And of course, he says Another Dumb Thing!™
• Romney, who has managed to hide away all the evidence from his own stint at the Olympics, takes a whack at the London Olympics. “Mr. Romney also stirred the British press with comments in an NBC News interview Wednesday evening, by indicating he wasn’t sure if London was fully prepared for the Olympic Games. …”It’s hard to know just how well it…will turn out,” Mr. Romney said in the interview. “There are a few things that were disconcerting, the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.””
• Romney wasn’t just the head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Romney was also a registered lobbyist for the organization, Utah state records show. As a lobbyist and president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, Romney didn’t just stabilize the balance sheet. He brought in a record $1.3 billion in federal dollars for Salt Lake City’s games and more from Utah.
• Romney, to NBC News, he said: “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
US Politics – Do Nothings Edition:
• There you have it: Senate Democrats just prevailed 51-48 a vote to extend the Bush tax cuts only for incomes up to $250,000. Vice President Joe Biden presided over the Senate. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) voted with Republicans against the legislation.
• The GOP plan to extend all the Bush tax cuts failed in the Senate on a 45-54 vote. Senators voting against their parties: Mark Pryor of Arkansas for the Democrats; Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Susan Collins of Maine for the Republicans. A second vote to extend the Bush tax cuts only on incomes below $250,000 in underway.
• In the letter dated July 18, more than 100 GOP lawmakers asked House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) to stop “any legislation” from coming to the floor that would fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — potentially leading to a government shutdown.
US Politics – Deadenders Edition:
• Gen. Colin Powell recently complained that Romney’s foreign policy team is “quite far to the right.” Indeed, veterans of the Bush/Cheney administration “pepper” Romney’s foreign policy team and the so-called “Cheney-ites” are reportedly winning the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s ear. John Bolton, Eliot Cohen, Cofer Black, Walid Phares, Michael Hayden, Dan Senor, Max Boot, Eric Edelman
• Mitt Romney’s campaign often sounds like it still wants to fight the Cold War. Romney himself said that Russia is the U.S.’s “number one geopolitical foe” (a statement that even Colin Powell mocked) and back in April, a Romney adviser criticized President Obama’s “Czechoslovakia” policy. Today during a foreign policy debate at the Brookings Institution, senior Romney adviser Richard Williamson, attacking Obama’s Syria policy, said the Middle East country is “strategically important to the Soviet Union.”
• Romney campaign is hosting an entire series of campaign events based on President Obama’s misinterpreted comment about small businesses but, like the New Hampshire business owner showcased in Romney’s attack ad on the issue, many of these business owners have received significant support from the government, a ThinkProgress analysis finds.
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he had no active role in Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded, after he exited in February 1999 to take over Salt Lake City’s Winter Olympics bid. But according to Bain associates and others familiar with Romney’s actions at the time, he stayed in regular contact with his partners over the following months, tending to his partnership interests and negotiating his separation from the company.
Reproductive Rights:
• Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina (PPCNC) successfully thwarted Republicans’ attempt to strip funding from the organization. Despite state legislators’ aim to effectively shut down its clinic in Durham, PPCNC received federal grant money that will not only allow the clinic to remain open, but will also help it expand.
• The Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider a radical anti-abortion bill today. In June, the GOP-led House approved the omnibus bill, which would regulate clinics out of existence and turn doctors into detectives.
Military Industrial Complex:
• The Justice Department plans to bring a new indictment against four Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a 2007 shooting that killed 17 Iraqis.
Aurora:
• James Holmes, the accused gunman in last Friday’s midnight movie massacre in Colorado, mailed a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill people” to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the attack, and the parcel may have sat unopened in a mailroom for up to a week before its discovery Monday, a law enforcement source told FoxNews.com.
• Obama, before the National Urban League conference in New Orleans, 25 July: “These steps shouldn’t be controversial, they should be common sense…” “…I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities…”
CBRNE:
• Some 4.9 million birds have died since the outbreak of bird flu started five weeks ago at farms in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, officials said. All of the birds are hens that either died from the illness or were destroyed to prevent the spread of the H7N3 virus, the National Food Health, Safety and Quality Service, or Senasica, said.
