Arkansas Study Shows State Benefit from Medicaid
Expansion; Conservatives Will Distort It

post from Firedoglake on 18 July 2012 04:45:52 PM. © Firedoglake

Arkansas, led by popular Democratic Governor Mike Beebe, has done a cost analysis of the Medicaid expansion, finding that it would save the state $372 million. The state could face slightly higher costs in the out years. But will conservative governors[...]

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Christie reported to be GOP keynote speaker

post from DemConWatch on 18 July 2012 04:42:40 PM. © DemConWatch

A consolation prize for likely not getting the VP nod:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will deliver the keynote address at next month's Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL.
NBC News' Jamie Gangel reported Wednesday that Christie would be afforded the plum speaking slot at the convention, a gig that sometimes serves as a launching pad for political figures with ambitions of higher office.
The selection of Christie, though, would seem to suggest that Christie is not likely the choice by Mitt Romney to serve as the GOP's vice presidential nominee. Typically, the keynote speaker is separate from the vice presidential nominee, who, like the presidential nominee, speaks on separate nights. - NBCNews

As we'll be told numerous times from now until the convention, Obama used the '04 keynote as a springboard to the presidency four years later.

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eynote-speaker

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Adelson Threatens To Sue Democrats For Tying Him
To Casino Prostitution

post from TPMMuckraker on 18 July 2012 04:16:33 PM. © TPMMuckraker

Billionaire Mitt Romney supporter Sheldon Adelson has threatened to sue a Democratic organization for libel for blog posts about allegations he personally authorized prostitution in one of his overseas casinos.

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Why is the Romney campaign acting crazy

post from Daily Kos on 18 July 2012 04:11:52 PM. © Daily Kos

Conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart speaks at a news conference prior to U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) in New York, June 6, 2011. Romney's campaign channels Andrew Breitbart. (Reuters)This ...

One in four self-identified Republicans has an unfavorable view of how Mitt Romney is running his campaign, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll [...]
There?s also an enthusiasm gap for Romney in the data. While 51 percent of liberal Democrats feel strongly favorably toward Obama?s campaign, just 31 percent of conservative Republicans feel the same about Romney?s bid.

... is the reason the Romney campaign has clearly outsourced its strategy to the Breitbart crowd.

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Democrats Join Bid to Provide Safe Harbor For
Mortgage Brokers

post from Firedoglake on 18 July 2012 04:10:43 PM. © Firedoglake

A group of House Republicans and Democrats, 108 strong, have expressed in a letter that the new rules on "qualified residential mortgages," among the first on the industry for CFPB, should include a "safe harbor" provision that would shield mortgage[...]

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Mitt Romney says entrepreneurs need government to
start businesses

post from Daily Kos on 18 July 2012 04:06:35 PM. © Daily Kos

Imagine if President Obama said this:

There are a lot of people in government who help us and allow us to have an economy that works and allow entrepenuers and business leaders of various kinds to start businesses and create jobs. We all recognize that. That's an important thing.

Or if he said this:

I know that you recognize that a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the banks, the investors. There's no question your mom and dad. Your school teachers. The people that provide roads, the fire, and the police. A lot of people help.

Republicans would go nuts, right? Fox would go on a 72 hour nonstop bender on the evils of Obama's socialism. Rupert Murdoch would be tweeting in fear from the safety of Dick Cheney's bunker.

But those aren't President Obama's words. They're Mitt Romney's. And they aren't from a few weeks ago or a few months ago or a few years ago. He said them today, and he said them while falsely accusing the president of having said that "if you've got a business, you didn't build that." President Obama said no such thing. His actual words:

Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you?ve got a business?you didn?t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

So "that" was "roads and bridges." Not your business. The larger point he was making, in his own words:

When we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

Things like investing in roads and bridges, creating fire departments and police forces, and having public schools. In other words, the exact same things that Mitt Romney talked about today. But don't expect President Obama to demand an apology from Romney for stealing his words. After all, there's still that whole Obamneycare thing they need to work out.

