Do You Take This Candidate....

I'm speaking now....

"Just how much of an issue gay marriage will be was not clear."

It is for this voter: none at all

"President Obama’s decision to publicly support same-sex marriage comes amid a furious fund-raising battle with Republican Mitt Romney and has the potential to generate significant contributions from wealthy gays and lesbians and take the place of Wall Street donors who backed the president in 2008 but have become disaffected this year, according to campaign analysts and Obama supporters." 


Related: President Obama backs same-sex marriage

On gay marriage, Obama is on the right side of history

Yah, he's doing it for all the right rea$on$. 

"Obama’s senior strategists, confronting the prospect of a close election, are loath to raise a subject that could cost votes on balance in swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado, say Democrats familiar with their thinking.

Yet Obama risks alienating gay Americans who have been among his strongest supporters and biggest donors, and same-sex marriage is strongly supported among many of the young and college-educated voters whom the campaign courts.  

Another sliver of a segment of the population that for zome reason has outsized influence. 

And those youth, they don't vote. That's what I'm told by my MSM officiator of ceremonies when it comes to Ron Paul's alleged failure to win votes, primaries, etc, etc, etc. 

But it is opposed by socially conservative blacks, particularly politically influential ministers, whose strong turnout Obama needs.  

I think other concern$ override that, don't you?

At the same time, some Democrats say that Obama, by continuing to straddle an issue that many supporters and gay activists believe he privately favors, risks looking politically calculating, even cynical. 

It's the same way he's treated everyone else, so don't take it personally.  

And how about that double entendre, huh?

The heightened focus on gay rights issues in Washington came as voters in North Carolina prepared to vote Tuesday on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and as Colorado advocates of civil unions sought to push a measure recognizing such unions through the state Legislature before a Wednesday deadline. 

Related: North Carolina strengthens gay marriage prohibition

Both states figure prominently in Obama’s reelection calculation.

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What started it all:

"Biden apologizes to Obama for timing on gay marriage  

Well, actually, it's worked out well, so it wasn't really a goof, was it?

WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden has apologized to President Obama for comments that led the president to speed up his public acknowledgement of his support for gay marriage, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

Obama and Biden spoke Wednesday, shortly before the president discussed his views on gay marriage in a television interview, the source said. Biden expressed his regret for speaking out about his own support for same-sex marriage before the president.

The person familiar with the exchange says that Obama said he understood that Biden was speaking from the heart.

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I'm getting cold feet, folks.

"Same-sex marriage distant dream for many worldwide" by Leon Drouin-Keith  |  Associated Press, May 11, 2012

BANGKOK - China’s government considered homosexuality a mental disorder until 2001. Mobs in Senegal have disinterred bodies of men they believe were gay and dragged them through the streets. In Egypt, laws prohibiting “shameless public acts’’ have been used to imprison gay men.

While gay-rights activists hailed President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage as a symbolic victory, for many around the world the idea of legal unions between homosexuals is a distant dream. Gay people in many countries would settle for simply getting to be themselves without fear of being attacked or thrown in prison.

In China, “the government treats homosexuality like it does not exist,’’ said Xiong Jing, an activist who volunteers in gay support groups in Beijing.

China’s authoritarian government shows little tolerance for activism of any kind, and sodomy was a crime until 1997. Xiong welcomed Obama’s support for gay marriage, but cautioned that legalizing it in China would be unrealistic and impossible.

“If he, as president, was able to not just express his own personal opinion but to support policies on this, that would be even better,’’ she said Thursday.

America’s role as a global agent of change is exactly what worries people like Ibrahim Ali, an independent member of Malaysia’s Parliament and leader of a rights group for the country’s majority Malay Muslims.

“They can practice this in America if they want, since it’s their right, but we are still very concerned, because whatever America practices, it often wants other countries to follow suit,’’ he said.

The Vatican, a strident opponent of gay marriage, did not immediately comment on Obama’s announcement. But two months ago Pope Benedict XVI denounced what he called the gay marriage lobby in America in a speech to visiting US bishops and urged them not to back down in the face of “powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage.’’  

Gee, I wonder who he could be talking about. 

Of course, the pooper-pumping perverts may the wrong ones to be delivering that sermon, 'eh?

On Thursday at the Vatican, visiting Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the church’s teaching on the sanctity of marriage between man and woman was clear, unchangeable, and dates from the biblical account of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis....

With the exception of South Africa, much of Africa harbors a deep stigma against homosexuality. Violence has been rising against gays in the continent, and there have been cases of mobs digging up bodies from cemeteries in Senegal, allegedly of homosexuals, and parading them in the streets.

“I really like Barack Obama as a president, but not this latest declaration,’’ said Mohamed Gueye, who sells Obama pencils alongside French conjugation guides at his bookstall in the Sandaga market in Dakar, the Senegalese capital.

Gladys Okai of Ghana was attacked for being a lesbian....

Homosexuality also remains taboo in India, despite large gay pride parades recently. Only this year, the government accepted a court ruling that struck down a British colonial-era law banning gay sex, and the Supreme Court is now hearing appeals.

Malaysia, another former British colony, rarely enforces its sodomy law. Still, it was used twice against Anwar Ibrahim, a leader of the opposition party who went to prison after a conviction in 2000 and was acquitted in a separate case early this year. Anwar denies being gay and says the charges were a trumped-up effort to remove him from politics.

See: Malaysia Makes an Impression

Gays who speak out commonly become targets of abuse, such as Azwan Ismail, who drew anonymous death threats and criticism from Islamic officials when he spoke about his sexuality in a YouTube video in 2010.

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Also see: Married same-sex couples in Mass. say Obama’s support ‘symbolically huge’

In Mass., joy, caution, and condemnation for Obama

Where'$ the love?

"In Hollywood, still a lot of love, money for Obama

NEW YORK - Under a tent on George Clooney’s basketball court, the cheers were loud and warm for President Obama.

“I want to thank Clooney for letting us use his basketball court,’’ Obama said to a glittery crowd that included Barbra Streisand, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Salma Hayek, and Tobey Maguire. “This guy has been talking smack about his basketball game ever since I’ve known him.’’

It can’t feel too shabby to be applauded by Barbra, Salma, and Tobey while you’re teasing your buddy George. And though many of the guests Thursday night at Clooney’s home in the Studio City area of Los Angeles, like their host, have been steadfast supporters, there was no question the president was feeling some special love at this Hollywood fund-raiser, having thrilled the community a day earlier with the support for gay marriage they’d long awaited.

Only months ago, it seemed uncertain whether Obama would get the same kind of loving embrace from Hollywood that he did in the 2008 campaign. Actor and former supporter Matt Damon in particular voiced his displeasure last year, saying the president had “misinterpreted his mandate’’ and that he needed guts, though he used a blunter term.

But the gay marriage decision “will certainly add to the enthusiasm behind the president’s campaign. It translates into more energy,’’ said Andy Spahn, a political adviser to entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.

He and other fund-raisers in the community, though, hasten to note that Obama events had been selling out even before Obama’s gay marriage announcement - as Clooney’s did, raising nearly $15 million.   

Yeah, I'd be feeling the love, too.

Maybe some of your tax dollars made it out there, Massachusetts residents.

Does all the enthusiasm come at a cost? Obama’s opponents tried hard in 2008 to make the candidate’s Hollywood connections a liability.

