That whole wimp thing usually translates into a huge whopping need to overcompensate. Which means war for everybody else, especially if it means waging war on someone weaker, whether at home or abroad. Haven’t you had enough?
• Too insecure to be president?
• The narrative that Mitt Romney is a wimp is gaining steam. Even Newsweek is on board, with an upcoming Romney cover reading, “The Wimp Factor: Is He Just Too Insecure to Be President?”
• Mitt Romney: Too Wimpy for the White House? Dodging reporters, fearing his base, hiding his taxes—is Mitt Romney just too insecure to be president? The episode [London Olympics] highlights what’s really wrong with Romney. He’s kind of lame, and he’s really … annoying. He keeps saying these … things, these incredibly off-key things. Then he apologizes immediately—with all the sincerity of a hostage. Or maybe he doesn’t: sometimes he whines about the subsequent attacks on him. But the one thing he never does? Man up, double down, take his lumps.
• White House hopeful Mitt Romney Sunday held top-level talks in Israel over Iran’s nuclear ambitions but quickly drew fire from the Palestinians for endorsing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
• Romney blames Obama for the Arab Spring. But the Bush folks wanted to claim that as their own, based on that “Freedom Agenda” thing, the same thing Romney accuses Obama of ditching. One group that is really afraid of the Arab Spring (especially the loss of Mubarak), are the right wing Israelis and wouldn’t you know it – Romney is pandering to them.
• Warmongering and Romney’s “rhetorical upholstery”: In foreign policy more than the domestic arena, rhetoric commits a candidate to certain types of follow-through, and Romney’s rhetoric commits us to an idea about America that is out of date, reactionary, and dangerous. But the thing that amuses me is that it isn’t the automatic winner with the public that he undoubtedly assumes it is. …Romney is talking inside a self-reinforcing circle of people who think rattling the saber is irresistible at all times and in all circumstances. But it’s not.
• Today Mittens met with Benjamin Netanyahu. He also had a meeting scheduled with the Leader of Israel’s Labor party. Turns out that Netanyahu didn’t think Mitt should meet with his political opposition. It seems that Mitt thinks that POTUS a just a sub-Cabinet position in Netanyahu’s government. So it really was not a surprise that Romney rolled over when Bibi told him to cancel a meeting with opposition Party Leaders. Romney is a coward who is easily intimidated. He will say and do whatever his handlers tell him to do.
• Standing on Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. He did not say if he would order the embassy moved if he wins the White House, but strongly suggested so in a CNN interview.
• An open letter to Mitt Romney – I hate to burst your bubble, but if you believe that American Jews are going to vote for you in large numbers because they perceive you as more committed to Israel and more respectful of its current prime minister, you’re dead wrong. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Israel. It must have been fun playing the statesman in meetings with Israeli leaders and catching up with your old ‘friend’ Bibi and your new friend, Sheldon. I’m sure you told them everything they wanted to hear.
• Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said on Monday that presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s assertion that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital is “absolutely unacceptable.”
• Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Tunisia late Sunday for the first leg of a five-day, four-nation trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Besides Tunisia, he is expected to visit Egypt, Israel and Jordan, and to meet with officials at each stop. High on the agenda is Syria. The secretary will arrive in Israel just days after presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney visited Jerusalem and pledged to support “any and all measures” to keep Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
• Romney’s Poland visit to start in Gdansk. To be strongly anti-Soviet, which is ridiculous given the year we’re in, but no matter. He’ll meet with Lech Walesa, [Solidarity movement, 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, 1990 Polish president]. He’ll meet with Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Gdansk Monday and visit Westerplatte, a Gdansk peninsula where the first clash between Polish and German forces during the invasion of Poland occurred in 1939, making the first battle of the European theater of World War II. He’ll be in Warsaw Tuesday, where he’ll deliver a speech discussing “the U.S.-Poland relationship and the values of liberty,” his campaign said.
• Romney is deeply invested in the idea that it takes superhuman skills to save an Olympic Games from the disaster and international humiliation to which it naturally inclines. The idea that it can be done reasonably well even by a past-its-prime power like Britain is too much for Romney to bear. And I’m afraid he let it show at a very inopportune moment.
• Romney grew up in the culture of the shredder.He made his pile in a culture that disdains openness and scoffs at transparency. He simply doesn’t know any other way, and he’s not intellectually deft enough to pretend that he does.
• On his road to becoming a $250 million captain of private equity at Bain Capital, Mitt Romney had a lot of help from his uncle. Uncle Sam, that is. As it turns out, the U.S. tax code doesn’t merely allow Romney to pay a lower rate than many middle class families. Without the public subsidy that is the corporate debt interest deduction, there might not be a Bain Capital–or a private equity industry as we know it–at all.
• Barclays told to stop fundraising for Mitt Romney – Barclays has been accused of fundraising for political candidates instead of working to rebuild the public’s trust in banks following the Libor-setting scandal.
• Former President Bill Clinton is set to play a central part in the Democratic convention, aides said, and will formally place President Obama’s name into nomination by delivering a prime-time speech designed to present a forceful economic argument for why Mr. Obama deserves to win a second term.
• CIA considers Israel to be a genuine counterintelligence threat.
• DARPA’s Blue Angel: With Medicago Inc. vaccine company, DARPA produces +10 million vaccines against H1N1 influenza using a massive harvest of tobacco plants.
• NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander was playing a “word game” when he said the agency does not collect files on Americans according to William Binney, a former technical director at the NSA. Binney says the NSA does indeed collecting e-mails, Twitter writings, internet searches and other data belonging to Americans and indexing it. “Unfortunately, once the software takes in data, it will build profiles on everyone in that data,” he said. “You can simply call it up by the attributes of anyone you want and it’s in place for people to look at.”
• The M1 Abrams tank finds itself a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large donations by its manufacturer, General Dynamics, a nationwide employer that has pumped millions of dollars into congressional elections over the last decade. The Pentagon wants a redesign and is looking towards a new global strategy.
• HSBC – another terrorist bank
• Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday said that even “handheld rocket launchers” could be considered legal under his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. And – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says that the pivotal decision which reversed a law that prohibited women from using contraception is not supported under his interpretation of the Constitution.
• A so-called white supremacist motorcycle gang in Florida was actually created by law-enforcement officers as a sting, court records said. The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel said Sunday the club, known as the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division, was created in St. Cloud in 2007 to lure in white supremacists and outlaw bikers suspected of having violent intentions.
F.D.Brightly
Wimpy Mittens [Shorter Question Everything]
That whole wimp thing usually translates into a huge whopping need to overcompensate. Which means war for everybody else, especially if it means waging war on someone weaker, whether at home or abroad. Haven’t you had enough?
• Too insecure to be president?
• The narrative that Mitt Romney is a wimp is gaining steam. Even Newsweek is on board, with an upcoming Romney cover reading, “The Wimp Factor: Is He Just Too Insecure to Be President?”
• Mitt Romney: Too Wimpy for the White House? Dodging reporters, fearing his base, hiding his taxes—is Mitt Romney just too insecure to be president? The episode [London Olympics] highlights what’s really wrong with Romney. He’s kind of lame, and he’s really … annoying. He keeps saying these … things, these incredibly off-key things. Then he apologizes immediately—with all the sincerity of a hostage. Or maybe he doesn’t: sometimes he whines about the subsequent attacks on him. But the one thing he never does? Man up, double down, take his lumps.
• White House hopeful Mitt Romney Sunday held top-level talks in Israel over Iran’s nuclear ambitions but quickly drew fire from the Palestinians for endorsing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
• Romney blames Obama for the Arab Spring. But the Bush folks wanted to claim that as their own, based on that “Freedom Agenda” thing, the same thing Romney accuses Obama of ditching. One group that is really afraid of the Arab Spring (especially the loss of Mubarak), are the right wing Israelis and wouldn’t you know it – Romney is pandering to them.
• Warmongering and Romney’s “rhetorical upholstery”: In foreign policy more than the domestic arena, rhetoric commits a candidate to certain types of follow-through, and Romney’s rhetoric commits us to an idea about America that is out of date, reactionary, and dangerous. But the thing that amuses me is that it isn’t the automatic winner with the public that he undoubtedly assumes it is. …Romney is talking inside a self-reinforcing circle of people who think rattling the saber is irresistible at all times and in all circumstances. But it’s not.
• Today Mittens met with Benjamin Netanyahu. He also had a meeting scheduled with the Leader of Israel’s Labor party. Turns out that Netanyahu didn’t think Mitt should meet with his political opposition. It seems that Mitt thinks that POTUS a just a sub-Cabinet position in Netanyahu’s government. So it really was not a surprise that Romney rolled over when Bibi told him to cancel a meeting with opposition Party Leaders. Romney is a coward who is easily intimidated. He will say and do whatever his handlers tell him to do.
