Republicans Holding Nearly 3 Million Transportation Jobs Hostage For 6,000 Temporary Oil Jobs

THINK PROGRESS

With as many as 2.9 million new and existing jobs on the line, House Republicans are refusing to pass a transportation reauthorization bill, even after the Senate’s version of the bill overwhelmingly passed through the upper chamber in a 74-22 bipartisan vote.

The deadline for new transportation funding is June 30, and if the calendar flips to July without a compromise, as many as 1.9 million workers could lose their jobs, at least temporarily. The Senate version of the bill, if adapted, would create an additional one million new jobs as well, according to Department of Transportation projections.

So why are House Republicans holding nearly three million jobs hostage? Because they want approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to be included in the bill. This infographic gives a sense of the GOP’s priorities: .....................

Romney Campaign Said to Ask Scott to Downplay Job Gains

BLOOMBERG NEWS

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign asked Florida Governor Rick Scott to tone down his statements heralding improvements in the state’s economy because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee’s message that the nation is suffering under President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Scott, a Republican, was asked to say that the state’s jobless rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, according to the people, who asked not to be named.
What’s unfolding in Florida highlights a dilemma for the Romney campaign: how to allow Republican governors to take credit for economic improvements in their states while faulting Obama’s stewardship of the national economy. Republican governors in Ohio, Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin also have highlighted improving economies.
Scott should follow the advice of the Romney campaign and it won’t undermine his own message, said Mac Stipanovich, a political strategist and lobbyist in Florida.
“This is one of those situations where you could have it both ways and there’s enough truth in it that it would resonate,” Stipanovich said. “It would be better if everybody was singing from the same hymnal.”
Romney’s campaign is eager to sell its economy message in Florida, one of the most competitive electoral battlegrounds, where the past three presidential races were decided by 5 percentage points or less.

Internet Messages

A Romney adviser made the request this week to Scott’s staff after press releases from the governor’s re-election campaign and Internet messages from the Florida Chamber of Commerce trumpeted the state’s drop to 8.6 percent unemployment rate in May from 8.7 percent in April, the people said. The national unemployment rate is 8.2 percent.
Scott’s news release said the jobless rate had dropped 11 consecutive months in Florida and asked supporters to “spread the news” on Facebook, Twitter and by e-mailing their friends.
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an e-mail that Romney frequently praises governors “for their ability to overcome the job-stifling policies of the Obama administration.” Scott spokesman Lane Wright didn’t return phone calls seeking comment.
Romney hasn’t campaigned with Scott, a first-term governor, whose approval rating is 39 percent, according to a poll yesterday from Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Connecticut. That’s down from 41 percent on May 24.
Romney’s staff has concluded there’s no benefit in appearing with Scott, said two campaign advisers who asked for anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter.

Television Ad

The state Republican party ran a television ad in March crediting Scott, who is a year and a half into a four-year term, for drops in the unemployment rate.
“Companies are hiring, expanding, putting more Floridians to work,” the ad narrator said. “Florida’s unemployment rate continues to get better.”
Florida’s jobless rate was 11.1 percent in December 2010 before Scott took office and 8.2 percent two years earlier when Obama was sworn-in.
“The first time I saw that ad I initially thought it was an Obama ad,” said Brad Coker, managing director of the Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. “They’ll have to tamp it down.”
Two months later, Crossroads GPS, a super-political action committee that is supporting Romney, was on television in Florida with a spot featuring a female character saying her kids “can’t find jobs.”
“Unemployment Rate Stays High,” says a mock newspaper headline in the ad.

Ohio Governor

In Ohio, Governor John Kasich has been publicly touting the state’s falling unemployment rate and 75,700 jobs added during the past year. Rob Nichols, a Kasich spokesman, said the Romney campaign hasn’t asked the governor to change that message.
Kasich’s comments may appear to conflict with Romney’s. The two Republicans campaigned at an April 27 event at Otterbein University in suburban Columbus where Romney described a difficult job market for graduating seniors and Kasich talked about the state’s unfilled jobs.
Asked about the conflict after a May 17 speech in Columbus, Kasich told reporters that although Ohio’s economy is improving, “uncertainty” from the president’s policies on health care, taxes and regulation “puts wind in our face” that would change if Romney were elected.

