Romney: ?I love being home, where but the both of us were born. No one asked to see my birth certificate. They know this is where we were born and raised.?

The Obama campaign was immediately flabbergasted that Romney would sink so low, releasing this statement.

?Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them. It?s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney?s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America.?

Greg Sargant of Wapo had strong words for Romney’s behavior:

Of course Romney fully believes Obama was born in the United States. But in a way, that?s the point ? he?s still willing to dabble in birther humor, either to rev up his base by proving that he?s willing to take it to Obama or whatever, or for a cheap laugh, or for some combination of the two.

Maybe this will get chalked up to Romney?s awkwardness and get dismissed, but it looks to me like a major mistake. Coming just after days spent debating Todd Akin?s ?legitimate rape? remark, this is again a reminder of the extreme voices in the GOP, which Romney has at times been slow to denounce. And it seems less than presidential, to put it mildly. The fact that uncomfortably large numbers still believe Obama has perpetrated an elaborate plot to fake his birthplace and ascend to the presidency illegitimately is a pretty damn big deal.(emphasis mine)

Twitchy has a full list of outraged talking heads.

So basically everyone, including Obama, is pretty upset about this incredible affront on Obama’s birth in spite of Romney’s continued and consistent position that he is in fact a citizen born in the United States.

But really, Romney was just following the Obama Campaign’s own instructions as seen on their website store where you can purchase a coffee mug with Obama’s birth certificate printed on the side. Their description makes clear that birther jokes aren’t only ok, they want people telling them.

MADE IN THE USA MUG

There’s really no way to make the conspiracy about President Obama’s birth certificate completely go away, so we might as well laugh at it — and make sure as many people as possible are in on the joke. Get your Obama birth certificate Made in the USA mug today.

Thanks for having a good sense of humor OFA. I’m sure you appreciate Governor Romney playing along with your joke.

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So pleased with Obama is Mrs. Ledbetter, that she decided to rally on his behalf recently in Colorado, along with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Apparently Ledbetter neglected to mention that the same White House she’s rallying on behalf of has its own issues with pay equality. Luckily, Caleb Bonham of Revealing Politics was there to let them know.

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When I found out what Akin had said yesterday, one of the first phrases I heard was “magical uterus” which I’m told began with S.E. Cupp discussing Akin’s colorful way of describing a traumatic miscarriage.  Given my enduring faith that Akin is more of an idiot than an insane person, I still choose to believe he was speaking about the body miscarrying a pregnancy following a violent or traumatic event.  I could be wrong. That said, having had four children with my wife and speaking to doctors about the importance of being cautious and the dangers of miscarriages, it’s a bit jarring to see people running around laughing about magical uteri when, from what I can tell, they don’t have a clue what they are talking about.

Either way it’s irrelevant to what I learned yesterday.

What I learned was about a fracture within the movement that I didn’t know existed.  I got into some vicious arguments on twitter yesterday with people that I’m friends with.  People who came across my twitter feed mistakenly believed that I was defending Akin or that I was defending his comments.  In actuality, it had become abundantly clear to me fairly quickly that aside from Akin’s ridiculous comments, many people were simply offended that he thought rape didn’t justify abortion.  That alone was a ridiculous notion to many.  This was news to me.

One person (incidentally, who disagrees with me) in an email said that we don’t discuss these issues privately enough and as a result “people get the sense that their ideas are much more universally shared than they actually are.”  This is certainly true, we clearly don’t discuss it enough. But my shock at the pushback on rape abortions has nothing to do with how much we discuss it, it has to do with philosophical consistency. To be prolife with exceptions requires you to believe that there are some instances in which a choice must be granted. Whether people like it or not this is simply a more restrictive pro-choice perspective. And yes, I’m aware that offends others.

We as conservatives have always prided ourselves on our ability to objectively look at uncomfortable truths and accept them for what they are. The majority of people who proclaim themselves to be prochoice, have circumstances they believe a person should have a choice and circumstances in which they shouldn’t. This is identical in practice to the “prolife with exceptions” believer with the only differences being which circumstances are permitted.

As Aaron Gardner noted yesterday:

You see, I also believe murder is murder, and parsing and qualifying and slicing up what types of murder we are talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people, and certainly doesn’t make sense to me. The left and President Obama parse, qualify, and slice up what types of abortions are murder and which ones are legitimate ways of relieving a “burden” with nary a peep coming from the media.

The view that Aaron notes is agreed upon throughout the prolife and conservative movement as far as I knew. However, it seems that for many, they believe that all the way to the point that they decide the circumstances warrant changing their mind.

I have stood beside countless conservatives screaming that abortion is baby murder, seen them tweet at planned parenthood or march on the Capitol all in the name of saving the unborn. Saying things about “innocent life,” and “protecting the least among us.” I have yet to have someone adequately explain to me how this changes when the circumstances surrounding the conception are tragic or evil.

