credits for clean energy companies, and American troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan:

“First, Congress should stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and use that money to cover moving expenses for companies that bring jobs back to America.

Second, Congress should help the millions of Americans who have worked hard and made their mortgage payments on time refinance their mortgages at lower rates and save at least $3,000 a year.

Third, Congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages. Small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. We shouldn’t be holding them back — we should be making it easier for them to succeed.

Fourth, if Congress fails to act soon, clean energy companies will see their taxes go up and could be forced to lay off employees. These companies are putting Americans to work and helping break our dependence on foreign oil. Congress should extend these tax credits.

And finally, Congress should help our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan by creating a Veterans Job Corps. Our men and women in uniform have served this country with honor. Now it’s our turn to serve them.”

President Obama urged Americans to contact their representatives and push them to act on behalf of creating jobs and growing the economy.

President Obama’s Weekly Address:

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The First Lady held a Mother’s Day Tea at the WH.

US First Lady Michelle Obama greets children from military families as they create Mother’s Day cards and other crafts in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, May 10, 2012, to present to their families.
—-SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages

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As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

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