‘Comeback State’

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on June 19 called Michigan “the comeback state of the United States,” noting its jobless rate dropped to 8.5 percent in May from 14.2 percent in August 2009.
“We still need to do better,” Snyder said. “The whole country needs to do better.”
Geralyn Lasher, a spokeswoman for Snyder, said the Romney campaign hasn’t asked the governor to downplay economic improvements.
In Virginia, Governor Robert McDonnell’s Opportunity Virginia political action committee aired an ad in April that touts gains in the economy since he took office in 2010.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said economic progress was a key component of his successful defense against a June 5 recall election. Walker pointed to the state’s unemployment rate, which was 6.8 percent in May, down from 7.7 percent when he took office in January 2001.
In Florida, signs of a sagging economy remain.
The 18 percent of Florida mortgages in foreclosure or 90 days past due is the highest rate in the country, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Commercial buildings remain vacant across the state.
“Until you start seeing physical signs of those things starting to fill up again, I just don’t think people are going to believe a government statistic that life is getting better for them,” said Coker, the Mason-Dixon polling executive.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael C. Bender in Tallahassee at mbender10@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net

Media Matters Daily Summary 06-20-12

Hannity Hosts Romney For A Parade Of Falsehoods
In an interview aired on his Fox News show, Sean Hannity failed to correct Mitt Romney for repeating a string of long-debunked conservative falsehoods. Read More

To Hannity, Ann Romney Is Off Limits, But Michelle Obama Is Fair Game
Fox News host Sean Hannity hypocritically lashed out at MSNBC for comments critical of Ann Romney, claiming NBC's "news brand deteriorate[d] with this attack." But Hannity has repeatedly attacked First Lady Michelle Obama on everything from policy, to her clothing, to her views on race issues. Read More

Right-Wing Media Push Myth That Immigration Eliminates American Jobs
Right-wing media are reacting to the Obama administration's decision to allow some young undocumented immigrants to stay and work in America by suggesting immigration takes jobs away from American workers. In fact, economists agree that more immigration does not take away jobs from Americans and is a net plus for the economy. Read More

Fox Covers Up GOP Obstruction Of The DREAM Act
After President Obama announced that the U.S. will stop deporting certain young immigrants, Fox News figures have accused President Obama of undercutting Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's attempt to pass legislation reportedly similar to the DREAM Act. In fact, Obama and Democrats attempted to pass the DREAM Act in 2010, before being blocked by Senate Republicans. Read More

Fox's Attempt To Scandalize Routine Use Of Executive Privilege Shows Contempt For Reality
Following the Obama administration's assertion of executive privilege over some documents related to the ATF's Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has rushed to label the move improper, or evidence that President Obama himself lied about involvement with the failed operation. In fact, the documents in question deal with the administration's response to the operation after it became public, an area with which the administration has previously acknowledged the White House participated, and such claims of executive privilege are well in line with historical precedent. Read More

Right-Wing Media Misleadingly Cite Cost Projection To Attack Food Stamp Program
Right-wing media have once again attacked the federal food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), this time by misleadingly citing a projection that the program will cost $770 billion over the next decade. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that both food stamp enrollment and costs will decline during that period as the economy improves. Read More

Darrell Issa Will Put Eric Holder In Gitmo Forever And Then Steal His Cars

Oil-soaked arsonist car thief Rep. Darrell Issa, the unlikely subpoena-wielding chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, appears at long last to be fulfilling his duty of stickin’ it to the Obama administration over one grossly exaggerated scandal during an election year. Since Issa and AG Eric Holder weren’t able to reach a deal about releasing documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF “gun walking” sting gone wrong, both sides are digging in for the coming annoyances. Evil authoritarian Barack Obama today became a Man by invoking executive privelege for the first time; Issa’s committee, meanwhile, is prepared to hold a contempt vote on Holder this afternoon. So exciting! How much longer can it be before Rep. Dan Burton starts shooting pumpkins? READ MORE »

Fox News Almost Pulled A Fast One On Jon Stewart

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

McConnell: Tax code benefits the poor and needs to be changed

RAW STORY

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says that the U.S. tax system is unfair to the wealthiest Americans.

“I understand full well that our friends on the other side live to every day to raise taxes,” McConnell told CBS host Charlie Rose on Tuesday. “Almost 70 percent of the federal revenue is provided by the top 10 percent of taxpayers now. Between 45 and 50 percent of Americans pay no income tax at all.”

“We have an extraordinarily progressive tax code already,” he added. “It is a mess and it needs to be revisited again.”

