Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Mitt Romney's Trade Policy Claims Versus Bain Capital's Practices
One of the things that Mitt Romney claims that he would do is "get tough on China" should he win election. The sound bite plays well with the Christofascist/Tea Party element in the GOP. The problem is that the claim isn't even consistent with what Romney's former buddies at Bain Capital are doing as they help ship American jobs to China. The New York Times looks at example where automotive manufacturing jobs have been and/or are soon to be outsourced to China. As seems to always be the case, Romney says one thing yet reality is something very different. Here are some story excerpts:
The tale of Asimco Technologies, an auto parts manufacturer whose plants dot eastern China, would seem to underscore Mitt Romney’s campaign-trail complaint that China’s manufacturing juggernaut is costing America jobs.
Nine years ago, the company bought two camshaft factories that employed about 500 people in Michigan. By 2007 both were shut down. Now Asimco manufactures the same components in China on government-donated land in a coastal region that China has designated an export base, where companies are eligible for the sort of subsidies Mr. Romney says create an unfair trade imbalance.But there is a twist to the Asimco story that would not fit neatly into a Romney stump speech: Since 2010, it has been owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mr. Romney, who has as much as $2.25 million invested in three Bain funds with large stakes in Asimco and at least seven other Chinese businesses, according to his 2012 candidate financial disclosure and other documents.As a candidate, Mr. Romney uses China as a punching bag. He accuses Beijing of unfairly subsidizing Chinese exports, artificially holding down the value of its currency to keep exports cheap, stealing American technology and hacking into corporate and government computers. . . . . . But his private equity dealings, both while he headed Bain and since, complicate that message.Among the companies in which the Bain funds have invested is a global auto parts maker that is in the process of closing a factory in Illinois and moving most of the equipment and jobs to Jiangsu Province, where the Chinese government has built it a new plant; a Chinese electronics retailer accused by Microsoft of selling computers with pirated software; and a Hong Kong-based Chinese appliance maker that was sued for copying another company’s design for a deep-fat fryer.Mr. Romney continues to have money in Bain funds with sizable holdings in China. He has as much as $250,000 in the Bain Capital Asia Fund and as much as $1 million each in Bain Capital Funds IX and X, all Cayman Islands entities used by Bain to make sizable investments in China . . . .Bain’s interest in China dates to when Mr. Romney ran the firm. During a panel discussion at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston in February 1998, he told of touring an appliance factory in China where 5,000 employees “were working, working, working, as hard as they could, at rates of roughly 50 cents an hour.”Mr. Romney also has millions invested in a series of Bain funds that have a controlling stake in Sensata Technologies . . . . Two years ago, Sensata bought an operation that made automobile sensors in Freeport, Ill. At the first meeting with the plant’s 170 workers, Sensata managers announced that by the end of 2012 all the equipment and jobs would be relocated, mostly to Jiangsu Province.
There is more to the article, but the foregoing paints a clear picture: Romney says one thing on the campaign trail, but his own investment strategy and that of his former Bain compatriots tells a very different story. Is Romney a liar? Draw your own conclusions. I've drawn my own: Romney is a pathological liar and money is his only real god.
Celebrities Launch Push for a "Bill of Reproductive Rights"
As The Hill is reporting, a number of celebrities have signed on to help push for a "Bill of Reproductive Rights" in the face of efforts by the Republicans and their Christian Taliban allies to ban abortion and block the Obama administration's birth-control mandate. Among those seeking to stop the anti-women's' rights agenda of the GOP are Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Amy Poehler. I applaud their efforts and truly believe that it is far past time that conservative Christians cease being allowed to force their toxic religious views into the civil laws. Here are some story excerpts:
Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Amy Poehler and others mounted an online push for a "Bill of Reproductive Rights" on Tuesday in collaboration with an international abortion-rights group.The campaign does not target Republicans or the GOP by name, but its message clearly echoes the "war on women" charge leveled at the right."Every day, the opponents of our fundamental reproductive rights are passing laws designed to take those rights away," Streep says in a video for the campaign. "They're shutting down doctors and clinics across the nation. They're making it nearly impossible for millions of women to get the essential healthcare they need," Streep says.The GOP has made it a priority to end public healthcare funding for Planned Parenthood because the group also provides abortions. Republicans have also sought to restrict abortion and stop the Obama administration from ordering most employers to cover free birth control in their health plans, arguing the policy hampers religious freedom.