This time, there’s already an ad circulating from the pro-GOP super PAC called American Crossroads. “Four years ago,’’ it starts, “American elected the biggest celebrity in the world.’’

It shows Obama in dark sunglasses, Obama with various celebrities. Then it asks: “After 4 years of a celebrity president is your life any better?’’

That's Karl Rove's crowd, and thus we do not hear him since his man was such an abysmal and abominable atrocity.

That's not to say it is better under Obama. In many ways its gotten worse, proving it is not the man but the agenda he is fronting for that is the true power.

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I left 'em at the altar. 

Boston Globe Bullies Mitt Romney

They joined in after the Washington Post kicked him around a bit. 

“I think at some point in this campaign we’ll talk about things like the economy and energy, labor policy, Syria, Iran. I am hoping at some point that mainstream media is able to get around to those topics.’’ 

Yeah, Mitt, you are really getting bad press.

"Romney rues bullying as teen; Offers apology for ‘dumb things’ reported in Post" by Callum Borchers  |  Globe Correspondent, May 10, 2012

A day after President Obama became the first holder of the Oval Office to support same-sex marriage, Mitt Romney apologized Thursday for “some dumb things’’ he did in high school after he was accused of bullying a gay schoolmate as a teenager in 1965.

According to a Washington Post report, Romney once led a posse that attacked a boy named John Lauber, who was “perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality,’’ pinning him to the floor while Romney cut the boy’s bleached-blond hair, which usually draped over one eye.

The Post cited five men who attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., with the presumptive Republican nominee.

One of the men, Phillip Maxwell, told ABC News that there was no doubt the episode was bullying.

“Oh my god, are you kidding?’’ said Maxwell, now a lawyer who is still friends with Romney. “I castigated myself regularly for not having intervened.

“When I saw the look on his [Lauber’s] face, it was a look I’ll never forget,’’ he said. “This was bullying supreme.’’   

Not a good sign considering the last  Republican mass-murderer and torturer that held the office.

Schoolmates also said Romney frequently shouted “Atta girl!’’ when another gay student, Gary Hummel, spoke in class, according to the Post.

In an interview with conservative radio host Brian Kilmeade, Romney said he did not recall such incidents but added, “I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks in high school and some may have gone too far, and for that I apologize.’’

Yeah, he really looks sorry. 

And looking back now I believe I was bullied and a bully back in high school.  It's not an excuse, but peer pressure made me pick on certain people, and perhaps that is what made others pick on me. All I know is it was part of what I thought was growing up. The day I held my own and beat the bully was the day people stopped bothering me. That was after I took my share of ass-whippings.   

On the flip side, when the f*** is my nation, the unholy empire of EUSrael, going to stop bullying the planet?

Romney - who as governor of Massachusetts eliminated the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, a program designed to end harassment of homosexual teens - insisted that whatever he might have done was not motivated by antigay sentiments. He noted that both Lauber and Hummel were in the closet at the time and said he had “no idea’’ they were gay. The Post said Lauber died in 2004.

In an interview with the Globe, Sidney Barthwell Jr., a Romney classmate who did not participate in the Post report, said friends told him about Lauber’s violent haircut.

The only African-American in the Cranbrook class of 1965, Barthwell said that Romney and his family were known at the time as civil rights proponents. He said that there were several “effeminate’’ students at the all-boys school and that they were sometimes addressed “using terms that would not be politically correct today.’’ But he never heard such language from Romney.

“No, not at all,’’ Barthwell said.

Barthwell said the mistreatment of Lauber was more likely based on his demeanor and hair-do than his sexual orientation.

Schoolmates also told the Post that on more than one occasion Romney humiliated an English teacher by exploiting his near-blindness.

Shows a tendency to torture.

Romney and his backers have responded to the anecdotes with a two-pronged defense: Romney has changed, and decades-old antics have no place in contemporary political discourse.  

Weak.  In this day and age of school sensitivity to bullying that just doesn't cut it.

“I am quite a different guy now that I am married, have five sons, five daughters-in-law, and 18 grandchildren,’’ Romney said. “I think at some point in this campaign we’ll talk about things like the economy and energy, labor policy, Syria, Iran. I am hoping at some point that mainstream media is able to get around to those topics.’’

Are you? Is that what all the flip-flopping, disassembling, and I'll-say-whatever-I need-to-whenever-and-wherever-I-have-to-to-become-president is about?

--more--"

Related: Debate on Romney's memory of incident

Gay guy got bullied out of Romney's campaign.

"Top Romney aide quits in face of anti-gay sentiment" by Michael Levenson  |  Globe Staff, May 01, 2012

Mitt Romney’s foreign policy spokesman, a gay man whose support for same-sex marriage infuriated social conservatives, abruptly resigned on Tuesday, saying the intense focus on his sexual orientation was making it impossible for him to do his job.

Richard A. Grenell, who served as the spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations under George W. Bush, revealed he was leaving less than two weeks after he was hired.

“While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign,’’ Grenell said in a statement. “I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a nonissue for him and his team.’’

*********************

The Romney campaign had said Grenell was hired because of his experience serving under John R. Bolton and three other ambassadors to the United Nations. But critics on the right expressed outrage that Romney would hire a gay man and a supporter of same-sex marriage....

Yeah, Romney has been endorsed by the Bush crime family and has loaded up on neo-con advisers. 

Grenell had also been criticized for cutting comments he had written on Twitter weeks ago about Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC host, and Callista Gingrich, wife of rival candidate Newt Gingrich.

The gay dude who got bullied out was bullying a gay girl and Gingrich's latest wife?

Will the hypocrisy ever end here in AmeriKa? 

“Essentially, he was hounded by the far right and the left,’’ said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans [and] a former counselor to the American Mission to the United Nations, who served with Grenell in the Bush administration.  

Well, at least they finally came together on something, right?

“It’s unfortunate and it’s disappointing,’’ Cooper said. “The Romney campaign has lost a very well-respected advocate in the conservative community and a very talented spokesman. This guy is immensely qualified.’’  

I didn't like his boss, so....

The Obama campaign pounced on Grenell’s decision, accusing Romney of caving to extremists in the Republican Party.

“Today we learned that in the year 2012, a Republican nominee for president can’t have a gay person as spokesman,’’ Teddy Goff, the Obama campaign’s digital director, wrote on Twitter. 

I care about the lies spewing forth from said mouth, not it's race, gender, or sexual preference.  Sorry.

--more--"

Also see: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: She's No Princess

Health Hypocrite Mitt

"Mitt Romney’s plan may undercut Mass. law; Would trim Medicaid funds state relies on; Threatens to undermine his key achievement" by Tracy Jan  |  Globe Staff, May 04, 2012

WASHINGTON - A proposal by Mitt Romney to curtail Medicaid spending would dramatically undercut the way the Massachusetts health care overhaul law has achieved near universal coverage.

Although the specifics of Romney’s plan are not public, his overall intent - to rein in how much Medicaid money Washington sends to the states - would probably cripple the Massachusetts health care law, which was made possible by an expansion of Medicaid funding.

If Romney succeeds, the result could have an ironic twist: the governor who ushered in the country’s first universal health plan would, as president, put in place policies that could undermine one of his signature achievements.

“It would have been impossible for Massachusetts to do what it did without increased federal Medicaid support,’’ said John McDonough, a major architect of the state’s health care overhaul law and now director of Harvard University’s Center for Public Health Leadership.

