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Politics

Romney Interview Directly Contradicts His Previous Statements About Bain Tenure

By Igor Volsky on Jul 13, 2012 at 6:54 pm

Mitt Romney told CBS News‘s Jan Crawford Friday evening that he did not attend Bain Capital meetings after he left the company in February of 1999 to run the Winter Olympics. But this answer appears to contradict sworn testimony he delivered in 2002 “as part of a hearing to determine whether he had sufficient residency status in Massachusetts to run for governor”:

– 2002: “[T]here were a number of social trips and business trips that brought me back to Massachusetts, board meetings, Thanksgiving and so forth.”

– 2012: “I was in Salt Lake City for three straight years. I don’t recall even coming back once to go to a Bain or management meeting. We were, I was out there running the Olympics and it was a full time job, I can tell you that.”

“Jan, I had no involvement with the management of Bain Capital after 1999,” Romney insisted on Friday.

Update

The Boston Globe reports “The Romney campaign declined to comment on the record about whether the business trips and board meetings were related to Bain Capital obligations.”

Politics

Romney Demands Obama ‘Apologize’ For Bain Attacks, But Fails To Address Key Questions

By Igor Volsky on Jul 13, 2012 at 6:22 pm

Mitt Romney granted a round of television interviews Friday evening to respond to accusations that he stayed at Bain Capital past February of 1999, just as newly-uncovered Bain company documents from July of that year reveal that the former Massachusetts governor had taken a “part-time leave of absence to head the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee for the 2002 Games,” rather than retiring entirely, as the Romney campaign has insisted. A 1999 Boston Herald article similarly reported that “Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions.”

But Romney disputed these accounts. “It’s ridiculous and below the dignity of the presidency and his campaign,” he said in an interview with Fox News and suggested that the story was meant to distract voters from the economy. The president “ought to apologize for what he’s doing,” Romney told CBS. “If I were president of the United States, I would put a stop to it and apologize to my campaign for what has been done by his,” Romney said on ABC. The candidate also said he would not be releasing additional tax returns, as some have requested.

The rare media tour comes after Security Exchange Commission (SEC) documents showed that Romney remained CEO of Bain Capital until 2002 and thus may have been at least partially responsible for the company’s activities — including major layoffs and investments in companies that shipped jobs overseas — between 1999 and 2002. The Obama campaign has suggested that Romney either lied to the SEC or is now misrepresenting his role with the company to voters.

The president himself turned up the heat during an interview with a local ABC affiliate. “Now, my understanding is that Mr. Romney attested to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does,” Obama said.

In his interview with ABC, Romney also refused to weigh into the controversy surrounding the outsourcing of Olympic uniforms to China. “I’m not going to get into the uniform issue,” he said. “There are big issues associated with the Olympics: the security of the games, the readiness of our athletes and that’s what I’m going to focus on, hopefully when I get to cheer on the people who are going to be supporting and representing our country.”

Health

War On Women: The Impact Of Republican Governors Rejecting Medicaid Expansion

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jul 13, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Medicaid expansion is just the latest battlefield in the Republicans’ ongoing war against women. Republican governors turning down health care funds are making a political statement, but in the process are hurting, not helping, the women their states.

In fact, the two states with the highest number of uninsured women — Florida, where 30.3 percent are uninsured, and Texas, where 26.2 percent are — have been most vocal in opposing the expansion. Here is why turning down the Medicaid expansion is a war on women:

– Women are far more than half of Medicaid recipients. In fact, they make up 68 percent of the programs participants. That’s because women tend to live longer and meet more of the eligibility guidelines (often because they have children):

– Women are more likely to be poor. The Center for American Progress reports, “of the approximately 15 million adults eligible for coverage under the Medicaid expansion, around 10 million of them—or two-thirds of the expanded Medicaid population—are nonelderly women.”

– Women tend to work in industries that don’t offer coverage. Industries that are heavily female include: domestic workers, wait staff, cashiers, and child care workers, all of which tend not to offer health coverage to employees, but which provide a large enough income that those women tend not to be eligible for Medicaid currently.

– Without the expansion, women won’t get prenatal care. The Medicaid expansion requires coverage of prenatal assistance for women up to nearly twice the federal poverty level, 133 percent. Without it, those women won’t be able to get coverage while they’re pregnant.

– Women will not have expanded access to preventative care. Currently, women without coverage don’t seek care that could save their lives, and their dollars, later on down the line. But women who are eligible for Medicaid tend to seek preventative treatment at about the same level as women on private insurance plans:

– Children get won’t healthy parents. Low-income children are already covered under CHIP, but that doesn’t mean their parents are. Eligibility is different for adults and kids. Indeed, twenty four percent of the uninsured are parents of dependent children. Since low-income women, particularly, tend to be single mothers, the expansion means more coverage for more moms whose kids rely on them.

