Im Expecting Big Things from This Portfolio
Holding

post from Jutia Group on 18 January 2012 01:00:00 PM. © Jutia Group

The stock market is surely unpredictable. My prediction that LED lighting manufacturer Cree Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE), one of the stocks in my $100,000 real-money portfolio, would meet or exceed fiscal second-quarter estimates, turned out to be off the mark. The company trailed both top and bottom line forecasts, and issued fairly tepid third-quarter guidance to boot. Still, shares are up more than 4% in today's trading as investors are (correctly) focusing on the bright long-term view.

An update on my $100,000 Real-Money Portfolio holdings… Now that two of my $100,000 real-money portfolio holdings, Alcoa (NYSE: AA) and Cree, have both reported, I look forward to hear what Zoltek (Nasdaq: ZOLT) has to say when the company releases fourth-quarter results . . . → Read More: I’m Expecting Big Things from This Portfolio Holding

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South Carolina evangelicals say Mitt Romney is
not homophobic enough

post from Daily Kos on 18 January 2012 12:58:13 PM. © Daily Kos

Thou shalt have an inexplicable, illogical fear of homosexuals, but in a sane and healthy way.
And also, thou shouldn't think very highly of Mormons either.In some parts of the world?the parts that live in the 21st century?being homophobic isn't exactly something to brag about.

But for evangelicals in South Carolina, which is apparently stuck somewhere in the about-to-discover-fire age, not only are they proud of their homophobia?and yes, that's the word they use?but they're calling on Mitt Romney to stop being such a homo-lover and embrace the hate.

Via TPM, check out this emailed press release from Rev. Huey Mills, pastor of Fellowship Bible Church, denouncing Romney's "homophilia":

"In obedience to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, most South Carolinans and I have a sane and healthy homophobia, while Mitt Romney has a very bad case of homophilia; the man very clearly endorses dangerous, unhealthy homosexual conduct. Romney actually proclaimed gay youth pride days as governor of Massachusetts."

This is how backward-thinking (yes, I use "thinking" quite loosely here) these Bible-thumpers are. They think their homophobia is "sane and healthy." Let's just have a quick review of what a phobia is:

PHOBIA: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation

So, for those who need it spelled out for them (like, say, Rev. Mills and "most South Carolinans"), homophobia is an "illogical" fear of homosexuals and cannot, by definition, be sane or healthy.

But it gets ~~better~~ worse:

The Word of Almighty God, from the Books of Moses to those of the Apostle Paul, commands faithful Jews and Christians to be homophobic.

Um, no. Look, I may not have read the entire Bible, but I've seen Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments, and I'm pretty certain those tablets God gave to Moses did not include: Thou shalt have an inexplicable, illogical fear of homosexuals, but in a sane and healthy way.

The good reverend goes on to rehash some stuff the rest of us already know about Mitt Romney's position on gay rights back in the '90s because apparently, he's just discovered that Mitt's a flip-flopper on gay rights issues (and everything else). And he offers this wise and Christian conclusion:

That Yankee is hopelessly left-wing on homosexuality.

Of course, what the reverend is really suggesting is that the "Yankee" isn't a real Christian because of that whole Mormon thing, which he never explicitly says because apparently, you can blatantly trash homosexuals, but it's impolite to blatantly trash Mormons, but that's why God and Moses invented dog whistles. A Mormon could not possibly understand that the "Judeo-Christian Scriptures" (read: not that magic underwear-wearing Joseph Smith work of fiction) command all "faithful Jews and Christians" (read: not ~~Mormons~~ "Yankees") to be homophobic. Praise the lord.

So, which Republican presidential candidate is suitably homophobic and Scripture-reading for the God-fearing homophobes of South Carolina?

Because Rick Santorum was willing to sign this wonderful Iowa [marriage] vow last summer while Romney was calling for more gay hiring and other silly liberal things that Massachusetts RINOs embrace, I'd say Senator Santorum has proven himself a courageous Catholic Christian whom any Bible-believing Jew, Protestant or evangelical can support.

Of course. Rick Santorum: first choice of proud "sane and healthy" homophobes.

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licals-say-Mitt-Romney-is-not-homophobic-enough

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Concerned About SOPABut Leaving Some Lights On

post from Texas Liberal on 18 January 2012 12:55:42 PM. © Texas Liberal

As varying alliances of corporations fight over the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act, I’m not going to black out Texas Liberal today. This is a different approach from my comrade Perry Dorrell who has blacked out his blog Brains & Eggs out of concern for the effects of this legislation. While I have no trust [...]

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http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/concerned-about-sopa-but-leaving-som
e-lights-on/

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Resistance is Not Futile

post from The American Prospect on 18 January 2012 12:53:52 PM. © The American Prospect

Slideshow

Resistance is not Futile

Slideshow: The grassroots movement against the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Protesters across the country mobilized against plans to build the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Texas. Critics of the project argued that the dirty tar sands oil transported in the pipeline would devastate the ecosystems and water supplies of the communities along the route. Meanwhile proponents, including congressional Republicans, said the project would create jobs. In December of 2011, the Republican Congress approved a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance with a provision that President Obama make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline within two months. Obama was expected to make an announcement rejecting the project January 18.