“What he’s proposing is in direct opposition to what he did as governor,’’ said Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, executive director of Health Care for All in Massachusetts, citing the Bay State’s 98 percent coverage rate, the highest in the nation. “That kind of expansion would not have been possible under a block grant program,’’ as Romney has proposed. Block grants give states more flexibility in spending federal money, but restrict funding increases.

As governor, Romney worked closely with the late Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy to secure hundreds of millions per year in federal aid to realize their shared goal of access to health care for all. Expanding Medicaid coverage - and the flow of federal money that came with it - was a key underpinning of the state’s 2006 law....

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And that is not the only thing:

"Mitt Romney mum on how to regulate big banks" by Matt Viser and Tracy Jan  |  Globe Staff, May 02, 2012

WASHINGTON - Republican Mitt Romney is pledging, if he is elected president, to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, a position favored by donors on Wall Street who have sent millions the candidate’s way. But he is nearly silent on how - without the regulation - he would prevent Wall Street from once again engaging in the risky practices that helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.

The gap in Romney’s platform - made more notable as, at every turn, he criticizes President Obama’s handling of the post-meltdown economy - has puzzled some economic specialists.

“He’s asking for permission to govern the country - but he’s saying do away with the government’s response to the Wall Street crisis,’’ said Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University. “I’m no fan of Dodd-Frank, but I am a fan of the notion that we have to do something.’’

Named for its authors, including Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the 2010 Dodd-Frank law imposes an extensive array of disclosure and reporting rules, risk restrictions, and new oversight measures that are supposed to keep Wall Street banks and investment houses in check.

Related: Senate Sends Along Financial Fraud Bill

Banking and investment firms lobbied heavily against the legislation as Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, guided it through Congress. The industry objects to the new rules and restrictions, and Romney said in May 2011 that the law “scared the dickens out of the financial sector and caused banks to pull back from lending.’’ He has joined his Republican presidential rivals in calling for an outright repeal of the legislation.

Romney has criticized both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is designed to monitor things like credit card applications and home mortgages, and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is supposed to monitor for systemic risks in the markets. Romney says both are too powerful and run by unelected bureaucrats.

Romney’s most detailed economic proposal, a 59-point plan released by his campaign in September 2011, denounces the Dodd-Frank bill as regulatory overreach. While calling for repealing and replacing the complex, 2,000-page law with a “streamlined regulatory framework,’’ it suggests only the broadest of themes: greater transparency of interbank relationships, enhanced capital requirements, and unspecified “provisions to address new forms of complex financial transactions.’’

Romney’s campaign did not respond to a list of questions from the Globe about specific ways he would change the law.

Lawrence Summers, a key White House economic adviser at the time the bill was drawn up and a former president of Harvard University, said that although there is room for debate about how Dodd-Frank should be implemented, it would be a grave mistake to wipe out the regulation without a strong replacement.

“The idea that we should go back to the regulatory status quo that preceded the worst financial crisis in 75 years seems on the edge of ludicrous,’’ Summers said.

This from the guy who was behind the repeal of Glass-Steagall and against regulation of the hedge funds he later fattened himself up on using the mortgage-backed securities swindle.

Over the edge of ludicrous into the abyss of absurdity.  

Btw, Wall Street has been back to business as usual for years now.

Getting a repeal through Congress could be difficult for Republicans, even if Romney is elected president, because it is extremely unlikely Republicans will capture a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in the 2012 elections. Still, there have not been many strong public advocates for the law. Dodd retired several months after the law passed, and Frank is retiring at the end of this year.

“Dodd is gone, Frank is going, and the Obama administration has been relatively quiet on this issue,’’ said Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland and a former director at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “A lot of this goes back to the fact that I don’t think the public really ever understood what Dodd-Frank did.’’ 

See:

Wall Street Not Worried About Washington Regulations

Wall Street Writing Washington Regulations

It's a Wall Street government.

The biggest share of Romney’s campaign contributions come from sources in the investment, securities, and insurance firms. Through the end of March, Romney had collected $10.7 million, or 12 percent of his total, from individuals and organizations in the sector. That is more than twice the amount Obama has gathered from the sector.

Donors are also giving far more to the super PAC supporting Romney than they are to the one supporting Obama. Restore Our Future, which backs Romney, has received $22.2 million from Wall Street, 43 percent of its total. The super PAC Priorities USA Action, which backs Obama, has collected just $525,200 from Wall Street....

Don't worry; the gays will even thing$ up.

--more--"

Edwards Trial Strip Tease

Enjoy the BG show:

"Ex-aide recalls John Edwards’s wife confronting him over affair; Daughter leaves during testimony about late mother" by Michael Biesecker  |  Associated Press, May 03, 2012

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A former adviser to John Edwards recounted Wednesday how the former presidential candidate’s now-deceased wife confronted her husband, baring her chest in front of staff members the day after a tabloid reported that he was cheating on her.

During a session that saw Edwards’s daughter leave the courtroom in tears, Christina Reynolds described how Elizabeth Edwards stormed away from her husband, then collapsed. She returned to confront her husband again. In front of several staff members, the woman who had endured treatments for breast cancer took off her shirt and bra.

“ ‘You don’t see me anymore,’ ’’ Reynolds quoted Elizabeth Edwards as yelling. “He didn’t have much of a reaction.’’

Reynolds also heard the Democratic candidate call his wife’s doctor to ask for help.

Edwards then boarded a jet and took off for his scheduled appearance, Reynolds said.

She testified that Elizabeth Edwards had known about her husband’s affair with Rielle Hunter before The National Enquirer made it public in October 2007.  

Related: Sunday Globe Special: Who Gives a Damn? 

 Hers was the most stirring testimony of the day at Edwards’s trial on corruption charges....

--more--"

"Former aide testifies about efforts to keep Edwards’s affair secret; Says staff fretted increasingly over the relationship" by Michael Biesecker  |  Associated Press, May 04, 2012

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Another former close aide to John Edwards testified Thursday about bungled efforts to keep the former presidential candidate’s affair hidden from staff members, including an awkward encounter when the woman showed up at a hotel weeks after her work filming Edwards had ended....

John Davis, who traveled with Edwards in 2006 and 2007, is one of several former aides who have testified about their suspicion or knowledge of the affair during Edwards’s campaign finance corruption trial. At issue is money from wealthy donors that was used in an attempt to keep the candidate’s affair with Rielle Hunter out of public view.

Edwards’s lawyers have said he didn’t know about the money, and he has pleaded not guilty to six counts related to campaign finance violations. He faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if convicted on all counts.

Hunter’s contract with the Edwards’s organization wasn’t renewed at the end of 2006, days after a campaign event where Davis said he saw the Democratic candidate’s wife crying after seeing her husband with the videographer.

But Davis said Hunter did not go away. In February 2007, he ran into her in an elevator at the candidate’s Detroit hotel.

“We exchanged brief pleasantries,’’ said Davis. “I would have preferred not to have seen her.’’

When he saw that she pushed the button for Edwards’s floor - where Davis also had his room - he stopped on another floor just so he could get into a different elevator car. Shortly after, he was on the phone with his wife to express his shock at seeing Hunter. He heard a knock at the door of his room. It was Hunter, who came in to talk.

“She told me that she and Senator Edwards were very much in love and that he was concerned that I had seen her,’’ Davis said.  