I’ve been prolife my whole life and have been in more debates on this topic than I can recount. In my experiences, there are (generally) four kinds of views on abortion that I’ve seen:

1. Fetus is a living human being from conception and therefore must be protected as any other human would be (that’s me).
2. Fetus is not alive until much later in pregancy so early abortions are akin to removing a tumor. (much of the prochoice movement)
3. Fetus is alive the whole pregnancy but that doesn’t mean abortion is wrong. (radical prochoice movement)
4. Fetus is alive the whole pregnancy so we should minimize the necessity of aborting whenever possible. (Many on the right as revealed yesterday)

I had believed that most who called themselves “prolife” fell under category 1 above. If you’re saying abortion is murder and a fetus is an innocent human life, it seems like it would be nonsense to have exceptions, whether it’s rape or incest or whatever. If a fetus is as alive as a 5 year old, then the 5 year old’s rules should apply. And if the fetus is not as alive as a 5 year old then what the hell are we fighting to defend? A lump of cells? I’m still having a hard time accepting it, but the only logical conclusion is that many of our allies believe murdering an innocent life is justifiable if the event is traumatic enough. The fact that I find that appalling will result in countless emails about how I can’t sympathize or understand what it would be like to suffer those circumstances.

They’re right. I can’t. But others can.

Abortion is a choice. The only times that it is not a choice is when the life of the mother is in danger or some other medical emergency. The intellectual cartwheels one must undertake to look at the decision to abort a baby for no reason other than the fact that its existence is not desired and compare it to the tragedy of an eptopic pregnancy, is something I can’t understand and frankly, find deplorable. It’s merely an argumentative excuse to try to group things that are dissimilar.

As to whether or not Akin should stay in, at this point I definitely think he should get out if for no other reason that that I’m now arguing fundamental disagreements with my allies that were completely off the radar two days ago when we should be unified and working towards a successful convention and nomination.

What concerns me, and why I felt the need to post this, is that I see a lot of people latching on to the “magical uterus” part and adding their basic views on abortion as part of what is being disavowed. As though to say “Hey everyone, we totally disavow this Akin guy and everything he said, including that crazy part about being against abortion in cases of rape & incest.” That’s not something I can get behind.

Abortion is a choice. A legal choice. A wrong choice. A Godless choice.

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Here are some selections from the game changing interviews:

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All of these questions are answered at a Madeleine Albright rally in Denver Colorado earlier this week as Caleb Bonham of Revealing Politics hits the street to ask people what their thoughts are on the campaign. Hilarity ensues.

Class warfare seems to be working, at least on the ridiculously uninformed Democrat voters like those in this video.

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It is pretty well established that there is oil in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Arctic. We should drill there until it runs dry and the administration puts forth the appearance that they agree on this point as they have been kind enough to allow additional drilling there. Specifically, they’ve agreed to set up 12 lease auctions in the Gulf and 3 more in the Arctic. Very nice of them but these are known quantities and probably don’t qualify as the savior of energy independence at this point. For that, we’d need to explore new areas. However, true exploration is not on the agenda.

The five-year offshore lease plan focuses on allowing oil and gas development in already-explored areas of the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic, while ruling out lease sales in Atlantic waters, despite pressure from some Virginia officials eager for exploration off state shores.

You would think that with all of the information collected by the Interior Department on these matters that the administration would’ve come to a different conclusion. You would also think that the Interior Department would have collected information. Unfortunately that is not the case, and the Governors of 9 coastal states are not very pleased, sending a letter to the President asking for an explanation for the lack of communication.

…the administration fails to expand adequate access to resource-abundant areas in the Arctic and fails to establish leasing in the Mid- and South-Atlantic. Both of these decisions appear to have been made without proper consultation from the states, as required by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and without sufficient explanation for the reversal in decision from previous plans.

Furthermore, the administration continues to hide behind “studies” to block further drilling in the Arctic. In a sneaky move, the administration put forth the “possibility of 3 auctions for rights to drill in waters near Alaska.” But this does nothing to stop them from shutting down more areas in order to create “study areas.” This is known to most people as “pandering to environmental whackos” and the letter mentions this as well.

In the Arctic, the proposed plan allows for only three lease sales in the Arctic OCS – one in the Chukchi Sea, one in Beaufort Sea, and one in the Cook Inlet – all of which appear to be postponed by one-year from the date proposed in the draft plan. The final plan further removes millions of acres in the Arctic from leasing in order to form “study areas,” raising the likelihood that these Arctic lease sales may never occur. The Department of the Interior did not reach out to the State of Alaska for input on these decisions, as is legally required.

The letter was signed by Govs. Bobby Jindal (Louisiana), Sean Parnell (Alaska), Rick Perry (Texas), Phil Bryant (Mississippi), Robert Bentley (Alabama), Nikki Haley (South Carolina), & Robert McDonnell (Virginia). You know…basically everyone we like. Full text of the letter here.

So, not to beat a drum to death here but let me take this opportunity to point out yet again what is at stake in this election. We’ve already seen the Keystone Pipeline get derailed. We’ve seen the coal industry destroying MACT Rule, we know about the tyrannical EPA and here we have what appears to be, either through malice or incompetence, a framework which ensures that energy independence will remain out of reach for the United States.

We are on a disastrous energy path that must be altered. There is only one way to alter it.

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Either way, it seems that the Agriculture Committee found it too important to America to allow us tone limited to only one gigantic bureaucratic monstrosity regulating catfish. Dammit, we gotta keep on top of these things! The fate of our catfish supply is at stake!