Along the way, members of the GOP have experienced backlash for gaffes on abortion and other women's health issues. . . . . a Republican lawmaker in Georgia countered opponents of a proposed 20-week abortion ban by citing his "heartbreaking" experience delivering stillborn calves and pigs on his farm.
The speech prompted many to say that Rep. Terry England (Auburn) had compared women to farm animals — something Bacon and wife Sedgwick spoke of in a video released Tuesday. "Kyra, have you seen this? This lawmaker in Georgia is calling women farm animals," Bacon says. "[And] there's this other guy who says this whole contraception thing wouldn't be a problem if women would just stop having sex."The petition they tout, from the Center for Reproductive Rights, states that Americans have the right to "make our own decisions about our reproductive health and future, free from intrusion or coercion." It also outlines a right to "a full range of safe, affordable and readily accessible reproductive healthcare," including birth control, abortion and pregnancy care.
Taliban Shot Pakistani Teenage Girl for Supporting Girls’ Rights
Meanwhile, the Islamic equivalents of Charlie Fuqua and his Neanderthal knuckle draggers in the Republican Party are putting into action precisely what Fuqua advocates: the Taliban shot and seriously wounded a 14 year old girl in Pakistan for advocating for education of girls. The Christofascists always take offense, but if they look at the Taliban and Islamic extremists, they are actually looking at a mirror image of themselves: groups that are fighting against modernity and clinging to a perverted version of religion based on writings of authors who were nothing short of ignorant by modern standards. The Washington Post looks at the shooting of ninth-grader Malala Yousafzai. Here are some article excerpts:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A 14-year-old Pakistani student who won international acclaim for speaking out for girls barred from school by the Taliban was critically wounded Tuesday by a gunman who boarded her school bus, asked for her by name, aimed his pistol at her head and fired, officials said.The Pakistani Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack on ninth-grader Malala Yousafzai, who gained notice in early 2009 when she wrote a diary about Taliban atrocities under a pen name for the BBC’s Urdu service. Yousafzai lives in Mingora, a city in the scenic northwestern Swat Valley, where Taliban insurgents imposed harsh Islamic law for two years before being routed by a major military operation in May 2009.Tuesday’s daylight attack demonstrated the Taliban’s continued ability to infiltrate the area, which adjoins Pakistan’s insurgency-plagued tribal belt.Many Pakistanis view Yousafzai, who also promoted literacy and peace, as a symbol of hope in a country long beset by violence and despair. In 2011, the Pakistani government awarded her a national peace prize and 1 million rupees ($10,500).She also was a finalist last year for the International Children’s Peace Prize, awarded by a Dutch organization that lauded her bravery in standing up for girls’ education rights amid rising fundamentalism when few others in Pakistan would do so.Yousafzai was flown by helicopter to a military hospital in Peshawar, where doctors on Wednesday said they removed a bullet lodged near her spine. The girl’s condition was improving, but officials said she had not yet regained consciousness.
Fundamentalist religion remains one of the biggest threats to peace and stability in the world today. Yet it is to religious extremists little different from the Taliban in terms of their hatred of others - the Christian Taliban - to whom Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan (and George Allen here in Virginia) have sold their souls for political gain. These religious extremists are frightening and need to be driven into the political wilderness rather than embraced by the Republican Party.
Arkansas Republican Endorses Death Penalty for Disobedient Children
Wow! Has someone opened the doors to the insane asylum? What else explains the plethora of insane Republicans running around spouting utter batshitery - batshitery based, naturally, on the Bible? Yet another example of what passes for legitimate discourse and decency in today's utterly insane Republican Party comes in the form of Charlie Fuqua (pictured above), who is running as a Republican for State Representative in Arkansas. In a book published earlier this year, Fuqua endorses the death penalty for rebellious children and much, much more. o put it mildly, the man is a nutcase and a true example of the sickness known as fundamentalist/conservative Christianity. The Raw Story looks at Fuqua's insanity. Here are a few highlights:
In his book “God’s Law: The Only Political Solution,” published in April, former Arkansas Department of Human Services attorney Charlie Fuqua explains that he supports killing wayward kids because that’s what a Bronze Age tribe did in his favorite religious text.