That's what the crazy slut said?

The next morning, Edwards called Davis to his room and, without being asked, denied that he was having an affair with Hunter. During the period in question, Davis was serving as Edwards’s body man - a close assistant who travels with a politician or candidate to handle a variety of tasks.

“He told me she was crazy and that we should make sure she didn’t talk to him,’’ Davis said.

Asked if he believed Edwards, Davis replied: “I chose to believe him.’’

But not long after his encounter with Hunter, a change was made in hotel arrangements. Davis said he had always stayed in a room close to the candidate, but the staff began staying on a different floor than Edwards during trips.

“Mr. Edwards suggested maybe a little separation would be good,’’ he said.

During a trip in September of 2007, Davis said he went to Edwards’s hotel room to retrieve a cellphone the candidate had borrowed from him. When he got to the room he could hear what sounded like a speakerphone conversation through the door, and he was able to discern the voices of both Edwards and Hunter.

--more--"

"Former Edwards aide testifies about wife’s outrage at donor; 2d witness says candidate knew of coverup funds" by Michael Biesecker  |  Associated Press, May 10, 2012

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A former campaign spokeswoman for John Edwards testified Wednesday that his wife angrily confronted a key donor about the man’s support for the presidential candidate’s pregnant mistress in 2007 at a hotel in Iowa....

Jennifer Palmieri testified [that] the candidate had called her to the Davenport, Iowa, hotel room where Elizabeth Edwards was arguing with campaign finance chairman Fred Baron and his wife about their financial aid to Hunter.

Palmieri had become close friends with Elizabeth Edwards, and John Edwards hoped her presence could help calm the situation. Palmieri is now the deputy communications director for President Obama.

That day in October 2007, Palmieri said Baron’s wife, Lisa Blue, admitted to Elizabeth Edwards she had flown Hunter to Los Angeles for a shopping trip.

“You’ve got to hold your friends close and your enemies closer,’’ Palmieri quoted Blue as telling the enraged wife. Blue said that Hunter was a “loose cannon’’ who could have exposed the affair to the media, Palmieri said.

At the time, a tabloid was publishing an article about the affair, and Palmieri said the campaign was absorbed with keeping the story from crossing over into the mainstream media.   

Yes, HOW UTTERLY SAD that the "tabloid" SCOOPED the AmeriKan mouthpiece media!

Edwards had told his wife he had a brief fling with Hunter but that he had ended the affair many months earlier, according to earlier testimony.

In fact, Edwards had continued the affair and Hunter was then pregnant with his child. A close aide to Edwards, Andrew Young, had rented the mistress a home a few miles away from the Edwards family estate in Chapel Hill. The candidate had kept the arrangement secret from his wife.

How much John Edwards knew about the money spent on Hunter to cover up his affair is a critical question at his trial. Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six counts of campaign finance violations related to about $1 million in secret payments from Baron and 101-year-old heiress Rachel “Bunny’’ Mellon....

On Wednesday, Edwards’s defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell, admitted his client had “lied quite extensively’’ in a nationally televised network interview from August 2008....

Palmieri said Edwards decided to go ahead anyway after his wife drafted a public statement for him denying the baby was his and pressed for its release. She said Elizabeth Edwards still believed her husband was not the father, and Palmieri tried to dissuade her of that.  

The poor woman was in denial.

 In an attempt to mitigate the damage from the planned interview, Palmieri said she selected ABC’s “Nightline’’ as the venue for the interview because the news show was going up that night against the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on rival NBC, which was expected to get far bigger ratings.

After Edwards lied repeatedly in the interview, Palmieri said she asked a friend of Edwards’s to deliver him a message that she did not want him to call her for help anymore.

She did see him occasionally because she remained friends with Elizabeth Edwards, who eventually separated from her cheating husband. Palmieri was with the Edwards family when Elizabeth died in December 2010 after her long battle with cancer.

Palmieri broke down as she described how her friend was not able to speak in her final days but had earlier told her about one of her greatest fears.

“She was concerned that when she died, there would not be a man who loved her there,’’ Palmieri said.

The statement caused Edwards, who had shown no reaction for much of his former spokeswoman’s testimony, to drop his head and put a hand to his face....

--more--"

"Prosecutors in Edwards trial wrap up their case" by Michael Biesecker  |  Associated Press, May 11, 2012

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Prosecutors rested their case against John Edwards Thursday after calling to the witness stand some of his closest friends and advisers, many of whom gave dramatic, often unflattering testimony about the former presidential candidate whose once-promising political career collapsed amid a sex scandal.

Edwards is accused of being the mastermind behind a plan to use secret payments from two wealthy campaign donors to hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008. The trial centers on whether Edwards knew what the money was being used for, and when he knew it.

While the past 14 days of testimony focused on the money trail, the trial has also revisited Edwards’s breathtaking fall....

He lied repeatedly to his wife, his advisers, and the public. 

It never seems to be a problem when it's mouthpiece media.

Jurors will have to look beyond Edwards’s character, though. As prosecutors wrapped up their case, they showed the jury records detailing the money spent to hide Hunter - $319,500 in cash, luxury hotels, private jets, and a $20,000-a-month rental mansion in Santa Barbara, Calif. The bills were all paid by Fred Baron, a wealthy Texas lawyer who served as Edwards’s 2008 campaign finance chairman....

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Thankfully that compromised piece of shit scum and potential target of blackmail never got near the presidency.

Also see: AmeriKan Media All Over Edwards Trial

Update: Jury will decide Edwards campaign corruption case

Battling Tom Barrett To Take On Wisconsin Governor Walker

"With less than a month before the June 5 recall election, it will take all the political muscle Tom Barrett can muster to knock off Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who has become a national hero to conservatives and a fund-raising powerhouse. Like Walker, he has spent nearly all of his adult life in public service."  

Related: Sunday Globe Special: War in Wisconsin

Warren's Whoppers

Having seen more than one-too-many rigged elections, I see this contest as already decided. Wall Street likes Brown, doesn't like Warren. Case closed. That's what I will be thinking when I slide my ballot into the optical scanning machine.

As for the other decider in the Senate:

Elizabeth Warren Sells Out To AIPAC Already

Anyone who doubts the iron grip AIPAC has on US politicians should check out Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s position on Israel. It sounds just like every other Senate candidate’s (probably because it almost surely was written by an AIPAC staffer).

It won't save her because Brown already has his nose buried up Israel's ass, but it does mean the vote totals won't change much. 

Also see: Warren Wobbly on Unions

Oh, yeah, and there's that then.  

And this:

"Elizabeth Warren was key in asbestos case; Worked for insurer on fund for victims" by Noah Bierman  |  Globe Staff, May 01, 2012

Six months after Elizabeth Warren arrived in Washington to work as an adviser to Congress, she experienced another career milestone in the nation’s capital, a seat at the US Supreme Court’s mahogany counsel table.

The 2009 appearance was the only time Warren helped represent a party before the nation’s highest court. And it provides a rare window into a less-heralded aspect of the Harvard Law professor’s career, her time as a working attorney in the courts.

The case - Travelers v. Bailey - was remarkable in many respects. It was sprawling and complicated, involving dozens of lawyers, thousands of asbestos victims, and nearly three decades of court battles that still have not ended.

