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Friday, September 28, 2012

George Soros gives $1 million to Priorities USA Action - Kenneth P. Vogel - POLITICO.com

George Soros gives $1 million to Priorities USA Action - Kenneth P. Vogel - POLITICO.com:
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Soros has now given $4.3 million this cycle to Democratic outside groups. | AP Photo
Democrats got some encouraging news on Thursday when liberal billionaire George Soros announced $1.5 million in donations to super PACs supporting President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional candidates.
The contributions, first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by POLITICO, include $1 million to Priorities USA Action, the super PAC devoted to Obama’s reelection and a total of $500,000 to a pair of super PACs devoted to the party’s congressional candidates — Majority PAC and House Majority PAC. It was not immediately clear the precise allocation of the donations between the two, but the Hungarian-born financier had previously donated $175,000 to the latter, including a donation late last month, as well as $100,000 to the latter.
The donations bring to $4.3 million Soros’s total giving this cycle to Democratic outside groups, making him the biggest known donor on the left, but leaving him well short of the $24 million he donated to outside groups ahead of the 2004 election.
After the groups failed to defeat President George W. Bush, Soros expressed leeriness about donating to efforts focused primarily on campaign advertising. So the donations announced Thursday cheered Democrats hoping Soros’s shift would presage similar contributions by like-minded wealthy donors.
Sources told POLITICO that the donations were announced by Soros’s political adviser Michael Vachon at a New York meeting of members of the Democracy Alliance, a club of liberal donors that has recommended donations to Democratic super PACs.
Vachon and Democracy Alliance officials did not respond to requests for comment, but the Times reported that other Democracy Alliance members were expected to contribute millions more to the Democratic super PACs.
Don’t expect any cash from Peter Lewis, said a representative for the insurance magnate who, like Soros, donated more than $20 million to Democratic outside groups in 2004 and was among the founding members of the Democracy Alliance.
Though Lewis donated $200,000 to the American Bridge opposition research super PAC, his representative said he is opposed to super PACs that focus on advertising, which is why he dropped out of the Alliance.
Word of Soros’s donation on Thursday also fired up conservatives for whom he is a bogeyman of the same caliber that the new reigning king of outside cash, Sheldon Adelson, is for liberals.
“Here we go again…” began a fundraising email from the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, a PAC that has spent $742,000 attacking Obama. Its email asserted Soros’s $1-million donation to Priorities USA will go “to TV ads that are going to smear Mitt Romney in the key battleground states,” and asked for donations to “help us fight back.”

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Man behind anti-Muslim film ordered jailed - Yahoo! News

Man behind anti-Muslim film ordered jailed - Yahoo! News:
'via Blog this'
"Innocence of Muslims," which depicts:
 The False Prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester.
Associated Press/CBS2-KCAL9, File - FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2012 file image from video provided by CBS2-KCAL9, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man behind a crudely produced anti-Islamic video that has inflamed …


LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the man behind a crudely produced anti-Islamic video that inflamed parts of the Middle East to be detained because he is a flight risk.
U.S. Central District Chief Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal ordered Nakoula Basseley Nakoula held after authorities said he violated terms of his probation.
Nakoula, 55, was convicted in 2010 for federal check and sentenced to 21 months in prison. Under terms of his probation, he was not allowed to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.
Nakoula was arrested after federal probation officials determined he violated the terms of his supervised release, Thomas Mrozek, a U.S. Attorney's spokesman in Los Angeles, said Thursday.
Protests have erupted around the Middle East over a 14-minute trailer for "Innocence of Muslims," which depicts Muhammad as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester. Though the trailer was posted to YouTube in July, the violence didn't break out until Sept. 11 and has spread since, killing dozens.
Nakoula, a Christian originally from Egypt, went into hiding after he was identified as the man behind the trailer.
The full story about Nakoula and the video still isn't known.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Barbra Streisand: Obama vs. Romney: A Clear Choice

Barbra Streisand: Obama vs. Romney: A Clear Choice:
'via Blog this'



