Starting with a positive. Every time I hear some rightwinger screeching about how Obama ‘hates’ everything and doesn’t believe – this should play. Just sayin’
Now, onto Ryan, and this is a story that should definitely be getting a lot of interest. And likely won’t.
• From the delightful gift that is John McCain’s opposition research on Mitt (courtesy of namelessgenxer) comes the sordid tale of Mitt’s tenure on the board of Damon Clinical Laboratories, which plead guilty to charges of defrauding Medicare and agreed to pay what was at the time the largest health care criminal fraud fine in history – $35,300,000. They also agreed to larger civil fines which totaled $83,700,000. …So – Bain invests in a company. Mitt gets personally involved with managing said company. Company profits are significantly based upon Medicare Fraud. Bain & Romney never uncover the fraud in 4 years, Corning uncovers it immediately upon buying Damon. Despite the fraud, Bain triples its investment, and Romney’s share of that profit is a cool half a million.
On Friday, the Telegraphreported that, as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney may have violated state ethics laws when his administration maintained a “lucrative” contract with a company in which he had a financial stake.
The company, Imagitas, had been co-founded by a former executive at Bain and Co., with $5 million in backing from Bain Capital. Paul Ryan’s brother, Toby, had also been a senior manager at Bain and Co., working in the same building as Romney, before leaving to become a vice president of Imagitas.
The contract was not awarded by Romney – Imagitas scored it just before he was elected. But according to Telegraph reporter Jon Swaine, “Massachusetts law requires that all state employees divest themselves of financial interests in private sector contracts with state agencies. At the time, failure to do so could have resulted in a $2,000… fine or a 2.5-year prison sentence.” He added that “the potential punishments are now stronger.”
According to the Telegraph, “New state employees were obliged to prevent conflicts of interest with existing contracts. The following year, [Romney] began declaring that his holdings were in a so-called “blind trust” controlled by his lawyer.”
…
Imagitas, an advertising company, also secured contracts with several other states, including Wisconsin, where it was given work by then-Governor Scott McCallum, whom the Telegraph characterized as a “political ally” of Paul Ryan. According to sources cited by the Telegraph, Toby Ryan had been principally responsible for securing the contracts.
…
if accurate, it could prove disqualifying for the Romney-Ryan ticket, undermining Romney’s reputation as a self-made businessman and Ryan’s core belief that government is a drain on private sector achievement. When it comes to their families’ stakes in Imagitas, it appears that they “didn’t build that” without an inside edge lobbying for fat government contracts. Imagitas was sold for $230 million in 2005, when Romney was still serving as the governor of Massachusetts.
[alternet]
Veteran Republican political consultant, unrepentant dirty trickster, and recently reborn libertarian Roger Stone yesterday published a startling accusation against Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney on his personal website, The Stone Zone. According to Stone, the billionaire Koch brothers purchased the Republican vice presidential nomination for Ryan from Romney in late July by promising to fork over an additional $100 million toward “independent expenditure” campaigning for the GOP ticket.
Any such transaction would represent a serious violation of federal election laws and perhaps other statutes, aside from the ethical and character implications for all concerned. Although Stone is not the most reputable figure, to put it mildly, he has been a Republican insider, with access to the party’s top figures, over four decades.
… My sources tell me David Koch played a key role in Ryan’s selection and that Koch’s wife Julia had been quietly lobbying for Ryan. The selection was cemented at the July 22nd fundraiser Koch held for Romney at the former’s sumptuous Hamptons estate. Koch pledged $100 million more to C-4 and Super PAC efforts for Romney [in exchange] for Ryan’s selection.
[nationalmemo]
• Long before he became one of the right’s most vocal critics of the idea that government spending could help boost the flagging economy, Rep. Paul Ryan offered a forceful, full-throated defense of stimulus spending — when then-President George W. Bush wanted it in 2002.