• Standing on Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. He did not say if he would order the embassy moved if he wins the White House, but strongly suggested so in a CNN interview.
• An open letter to Mitt Romney – I hate to burst your bubble, but if you believe that American Jews are going to vote for you in large numbers because they perceive you as more committed to Israel and more respectful of its current prime minister, you’re dead wrong. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Israel. It must have been fun playing the statesman in meetings with Israeli leaders and catching up with your old ‘friend’ Bibi and your new friend, Sheldon. I’m sure you told them everything they wanted to hear.
• Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said on Monday that presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s assertion that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital is “absolutely unacceptable.”
• Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Tunisia late Sunday for the first leg of a five-day, four-nation trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Besides Tunisia, he is expected to visit Egypt, Israel and Jordan, and to meet with officials at each stop. High on the agenda is Syria. The secretary will arrive in Israel just days after presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney visited Jerusalem and pledged to support “any and all measures” to keep Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
• Romney’s Poland visit to start in Gdansk. To be strongly anti-Soviet, which is ridiculous given the year we’re in, but no matter. He’ll meet with Lech Walesa, [Solidarity movement, 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, 1990 Polish president]. He’ll meet with Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Gdansk Monday and visit Westerplatte, a Gdansk peninsula where the first clash between Polish and German forces during the invasion of Poland occurred in 1939, making the first battle of the European theater of World War II. He’ll be in Warsaw Tuesday, where he’ll deliver a speech discussing “the U.S.-Poland relationship and the values of liberty,” his campaign said.
• Romney is deeply invested in the idea that it takes superhuman skills to save an Olympic Games from the disaster and international humiliation to which it naturally inclines. The idea that it can be done reasonably well even by a past-its-prime power like Britain is too much for Romney to bear. And I’m afraid he let it show at a very inopportune moment.
• Romney grew up in the culture of the shredder.He made his pile in a culture that disdains openness and scoffs at transparency. He simply doesn’t know any other way, and he’s not intellectually deft enough to pretend that he does.
• On his road to becoming a $250 million captain of private equity at Bain Capital, Mitt Romney had a lot of help from his uncle. Uncle Sam, that is. As it turns out, the U.S. tax code doesn’t merely allow Romney to pay a lower rate than many middle class families. Without the public subsidy that is the corporate debt interest deduction, there might not be a Bain Capital–or a private equity industry as we know it–at all.
• Barclays told to stop fundraising for Mitt Romney – Barclays has been accused of fundraising for political candidates instead of working to rebuild the public’s trust in banks following the Libor-setting scandal.
• Former President Bill Clinton is set to play a central part in the Democratic convention, aides said, and will formally place President Obama’s name into nomination by delivering a prime-time speech designed to present a forceful economic argument for why Mr. Obama deserves to win a second term.
• CIA considers Israel to be a genuine counterintelligence threat.
• DARPA’s Blue Angel: With Medicago Inc. vaccine company, DARPA produces +10 million vaccines against H1N1 influenza using a massive harvest of tobacco plants.
• NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander was playing a “word game” when he said the agency does not collect files on Americans according to William Binney, a former technical director at the NSA. Binney says the NSA does indeed collecting e-mails, Twitter writings, internet searches and other data belonging to Americans and indexing it. “Unfortunately, once the software takes in data, it will build profiles on everyone in that data,” he said. “You can simply call it up by the attributes of anyone you want and it’s in place for people to look at.”
• The M1 Abrams tank finds itself a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large donations by its manufacturer, General Dynamics, a nationwide employer that has pumped millions of dollars into congressional elections over the last decade. The Pentagon wants a redesign and is looking towards a new global strategy.
• HSBC – another terrorist bank
• Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday said that even “handheld rocket launchers” could be considered legal under his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. And – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says that the pivotal decision which reversed a law that prohibited women from using contraception is not supported under his interpretation of the Constitution.
• A so-called white supremacist motorcycle gang in Florida was actually created by law-enforcement officers as a sting, court records said. The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel said Sunday the club, known as the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division, was created in St. Cloud in 2007 to lure in white supremacists and outlaw bikers suspected of having violent intentions.