“The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline,” he wrote, according to an excerpt published by The Arkansas Times. “Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21.”
He goes on to write: “Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.”
Fuqua’s run is being bankrolled by established Republicans in the state, including the party itself and the House Republican Leadership PAC. Spokeswoman Katherine Vasilos told Raw Story in an email that the Republican Party of Arkansas had no plans to make financial contributions to Fuqua in the future.
Fuqua also expresses his opposition to paying minimum wage, funding public education and what he calls the “Muslim problem,” which he believes could be dealt with by expelling all the Muslims from America. He adds that prisoners who cannot be rehabilitated within two years should just be executed to save money.
Sadly, Fuqua is the real face of today's GOP and its horrible Christofascist base. How someone as obviously deranged as Fuqua ever received the party nomination is telling of what has become of the GOP base both in Arkansas and elsewhere (Believe me, the GOP base Virginia is little better). Needless to say, I suspect Fuqua would support the summary execution of LGBT citizens.
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
Chris Kluwe Responds to Archbishop Who Told Mother to Reject Her Gay Son
Yesterday, I looked at the horrible statement made by uber-homophobic Archbishop John Nienstadt of the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese who told a mother that she need to reject her gay son or risk being damned to Hell. Enter Minnesota Vikings kicker Chris Kluwe who has already shown himself to be a fierce straight ally to LGBT citizens who has again authored a post on Out of Bounds Blog at Pioneer Press where he basically bitch slaps both Nienstadt and his evil emperor like boss, Benedict XVI. Unlike these nasty men, Kluwe recognizes the link between gay teen suicide and the incessant anti-gay propaganda of the Church hierarchy. Here are highlights from Kluwe's response:
Dear Archbishop Nienstedt and Pope Benedict XVI,
“Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
I read your views on gay marriage in the Star Tribune, Archbishop Nienstedt, and it fills me with great sadness and regret that a steward of the Catholic Church on this Earth feels the need to take a stance of oppression, intolerance, and fear.
How can we reconcile our version of the Catholic Church as salvation to the sick, the needy, the poor, when we must also bear witness to the Catholic Church as oppressor, tormentor, and executioner? Where, in all of Jesus’ teachings, did he ever say to deny the humanity of other human beings; where did the Son of God proclaim that mortal Man knew God’s will; where, pray tell, did Jesus ever say to harden your heart against those who may not be exactly the same as you?
I say to you – nowhere. Nowhere does Jesus preach hate, or intolerance, or loathing. Nowhere does Jesus say, “You shall deny the humanity of gay people because it makes you feel uncomfortable”. Nowhere does Jesus say, “And the mortal men of the Church shall be the sole conduits of the Word of God, for they are perfect and infallible.” Nowhere, in all of the recorded teachings of Jesus, does it say anything about discrimination or prejudice.
Millions of children grow up raised in the Catholic faith. Some of these children will be gay, through no choice of their own, but because of how God created them. What does it say to those children when the head of their religion in this state, a man who claims to “explain and defend the teaching of the Church because I have been ordained to do so and I believe those teachings with all my heart”, a man acting under the direct auspices of the Pope himself, tells them that they can’t be as worthy as everyone else, even though they believe in the teachings of Jesus? What will these children think, as they suffer the barbed insults of their classmates and teachers; I ask you, sir, what will these children think as they are belittled and tormented due to teachings you espouse? What judgment will be passed on your soul when yet another poor child reaches for the knife or the noose to end his or her earthly torment due to your example?
Tell me, Archbishop, Pope, what purpose does the Church serve attempting to influence the affairs of a secular state? The federal benefits under law currently denied gay couples certainly fall under the realm of Caesar, don’t they? No one is forcing the Catholic Church to marry gay couples if that is not the Church’s wish. You can keep the sanctity of Catholic marriage solely between heterosexual couples if you feel that is what’s required (again though, I caution you on the dangers of presumed infallibility). All we are asking is for you to extend the open hand of tolerance instead of the closed fist of fear and hate. As American citizens, we respect the right for everyone to practice whichever religion they so choose, including the right to not practice one at all. Haven’t we learned enough from the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Talibans of the world?