It was also notable because Warren, who has gained fame for defending consumers against big business, was in this case working on behalf of a big business. For her contribution, Warren was paid $212,000 over three years by Travelers, the nation’s largest insurer.

Travelers was fighting to gain permanent immunity from asbestos-related lawsuits by establishing a $500 million trust. The trust would have been divided among current and future victims of asbestos poisoning who had claims against the nation’s largest asbestos manufacturer, Johns-Manville, which had been insured by Travelers before it went bankrupt.

Travelers won most of what it wanted from the Supreme Court, and in doing so Warren helped preserve an element of bankruptcy law that ensured that victims of large-scale corporate malfeasance would have a better chance of getting compensated, even when the responsible companies go bankrupt.

But after Warren left the case, it continued to twist and turn through the legal system, leaving a result that has been disastrous for asbestos victims. Travelers, in part because of its Supreme Court victory, has held onto its immunity from most lawsuits. But a ruling on Feb. 29 in a separate court has taken the company off the hook for paying out the $500 million settlement.

In the words of one judge who tried to preserve the settlement, Travelers received “something for nothing.’’

While Warren’s Republican opponent in the US Senate race, Scott Brown, has highlighted this business arrangement as an example of hypocrisy for a candidate who has portrayed herself as the champion of consumers, a Globe examination of the convoluted legal record paints a murkier picture.

It is clear that Warren received a substantial amount of money to help the company win immunity from all future lawsuits, with the expectation that the company would have to pay the settlement. But Warren’s work on the case may also have helped Travelers indirectly lay the groundwork for its current position, a position Warren and several other lawyers involved on both sides of the case say they did not foresee: where Travelers has immunity from most suits without having to pay the settlement.

“My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible, terrible disaster,’’ Warren said in a recent interview. “It’s heart-wrenching that there are new victims every year. . . . I think they should be compensated. That’s it for me. That’s what this is all about.’’

Warren, like many law professors, keeps her hand in the courts while she teaches and writes. But that aspect of her career is largely in the background as she runs for Senate, a Democrat seeking to unseat Republican Scott Brown.

The extent of her legal practice, and the clients she has represented, is unclear.

Her campaign would not release a full list of cases she has been involved in. And, while some representation appears in scattered court records, much of her consulting can be done without placing her name on dockets as an attorney of record.  

What does she have to hide, hmmmm?

Her campaign detailed six Supreme Court cases in which she has filed so-called friend of the court briefs. They include two briefs on behalf of the AARP: one of which supports protecting individual retirement accounts in the event of a bankruptcy and another that fights to allow judges to lower consumers’ credit card interest rates in the event of personal bankruptcies.

The campaign also provided a 2001-2003 case in which she testified in two trials as an expert working on behalf of asbestos victims, winning access to a $300 million trust, against insurance companies.

Warren’s campaign would not say how much she has earned for her outside work in these and other cases. The $212,000 she earned from Travelers from 2008 to 2010 was included in Warren’s government disclosure forms, required when she worked in Congress and the Obama administration, and when she declared as a Senate candidate. The forms also show that she earned $90,000 for serving as an expert witness for a Florida law firm suing credit card companies.

Four years of her tax returns released on Friday show that she received an average of about $150,000 a year in gross income from her home-based consulting business that includes her legal work, public speaking, writing, and investing.

Warren is considered a leading authority on bankruptcy, and the Travelers case was among a very few that reach the heights of the Supreme Court. She began writing and lecturing about bankruptcy trusts in the 1980s. The trust issue was also addressed in a 1,100-page congressional report on bankruptcy law, drafted in 1995 by Warren, the primary adviser for the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. An attorney who worked with Warren on that commission was heading Travelers’ legal team and called her when the issue boiled up to the highest court.

Travelers’ main attorneys handled the oral arguments in front of the court. Warren sat with them as one of three attorneys of record listed on their brief, the important written argument made to the court.

An attorney for Travelers, Andrew T. Frankel, declined to comment on the case or Warren’s role in it while it remains under appeal. Jennifer Wislocki, a Travelers spokeswoman, said the company believes the most recent ruling in the case is correct, but would not comment further.

Warren says she was fighting for an arcane but important principle in taking on the case: the constitutionality of allowing bankrupt companies facing a flood of lawsuits to form what are known as trusts. The trusts are large bank accounts that set aside money for current and future victims.

Warren says that the trusts provide a fair system to distribute the money - rather than first come, first served. But companies only will agree to them if they receive protection from future lawsuits.

“The issue I was focused on like a laser was the constitutionality of preserving the trust, because the trust is a critical tool for making sure that people who’ve been hurt have a fair shot at compensation,’’ she said. “Without it, millions of people who’ve already been injured will get nothing, and millions more in the future will get nothing.’’

The legal saga began in 1986 when leading asbestos supplier and manufacturer, Johns-Manville, declared bankruptcy under a crush of asbestos-related lawsuits. Travelers insured Johns-Manville from 1947 through 1976.

As part of Johns-Manville’s bankruptcy proceedings, Travelers agreed to pay $80 million toward a larger $770 million trust fund that would pay off current and future asbestos victims who sued Johns-Manville.

In exchange for its contribution, Travelers won a court order protecting it against related future lawsuits.

Despite the order, the lawsuits kept coming, with some lawyers looking for ways around the protection order. Many made the new argument that Travelers conspired with other insurers and manufacturers to conceal the dangers of asbestos and failed in its own duty to warn the public about those dangers.

Travelers wanted to stop the suits. So the company entered into another settlement with asbestos victims in 2004, this one brokered by Mario Cuomo, a former governor of New York who works as a professional mediator. It clarified the 1986 order and it required Travelers to pay a sum now worth about $500 million into the settlement fund.

That Cuomo settlement was challenged by a smaller group of asbestos victims who did not want the company to gain immunity. It was also challenged by another insurance company, Chubb, which was being sued, along with Travelers and dozens of other insurers in multiple lawsuits, based on the theory that insurance companies conspired to hide the dangers of the substance. By suing to block the Travelers settlement, Chubb wanted to preserve its right to shift some of the financial blame back to Travelers in the event that it had to pay damages to asbestos victims.

Such conspiracy suits have not been successful, but neither insurance company wanted to take on what its attorneys considered additional risk or defense costs.   

There are no conspiracies except.... sigh.

It was that issue that brought the case to the Supreme Court, where Travelers - with Warren’s help - crafted a case designed to allow the company to put this issue to rest: pay out the $500 million and win immunity from any future suits.

To do that, Travelers argued that the 2004 settlement was simply an extension of the 1986 agreement. Therefore, the case focused on the legality of that original agreement and the degree of protection it provided to Travelers against future lawsuits.

Though some asbestos victims still objected to the Travelers settlement, another larger group of victims was on the same side as the insurer - at least during this portion of the case - in seeking to have the settlement upheld.

The Supreme Court decision gave Travelers a victory, validating the legality of the 1986 agreement and the immunity it provided. But it left to the lower courts to decide whether Chubb had a right to challenge the 2004 settlement.

That triggered another series of legal arguments that ultimately unraveled the $500 million settlement, leaving Travelers with permanent immunity from most asbestos lawsuits without having to pay the victims.

The payment of the $500 million settlement was premised upon the company winning immunity from all lawsuits. But because an Appeals Court subsequently ruled that Chubb could still sue Travelers, still another judge ruled that the conditions had not been met to force Travelers to pay out the money.