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., proposed an amendment to leave catfish inspection with the FDA saying that USDA inspection was duplicative and threatened a trade war. Hartzler noted that the $15 million price tag far surpassed the $700,000 that FDA spends annually on inspection of all fish.

Yes, fifteen times the cost the FDA is currently spending to do the same thing. This is what Republicans and Democrats agreed was too important to slash from their pork riddled Farm Bill. Meanwhile, even the Senate recognized how silly the duplicative spending would be and voted to repeal the USDA Catfish Inspection Office (I can’t believe I had to type those words) giving the House the chance to finalize the savings. But the House just couldn’t pull it off.

Ideally the authority to inspect catfish is supposed to be transferred as opposed to done simultaneously, however, that law has not been fully implemented and as a result both agencies are still on the job.

Well, on the job might be a bit generous given that some reports are now saying that the USDA has spent $20 million tax payer dollars to inspect zero fish and is on track to spend a jaw dropping $150 million over the next ten years.

If you can handle the catfish jokes, this Fox News report covers it better than I could:

My favorite quote?

We should point out both those lawmakers we mentioned on the House Agriculture Committee suggested that Citizens Against Government Waste were way out of line naming them Porkers of the Month.

They were upset about being called porkers after insisting that the USDA duplicate efforts by the FDA at a cost of $150 million over 10 years while thus far performing none of their duties? It’s like the old saying goes: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Give a man the ability to get paid just to look at fish and he’ll spend all of your money.” Or something like that.

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Each response from the campaign, if they are indeed from the campaign, are fairly benign to Mrs. Palin until Coppins inserts his own opinion.

According to the article, one source said, “Paul Ryan has been a leader on these issues for years. He’s not an unknown quantity. He may bring the same excitement to conservatives… But this wasn’t a base move.” It seems fairly clear that this source is referring to the fact that Sarah Palin was a virtual unknown at the time versus Ryan who has been at the tip of the spear in the battle against White House policy. Not a statement on the virtues of Palin but seemingly a emotionless statement on the celebrity status at the time of introduction. Coppins read it a bit differently.

But aides were quick Saturday to reject the early analysis that choosing Ryan represents a “Sarah Palin pick” for Romney — a high-risk move intended to turn around a flailing campaign by elevating a polarizing politician.

“Polarizing politician” is a stunning description of Sarah Palin considering her 82% approval rating in Alaska at the time not to mention that the “unknown quantity” would probably diminish her ability to have been a “polarizing politician” since, one would assume, people have to know who you are to feel polarized by you. It is difficult to see how Coppins drew this description out of the quote provided by the source, but Coppins wasn’t done yet.

“I do think this is a game-changer,” the adviser said, adding, “I think there’s going to be a whole swath of the Midwest that looks at this bright, young, very energetic guy, and is won over.”

But he said one central difference between Ryan and Palin is that the former will be able to hold his own on policy details.

“Gosh, can you imagine that Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden spouting Mediscare type slogans, and Paul Ryan walking through the numbers?” the adviser said. “The contrast there is going to be astounding.”

There seems to be zero discussion of Palin in this excerpt other than Coppins insertion of her in the article. The contrast mentioned is very clearly directed at Joe Biden, yet Coppins presents it as a comparison of competence between her and Ryan. If any direct comparison between Palin & Ryan were made he seems to have forgotten to include it.

The only quote that could’ve been construed as a slight at Mrs. Palin still stretches interpretation from anyone that claims to be unbiased.

Another senior adviser, commenting on the comparison in an e-mail to BuzzFeed, was more sarcastic: “The number one policy wonk in the country… Sarah Palin…?”

Certainly this could be interpreted as an insult. However, with Sarah Palin as a female governor known for giving fiery speeches and causing explosions of excitement from legions of adoring fans versus Ryan, who is also a hero to the movement, but is mostly known for his methodical dismantling of policy using a devastatingly calm demeanor … I think I might’ve had the same response. They aren’t exactly cut from the same cloth.

But again, Coppins immediately goes to his own opinion of her to define the meaning of the quote.

Indeed, few would accuse Ryan — who has been considered the intellectual leader of Congressional conservatives for years — of being a lightweight. (emphasis mine)

I don’t know if Coppins thinks of himself as an unbiased reporter, or not, but if he does, this article is loaded with hackery. It takes a collection of quotes which were clearly redirecting the interviewer away from questions intended to divide and attempts to cause them to divide anyway.

If there were more damning quotes, I’m certain he would have used them. As it stands Coppins appears to be constructing a narrative that fits his worldview. “I hate Sarah Palin and so should you.”

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My favorite part? When Gibbs was presented with the hypothetical that an ad was over the line by his own standards, he still declined to condemn it. He declined to condemn an ad that didn’t exist! That’s spin folks.

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I wish I was kidding, but this is the newest angle from Obama SuperPAC, Priorities USA.

As Ben Domenech said: “Just as a reminder, people: it’s only August. These ads are going to get worse.”

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Via Revealing Politics:

PERLMUTTER: Affordable Care Act is in place. The Supreme Court approved its terms a couple, three weeks ago. And it will do some things that, in my opinion needed to be done. It will stop the discrimination against people with prior illnesses or injuries, or say some of the folks who were shot in the theater, they would be uninsurable now that they’ve had that wound, but under the affordable care act they can’t be discriminated against starting in 2014.

This is the second time that Rep. Perlmutter has used the events in Colorado to push a political agenda. On July 22nd, just days after the shooting, Perlmutter appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation. After Bob Schieffer brought up the issue of gun control to him, Perlmutter initially played lip service to the idea that now wasn’t the time right before he launched into a tirade about the need to reinstitute the assault weapons ban:

PERLMUTTER: I think this is really a congressional issue that has to be dealt with. You know, should we reinstate the assault weapons ban, I think we should, and I think that’s where it starts. We ought to be taking a look at how this guy was able to accumulate so much ammunition. He had enough ammunition for like a small army! This is, there’s something wrong about that.

Perlmutter’s willingness to politicize the tragic deaths of 13 people is a disgrace. I would call on him to apologize but I’m really not in the mood to hear another “I’m sorry if my words offended anyone who may have misunderstood me” apologies. So instead I’m going to donate $20 to the victims of the shooting and encourage you to do the same.

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His previous investigation into For-Profit schools resulted in error-ridden reports & accusations of witness tampering. Much of the controversy surrounding that investigation still leaves ample doubt that Harkin is capable of providing an objective assessment of for-profit education.

To start with, Harkin had commissioned a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which was ultimately determined to be riddled with errors and was an embarrassment to the department. An internal email was acquired which accused Harkin of pressuring the GAO with “extreme short time frames” which ultimately led to numerous errors in the report.

A smoking gun document about an error-ridden GAO report puts the murder weapon in a top Democratic senator’s hands. GAO issued a slew of corrections in November to an undercover investigation into for-profit colleges requested by Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who had unveiled the report at a hearing highly critical of the schools Aug. 4. The email says GAO was put under “extreme short time frames” by Harkin to issue the report and “congressional staffers” demanded the inclusion of numerous details as it was being finalized.

The GAO report (released in the summer of 2010) was highly critical of for-profit education accusing universities of engaging in “fraudulent recruiting practices.” Once it came to light that Harkin’s office may have put pressure on the GAO to guide them into reporting what Harkin wanted them to, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-Calif) started an investigation into what had happened. This investigation resulted in 16 changes to the 28 key investigative “scenarios” which had led to the reports conclusions. To put it in perspective as to how big of a deal this was at the time, the issuance of a revised GAO report, the Coalition for Educational Success reports that “out of over 1,000 reports issued in the past year only 16 were later revised.” Of course, none of the other reports seem to have had the accusation of Senatorial influence over the report’s conclusions.

But the controversy doesn’t end there. Harkin was also accusing of meeting with special interests what had a financial stake in the outcome of the investigation and that they colluded in witness tampering:

Top aides to Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin collaborated with a special interest group and a law firm with a financial stake in the matter to edit the written and oral testimony of a witness at a key investigative hearing last year, documents obtained by The Daily Caller show.

Officials from The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) and the James, Hoyer, Newcomer & Smiljanich law firm edited Josh Pruyn’s testimony for a pivotal Aug. 4, 2010 hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), as did Harkin aides. (emphasis mine)

One hedge fund short seller, Steve Eisman, had meetings with Senior Department of Education (DOE) officials two months prior to the first batch of regulations targeting for-profit colleges.

On April 26, 2010, Steven Eisman, famed short-seller, met secretly with two senior DOE officials, Deputy Undersecretary of DOE Robert Shireman and Acting Deputy Assistant for Policy and Budget, David Bergeron. Less than two months later, the Department issued its first batch of regulations targeting only for-profit colleges…

Why is that important? Well after giving numerous speeches comparing for-profit colleges to the subprime mortgage industry as well as meeting with Sen. Harkin’s staff and officials at the DOE, Eisman casually revealed that he was short selling private education stocks.

This is a lot of information so let me summarize. Sen. Tom Harkin commissioned a GAO report to use in an investigation of for-profit education. He subsequently used his staff to apply pressure to the GAO which ultimately resulted in a report that was highly critical of for-profit education (going so far as to accuse them of fraudulent practices) and the report was eventually determined to be covered with errors.

After the investigation, Darrell Issa of California did his own bit of investigating and discovered that Harkin’s top aides along with a special interest group that had a financial stake in the outcome of the education investigation, had tampered with witness testimony and edited it for their benefit.

Additionally, it was discovered that hedge fund manager Steve Eisman, who acknowledged that he was short selling education stock and thus had a financial interest in the outcome of the investigation, had consulted with the DOE and Harkin’s offices on the issue of for-profit education and in short order the DOE had issued new regulations on for-profit education.

And after all of this mess and scandal, the same man, Senator Tom Harkin, is set to release his new report on for-profit educational institutions.

His timing on this is not an accident. We are amidst what many have referred to as a “student loan bubble.” Graduates are having trouble finding jobs, debt is weighing on the mind of students, and overall it is not a great time for college education.

In short, the entire college education sector is facing a mountain of problems. No doubt Harkin’s report will glaze over this fact and again attempt to point the finger only at the for-profit portion of that sector.

