Month: January 2012

Jamelle Bouie decodes Republican politics in South Carolina. One reason Romney has a shot:

[Y]ou could be forgiven for thinking that South Carolina’s voters are inclined to support the most reactionary Republicans, especially when the stakes are a presidential nomination. But you would be wrong. In the four presidential cycles where there has been a contested primary in South Carolina—1988, 1996, 2000, and 2008—voters have chosen the establishment candidate who went on to win the nomination: George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain.

Brian Abrams has mixed feelings about this supercut:

It's pretty impressive just how many Hollywood productions have paid tribute to Robert Duvall's one-liner from "Apocalypse Now" — especially those on the Disney Channel. They know it's in reference to a chemical that killed and disfigured thousands of innocent people, right? Probably not the best time to mention it.

A new study confirms that losing a loved one increases the risk of a heart attack: 

[The study] found that a person’s heart attack risk is 21 times higher than normal the day after a loved one dies. Over time the risk of an attack declines, but it remains elevated within that first month. In the first week after a loved one’s death, for example, the risk was six times higher than normal, said Elizabeth Mostofsky, the lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral research fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “If a bereaved person is having symptoms like chest pain, they shouldn’t simply say, ‘Oh, I’m dealing with the stress right now’ and ignore it,” she said. Other studies have uncovered greater heart and mortality risks in the weeks and months after the loss of a spouse, a child or another loved one, but the new study is the first systematic look at the immediate effect.

[Reposted from earlier yesterday.]

I just watched the Bain documentary featured below and being broadcast throughout South Carolina by Newt Gingrich's SuperPac in full. It's loaded with out-of-context quotes and heavily biased; it focuses on the specific human suffering of the necessary "creative destruction" of capitalism not its general benefits to the economy. It does so through the voices and stories of ordinary Americans. And, as an emotional bludgeon, it's devastating.

But what makes it so dangerous to Romney, it seems to me, is that the Bain Brahmin didn't just fire thousands of working class people in restructuring and in closing companies. He made a fucking unimaginable fortune doing it. That's the issue. Other Republicans can speak about the need for free markets in a sluggish economy. But with Romney, we have a singular example of someone who made a quarter of a billion dollars by firing the white middle and working class in droves in ways that do not seem designed to promote growth or efficiency, but merely to enrich Bain.

Here's the New York Post, for Pete's sake, making the case last year against the shifty Wall Street games of Bain:

Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, bought companies and often increased short-term earnings so those businesses could then borrow enormous amounts of money. That borrowed money was used to pay Bain dividends. Then those businesses needed to maintain that high level of earnings to pay their debts…

* Bain in 1988 put $5 million down to buy Stage Stores, and in the mid-'90s took it public, collecting $100 million from stock offerings. Stage filed for bankruptcy in 2000.

* Bain in 1992 bought American Pad & Paper (AMPAD), investing $5 million, and collected $100 million from dividends. The business filed for bankruptcy in 2000.

* Bain in 1993 invested $60 million when buying GS Industries, and received $65 million from dividends. GS filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

* Bain in 1997 invested $46 million when buying Details, and made $93 million from stock offerings. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

Romney's Bain invested 22 percent of the money it raised from 1987-95 in these five businesses, making a $578 million profit.

Some of the associations in the ad are unfair – but they will resonate emotionally. Many, many people in, say, South Carolina, have lost jobs. That's rough enough. But if Romney comes across as the man who made a fortune off this kind of Wall Street maneuvering, he becomes a symbol and a focus for all the roiling populist discontent out there. When he is responsible for someone losing her house, the contrast with his multiple mansions and private beach gets a little de trop. One ad with one victim could be poison.

Of all the jobs he liquidated, moreover, many are in the American heartland. And his response to the people in this documentary – white working class heartland Americans, the GOP base – is that they are merely envious of his achievements. They don't come off that way in the ad. They come off as bewildered, betrayed and sure that Romney's goal in all this was merely, solely to make money for himself – the kind of money that most Americans cannot even compute.

I simply cannot imagine a worse narrative for a candidate in this climate; or a politician whose skills are singularly incapable of responding to the story in any persuasive way. This ad is powerful. Romney has already seen a drop in South Carolina. I suspect he'll drop some more. And I suspect once the potency of this line of attack is absorbed by the GOP establishment, there will be some full, if concealed, panic.

Today on the Dish, Andrew blasted the NYT public editor's cluelessness, fingered Israel for the bomb in Iran, expressed remorse over the outburst of excitement at the man's death, found a money connection between Newt and Netanyahu, warned Ron Paul against endorsing Mitt, looked at the wide-open South Carolina polls, marveled at Palin's economic populism on Bain, watched the video that might kill Romney (especially when the Dems amplify its message), thought the defense of Mitt was emotional weak sauce, and forcefully defended (with reader backup) that his primary candidacy was, in fact, killable on Bain grounds. We found his "envy" line on the 1% daft, surveyed his weakness with conservative opinion leaders (except the flip-flopping McCain), saw Romney's ideological "flexibility" becoming a general election vulnerability, and cautioned that Obama's reelection was hardly inevitable. Romney voted "present" on the drug war, the GOP's Hispanic problem wasn't going away, and a reader deepened the conversation about campaign signs.