In his Feb. 29 order, US District Judge John G. Koeltl cited the Supreme Court case, saying essentially that Travelers never needed the second settlement, the one that cost it $500 million, to protect itself from most asbestos suits.

Koeltl ruled that the 2004 settlement was simply a clarification to “obtain complete peace’’ against the likes of Chubb and other insurers. And because there was no peace from Chubb, there was no settlement.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers say they are not surprised Travelers would try not to pay the money. As a publicly traded company, it is obligated to serve its shareholders.

“It’s an insurance company,’’ said Michael P. Cascino, a Chicago attorney representing a group of asbestos victims. “Unless you believe a corporation’s a human being, how could it be sincere’’ in wanting to pay the settlement?  

The empty suit masquerading as the Repuglican nominee for president thinks so!

Bruce Carter, an Ohio attorney representing 19,000 plaintiffs, added that “like any company, they’d love to get something for nothing. And that’s really where they’re at now.’’

The case remains on appeal. In the meantime, Carter said, many of the families who have been waiting more than a decade for their settlement money have seen loved ones die.

--more--"  

Her campaign going the way of Coakley?

"Bad week may haunt Warren" May 05, 2012|Noah Bierman and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

Elizabeth Warren fumbled through her worst stretch as a Senate candidate this week, setting off a debate among strategists over whether the controversy over her claims to Native American ancestry would linger when the November election is closer.  

You think we are going to make our decision based on that?  

Related: Document ties Warren kin to Cherokees

Records shed light on Elizabeth Warren’s minority status

I thought women were a majority.

The Warren campaign will not say when top advisers learned that she considered herself part-Native American, but it was an element of her biography that seemed to catch them off guard.

When news emerged last Friday that Harvard Law School had publicly touted Warren as a Native American professor in the Harvard Crimson in the 1990s, Warren advisers saw it as a story that would go away quickly.

But the story took added dimension when it was revealed that Warren had listed herself as a minority in a major legal directory.

The fallout and her unsteady response to it subjected the rookie Democratic Senate candidate to tough questions, an unflattering national glare, and a recognition from others that she had hit her first real stumble. The Washington Post’s political blog, The Fix, gave Warren the dubious honor “Worst Week in Washington.’’

“I have yet to run into anyone in politics who believes that this was handled well at all,’’ said Jennifer Duffy, a senior editor at The Cook Political Report who tracks Senate races around the country. “The explanations have left enormous room for doubt and speculation.’’  

About what?

Democrats and some outside strategists continue to believe the issue, first reported in the Boston Herald, will die down soon, though others caution the controversy could become part of Warren’s identity, damaging her reputation among socially conservative swing voters.  

And thus the building of the narrative has begun.

The story also poses potential dangers to Senator Scott Brown, whose questioning of her Harvard qualifications risks undermining his campaign message that he is above personal attacks.

But most of the political critique has been directed at Warren.

Warren has been forced to respond to the story incrementally, as new details have emerged, including a genealogist’s finding that documents suggested she might have been 1/32 Cherokee but would not qualify for tribal membership.

She had her most awkward public response on Wednesday, when she said she had checked a box listing herself as Native American for the legal directory for nearly a decade in hopes that she would “meet others like me,’’ and mentioned that she heard her aunt admiring the “high cheekbones’’ of her grandfather.

“Brown is having a field day, and she is not responding effectively,’’ said Thomas J. Whalen, an associate professor of social science, and a political historian at Boston University. “She is just flailing around.’’

Peter Ubertaccio, a political scientist at Stonehill College, said the story got more traction than warranted because Warren was unable to offer a succinct answer....

What was the question?

--more--"

"From humble roots to top of income ladder; Warren, Brown release tax returns; Earnings become key in Senate race" by Brian C. Mooney and Noah Bierman  |  Globe Staff, April 28, 2012

Tax returns released Friday by Republican Senator Scott Brown and his likely Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, show both have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in income in the last several years, despite campaigns that play up their humble roots.

Warren and her husband, fellow Harvard professor Bruce Mann, earned an annual average of more than $845,000 over the past four years, and Brown and his wife, Gail Huff, a television journalist, earned an average of nearly $428,000 over the last six years.

Brown’s earnings were augmented by $1 million he received for his 2011 memoir, “Against All Odds,’’ $300,000 more than the amount that had been previously disclosed.

Warren’s salary at Harvard and as the interim director of a new federal consumer protection bureau until last year has been supplemented by an average of nearly $142,000 a year she received as a consultant and lecturer.

Throughout the Senate campaign - one of the most closely watched in the country - class has emerged as an important marker of authenticity. For months, Republicans have been calling Warren an “elitist hypocrite.’’ And on Thursday, Democrats swung back, making similar claims about Brown and questioning the everyman image that he has crafted.

But after making their federal and state tax returns available Friday, both candidates brushed aside questions from reporters about their own wealth, insisting that their backgrounds and good fortune inform their politics....

--more--" 

Related: Checking In on the Ma$$achu$ett$ $enate Race 

And the checks keep coming:

"A second committee raises funds for Brown" May 02, 2012|Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

US Senator Scott Brown, who played a critical role in the battle over the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul, has used a joint fund-raising committee to collect $2.9 million in political donations over the last year, nearly half of which came from the nation’s financial sector.

A Globe analysis of the money raised by this joint committee, which was launched without fanfare or publicity in March 2011, indicates that this sector’s deep reservoir of support for the Republican senator extends far beyond the contributions made to his campaign committee.

The Scott Brown Victory Committee, a joint venture between the senator and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, can receive donations of up to $30,800 per donor each election cycle, compared with the $5,000 limit for regular campaign committees....

--more--" 

Also see: Warren ad counters earlier student-debt viewpoint

Scott Brown says daughter insured under health law
 
Warren hits Brown over his use of health law

Warren on the warpath!
 
Brown's staff performs balancing act
 
Brown's attention now angled toward Whole Foods fish policy

Related: Brown Fishing Boat

Made me sick.

Brown’s ‘amazing’ basket came after four missed shots

Who gives a crap about the sports when it comes to elections?  

Yeah, I'm for Brown cuz he shoots hoop.

Democrats Depending on Women to Salvage Senate

"Women Key To Hold On Democratic Senate" May 07, 2012|Bobby Caina Calvan, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON - Democrats, as they aggressively seek to turn women’s concerns into a rallying call of the presidential election, are leaning heavily on female candidates to retain control of the Senate.

From Massachusetts to Hawaii, a record number of Democratic women - six incumbents and at least five challengers - are running for seats this year. That eclipses 1992’s vaunted “Year of the Woman,’’ when 10 women sought entry into the country’s most exclusive political chamber.

The race in Massachusetts pitting Senator Scott Brown, a Republican, against his presumed Democratic opponent, Elizabeth Warren, has captured the most headlines nationwide, but others could be just as crucial for Democrats....

Democrats have the most to lose this fall - because they must defend 23 of the 33 Senate seats up for election. Democrats now rule the Senate by a razor-thin margin, 51-47, with two independents caucusing with the party.