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Put simply, the farm bill is an anathema to free enterprise, limited government, and individual responsibility. The House version (H.R. 6083) authorizes $957 billion in spending over 10 years, 80% of which will go towards food stamps. Despite erroneous claims in the media regarding severe cuts to food stamps, this bill actually consummates the Obama-era baseline into our entitlement empire forever.

Nothing too shocking. I believe at this point we’re all used to seeing billions and trillions tossed around and given out like we’re printing the stuff. With all that money going around, it’s sometimes hard to remember that these bills are made up of thousands of pork projects and new bureaucracies with price tags that fall well below the cumulative numbers but still represent a shocking aversion to fiscal restraint.

It’s easy to guffaw at $14 million in waste when we are running a $1.7 trillion deficit, but let’s not forget our collective (and appropriate) outrage at NPR funding which by many accounts, receives less than $4 million per year directly from the government.

But $14 million is precisely what will continue to be wasted after the House Agriculture Committee approved the Farm Bill while rejecting an amendment by Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) which would have streamlined catfish inspections (yes, catfish inspections) and save taxpayers millions.

Unbelievably enough, the farm bill believes that the FDA, which already inspects catfish, needs helps from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) because, I can only assume, catfish have been sneaking into our country illegally.

Either way, it seems that the Agriculture Committee found it too important to America to allow us tone limited to only one gigantic bureaucratic monstrosity regulating catfish. Dammit, we gotta keep on top of these things! The fate of our catfish supply is at stake!

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., proposed an amendment to leave catfish inspection with the FDA saying that USDA inspection was duplicative and threatened a trade war. Hartzler noted that the $15 million price tag far surpassed the $700,000 that FDA spends annually on inspection of all fish.

Yes, fifteen times the cost the FDA is currently spending to do the same thing. This is what Republicans and Democrats agreed was too important to slash from their pork riddled Farm Bill. Meanwhile, even the Senate recognized how silly the duplicative spending would be and voted to repeal the USDA Catfish Inspection Office (I can’t believe I had to type those words) giving the House the chance to finalize the savings. But the House just couldn’t pull it off.

All this for a low risk food, one which the Government Accountability Office (GAO) flatly acknowledged would likely “not enhance the safety of catfish but would duplicate FDA and NMFS inspections at a cost to taxpayers.”

$14 million is enough money to pay off my house and let me live comfortably for the rest of my life. $14 million is enough to feed thousands and thousands of families that need help. It’s enough to fix roads, fund schools, or refund money to taxpayers.

Yet for all the talk about changing how Washington works and getting our fiscal house in order, the amendment was defeated 25-20 and the monstrous Farm Bill was overwhelmingly passed. Both parties joined in on the spending spree.

I think we need to start fishing for legislators in another pond.

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We can groan, eye-roll and mock Mr. Bloomberg all we want, of course, but the sad fact is that he has allies. And they’re not just your average nanny-loving American liberals. They include some people with substantially more influence, who work for powerful international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO).

Meet Dr. Margaret Chan. She is the WHO crusader helping to push Bloomberg-esque efforts to stop you doing bad things to yourself because if a UN subsidiary doesn’t know what’s best for you then who does? Honestly, they deserve to have more influence over domestic policy choices that are normally reserved for the citizens of a sovereign nation. And if they get to extract some funding for the WHO’s efforts at the same time, then that’s just icing on the cake, right?

In May of this year, the World Health Assembly met and, in addition to apparently concluding that universal health coverage is a must (lucky for them, we’re well on our way), it also decided to develop a “global monitoring framework for the prevention and control of NCDs” (non-communicable diseases), “including indicators and a set of global targets.” What are “non-communicable diseases,” you ask? How about obesity, and illnesses caused/exacerbated by it (heart disease, diabetes)?

The assembly also “discussed ways… to reduce exposure to risk factors for NCDs, mainly tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity” (emphasis mine). In other words, they are trying to figure out how to regulate your bad habits because your bad habits cost the world money since the world decided they are responsible for you. This is Nanny 101.

So, it’s not just your federal, state and/or local government and Nanny-in-Chief Bloomberg who are trying to make you stop drinking Big Gulps; the WHO wants you to consume less soda (and french fries, and ice cream), too.

The WHO is also pushing for a global tobacco tax, you’ll be shocked to learn:

Currently the WHO is pushing for increased excise taxes on cigarettes, but with an important condition that they get a slice of the added revenue. The so-called Solidarity Tobacco Contribution would provide billions of dollars to the WHO, but with no ability for taxpayers or national governments to monitor how the money is spent.

And Dr. Chan has been using her position to push individual countries to increase tobacco tax rates, too.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called for more taxes on Wednesday after awarding Health Minister Chen Zhu a certificate in recognition of his efforts to combat smoking.

“There is still plenty of room for China to raise its tobacco tax and the government should take more action regarding this to help curb smoking,” she told China Daily.

[…]

“Every time I have come to China and had the opportunity of speaking to Chinese leaders, I encouraged them to raise tobacco tax,” she added.

New York likes its cigarette taxes, just like the WHO apparently does; currently, the tax on a pack of cigarettes in Nanny-in-Chief Bloomberg’s fiefdom runs at over $6 per pack.