• As it turns out, Ryan’s stimulus hypocrisy extends back at least an entire decade. In 2002, Republican President George W. Bush proposed a similar — if less ambitious — stimulus plan to the one President Obama signed in 2009. Ryan took to the House floor to defend this plan, accurately noting that additional government spending would help move the economy out of a recession: The things we’re trying to pass in this bill are the time-tested, proven, bipartisan solutions to get businesses to stop laying off people, to hire people back, and to help those people who have lost their jobs. . . . We’ve got to get the engine of economic growth growing again because we now know, because of recession, we don’t have the revenues that we wanted to, we don’t have the revenues we need
The campaign:
• Senior Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said on Sunday that he would not be “lectured” about running a negative campaign while GOP hopeful Mitt Romney continued to use a “right-wing nut job” like so-called birther Donald Trump: “I’m not going to get lectured by Mitt Romney or anybody on the Romney campaign about the tone of this campaign,” Gibbs explained. “This is a guy that’s flown all over the country saying he’s not sure whether the president believes in America.” “[Romney is] auctioning off dinners with birther-in-chief, right-wing nut job Donald Trump, who still questions whether or not the president of the United States was born in America.” “I’m happy to listen to charges and counter charges,” he added. “But the notion we’re going to get lectured by Mitt Romney and his campaign about running a positive campaign, that’s a pill far too big to swallow.”
• Doug Preisse, chairman of the Republican Party in Franklin County, admits he canceled weekend voting in Ohio to suppress the Black vote. [A]dmitted in an email to the Columbus Dispatch that black voters would now have a more difficult time voting: I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable.
F.D.Brightly
We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Back Now [Shorter Question Everything]
Starting with a positive. Every time I hear some rightwinger screeching about how Obama ‘hates’ everything and doesn’t believe – this should play. Just sayin’
• President Obama: “We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Back Now.”
Ryan is dirty:
Now, onto Ryan, and this is a story that should definitely be getting a lot of interest. And likely won’t.
• From the delightful gift that is John McCain’s opposition research on Mitt (courtesy of namelessgenxer) comes the sordid tale of Mitt’s tenure on the board of Damon Clinical Laboratories, which plead guilty to charges of defrauding Medicare and agreed to pay what was at the time the largest health care criminal fraud fine in history – $35,300,000. They also agreed to larger civil fines which totaled $83,700,000. …So – Bain invests in a company. Mitt gets personally involved with managing said company. Company profits are significantly based upon Medicare Fraud. Bain & Romney never uncover the fraud in 4 years, Corning uncovers it immediately upon buying Damon. Despite the fraud, Bain triples its investment, and Romney’s share of that profit is a cool half a million.
• Report: Romney May Have Violated Ethics Laws Through Company Linked to Paul Ryan’s Brother:
• GOP Consultant: Koch Brothers Bought Ryan’s Nomination With $100 Million Promise:
• Long before he became one of the right’s most vocal critics of the idea that government spending could help boost the flagging economy, Rep. Paul Ryan offered a forceful, full-throated defense of stimulus spending — when then-President George W. Bush wanted it in 2002.
• As it turns out, Ryan’s stimulus hypocrisy extends back at least an entire decade. In 2002, Republican President George W. Bush proposed a similar — if less ambitious — stimulus plan to the one President Obama signed in 2009. Ryan took to the House floor to defend this plan, accurately noting that additional government spending would help move the economy out of a recession: The things we’re trying to pass in this bill are the time-tested, proven, bipartisan solutions to get businesses to stop laying off people, to hire people back, and to help those people who have lost their jobs. . . . We’ve got to get the engine of economic growth growing again because we now know, because of recession, we don’t have the revenues that we wanted to, we don’t have the revenues we need
The campaign:
• Senior Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said on Sunday that he would not be “lectured” about running a negative campaign while GOP hopeful Mitt Romney continued to use a “right-wing nut job” like so-called birther Donald Trump: “I’m not going to get lectured by Mitt Romney or anybody on the Romney campaign about the tone of this campaign,” Gibbs explained. “This is a guy that’s flown all over the country saying he’s not sure whether the president believes in America.” “[Romney is] auctioning off dinners with birther-in-chief, right-wing nut job Donald Trump, who still questions whether or not the president of the United States was born in America.” “I’m happy to listen to charges and counter charges,” he added. “But the notion we’re going to get lectured by Mitt Romney and his campaign about running a positive campaign, that’s a pill far too big to swallow.”
• Doug Preisse, chairman of the Republican Party in Franklin County, admits he canceled weekend voting in Ohio to suppress the Black vote. [A]dmitted in an email to the Columbus Dispatch that black voters would now have a more difficult time voting: I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable.