The Malaisey Days Of Summer

post from Firedoglake on 06 July 2012 08:00:01 PM. © Firedoglake

The only thing slower than a July 4th week with the 4th plopped right in the middle is the Friday of that week. We're not into the dog days of summer quite yet, but from a political/snark blogging perspective ... we're soaking in them.Try as they might,[...]

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Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY!

post from Daily Kos on 06 July 2012 07:31:09 PM. © Daily Kos

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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE?

Late Night Snark: John Roberts and the Supremes Edition

"In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled President Obama's healthcare mandate is constitutional. This is a major victory for President Obama, who spent three years promoting it, and a major setback for Mitt Romney, who spent three years creating it."
---Jay Leno
-
"For several minutes after the ruling, CNN was mistakenly reporting that the Supreme Court struck down President Obama?s healthcare law. In response CNN was like, 'Thank god no one watches us.'"
---Jimmy Fallon
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"This activist ruling opens the floodgates, folks! If Obama can force you to get health insurance just by calling it a tax, then there is nothing to stop him from making you gay marry an illegal immigrant wearing a condom in a hydroponic pot farm powered by solar energy! And you know his buddy Roberts will make it all good by calling it a 'homomexual marijuana love-glove sun tax!'"
---Stephen Colbert
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"In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said he's just gonna refuse to implement Obamacare. So if you need an operation in Louisiana you'll have to pay for it the old-fashioned way: stand on a balcony, flash your tits and hope someone throws you money."
---Bill Maher
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"Mitt Romney wants to prove he's regular guy, so he went someplace and he ordered a bucket of pheasant McNuggets."
---David Letterman

And from November, 2010 on HBO's Real Time:

"Bush and I were published on the same day. My book was called I Remember Nothing, and his could be, too."
---Nora Ephron

Weird week. Felt like Monday, Friday, Sunday, Monday, Friday. Only in America.

Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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and-Coke-FRIDAY

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McCotter Defenestrates

post from Talking Points Memo on 06 July 2012 07:00:33 PM. © Talking Points Memo

This is called going out with a bang. On the other hand, a Rep. who announces his resignation with a Dylan quote must be doing something right. PS. This one's really kind of a must-read. [...]

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Greece Drops Plan to Renegotiate Bailout Terms

post from Firedoglake on 06 July 2012 07:00:14 PM. © Firedoglake

The way the Greek election worked is that Syriza, the far-left party, said they would completely renegotiate the bailout terms that forced austerity on the country. New Democracy, the center-right legacy party that was part of the grand coalition that[...]

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Is the US government reading your email without a
warrant

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 06 July 2012 07:00:13 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

The ACLU is trying to find out and the deadline for providing a response is quickly approaching. During the Bush years, many suspected that it was a Republican obsession with hating privacy but sadly it's a political class and government problem and likely a lot more widespread than any of us would like.ACLU lawyer Catherine Crump, who ran the cellphone location data investigation, is at it...

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g-your-email.html

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Former President George W. Bush Breaks From His
Party’s ‘War On Women,’ Advocates For Women’s Health Abroad

post from ThinkProgress on 06 July 2012 07:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Since leaving the White House, former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush have pursued humanitarian work abroad in an area that has become particularly contentious for Republicans at home: women’s health. The Bushes recently opened a women’s health clinic in Zambia, a country that has the second highest rate of cervical cancer in the world.

The former president made a push for bipartisan initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS during his time in office. In the years since, he has raised over $85 million for cervical cancer programs. Bush explains his commitment to women’s health in moral terms:

BUSH: We care because we believe that to whom much is given, much is required. And those of us, who live in America, live in the most blessed nation ever and therefore when we see suffering, we ought to act. But the saddest thing of all is to know a lady’s life has been saved from AIDS but died from cervical cancer. And so starting in Zambia, the Bush Center, along with our partners, are going to put on a cervical cancer crusade to save lives.