But New York’s experience should point to one problem with the WHO scheme: The higher taxes on cigarettes go, the more smuggling of cigarettes and tax evasion becomes a problem (see stories like this and this, for example). As usual this presents the contradiction that nanny-staters love to ignore: if programs are funded by a tax on bad behavior, and the tax exists to stop that bad behavior, what happens to programs funded if people actually stop with the bad behavior? The usual answer? SQUIRREL!

Of course, the WHO’s efforts here also risk undermining nations’ sovereignty and handing taxing authority over to a subsidiary of an organization not exactly known for its accountability. If the WHO gets away with these things, it also sets a bad precedent for future efforts of this nature. In 2010, the WHO was considering pursuing a global tax on things like online bill-paying and a financial transaction tax. A global carbon tax was also proposed at a 2007 UN Climate Conference.

After hearing about all these taxes I really need a drink, but I’m too lazy to fill out the triplicate health form required to receive an alcohol consumption license.

Former D.C. Schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has started an organization called Students First which is pushing for education reform that does more than simply concede all ground to powerful unions. In fact, this isn’t her first foray into the battle against the special interests that control so much of our children’s future.

In 2010 she gained the ire of unions for doing the unthinkable: firing people.

“I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school. Why wouldn’t we take those things into consideration?” she said.

As a father of four children I applaud this effort and encourage everyone to read more about them. Here’s a video they’ve just released about the organization.

It’s a funny ad to be sure, but education reform is a deadly serious and critically important topic. I am so incredibly tired of the first consideration in government and in voting to be the size of the teacher’s benefits package. And this is coming from the son of two teachers.

It’s very important for us to support groups like this, please visit their website.

Her racial tirade was in response to comments made by Mitt Romney when he was interviewed on the same shows a few weeks prior. In that interview, Romney concluded that President Obama having never held a job in the private sector causes him to be ill-equipped to deal with the current economic conditions.

At first she addresses the issue on its merits saying that lack of private sector experience did not mean he was incapable of doing his job. However, she quickly moved into the old standby “he just doesn’t like black people” to explain Romney’s comments.

The reverse psychology is stunningly obvious. Claiming that Romney is only appealing to a “fringe” group of racists is actually her way of appealing to a fringe group that sees everything through the prism of racism.

So who cares what a State Senator from Virginia has to say about this? Well, when they’re an official part of the campaign I think we all should. Unfortunately, this story seems to have fallen through the cracks especially (and understandably) in light of the awful events in Colorado.

But now I think it is appropriate for President Obama to address this issue. Considering that Mitt Romney has at times been called on to condemn comments made by random audience members, President Obama should be called on to disavow this type of rhetoric from people within his own campaign.

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TRANSCRIPT:

SENATOR LUCAS: What I am saying to you is Mitt Romney, he’s speaking to a segment of the population, who does not like to see people other than a White man in a White House or any other elected position.

Let’s be real clear about it… let’s be real clear Mitt Romney is speaking to a group of people out there who don’t like folks like Barack Obama in any elected or leadership position. We know what’s going on here and some people may be afraid to say it but I am not. I am not afraid to say it.

He’s speaking to that fringe out there who do not want to see anybody other than a white person in a leadership position. Senator Miller said it before she died and I agreed with her. They don’t want President Barack Obama in office as President and for all the reasons that you and I and alot of other people understand.

HOST: Do you really believe now that this all about race?

LUCAS: I absolutely believe it’s all about race and for the first time I’ve convinced my children finally that racism is alive and well.

HOST: Even in Virginia?

LUCAS: In Virginia how about all across this nation. And especially in Virginia!

HOST: So, do you think race as this campaign goes on through this summer…

LUCAS: We need to have this discussion because it has not become addressed appropriately. And we do need to have that discussion. And I know that there are people who are cringing in their seats because they don’t want to hear it but it’s time that we face the reality that we need to have a national discussion on racial issues

HOST: State Senator, in your view, how do you think the race issue then will be addressed now?

LUCAS: I don’t believe the President can lead this discussion because it would be precieved in a way that would not be beneficial to him because the Republicans will try to make habit but there needs to be some kind of forum to deal with these issues.

All the folks who are saying ‘We don’t like Barack Obama’ they can’t tell you any reason they don’t because President Obama did not create the situation they have, this economic mess we are in, everybody knows this stuff happened under George Bush and they are trying to dump it on the President.

And intelligent people understand that President Barack Obama did not create this mess. And the mess that was created could not be solved in 2 or 3 or 4 years. Intellgent people understand that. But Mitt Romney will go out and play to the fringe and try to play to the fringe by saying it’s all Barack Obama’s fault.

How Romney’s taxes were filed …

… or how your tax money was spent?

Decide which one has a greater effect on your life and vote accordingly.

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For some reason, BMG & YouTube weren’t concerned about this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one and this one or dozens of others.

As a test, I uploaded the song to YouTube in its entirety. YouTube has standard practices and arrangements in place to allow some music to be uploaded without repercussion. As you can see, my video (at least at the time of this posting) is intact.

Almost immediately (as I expected) I received this email:

Dear benhoweblog,

Your video “Al Green Lets Stay Together”, may have content that is owned or licensed by Demon Music and Shock Entertainment Pty, but it’s still available on YouTube! In some cases, ads may appear next to it.

