interesting things
I haven’t been following the Doug Whitman case that closely but I got the vague impression that he wasn’t that guilty. Like, he did his research and thought it was his job to dig up information about public companies, he sought “color†rather than clearly-material hard numbers from executives, and he thought that when insider-trading-trial-Zelig…
Tags: Doug Whitman, insider-trading, Roomy Khan
The U.S. Postal Service didn’t do itself any favors with Homer and the rest of the Simpsons — less than a third of the 1 billion stamps created to commemorate the cartoon family have been sold.
via L.A. Times – Entertainment News http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-mo-usps-simpsons-stamps-20120821,0,6040883.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fentertainment+%28Entertainment+News%29
Like many people, I have a number of thoughts and questions related to the blowup over GOP Rep. Todd Akin’s outrageous remarks recently about rape and abortion and women. Let me first say that if I was a Missouri voter, I would likely vote for a third-party candidate or write in someone else in November.
A throng of Republican leaders have called on Akin to resign his nomination so he can be replaced. As of Tuesday evening, Akin has refused. Why should he resign? Did he do something illegal or unethical? His cardinal sin to most of the Republicans calling on him to drop his bid was that he was honest and stupid and said out loud what he believes, thus endangering the GOP’s prospects of picking up the Missouri Senate seat. So the pursuit of political power is paramount in this equation.
But where were these same Republican leaders in 2008 when Sarah Palin created the same scenario with her outrageous comments? I didn’t see any of them asking John McCain to drop her from the ticket. There were no calls for her to be replaced on the ballot.
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/common-sense/let-s-not-block-akin-s-bid-let-s-fix-the-system-20120821
Social conservative Bryan Fischer says the person who’s really being raped is Todd Akin.
via Talking Points Memo http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/whos_really_being_raped.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Talking-Points-Memo+%28Talking+Points+Memo%3A+by+Joshua+Micah+Marshall%29
Dr. Jack Willke, a longtime leader of the antiabortion movement and the leading proponent of the theory that pregnancy resulting from rape is rare, served as a Mitt Romney surrogate in 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Romney has distanced himself from the Missouri Republican Senate nominee, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., for repeating the theory — which conflicts with scientific evidence — that women’s bodies reject pregnancies following rape, which conflicts with scientific evidence. Romney called for Akin to end his campaign. Akin has apologized for using the phrase “legitimate rape” and acknowledged that rape can lead to pregnancy, but he has refused to drop out of the race.
In an October 2007 statement, Romney said, “I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country,” after Willkes endorsed him for the Republican nomination, the Times reported.
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/progenitor-of-akin-rape-theory-was-2007-romney-surrogate-20120821
IAC has joined Answers.com in bidding for About.com, an online resources site.
via NYT > Television http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/iac-said-to-make-offer-for-timess-about-com/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Peter Thiel, Facebook’s earliest investor and a board member, has sold the majority of his shares in the social network, as restrictions on insider selling of the stock begin to lift.
via WSJ.com: What's News US http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443713704577601832028619176.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
President Obama has significantly less money on hand than Mitt Romney as he heads into the presidential race’s home stretch, according to documents filed on Monday with the Federal Election Commission. It’s the latest evidence that the president will have to overcome a possibly enormous financial disadvantage to win reelection.
Obama for America, the Obama Victory Fund, and the Democratic National Committee had a combined $124 million on hand to close July, the FEC reports show. The total was roughly $60 million less than the $186 million haul the Romney campaign announced earlier in August, raised with the assistance of the Republican National Committee.
The president’s campaign has spent heavily on ads over the summer in an effort to define the former Massachusetts governor. That effort has been at least somewhat successful, but along with an intensive ground operation in the swing states, it has depleted the campaign’s finances.
“I made a single error in one sentence,” insisted Todd Akin today. Sean Hannity wouldn’t accept that answer. Over 15 agonizing minutes on his radio show, Hannity beseeched Akin, again and again, to consider quitting the race for U.S. Senate in Missouri. His questions:
“Here’s my big fear, congressman, if I could just be blunt with you. We’re 51 votes needed to repeal Obamacare, hold the Senate. Sometimes an election is bigger than one person. To me, I am very concerned — and I know many other conservatives are as well, because they have all written me today — that if you stay in this race, and this becomes the defining issue of the race, and there is a timeline now in play here, that this could put the entire state of Missouri, this Senate seat, and even the top of the ticket, in jeopardy in Missouri… why I imagine that the issue in Missouri is going to be these words repeated again and again and again?”
“Have you thought that this could be the defining issue of the campaign, which would be a potential loss of a Senate seat?”
“I think for the next week, all you’re going to hear from Democrats are your comments. Look, I’m a Christian, so I believe in forgiveness. I can just tell by the sound of your voice that you’re probably very very sincere in your aplogy. But I also think there’s a political reality. The reality here is that Democrats now have a ton of ammunication, and they’re going to try and use these marks to hurt everybody that they can. And if I was put in that position, I would at least be thinking about what is in the best interest of the party, what is in the best interest of Mitt Romney in this case, what’s in the best interest of Missouri — are they going to hear a campaign about issues, or is this going to be a distraction to the campaign?”
“As this goes on, I think you’re going to face some of the questions I gave you hear. What you meant by legitimate rape, what you meant by the female body to have ways of shutting this whole thing down. I think it’ll be much harder than you think. I’m telling you just on a snap poll, just of conservatives writing me this minute, listening to me now, saying that there’s so much at stake — I’m reading one from a friend right now, ‘this is bigger than one person, this will set us back.'” Will you consider that in the next 24 hours?”
Shortly after this, Dick Morris — the former Clinton strategist turned Republican pundit — put out (of course) a data-seeking “petition” to get conservative activists united for an Akin purge.
Before Akin’s stupid comment, he had a nine point lead over McCaskill, the most of any Republican insurgent against a Democratic incumbent in the country.
But after his comment, he has no chance of winning. That seat could well be the difference between a majority and a minority in the Senate!
And the Tea Party Express put out a statement from its chair, Amy Kremer — not mentioning that the TPX endorsed another candidate in the Missouri primary.
One of the lessons we learned in 2010 is that we need candidates who are not only conservative, but are capable of putting together a strong campaign against liberal opponents. Akin’s frequent ‘Bidenisms’ are distracting from the important issues at hand.
You begin to wonder what the tone would be if it was legally impossible to take Akin off the ballot.
via Slate Blogs http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/20/republican_media_stars_cynically_beg_todd_akin_to_quit.html
Condoleezza Rice has golfed more often since she served as Secretary of State. Now, she is one of the first two female members admitted to Augusta National Golf Club.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/sports/golf/condoleezza-rice-joins-augusta-national-golf-club.html