F.D.Brightly
Mittens goes to the Olympics! [Shorter Question Everything]
And of course, he says Another Dumb Thing!™
• Romney, who has managed to hide away all the evidence from his own stint at the Olympics, takes a whack at the London Olympics. “Mr. Romney also stirred the British press with comments in an NBC News interview Wednesday evening, by indicating he wasn’t sure if London was fully prepared for the Olympic Games. …”It’s hard to know just how well it…will turn out,” Mr. Romney said in the interview. “There are a few things that were disconcerting, the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.””
• Romney wasn’t just the head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Romney was also a registered lobbyist for the organization, Utah state records show. As a lobbyist and president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, Romney didn’t just stabilize the balance sheet. He brought in a record $1.3 billion in federal dollars for Salt Lake City’s games and more from Utah.
• Romney, to NBC News, he said: “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
US Politics – Do Nothings Edition:
• There you have it: Senate Democrats just prevailed 51-48 a vote to extend the Bush tax cuts only for incomes up to $250,000. Vice President Joe Biden presided over the Senate. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) voted with Republicans against the legislation.
• The GOP plan to extend all the Bush tax cuts failed in the Senate on a 45-54 vote. Senators voting against their parties: Mark Pryor of Arkansas for the Democrats; Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Susan Collins of Maine for the Republicans. A second vote to extend the Bush tax cuts only on incomes below $250,000 in underway.
• In the letter dated July 18, more than 100 GOP lawmakers asked House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) to stop “any legislation” from coming to the floor that would fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — potentially leading to a government shutdown.
US Politics – Deadenders Edition:
• Gen. Colin Powell recently complained that Romney’s foreign policy team is “quite far to the right.” Indeed, veterans of the Bush/Cheney administration “pepper” Romney’s foreign policy team and the so-called “Cheney-ites” are reportedly winning the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s ear. John Bolton, Eliot Cohen, Cofer Black, Walid Phares, Michael Hayden, Dan Senor, Max Boot, Eric Edelman
• Mitt Romney’s campaign often sounds like it still wants to fight the Cold War. Romney himself said that Russia is the U.S.’s “number one geopolitical foe” (a statement that even Colin Powell mocked) and back in April, a Romney adviser criticized President Obama’s “Czechoslovakia” policy. Today during a foreign policy debate at the Brookings Institution, senior Romney adviser Richard Williamson, attacking Obama’s Syria policy, said the Middle East country is “strategically important to the Soviet Union.”
• Romney campaign is hosting an entire series of campaign events based on President Obama’s misinterpreted comment about small businesses but, like the New Hampshire business owner showcased in Romney’s attack ad on the issue, many of these business owners have received significant support from the government, a ThinkProgress analysis finds.
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he had no active role in Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded, after he exited in February 1999 to take over Salt Lake City’s Winter Olympics bid. But according to Bain associates and others familiar with Romney’s actions at the time, he stayed in regular contact with his partners over the following months, tending to his partnership interests and negotiating his separation from the company.
Reproductive Rights:
• Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina (PPCNC) successfully thwarted Republicans’ attempt to strip funding from the organization. Despite state legislators’ aim to effectively shut down its clinic in Durham, PPCNC received federal grant money that will not only allow the clinic to remain open, but will also help it expand.
• The Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider a radical anti-abortion bill today. In June, the GOP-led House approved the omnibus bill, which would regulate clinics out of existence and turn doctors into detectives.
Military Industrial Complex:
• The Justice Department plans to bring a new indictment against four Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a 2007 shooting that killed 17 Iraqis.
Aurora:
• James Holmes, the accused gunman in last Friday’s midnight movie massacre in Colorado, mailed a notebook “full of details about how he was going to kill people” to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the attack, and the parcel may have sat unopened in a mailroom for up to a week before its discovery Monday, a law enforcement source told FoxNews.com.
• Obama, before the National Urban League conference in New Orleans, 25 July: “These steps shouldn’t be controversial, they should be common sense…” “…I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities…”
CBRNE:
• Some 4.9 million birds have died since the outbreak of bird flu started five weeks ago at farms in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, officials said. All of the birds are hens that either died from the illness or were destroyed to prevent the spread of the H7N3 virus, the National Food Health, Safety and Quality Service, or Senasica, said.