The Arab Spring threw America a reputational lifeline, some Iranians outside the regime supported the nuclear program, Iraq was OK on its own, and Bashar al-Assad idiotically compared himself to Darth Vader. American soldiers violated Taliban corpses, most of our planes became drones, the war on terror ended, conservatives had reason to cut defense, and our torturers were compared to the Inquisition. The debate on conservatism and fracking continued, Krauthammer had a moment of honesty about Obama, Grover had a sordid affair, and the free ponies promise was a fascist Trojan Horse.

The meat industry was brutally abusive and, as a consequence, Americans ate less of it. We aired a number of reader views on AP credits and white male pop, smart people weren't more likely to be uggers, people misunderstood hackers, and Jimmy Kimmel explained how marriage equality would kill us all. MHB here, FOTD here, VFYW here, and AAA here. 

– Z.B.

A reader alerts us:

My girlfriend knows Vermin Supreme from Burning Man or some other hippy freak show.  She explained to me the sinister reason for the free pony to all Americans policy.  Yes, you get a free pony. However, it is a personal identification pony.  You must have it with you at all times, even if you are just running to the CVS on the corner and even if it is dead.  If you are found without your pony, you are presumed to not be a US citizen and therefore in the country illegally.  You will be deported if discovered without your pony or pony corpse.  

Please do not be fooled by Vermin Supreme's free pony policy.  It is an evil, fascist trap.

Benjy Sarlin suspects that the Democrats' Bain onslaught will be more potent than the attacks we are seeing now:

Once Democrats decide its time to make their ultimate Bain push, they’ll have the resources to flood the zone with TV spots, direct mail (likely referencing Bain layoffs in targeted swing states), and a small army of Democratic lawmakers and operatives reinforcing the story 24/7 on cable news. Think 2004, when the entire GOP apparatus (including, awkwardly, Mitt Romney) worked in unison to drive home the John Kerry "flip flopper" meme.

The Syrian government, somewhat amusingly, has made an ostensibly pro-Assad video clip that uses the famous Imperial March (the bad guy theme from Star Wars) as a soundtrack. Julien Barnes-Dacy worries Assad's got a better chance at survival than the Emperor:

If Assad is indeed maintaining a certain confidence, this is likely to derive as much as anything from the facts on the ground. While the regime is facing an unprecedented challenge and despite the steady drumbeat of opposition activities for ten months now — including an increase in the number of daily protest over recent weeks (perhaps a positive side-effect of the much-maligned Arab League observer mission) — the balance of power on the ground has not fundamentally shifted in the opposition's favor. Most pointedly, despite growing defections among army conscripts and the burgeoning emergence of the Free Syria Army (FSA), there have been next to no defections among the regime's inner core or the key security apparatuses upon which it depends. Much of the population, despite likely sympathy with opposition aims, has remained on the sidelines; meanwhile, the political opposition continues to squabble among itself, weakening its ability to project credible leadership.

Human rights group Avaaz has an absolutely horrifying report [pdf] on the torture Assad routinely uses to project his own form of "credible leadership." The violence is pushing Arab League monitors to the breaking point, and Robert Danin thinks their report won't be whitewashed. Paul J. Bonicelli thinks Assad is desperate, not strong:

He now faces an uprising that has lasted months and is being led by mutinous soldiers with weapons and thousands of angry citizens who have built up 40 years of hate and desire for revenge against a regime formed by a religious minority. His neighbors no longer acquiesce in the regime's cruelty, and the once complacent Arab League has been moved because of the Arab Spring to act for the good of Arabs instead of simply for Arab leaders.

Rania Abouzeid is scared desperate intensification of the violence will lead to civil war. These students have taken over a street in Dariya, Damascus:

This is clear evidence of the torture Avaaz reported on:

Here's a cartoon from Ali Ferzat, the prominent cartoonist whose hands had been broken in an attempt to silence is pen:

Finally, here's a musical protest in Homs:

A woman peddles a cartoon of balloons along a street in Beijing on January 12, 2012. China's consumer prices rose at their slowest pace in more than a year in December, official data showed, giving Beijing leeway to further ease credit restrictions to spur economic growth. By Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images.

Kevin Drum believes Obama's reelection is anything but certain:

As near as I can tell, it's nearly unanimous conventional wisdom that this is going to be a very close race despite the fact that the Republican field is weak. Hell, Intrade has only intermittently put Obama's chances over 60% for the past year, and he's barely been better than an even bet for the past six months.

Jonathan Bernstein thinks it's too early to tell because the economy could improve or deteriorate:

[S]aying the chances are 50/50 now isn't at all the same thing as saying that it will therefore be a close race in November. From the point of view of observers, that means that we really don't know yet whether the election will be close enough that electioneering (including the strengths and weaknesses of the out-party nominee) will be important to the outcome.

For my part, I don't know. But what I've done is collect my thoughts on why Obama should be re-elected. Handsomely. The essay will be in next week's Newsweek.