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Romney Agrees With Obama: Government Does
‘Help You In A Business’

post from ThinkProgress on 18 July 2012 04:00:05 PM. © ThinkProgress

The Romney campaign and conservative bloggers have been feasting on a selectively-edited quote from President Obama to argue that he believes that the government, not business owners, are responsible for the success of their enterprises. Though Obama’s comment — ?if you?ve got a business, you didn?t build that. Somebody else did that” — accurately observed that businesses large and small rely on public infrastructure funded by taxpayer dollars, Republicans have used the statement to reinforce their ‘Obama hates businesses’ narrative.

But during a campaign appearance in Ohio on Wednesday, Mitt Romney misquoted Obama, before agreeing that tax payer-funded programs help all American businesses succeed:

ROMNEY: I know that you recognize a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the bank, the investors. There is no question your mom and dad, your school teachers. The people who provide roads, the fire, the police. A lot of people help. But let me ask you this. Did you build your business? If you did, raise your hand. Take that Mr. President! This is what’s happening in this country. These people are entrepreneurs.

Watch it:

Romney has proposed deep reductions in government spending and has even said that the nation must “cut back” on firemen, policemen and teachers.

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Rights Groups Sue Top U.S. Officials Over
Killings Of Americans In Yemen

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a suit on Wednesday on behalf of survivors of Americans killed in Yemen by U.S. counter-terror attacks. “The killings violated fundamental rights afforded to all U.S. citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law” as enshrined in the Fifth Amendment, alleged the suit. At issue are the deaths of alleged terrorists Anwar Awlaki, Abdulrahman Awlaki, and Samir Khan. The suit names as defendants Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, C.I.A. chief Gen. David Petraeus, special operations head Admiral William McRaven, and Joint Special Operations Command head Lt. Gen. Joseph Votel.

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Republican Congressman Gloats About Bill To
Enable Animal Torture

Representative Steve King (R-IA), who is the sponsor of an amendment to the House Farm Bill that is both astonishingly hypocritical and devastating to food safety laws that protect millions of Americans from illness, recently gave an interview to the Daily Caller to brag about what he had accomplished. The King Amendment would essentially prevent states from developing strong independent health, safety, and cruelty standards, even if local voters want them.

This isn’t an unintended consequence — King told the Daily Caller that his amendment “fixes the states and their political subdivisions regulating food production everywhere in America.” However, King might want to reconsider that position, as his amendment would legalize some of several horrific farming and food practices that some states have chosen to do away with:

Florida, Ohio, and seven other states have banned confining pregnant pigs in cages that prevent them from moving their limbs or walking in a circle. Pigs confined in so-called gestation crates are forced to defecate where they stand, exposed to serious risk of traumatic injury as a consequence of immobility, and develop sores as a consequence of attempting to move against or bite the bars the bars that confine them. They live their whole lives like this.
Seven states have banned similar confinement for baby calves. So-called veal creates are designed to atrophy muscles to improve the taste of meat, creating what the ASPCA calls “lives of agony and frustration” for the cows until they are slaughtered at four or five months.
Three states have banned tail-docking, wherein parts of cows tails are lopped off, occasionally without anesthetic. The American Veterinary Medical Association opposes tail docking as unnecessary and highly painful.
Maryland prohibits adding arsenic to chicken feed, which – besides the obvious problems – also spreads the poison into the surrounding soil.

King, thought, brags that his legislation “wipes out everything they?ve [animal rights advocates] done with pork and veal.” Indeed, King has a long record of opposing animal welfare legislation — he has, for example, been Congress’ leading advocate against anti-dogfighting legislation. He also believes that the Humane Society and other animal rights advocates are attempting to ban “production agriculture” and has fantasized about exposing vegetarians with “an agenda for our diets” on the House floor.

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Prominent Evangelical College Joins Lawsuit
Against Contraception Mandate

Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical university, joined several Catholic institutions in filing lawsuits against the Obamacare provision that requires employer-based insurers to cover birth control. However, Wheaton has chosen to pile onto the effort to brand the contraception mandate as an “attack on religious liberty” at an inopportune time. Yesterday, a federal judge dismissed a similar lawsuit against the ACA’s birth control provision on the grounds that religious groups are not being forced to violate their conscience, citing the facts that there is a clear exemption for religiously affiliated institutions and the regulation won’t go into effect until 2013 anyway.

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oins-lawsuit/

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