There is more to Kluwe's response, but you can get the theme of his response. The man may be a football player, but he seems to grasp the true Gospel message far better than the wealth, power and control obsessed Pharisees in the Vatican and bishoprics across the country.
Catholic Revolt in Washington State and Germany
I noted yesterday how Catholic theologian Hans Küng has argued that the Catholic Church laity and priests need to rise in revolt and overthrow the Pope and reclaim the Church from the morally bankrupt and Pharisee like Church hierarchy. Sooner than expected it seems that some former priests in Washington State and Catholics in Germany are taking Küng's calm to revolt to heart. First, these highlights from the Seattle Post on developments in the gay marriage referendum battle in Washington State:
Sixty-three former Roman Catholic priests in Washington state will announce on Thursday that they support Referendum 74, which would make Washington the nation’s seventh state to legalize marriage between same-sex couples.The stand comes as the state’s four Catholic bishops intensify a campaign of pastoral statements and videos urging parishoners to vote against marriage equality.The 63 former priests, with collectively more than 800 years of service to the Church, beg to differ.“We are uneasy with the aggressive efforts of Catholic bishops to oppose R-74 and want to support the 71 percent of Catholics (Public Religion Research Institute) who support civil marriage for gays as a valid Catholic position,” they said in a statement.Former priest Pat Callahan, who organized the statement, added: “This is the first public action we’ve taken.” Callahan was in the Catholic priesthood for 15 years.In Washington, ecclesiastical shepherds are finding a lot of trouble herding their flocks. Same-sex marriage legislation passed last winter. It was championed by Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Catholic: Its chief legislative sponsor was State Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, a practicing Catholic and long-partnered gay.A group called Catholics for Marriage Equality-Washington was prominent in Seattle’s Pride Day march last June. Several major Catholic parishes — including Seattle’s St. James Cathedral — refused Archbishop J. Peter Sartain’s request to serve as collection center for petitions to force a vote on same-sex marriage.
Catholics for Marriage Equality, in a statement this weekend, said: “We are shocked when we read the language and examples used by our bishops to incite fear in our Catholic brothers and sisters if Referendum 74 passes. The message of Jesus is love and compassion, not fear.”
And then there's the growing problems in Germany where Catholics are leaving the Church in droves. NPR looks at the growing conflict between the growing conflict between rank and file German Catholics who resist paying taxes to the Church and the pompous Church hierarchy. Here are highlights:
Germany's bishops have a clear message for the country's 25 million Catholics: The road to heaven requires more than faith and good intentions; it requires tax payments, too.One can only hope that the resistance to the hierarchy's dictates continues to grow and that increasingly members of the laity will withhold their money and hit the Vatican where it hurts most. After all, the real God of Benedict and his fellow bitter old queens in dresses is money.
Last month, German bishops warned that if members of the Catholic Church don't pay the country's church tax, they'll be denied the sacraments — including baptisms, weddings and funerals.
Registered Catholics, Protestants and Jews pay a surcharge of up to 9 percent on their income. The Catholic Church alone received some $6.5 billion in 2011.
In issuing the stringent new decree, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the president of the German bishops' conference, said that not paying taxes for the church is a grave offense, and that sacraments will be banned for those who distance themselves from the church.
As church historian Carsten Frerk points out, setting conditions on church membership is against the church's own legal code.
The bishops issued their decree as church defections are growing. In 2010, when the clerical sex abuse scandal exploded in Germany, nearly 200,000 Catholics left the church. In a normal year, it's 100,000. Church statistics show that only 13 percent of Germany's Catholics attend Mass weekly. And, Weisner says, the majority of those who are observant criticize the church leadership.
"We need and we ask for more transparency and more participation in the decision-making process," he says. "It can't be the case that only the bishop is deciding which parish will get money and which parish will get a new church."