This claim is not penalizing your account status. Visit your Copyright Notice page for more details on the policy applied to your video.

Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team

So if the song is allowed, what’s the problem? The problem could be the political persuasion of the account holder. Pulling a video for reasons other than copyright (while claiming copyright) is a technique that is often employed to remove something embarrassing for long enough to destroy any buzz around it. I know because it has happened to me. Twice.

The first time was with my video, “The Socialist” which was a parody of the trailer for “The Social Network.” The second was for my video “Chevy Volt: Building a Better Tomorrow“, which parodied a real commercial from GM about the volt. In both cases I won. And in both cases they were pulled right as they were about to go to the next level of viral. How do I know that’s where they were going? Well in the case of “The Socialist” it had been linked at just about every website imaginable when it was pulled and with my Volt spot it was shown on The O’Reilly factor an hour before it was pulled. The claimants likely knew that I would win but simply wished to prevent the video from going any farther.

Meanwhile, this spot which parodies Eminem at Romney’s expense, was never pulled and is enjoying 3.7 million views last I checked.

In all likelihood the copyright claim will be removed from the Romney campaign’s video, but by then the damage will have been done. I had just under 400k views on my Volt video when it went up on the O’Reilly factor and was subsequently pulled. 20 days later (yes, 20) it went back up. It’s still sitting at just under 400k views. That’s because buzz has an attention span of just about zero and the people that claim copyrights for reasons other than copyright, know this.

Are BMG and Youtube playing politics? Your guess is as good as mine. Google (owner of YouTube) on the other hand had so many results at Open Secrets that it couldn’t display them all. That means that, in addition to Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, being a former campaign advisor to President Obama, there are literally thousands of donors at the Google offices sending money to the Obama campaign.

Furthermore, in 2011 the NRSC was denied access to a new advertising and data collection technology that Google allowed the Obama campaign to use:

The new ad program would charge clients for every email address (or other piece of user data) they collect. The program is attractive to campaigns eager for that information, so when a staffer at the National Republican Senatorial Committee saw what appeared to be an Obama ad built on this technology on the RealClearPolitics website last month, she emailed a Google sales rep to ask about creating a similar ad campaign for Republicans. The saleswoman, Sirene Abou-Chakra, replied by suggesting that Obama had a special deal. “This is a pre-alpha product that is being released to a select few clients,” she wrote in an email, referring to the first stage of a product’s roll-out. “I’d be happy to get you into the beta if you’re interested.”

I looked into BMG donations and found nothing. Matt Lewis at the Daily Caller found something quite interesting however:

Perhaps ironically, BMG and Crown/Random House (which published both of Obama’s books, his campaign plan, and Michelle Obama’s new book) are — despite Obama’s concerns about “outsourcing” — all owned by German conglomerate Bertlesmann AG, which bills itself as “the world’s most international media company.”

So it is interesting that the company that pulled down Romney’s web ad shares a German parent company with Obama’s publisher.

According to their Wikipedia entry, “During World War II, Bertelsmann was the biggest single producer of Nazi propaganda.” The BBC reports that “German media giant Bertelsmann has admitted it lied about its Nazi past and that it made big profits during Adolf Hitler’s reign in Germany using Jewish slave labour.”

Crown/Random House does good work, and nobody should blame Obama for making millions off of his writing. But just imagine what they would be saying if Romney’s turnaround book had been published by a multinational conglomerate with ties to Nazi propaganda.

In the end I suppose it won’t matter. BMG will admit they were wrong. YouTube will inform the Romney team that there are no copyright strikes against their account. The video will go back up. And by then, no one will notice.

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“The flawed Citizens United decision allows corporations, including international corporations, to use their vast wealth to drown out the voices of the American people…” (“Senators Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Clean Up Campaign Finance System,” Sheldon Whitehouse, 11/1/11)

“We must ensure that government works for the American people, not powerful corporations. The constitutional amendment we are introducing today will undo the Citizens United decision, putting people in charge as the Founders of our country intended.” (“Senators Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Clean Up Campaign Finance System,” Sheldon Whitehouse, 11/1/11)

“The extent to which money and corporations have taken over the [campaign] process is reflected across our cities in the Occupy movement,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), another co-sponsor. “It is something we have to do something about if we are going to reclaim American democracy as the shining light to other countries that it has always been.” (“Citizens United Going Down? Democrats Introduce Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Ruling,” Huffington Post, 11/1/11)

“The American people are making it clear that they’re fed up with a system that gives special treatment to special interests while middle-class families suffer.” (“Whitehouse: Let’s Shine a Light on Big Money in Politics,” Roll Call, 3/26/12)

“But as this election year marches on, with unprecedented spending by super PACs and other supposedly independent Big Money groups, it’s becoming clear that restoring fairness requires fixing our campaign finance system.” (“Whitehouse: Let’s Shine a Light on Big Money in Politics,” Roll Call, 3/26/12)

So when the big vote to end all this money in politics came about where was Sheldon Whitehouse? At a fundraiser event held by a 501(c)3 nonprofit which is not required to disclose donors and would even have been exempt from doing so had the DISCLOSE bill passed.