Just months ago, even some Democrats openly worried about holding on to the Senate. But their chances have brightened because of unforeseen challenges within the GOP, including the retirement of Olympia Snowe of Maine. Another potential blow to Republicans could come Tuesday in Indiana if Richard Lugar, a Republican stalwart, loses the GOP primary to a Tea Party movement candidate, providing an unexpected opening for a Democratic challenge. Even Arizona, once considered a solidly Republican state, could now be in play, according to polls showing Richard Carmona, former surgeon general and the presumed Democratic candidate, within strike of his potential GOP opponents for a seat of retiring Republican Senator Jon Kyl....  

There once was a day when I actually felt it mattered which party sat in which chair, but that seems so long ago now.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have been populating the chamber’s calendar with highly choreographed votes on women’s issues, seeking to take advantage of a perceived gender gap and depict Republicans as out of touch.

How does it feel to be a political pawn during the political process only to have your concerns forgotten after the vote, ladies?  When your anger subsides a bit you can come join the rest of the American people in the pool of discontent and disconnect.

Later this month, another partisan Senate debate is expected to erupt, this time over a bill that seeks to address wage gaps between men and women. The chamber’s women will be front and center in that discussion - as they have been during recent flare-ups over birth control, domestic violence, and health care.

“It’s a very cynical and manufactured narrative by national Democrats,’’ said Brian Walsh, communications director for the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, a fund-raising arm. “They have made the political calculation that scaring women is the path to victory in November, rather than running on their record… .

“It’s notable that they’re trying to inject contraception into the national discussion, but they’re not talking about $4 gas prices, 8 percent unemployment,’’ Walsh said.  

He has a point, but somehow the narrative is shifted when Democrats resort to scare tactics. Then it becomes saving us. 

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a screed for Repuglican rule. Ron Paulers are not really welcome, even if we are the majority of the party. My point is that this left-right, Democrat-Republican characterization and paradigm  continues to serve the narratives of those in positions of power and control.

In the presidential race, presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney has his own plan to attract female voters: portray President Obama’s handling of the economy as particularly damaging to women.

All sides agree the economy is the core issue of the election. Yet, in the toss-up races for the Senate, social issues could be pivotal for female candidates....  

That is one thing I'm sick of seeing. Be it race, gender, or sexual preference, those are NOT the ISSUES upon which I WILL BE DECIDING MY VOTE!

--more--"  

I have two conditions for federal office: will the candidate stand up for the American people against Wall Street and AIPAC?

'Roid Raid Wrap-Up

"Police knew suspect was armed before fatal raid in N.H." April 18, 2012|By Sarah Schweitzer

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Police were aware that Cullen Mutrie might be armed and even watching them through surveillance cameras when they stormed his Greenland home Thursday night to search for cocaine and other drugs, according to court documents released Tuesday.

The drug raid, however, quickly erupted into gunfire that left the local police chief dead and four officers injured. Mutrie, 29, later apparently killed his girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts, and then shot himself in the head.

The court documents, including a search warrant application and affidavit, were released at the request of the state attorney general and provide the first details of the events that led to the deadly shooting that has shaken this small town. Burial services for Police Chief Michael Maloney, who was killed just days before he was due to retire, are scheduled Thursday at Winnacunnet High School in nearby Hampton.

A note attached to the warrant application, written by the judge who approved the search, indicated that police sought a no-knock warrant “due to the nature of the contraband sought to be seized, cameras installed around his residence, and possible weapons.’’

The documents also cited a Greenland police officer who told the police chief that a source said Mutrie usually has a firearm with him, under the front seat of his car or strapped to his ankle....

According to the affidavit released yesterday, in February 2011, neighbors complained to police of cars coming and going, which led them to believe Mutrie was dealing drugs out of the house.

In one instance, “they heard Mutrie yell into the phone, ‘How much an ounce.’ ’’ After making this statement, Mutrie looked around and reentered his residence,’’ the affidavit states.

In September of that year, police discovered a “significant number of packages’’ being delivered to the house. The return address listed “Curtis Mutrie’’ of “Lauderdale.’’ “Mailers of controlled substances usually indicate a fictitious return address or name on packages in order to hide their true identity from law enforcement,’’ the affidavit states.

On Jan. 29, 2012, the investigator met with a confidential source who said Mutrie and his girlfriend were dealing upwards of 500 oxycodone pills every few days out of his house.

That week, drug task force agents and detectives used the confidential source to arrange a purchase of 30 milligrams of oxycodone hydrochloride pills from Mutrie and his girlfriend for $250. That same day the confidential source bought the pills from Brittany Tibbetts, the documents said.

On March 27, undercover detectives watched the house and saw cars coming and going. Several cars were registered to people who had been charged with drug transportation or possession....

What remained unclear Tuesday was what went horribly wrong last week....

--more--"   

Related: 

Details of N.H. police chief’s killing emerge

'Roid Raid in New Hampshire

In N.H. town, healing prayers

Slain N.H. chief mourned

Fallen chief mourned as a hero, friend

Marching to a familiar sad refrain 

N.H. trooper praised for rescue of man from burning vehicle in Andover

New Hampshire rattled by period of violence 

N.H. Senate will vote on abortion bills

This Blog Sucks

There really is no way of getting around it if you apply an honest appraisal. The problem is the material with which I have to work. That's one of the many reasons I've been absent from posting. I'm just sick of reading shit. If it is not some deliberately distorted distraction, it is some mind-manipulating piece of agenda-pushing garbage. Topping it off are the subtle elitist insults. I know they are only serving their dwindling share of the supremacist market; however, I'm really sick of the Jewish man's and money junkies view of the world being passed off as news. 

I therefore offer my apologies for failing you, my dear and beloved readers. I simply have been unable to summon up the will and energy during my limited free time to become excited about posting must-know items from my morning Boston Globe.  

Even worse, ever-rising prices have put a strain on my budget to the point where I may have to stop purchasing my morning Boston Globe (gasp)!  It's only anecdotal, of course, but I have noticed myself needing to return to the bank before the next paycheck from my under-employing crap job over lack of funds. What strikes me is that two years ago I was able to live within the budget and even save a little; now I am lucky if the balance isn't dipping each week.  When does one get off the Titanic, anyway? Something needs to be cut from my budget, and it looks the like the old BG is on the chopping block.

Globe on the Rebound

So am I, readers, after having been gone so long.

"Globe’s paid circulation up for first time since 2004; Sunday up 2.5%, daily 2.9%, including digital" by Chris Reidy and D.C. Denison  |  Globe Staff, May 02, 2012

The Boston Globe’s paid circulation has grown for the first time since September 2004, according to an independent auditor of newspaper circulation....

Related:   

Globe Decline a Decade in the Making

The Boston Globe Admits Iraq Lies Killed It

In it's death throes now.

The numbers include print circulation and digital subscriptions to BostonGlobe.com....

“This growth clearly reflects our readers’ dedication to our high-quality and award-winning journalism delivered both in print and across a variety of digital devices,’’ Boston Globe publisher Christopher Mayer said in a statement. “With the largest newsroom in New England, we’re providing the most reliable and in-depth coverage in the region.’’ 

It's really a sad statement when you think about it.

Nationally, average daily newspaper circulation rose by less than 1 percent, while Sunday circulation rose 5 percent, the Chicago-based Audit Bureau said.

Over the past 18 months, the Audit Bureau has made rule changes to address the newspaper industry’s continuing expansion beyond print, including new ways to audit and report digital editions published on websites, tablets, and smartphones. Under the new rules, circulation numbers may include some duplication between print and digital subscribers.  

I guess counting them twice would help the numbers look better. 