However, this position is a departure from the one that has recently been advanced by the rest of the Republican Party. Rather than ensuring that women’s preventive care is fully funded across the country because of the moral imperative to “save lives,” as Bush puts it, GOP lawmakers have focused on partisan divides on abortion services and austerity policies.

Republican legislatures have repeatedly moved to defund Planned Parenthood based on concerns about the abortion services that it provides — despite the fact that the organization operates about 800 health centers across the country that provide nearly 770,000 Pap tests and nearly 750,000 breast exams each year, both critical preventative services to detect cancer. Earlier this year, Republicans also proposed a plan to avoid an increase in student loan interest rates by taking money from a preventative health care fund that largely benefits women’s health.

There is much more work to be done to bolster global health, but supporting preventive services for women — rather than cutting funds for women’s health issues across the board, as many Republicans in this country have elected to do — is a good start.

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Duke Energy CEO To Receive $44 Million Payout
Despite Resigning On His First Day

post from ThinkProgress on 06 July 2012 07:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Hours after new Duke Energy CEO Bill Johnson assumed his new position following the Duke/Progress Energy merger this week, he resigned his post. But Johnson is can still qualify for up to $44.4 million for his time and effort:

Despite his short-lived tenure, Mr. Johnson will receive exit payments worth as much as $44.4 million, according to Duke. That includes $7.4 million in severance, a nearly $1.4 million cash bonus, a special lump-sum payment worth up to $1.5 million and accelerated vesting of his stock awards, according to a Duke regulatory filing Tuesday night. Mr. Johnson gets the lump-sum payment as long as he cooperates with Duke and doesn?t disparage his former employer, the filing said.
Under his exit package, Mr. Johnson also will receive approximately $30,000 to reimburse him for relocation expenses.

The Duke board voted for Johnson’s resignation, and since Johnson was eligible for severance if he quit for “good reason,” he is able to collect his $44 million. Grist calculates that Johnson’s pay package comes out to $5.5 million per hour, if he actually put in a full 8-hour day.

Johnson’s golden parachute after his one day of work is emblematic of the disconnect between worker pay and CEO pay that has occurred over the last few decades. Average CEO pay is now 380 times the pay of the average worker, and CEO pay has grown 127 times faster than worker pay over the last 30 years.

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Chuck Todd Badgers Stephanie Cutter About Bain
Capital Ads

Chuck Todd Badgers Stephanie Cutter About Bain Capital Ads

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I caught this segment with MSNBC's Chuck Todd this Thursday morning and almost thought I was listening to a segment on Fox, because they've generally been the ones pushing this Washington Post story and carrying water for the Romney campaign, pretending that he wasn't still at the helm at Bain while they were shipping jobs overseas.

Karoli already broke this down for us here: Romney's Desperate Need for Counterspin Captures FactCheck.org. Never mind as Karoli explained in her post, and Stephanie Cutter in the clip above, that there is ample evidence that Mitt Romney was still at Bain Capital and the ads the Obama campaign has been running are factual -- Chuck Todd was going to badger her about whether or not they should be taking the ads down or not.

And there is absolutely no comparison between the two campaigns when it comes to the amount of lying they've been doing. As Blue Texan reminded us this week in his post on Ann Romney carping about negative campaigning, Steve Benen has been attempting to keep track of Romney's lies, and the list is so long it makes your head hurt. The latest edition is here: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXIV.

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Nows Your Chance to Pick up a 10% and 12%
Dividend Yield for a Dirt-Cheap Price

The debt crisis in Europe is dominating the headlines this summer, roiling the world financial markets and keeping investors in a perpetual state of fear. The news focuses mainly on a handful of . . . → Read More: Now’s Your Chance to Pick up a 10% and 12% Dividend Yield for a Dirt-Cheap Price

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ield-for-a-dirt-cheap-price/

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July 6: Obama Forecast Falls Slightly After Jobs
News

President Obama's chances of winning the Electoral College declined to 66.9 percent from 68.3 percent as a result of the mediocre jobs report and the attendant decline in the stock market.

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