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http://prospect.org/article/resistance-not-futile

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Resistance Is Not Futile

post from The American Prospect on 18 January 2012 12:53:52 PM. © The American Prospect

The grassroots movement against the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Protesters across the country mobilized against plans to build the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Texas. Critics of the project argued that the dirty tar sands oil transported in the pipeline would devastate the ecosystems and water supplies of the communities along the route. Meanwhile proponents, including congressional Republicans, said the project would create jobs. In December of 2011, the Republican Congress approved a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance with a provision that President Obama make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline within two months. Obama was expected to make an announcement rejecting the project January 18.

Slideshow

Resistance is not Futile

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http://prospect.org/article/resistance-not-futile

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State Department Plans Rejection of Keystone XL
Pipeline Permit

post from Firedoglake on 18 January 2012 12:45:35 PM. © Firedoglake

Before Congress even passed its two-month stopgap payroll tax/UI legislation, the State Department had a warning. The bill included a mandate that the Administration give an up-or-down approval or rejection on a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline within[...]

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Two Credit Card Companies I Got My Eye On

post from Jutia Group on 18 January 2012 12:38:21 PM. © Jutia Group

While the markets have spent the last several months focused on the macro economic issues of Europe, this week brings a slew of earnings. And even in macro-economic dominated periods like the one we’re in now, paying attention to what’s going on at the corporate level can still give you good insight into the health and direction of the economy.

One thing in particular that I’ll be watching this week from financial stocks as they report is commentary on loan growth demand, especially from the largest banks.

That’s because, as I have long said, one of the issues the economy has wrestled with since the crisis of ’08, and that was recently improving, was the unwillingness of . . . → Read More: Two Credit Card Companies I Got My Eye On

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Headlines you won't see in 2012: 'Income tax
returns for last 12 years revealed by Romney'

Release every income tax return for the past 12 years? Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney won't do it. But his dad did:

In 1967, George Romney released his previous 12 tax returns (h/t: Jake Tapper)
Not only was George Romney the first candidate ever to make such a sweeping commitment to transparency, he explicitly rejected the idea of releasing just one year of returns?as Mitt Romney plans to do. From the article:

George Harris, Look senior editor, said he had "badgered" the governor for his latest income tax form but Romney balked because "one year could be a flue, perhaps done for show..."
"Stumped by this argument, I was not prepared for the move that it eventually led him to make: He ordered up all the Form 1040s that he and Mrs. Romney had filed over the past 12 years?including those profitable ones when he saved the American Motors Corporation from bankruptcy and became a millionaire on the company's stock options."
Harris said the Romneys had given away 23 per cent of their income since 1955?$560,608.17 to the church and $115,205.90 in other tax-deductible contributions.

Mitt Romney says he has nothing to hide. Instead of asking us to take his word, he should prove it, and follow the example not just of President Obama (who has released every return since 2000), but also his father.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/hT-yJ4Gq5xs/-Headlines-you-wont-se
e-in-2012:-Income-tax-returns-for-last-12-years-revealed-by-Romney

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Another Insider Declares White House Made Deal to
Stop Public Option

As I wrote earlier, the public option fight changed the progressive movement. You had a popular, compromise measure that the public supported, where advocates did everything right, and none of it mattered. Now, the head of HCAN, the labor-backed[...]

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Food-Stamp President

So it turns out that I can still be shocked by public discourse. Yes, South Carolina is famous for primaries with dirty tricks and low blows; one almost looks forward to it, wondering what they'll do this time around. But my jaw dropped when Newt Gingrich called Barack Obama the "food-stamp president." Wait?is that a dog whistle I hear? I'm not always fond of Chris Matthews, but he sure did nail it: Everyone can hear the whistle now, not just the Southern racists of yore. We know the connections being made about race, laziness, welfare queens, and all the rest. And it's shocking to hear it out loud.

Over the weekend, Lee Siegel published an essay in The New York Times positing that Romney is, essentially, running as white?whiter than white, really, as white as you can get, free of Catholicism, cosmopolitanism, zealotry, adultery, or any other pollutant:

Of course, I?m not talking about a strict count of melanin density. I?m referring to the countless subtle and not-so-subtle ways he telegraphs to a certain type of voter that he is the cultural alternative to America?s first black president. It is a whiteness grounded in a retro vision of the country, one of white picket fences and stay-at-home moms and fathers unashamed of working hard for corporate America....
Contrast that with Mr. Romney?s meticulously cultivated whiteness. He is nearly always in immaculate white shirt sleeves. He is implacably polite, tossing off phrases like ?oh gosh? with Stepford bonhomie. He has mastered Benjamin Franklin?s honesty as the ?best policy?: a practiced insincerity, an instant sunniness that, though evidently inauthentic, provides a bland bass note that keeps everyone calm. This is the bygone world of Babbitt, of small-town Rotarians.

I'm not sure I agree with Siegel that that's culturally coded as "white"; it strikes me as retro rather than racial, although of course in that retro world, "the races" knew their separate places. But hers is an interesting thesis.

There's really no escaping race in this country, as I've discussed here several times before. I've long been interested in how Obama has presented himself as both black and not-black, culturally fluent in Kansas neighborliness but with an African American wife. Knowing that he couldn't escape race, he used it to signal change. That confused many progressives during the 2008 election, leading many to overlook his moderate campaign positions and to imagine that he offered something further left than he was saying out loud. The progressive dream of inspiration and change was a mirror image of how his blackness outraged many on the far right, who imagined him as more culturally foreign than he actually was, insisting that he was literally foreign-born and (sin of sins) Muslim.

What gives me hope is the overwhelming revulsion that Gingrich's comment has garnered. We all heard what he was saying. And it's not going to be enough to let him win.

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/food-stamp-president

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