According to the Congressional Research Service (PDF), almost 100,000 millionaires in the U.S. pay a lower effective tax rate than millions of families earning less than $100,000.

Earlier this year, Republicans in the Senate blocked the Paying a Fair Share Act, which would have enacted a rule named for billionaire Warren Buffett, who revealed that he paid a lower tax rate than his “secretary.” An April CNN poll found that 72 percent of Americans — including 70 percent of independents — favored the “Buffett Rule.”

The Kentucky Republican also told Rose that he was prepared to work with President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) towards a “grand bargain” to lower the nation’s debt.

“The challenge we have, Charlie, for the future is the unsustainable path of our entitlements, very popular programs,” McConnell insisted. “The eligibility for which needs to be adjusted in order to meet the demographics of America. Regretfully after six months of discussions the Speaker and I had with the president, the president was unwilling to make those kind of eligibility changes unless we gave him such a huge tax increase that it would have brought the economy to a halt.”

“We are prepared to do a grand bargain,” he continued. “You have to have a willing president. You don’t get these deals done without a president who is serious about getting an outcome.”

“Many people who know wrote about that and suggested that in the end when push came to shove, it was the Speaker that was not prepared for the grand bargain,” Rose pointed out.................

Bribes, Chinese Mob Ties Alleged at Casino of Gingrich Money Man

By BRIAN ROSS


The casino company run by the principal financial backer of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, Sheldon Adelson, has been under criminal investigation for the last year by the Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission for alleged bribery of foreign officials, according to corporate documents.

In a separate civil lawsuit, a former executive of the company has alleged that Adelson ordered him to keep quiet about sensitive issues at the Sands casinos on the Chinese island of Macau, including the casinos' alleged "involvement with Chinese organized crime groups, known as Triads, connected to the junket business." The triads -- Chinese organized crime syndicates -- are allegedly involved in organizing high stakes gambling junkets for wealthy Chinese travelers. 

In its filings with the SEC, Adelson's company says it became aware of the investigation in February 2011 when it received a subpoena from the SEC requesting "documents relating to its compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act." The company said it "intends to cooperate with the investigation," which it said may have been triggered by the allegations in the lawsuit by Steven C. Jacobs, a former Sands executive who says he helped run the Macau operation. The federal investigation was first reported last year by Las Vegas newspapers and the financial press.

At a gaming forum last year, Adelson said the lawsuit "is not a serious case" and that the federal investigations would find no wrongdoing. "When the smoke clears, I am 1,000 percent positive that there won't be any fire below it."

How Lies Spread

David Frum

Anatomy of a paranoid fantasy. The Washington Post reported Sunday on the origins of the false story about the EPA's supposed use of spy drones:

Step 1: A story begins in the real world. In this case, some Nebraska ranchers objected to the longstanding practice—approved by the Supreme Court in 1986—of the use of aerial photography to enforce clean water laws. 

Step 2: Their elected representatives raise the issue.

Step 3: Somebody on Twitter mistakenly converts "aerial" surveillance into "drone surveillance."

Step 4: The conservative website PJ Media puts the error into a headline: "EPA Using Spy Drones to Fly Over Midwestern Farms.”
 

Step 5: The mistake jumps to Fox News, first introduced by Bob Beckel, the token liberal on the afternoon program, "the Five."

Step 6: Fox News' Megyn Kelly reports the rumor as fact, unsourced.

Step 7: The Daily Show mocks Kelly's report, but treats the use of drones as a genuine fact nonetheless.

Step 8: Republicans in Congress write furious letters of complaint.

Step 9: The story is by now a national controversy, without there ever having been a word of truth to it. 

Four conditions made the rumor possible:
 

1) A readiness by important sections of the population to believe that they live in some kind of imminent police state. In this, the paranoid conservatives of the Obama era are no different from the paranoid progressives of the Bush years.

2) The aggressive recklessness of Fox News' reporting. A single phone call to the EPA could have debunked the story. Obviously that phone call was never placed.

3) The dangerous reliance of many, many young people on the Daily Show as a source of information.

4) An almost universal lack of interest in the question: even if the story were true, what would be so very shocking about it? If aerial inspection of open fields and waters by manned aircraft is a reasonable search, as defined by the Supreme Court, why isn't unmanned aerial surveillance equally permissible? If clean water enforcement is a legitimate government function, how does it become less legitimate when the inspector sits in a control room rather than in a cockpit?