NEWS FLASH

Florida Supreme Court Upholds State’s Controversial Drug Possession Law | On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Florida’s tough drug possession law, ruling that it is constitutional. The law moves the burden of proof from the state to the defendant, so that defendants charged with drug crimes in Florida will now have to prove that they did not know they were carrying an illegal substance. In 48 other states the burden of proof remains on the state. In her ruling last year, U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven disagreed with Florida’s Supreme Court, calling the law “draconian and unreasonable,” and ruling that the law is a significant departure from the notion that defendants are innocent until proven guilty. Because federal district court rulings are not binding on state supreme courts, the final decision on the law’s constitutionality will be left to the U.S. Supreme Court.

–Alex Brown

By Guest Blogger on Jul 13, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Economy

Why Granting Waivers To States Is Not An Attempt To ‘Gut’ Welfare Reform

By Travis Waldron on Jul 13, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Bill Clinton signs welfare reform.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced this week that HHS will grant waivers to states under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) law. The waivers will allow states to experiment in order to improve “welfare to work” programs that help low-income Americans find jobs.

Republicans and the conservative blogosphere have denounced the move, saying it would “gut” the 1996 welfare reform law. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called it a “misdirected” move that decoupled “the linkage of work and welfare” that “is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”

Despite the GOP’s concerns, however, the waiver process will have benefits for a welfare reform law that has struggled to live up to the program that preceded it. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, the waivers and the new requirements would force states to set specific measures that they will have to reach; if they fail, the waiver will be canceled. The waivers will also give the states more flexibility in linking employment and education and tailor ways to better use their limited resources.

Most importantly, CBPP notes, it will increase, not decrease, the focus on employment:

In its waiver announcement, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notes that demonstration projects approved will be “focused on improving employment outcomes” for participants. This is a major step forward. Under the current structure, states can meet their TANF work participation rate – the only measure of state performance – without recipients finding paying jobs. These demonstration projects will help to shift the focus of TANF employment programs from process and “bean counting” (whether recipients participate in programs) to outcomes (whether they actually find and keep jobs).

“This policy is pro-work, and it acknowledges that not all wisdom resides in Washington,” Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. That would seem to be welcome news to Republicans, who have decried federal control of programs like Medicare and Medicaid and attempted to send those programs to the states (the House GOP budget, for example, would block grant Medicaid payments to the states).

Republican support for flexibility, Levin said, appears to extend only to reducing benefits to low-income Americans. “Curiously, some of the same voices that pay lip service to the virtues of state flexibility now appear to oppose providing waivers under the TANF program,” he said. “It turns out that Republican support for state flexibility is a one-way street – they support flexibility when it comes to reducing assistance for needy Americans looking for work, but they oppose giving states greater discretion in helping people find work.”

While Republicans oppose the waivers, states are coming out in favor of them. Even though Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) criticized the waiver plan, the state’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, want to see it implemented. “Utah is especially interested in the development of waiver authority in the TANF grant,” Herbert wrote in a letter to HHS after the decision was announced.

NEWS FLASH

150 Doctors Protest Hospital’s Decision To Stop Offering Abortions | 150 doctors at Abington Memorial Hospital are resisting the hospital’s decision to stop offering abortion services following Abington’s merger with a Catholic hospital. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “Abington said it would defer to the Catholic hospital’s moral teaching against abortion — even though the combined entity opening in 2013 would be a secular, regional health system.” But as the doctors point out, Abington is one of the few institutions in the area that perform abortions, and they worry about leaving women with no viable options for the procedure. “There is strong opposition to having our medical practice dictated by Catholic doctrine rather than our patients’ best interests and standard of care,” a letter released by the doctors reads.

Alyssa

A Tipping Point On Sexism And Video Games

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jul 13, 2012 at 5:06 pm

It’s been a draining week, but I was heartened to see three items come over the wires today. First, James Fudge at GamePolitics, calls out the campaign against Anita Sarkeesian:

Admittedly we missed this story last week, but it’s important to highlight the ridiculous antics of some Neanderthals in the community that are so bent out of shape over a video series that they want to create a digital effigy of someone to abuse. The last time I checked, Canada and the United States were situated in a part of the world where women are equal to men and ideas can be explored without engaging in violence. The part of the gaming community that loathes Anita Sarkeesian needs to call off the Internet holy war it has declared on her for exploring ideas they seem to think are tantamount to blasphemy.

At Forbes, Erik Kain writes about overcoming how flabbergasted he’s been by some of the sexism he’s seen to speak out, and explain why sexism hurts male gamers as well as female ones:

Maybe it’s not my business to comment on what to do about it – girl gamers don’t need White Knights, after all – but I do think men can be useful, and probably necessary, allies. Men and women talking about sexism in gaming culture is an important way to make matters better for everyone involved. I’m including men in this statement because ending sexism in gaming culture is good for men, too. As with any other social setting, things get dreary quickly when it’s all boys. Life is more fun because there are two sexes, and treating people decently opens doors and reduces barriers to entry for everyone. More girl gamers means better, more varied games, and better online social interaction. Not objectifying and vilifying women means you have more actual human beings with whom you can interact, vastly enriching your social experience – and theirs.