Dear world, is there anything that comes from the script-pushing media that isn't a piece of skewed shit? The self-delusion is almost worse than the dividing diversions, omitting obfuscations, and endless agenda-pushing lies.

Tuesday’s report was the first to show year-over-year numbers reflecting the changes.

Average daily circulation at the Boston Herald - which does not have paid digital subscriptions - fell 12.3 percent to 108,548 in the six months ended in March, compared with the same period a year before. The newspaper’s Sunday circulation declined 6.2 percent, to 81,925.

Citing the Herald’s combined print and free online readership, publisher Patrick Purcell said in a statement that the paper “is more popular than ever.’’

********************

“This is not only good news, it’s great news for newspapers,’’ said Lou Ureneck, professor of journalism at Boston University.

By including digital subscribers, he said, circulation figures “better reflect the marketplace reality where readers are being counted, whether they are reading online or in print, and these new metrics are showing a strong demand for journalism in our chaotic information environment.’’  

Oh, yes, the chaotic information environment. Pfffft!

That demand was perhaps best exemplified by The New York Times’s dramatic 73 percent increase in total circulation in the six-month report, fueled in large part by digital gains. The Audit Bureau of Circulations said the Times online now has more subscribers than the newspaper’s print version....

Ureneck said the increases in readership at many newspapers, even as more are charging for online content, “demonstrate that the decision to erect paywalls now seems to have been a wise and a crucial decision.’’

Or that I'm a damn fool for continuing to read the Jewish man's persepective being sold as news.

--more--"   

What they didn't mention was that ad revenues continue to plummet.

Globe Reporter Scored Sox Tickets

Your top investigative story of the day -- above-the-fold.

"Red Sox sellout streak a real numbers game" May 04, 2012|Bob Hohler and Seth Lakso, Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent

At 9:35 p.m. Wednesday, in the seventh inning of a game against the Oakland A’s, the Red Sox cut off ticket sales at Fenway Park with an estimated 300 seats unsold, according to a Globe gate-by-gate review and interviews with team executives.  

I'm wondering when they are going to start poring over the fraudulent foreclosures.

At 10:19 p.m., the Sox announced the game was sold out. Seconds later, they said they had extended their sellout streak to 723 games, the longest in the history of Major League Baseball.

But had Fenway Park really sold out all 37,495 seats?

The answer, it seems, depends on how you define “sellout.’’

In a sequence of events that raised questions about the authenticity of the prized streak, the Sox stopped selling tickets for the game first at the ticket office on Yawkey Way when the game began, then at Gate E an hour later, and finally at Gate A deep into the game, with a sales clerk telling a Globe correspondent at each closing that tickets remained available. 

I stand corrected. This is a compelling piece of journalism. It's just the kind of hard-hitting and inspiring piece of incisive investigative reporting for which I've been waiting.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a sellout as “something for which all tickets are sold.’’

The Sox embrace an alternate definition that permits them to declare a game sold out even if hundreds of tickets go unsold but others are distributed for free.

“I can understand the confusion,’’ said Sam Kennedy, the team’s executive vice president. “But we operate by a definition that is commonly practiced throughout Major League Baseball and professional sports.’’  

We live in a land of lies -- even at the ba$eball park.

************************************

Using their own definition of a sellout, the Sox are closing in on the longest sellout streak in the history of US major league sports - 814 by the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers from 1977 to 1995. The Red Sox are on track to break Portland’s record early next season, despite nights like Wednesday when the temperature was 47 degrees, the climate clammy, and the opposition the weak-hitting A’s.  

I guess this really is an important story that should be investigated -- for history's sake.

Ron Bumgarner, senior vice president of ticketing for the Sox, said it is only nights like those in April and May when “my ulcers flare up’’ over the possibility of the streak ending. He defended the team’s definition of a sellout, saying the Sox need to hold back complimentary seats to accommodate families of teams, players, and umpires, among others.

“No team can ever sell every single seat to every game,’’ Bumgarner said.  

??????

Demand for tickets to Wednesday’s game was so weak that good seats were easy to purchase on the team’s official online sales site, www.redsox.com. Various blocks of 10 adjoining seats - the most a customer can purchase in a single transaction - were available on the site until the Sox ended online sales 2 ½ hours before the game.

At Fenway, a Globe correspondent was assigned to buy the last tickets sold for the game and determine whether additional tickets remained available. He began at the general ticket office on Yawkey Way as the game started at 7:10 p.m. There, he was directed to Gate E on Lansdowne Street, where the Sox make several hundred tickets available on the day of each game.

The correspondent said he wanted to buy as many as six tickets but needed to wait until the last minute to see how many of his friends would arrive. He was the last person to consult the clerk at Gate E before it closed and was told there would still be tickets available at Gate A, which would remain open until the seventh or eighth inning.

At Gate A, he was told sales would end at 9 p.m. At that time, he asked for a pair of tickets and was given adjacent seats in the infield grandstand section 15, row 13. He tried repeatedly to pay, but was told to take the tickets for free.

“We try to take care of our loyal customers,’’ Bumgarner said.

The correspondent saw the window clerk give away four more tickets moments after he received his. He then checked with the clerk just before the booth closed at 9:35 p.m. and was told that tickets remained unsold.

Overall, Sox tickets remain among the hottest in baseball....  

Not for long judging by the pos team being promoted in one of the country's best sports sections. 

--more--" 

Yeah, that's called "investigative" reporting in AmeriKa's journalism circles these days. That and going to a mall or two, or standing out on a street corner and watching traffic. 

Secret Service Stiffed Prostitute

She didn't get paid for services rendered?

"Prostitute calls Secret Service agents ‘fools’" by Frank Bajak and Vivian Sequera  |  Associated Press, May 05, 2012

BOGOTA - A woman who says she was the prostitute who triggered the US Secret Service scandal in Colombia said Friday that the agents involved were “idiots’’ for letting it happen and declared that if she were a spy and sensitive information was available, she could have easily obtained it.

The woman said she spent five hours in a Cartagena hotel room with an agent, and while she barely got cab fare out of him, she could have gotten information that would have compromised the security of President Obama if the agent had any. “Totally,’’ she replied when asked.

“The man slept all night,’’ said the woman, who was identified by her lawyer as Dania Londono Suarez. “If I had wanted to, I could have gone through all his documents, his wallet, his suitcase.’’

She said in the 90-minute interview with Colombia’s W Radio conducted in Spain that no US investigator had been in touch with her, although reporters descended on her home a week after the incident when a taxi driver led them to it.

“They could track me anywhere in the world that I go but they haven’t done so,’’ she said. “If the Secret Service agents were idiots, imagine the investigators.’’

That alarmed a congressman who is monitoring the case.

Representative Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, issued a statement on Friday expressing concern that investigators “have been unable to locate and interview two of the female foreign nationals involved,’’ including Londono.

“I have asked the Secret Service for an explanation of how they have failed to find this woman when the news media seems to have no trouble doing so,’’ King said. 

Do you really need an explanation, Pete?

Eight Secret Service agents have lost their jobs in the scandal, although there is no evidence that any of the 10 women interviewed by US investigators for their roles in it have any connection to terrorist groups, King said earlier this week....

--more--"   

Also see: Prostitution scandal rattles former agents for Secret Service

Related: Sunday Globe Special: A Sexier Secret Service Would Save the President  


Yup.