The Election Choice for LGBT Citizens Cannt Be More Stark
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| Click image to enlarge Party Platform comparison |
In my October, 2012 VEER column (which will be on distribution stands on October 15th) I look at length on the incredible stark contrast between what the Romney/Ryan ticket and the GOP platform offers to LGBT Americans and what the Obama/Biden and Democrat platform offers them On the GOP side, the candidates and the platform oppose every single issue and policy that would make LGBT Americans full citizens and protect them from firing at will and other forms of discrimination. In sharp contrast, the Democrats support virtually every pro-LGBT position. A column in Salon takes a similar view and one has to wonder how any LGBT citizen could vote for Romney/Ryan and other GOP candidates given the reality that the GOP seeks to deny us our civil rights, bar any recognition of our life partners, and re-implement an anti-gay version of the Jim Crow laws. Here are column highlights:
It will be quite interesting to see what the exit polls show this year, because 2012 is different. For the first time, no spectrum of dreary grays. The colors are black and white. At last, gay voters have a choice, not an echo.President Obama started slow on gay rights. He opposed marriage equality, dragged his feet on the military-service ban, and let the Justice Department file a brief defending DOMA that could have been written by his predecessor. But then he made up for lost time. He went out on a limb jurisprudentially by abandoning his legal defense of DOMA. He and the Democratic Congress got the military ban repealed. He used executive authority to provide some benefits for same-sex partners of federal workers. Above all, he came out this year in support of gay marriage — and, in its platform, his party did the same.Separately, those policy changes were important, but they add up to something altogether historic.Then there is Romney. Whatever his attitude in private, his public posture has been that of a throwback. He opposes gay marriage and civil unions and favors a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. That puts him where George W. Bush was in 2004 and, please note, several clicks to the right of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, who opposed the constitutional amendment (as did Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney). He says he hires without regard to sexual orientation but seems to oppose a federal non-discrimination law, much the same position that George W. Bush took in 2000. (He hired an openly gay foreign-policy spokesman, but the guy lasted less than two weeks.) He opposed repealing the military ban, although he says he would not revisit the decision. His running mate and his party’s platform promise to defend DOMA.Perhaps most significant, Romney remains on the pre-1960s side of the cultural divide separating those who are comfortable with gay people and issues from those who squirm.In moving as decisively as they have on gay rights, the Democrats are following the country. As recently as 2004, according to Gallup, 54 percent of the public thought same-sex relations were morally wrong, versus 42 percent saying they were morally acceptable. The converging lines met in 2008, however, and never looked back. This year, the 2004 numbers are precisely flipped; 54 percent morally approved of homosexuality, only 42 percent disapproved.To put the matter bluntly, the Republican Party is becoming an isolated bastion of anti-gay sentiment. . . . We do know this: If any Republican in the 2012 field had the potential to lead the party away from its growing isolation on gay equality, it was Mitt Romney. By choosing instead to pander to the anti-gay right, he made gay voters’ choice easier . . . .
The bottom line in my view: any LGBT citizen who votes for a GOP candidate is like a Jew voting for Adolph Hitler or a black voting for the Imperial Wizard of the KKK. The would be GOP supporters can wring their hands and make excuses, but the bottom line, as I said, is that a vote for today's GOP is a vote for self-destruction and marginalization. I'm sure some readers will not like my assessment, but those who are disgruntled by my views need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask "WTF am I doing?"
George Allen Stumbles On Abortion Questions
For nearly two decades George Allen has prostituted himself to some of the most extreme elements of the Christian Right, including here in Virginia, The Family Foundation ("TFF") which is affiliated with Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, a SPLC certified hate group. Yesterday in his debate with Democrat Tim Kaine, Allen's past came back to bite him in the ass and his evasive answers did little to convince listeners that everything Allen's opponents have been saying about him isn't true. Even back in our law school days (we were classmates), Allen was a party boy follower who preferred to kiss up to people and avoid independent thought. As a Republican in Virginia that has translated to doing whatever TFF has dictated as if TFF head, Victoria Cobb, were some kind of whip wielding dominatrix. About the only disingenuous thing Allen did not do was call the moderator a "macaca." Politico looks at Allen's fumbling debate performance. Here are highlights:
Republican George Allen is well aware he needs to close the gender gap with women in order to win the Virginia Senate race. The severity of that challenge was on full display Monday night in his fourth debate with Democrat Tim Kaine.
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