Whitehouse’s office said there’s nothing to see here:

Whitehouse was not raising money for his campaign this evening … He briefly stepped away from the Senate floor to drop by an event benefitting the Alliance for Health Reform, a non-profit, nonpartisan health policy organization.

It’s amusing how special interest groups like the Alliance for Health Reform, a group that supports Obamacare, somehow avoids the ire of Whitehouse and is described as nothing more than a “non-profit, nonpartisan health policy organization.” The only difference between Alliance and any organization that is targeted by Whitehouse, is that he agrees with their mission.

Of course he has another motive as well. It’s not protecting the people from the special interests. It’s protecting the legislators from the people.

During last night’s debate, Center for American Progress tweeted a quote from Whitehouse that was likely paraphrased from this interview with Sam Seder at Netroots Nation:

Under Citizens United, groups can threaten legislators with misleading, nasty, negative, anonymous ads.

Ultimately, the goal of people like Whitehouse, who is running for re-election against GOP Candidate, Barry Hinckley, is to silence his opponents, exempt his allies from scrutiny, and ensure that the people are prevented from holding him accountable.

Defeating the DISCLOSE Act yesterday goes a long way towards preventing that.

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David Brock was smoking a cigarette on the roof of his Washington, D.C. office one day in the late fall of 2010 when his assistant and two bodyguards suddenly appeared and whisked him and his colleague Eric Burns down the stairs.

Brock, the head of the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America, had told friends and co-workers that he feared he was in imminent danger from right-wing assassins and needed a security team to keep him safe.

The threat he faced while smoking on his roof? “Snipers,” a former co-worker recalled.

“He had more security than a Third World dictator,” one employee said, explaining that Brock’s bodyguards would rarely leave his side, even accompanying him to his home in an affluent Washington neighborhood each night where they “stood post” to protect him. “What movement leader has a detail?” asked someone who saw it.

When Brock isn’t meeting cloaked men at park benches and cooing into the dark to give the “all clear”, he’s running yet another Soros-funded group known as American Bridge. American Bridge is a Super PAC (which in this instance must not be the worst type of organization in history as the left usually labels SuperPACs) and currently employs roughly 17 campaign trackers as of May 2012 and were expected to hire at least 5 more in June.

There’s been a lot of hubbub in the news lately about trackers. The DCCC actually appears to be working to cover up the embarrassing way in which some trackers are doing their jobs from stalking candidate homes to catching Romney in his Mucaca moment when he uttered the offensive word “y’all“.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with campaign trackers. Sending people out to campaigns armed with cameras to catch candidates slipping up is a practice which I wholeheartedly support as YouTube is quickly becoming the single greatest source for opposition research. But it is a bit amusing that Brock would so readily employ people to stalk candidates considering the shadows he undoubtedly runs screaming from on a daily basis.

So how creepy are the tactics being employed by some trackers that American Bridge readily acknowledges they are following?

Trackers assigned to California GOP candidate Ricky Gill, a highly touted challenger to Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, pushed the edge of the envelope even further.

In May, a clip of Gill’s parents’ Lodi, Calif., mansion appeared online. The one-minute video shows the front of the huge home, a gated fence and vast front yard. The next month brought a three-minute video that begins by slowly passing by Gill’s home, with a cameraman overheard saying, “This is the house that he’s been registered to vote in since 2005.”

About one minute in, the video shifts to the University of California-Berkeley, campus, where the 25-year-old Gill recently finished studying law. The tracker waits in a hallway where Gill soon appears. As the candidate walks outside, the tracker follows in clandestine pursuit.

[...]

“I think your family or your personal life should be off-limits unless it enters the campaign,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci, who said a neighbor informed him that a tracker had been crouching in the bushes taking footage of the first-term congressman’s home. “It’s hard for my neighbors or my family to get comfortable when someone is in the bushes.”

His Wadsworth, Ohio, home is the subject of a 49-second video, which pans from a view of the mailbox on the left side of the house to the shrubbery on the right and then back and forth several times before cutting off.

As Moe noted, this is with the endorsement of the Democrat party:

“Democrats, on the other hand, insist the videos are fair game — and are unapologetic about the hardball tactics.” The videos are apparently being sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (at least, that’s how I’m interpreting DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson’s defiant defense of the practice); certainly there seems to be a common format, and it’s been done in multiple locations at this point. Which basically means that the DCCC is out and out stalking the Republican party.

You’d think that a man heading up an organization which decries SuperPACS, even as he simultaneously heads an organization that enjoys that tax status, would be noteworthy when discussing the activities of that organization. You might also think that that same man hiding in bunkers and ducking from imaginary sniper fire while simultaneously employing dozens of people to follow others around for over a year, might be noteworthy when writing about what those trackers are doing. If you’re a national media outlet like Politico, you’d disagree with these conclusions as even with all of that background data, they don’t mention at all who is behind the “recently surfaced” videos showing trackers going a bit farther than the normal campaign tracking.

Because why would anyone care about an Obama-connected, paranoid, delusional, Soros-funded, crazy person filming candidates at their houses and sending the videos to the Democrat party when there’s Romney’s departure from a company 13 years ago to consider? Priorities people!

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