And Sam Killermann, founder of Gamers Against Bigotry, an initiative that lets gamers pledge to avoid using slurs in trash talk, tells the Mary Sue about the attitudes he’s changed since he started the campaign:

About a dozen of the pledgees have contacted me saying things like “I never realized doing this actually hurt people,” or “I just thought it was part of the culture, so I played along” and ended their messages with “but I’m going to try to stop now.” And those are just the gamers in those situations who have gone out of their way to get in touch with me. We can safely assume more signed with those sentiments and didn’t let me know (see what I did there?).

I don’t know that sexism in gaming will disappear tomorrow, or within a year—there are powerful economic incentives for it. But over the last couple of months, it’s seemed like we’ve reached an action point, where men who were previously silent or neutral are no longer content to be so, and are working to marginalize the trolls amongst them. The moment when eradicating sexism becomes not a special interest but a shared interest is a powerful one.

NEWS FLASH

More Than 14,000 U.S. Troops Were Wounded In Afghanistan Since 2008 | The Congressional Research Service released a report this week that found that to date, 2,030 Americans have died in Afghanistan and in the broader Operation Enduring Freedom since October, 2001. Nearly 2,700 soldiers were wounded in Afghanistan from 2001 through 2008, while a staggering 14,143 have been wounded since, a period of time that included a substantial troop surge:

Justice

Alabama Judge Rebukes Private Correctional Company For Running ‘Debtors Prison’

By Adam Peck on Jul 13, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Hub Harrington

In 2010, four residents of Harpersville, Alabama filed suit against several local officials and private prison company Judicial Corrections Services, alleging that they were illegally imprisoned in the Shelby County jail.

The charges were alarming: the four inmates claim low income defendants are routinely denied adequate counsel, are not advised on their constitutional rights and — most egregiously — are saddled with outrageously high fines and bond rates that the indigent have no way of paying.

On Wednesday, Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Hub Harrington handed down his decision, and tore into the defendants:

When viewed in a light most favorable to Defendants, their testimony concerning the City’s court system could reasonably be characterized as the operation of a debtors prison. The court notes that these generally fell into disfavor by the early 1800′s, though the practice appears to have remained common place in Harpersville. From a fair reading of the defendants’ testimony one night ascertain that a more apt description of the Harpersville Municipal Court practices is that of a judicially sanctioned extortion racket. Most distressing is that these abuses have been perpetrated by what is supposed to be a court of law. Disgraceful.

Judge Harrington goes on say that defendants appearing before the Harpersville Municipal Court are “subjected to repeated and ongoing violations of almost every safeguard afforded by the Unite[d] States Constitution, the laws of Alabama and the Rules of Criminal Procedure.”

At issue are the fines that JCS is authorized to impose if an individual convicted of a crime is not immediately able to pay the imposed fine. That person is placed on “probation,” and JCS begins to collect an additional $35 fee every day the individual does not pay in full his or her penalty. If the mounting debt is not paid, JCS forwards the case back to the court and the person is imprisoned for “probation violations” with no adjudication.

The ruling, which enjoined the court and JCS from further imprisoning probation violators and added a 30 day grace period for individuals to pay off a court-ordered penalty before JCS begins to charge their $35 fee, highlights yet another problem with states’ growing reliance on private companies to run corrections services.

In Florida, lawmakers who accepted thousands of dollars from private prison companies have passed legislation to expand private prison contracts, in Arizona Governor Jan Brewer accepted more than $60,000 from another private prison company in exchange for favorable legislation, and in Pennsylvania, a judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison after it was revealed he channeled hundreds of young people into privately run juvenile detention facilities in exchange for lofty payouts.

Climate Progress

Most Americans Understand Climate Is Warming And Making Droughts Worse, 77% Say We Should Limit Carbon Pollution

By Joe Romm on Jul 13, 2012 at 4:27 pm

Yet another poll finds Americans do understand the planet is warming and driving more extreme weather. The Washington Post/Stanford University poll conducted in mid-June — before the recent monster heat wave — found 6 in 10 Americans understand that the climate is warming and weather patterns are becoming more unstable. Poll details are here.

A full 77% agree government should “limit the amount of greenhouse gasses that U.S.businesses put out.” This is consistent with other 2012 polls (see “Poll: 75 Percent of Americans Support Regulating CO2 As A Pollutant, 60 Percent Support Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax“). Some 57% “think global warming is causing there to be more droughts,” — an accurate understanding of climate science and real-world observations.

Only 22% believe the warming we have seen is due to “natural causes” while 30% understand it come from “things people do” and 47% say it is both of the reasons “equally.” It’d  be interesting to ask people directly what percentage of recent warming is due to human activity. For the record, It’s “Extremely Likely That at Least 74% of Observed Warming Since 1950″ Was Manmade; It’s Highly Likely All of It Was.

When asked, “If nothing is done to reduce global warming in the future, how serious of a problem do you think it will be for the United States,” 40% said “very serious” and another 38% said “somewhat serious.”

Significantly, only 12% of  respondents said taking steps to address global warming would decrease the quality of their own lives, while 43%  said it would make their lives better. No doubt that’s why so many support strong action.

Related polling posts:

 

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