In this election, the people of America have to make a choice between two candidates with very different values, visions and solutions to the most pressing problems facing our country. The question voters need to ask themselves when they walk into the voting booth on November 6th is: "Will the country be better off returning to the policies of George W. Bush's Administration?"
Like Bush, Governor Romney believes we need more tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% and fewer rules for Wall Street. He wants to roll back financial reform and set Wall Street free to write its own rules again. He wants to repeal health care reform and leave 30 million people without a safety net. And the trillions in tax cuts he wants to give to millionaires and billionaires will only force more devastating cuts to critical programs that serve the middle-class.
It's hard to believe that Mitt Romney would campaign on policies that nearly destroyed the country and virtually eliminated so much of America's middle-class. With stagnant wages, escalating medical costs, foreclosures, rampant unemployment, loss of good paying jobs and the disappearance of retirement savings due to deregulation and manipulation by Wall Street, Mitt Romney and the Republican narrative fail to address the key concerns of everyday Americans.
Time and again, Republicans' policies put corporations, not the people, first. They challenge current regulations and try to block new regulations that help to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Just recently, House Republicans went to great lengths to block the implementation of a new food safety law, while also trying to cut the budgets of agencies that oversee food safety. And many in the party either deny the science on climate change or refuse to support legislation that will begin to help mitigate the effects of global warming.
The only budget proposal that Republicans will support is the Ryan budget, which completely disinvests in America during a time when the country desperately needs investments to spur growth and competitiveness. Our country, and the notion of the American Dream, was built on the bedrock that government must play a vital role in providing investments that ultimately afford opportunity for all. If everyone was left to fend for themselves, and government failed to take the lead in investing in schools, roads, research and development, space exploration, and the internet, we would have a very different country where the fate of a person's future would be sealed in the socio-economic status that he or she was born into. Ultimately, Mitt Romney and his party see an America where the wealth should trickle down, instead of building a strong middle class so that everyone can rise up together.
HERE ARE THE FACTS
No matter how much undisclosed money floods into Romney affiliated super PACs from the likes of Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, and their friends, the things they cannot change are the facts.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney became enormously wealthy, while his company, Bain Capital, bought and bankrupted companies, laid off American workers and shipped jobs overseas.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney had the 47th worst job creation record as Governor.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts and secretive offshore investment funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda in order to avoid paying his fair share of U.S. taxes. And given his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns (unprecedented for a Presidential candidate), it's clear that the Romney campaign believes that the truth about what is contained in those tax returns is far more damaging than Romney's refusal to release them.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney has taken both sides on virtually every issue important to voters. He was for and then against -- gun control, a women's right to reproductive choice, health care for all, and the economic stimulus. He once believed that people's actions contributed to global warming and now he has changed his position. He was against signing the no-tax pledge and now he is a strong supporter.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney's solution to stimulate the economy is further deregulation, a tactic that led to the growth of "too big to fail" banks, the BP oil spill, the housing crisis, and ultimately, the American and global financial and economic meltdown.
And it's a fact that Republican legislators across the country are passing new voting restrictions to disenfranchise voters, shutting down non-partisan voter registration drives, and cutting back on early voting. They hope that these shameful tactics to subvert the democratic process will have an impact on the election.
While the millions raised by Mitt Romney's super PACs to defeat President Obama may not be able to change the facts, these funds can saturate the media with misinformation and lies in order to bury the truth and persuade swing-state voters.
HERE ARE TRUTHS THEY WILL TRY TO BURY
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the primary goal of the Republican Party was not to fix the country and get Americans back to work, but to defeat the President four years later. They spent these past few years obstructing the passage of important legislation. Since 2007, the Senate Historical Office has shown that Democrats have had to end Republican filibusters more than 360 times, a historic record for what had been a very rarely used parliamentary procedure.
Compared to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Obama has been more fiscally conservative than any other president in recent history, with the exception of President Bill Clinton.
President Obama has been far better at creating jobs than President George W. Bush. During the 7 years and 8 months of George Bush's presidency, before the financial crash, only 2.6 million new private sector jobs were created. In the final month of George Bush's presidency, the country lost 800,000 jobs, and in the last six months of the Bush Administration, the country lost over 3.5 million jobs.
However, in the last 30 months under President Obama's leadership, nearly 4.6 million new private sector jobs were created (averaging about 150,000 new jobs per month). In President Obama's last 2 ½ years in office, 40% more jobs were created than in nearly all of President Bush's eight years in office.
The last President who was elected amidst a severe economic crisis and high unemployment was Franklin D. Roosevelt. His policies strengthened government so that it would protect the people (creating Glass-Steagall to regulate the banks, the FDIC to insure bank depositors, the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market, and Social Security to help people build a safety net for their retirement). FDR's strategy to spend money to create jobs and stimulate the economy is what ultimately helped pull the country out of a depression.
Even though the country's most respected economists have agreed on what history has already proven -- that MORE federal spending, not austerity, is necessary to stimulate the economy and create jobs, today's Republicans categorically reject this strategy. They are running on a platform of further deregulation and cutting spending to the bone, so that those earning millions will get more tax cuts, even though it means Americans who need a safety net won't have it.
Unlike Mitt Romney, President Obama believes we need to invest in education, energy, innovation and infrastructure and reform our tax system to create good jobs, grow our economy and pay down the debt in a reasoned way. He believes in an inclusive country where all people deserve equal protection and treatment under the law, as well as equal opportunity, whether they are gay, straight, black, brown, white, religious, atheist, old or young.
The choice is clear. Would you vote for a person who pays his taxes or someone who wiggles his way out of them? Do you want a President who has gained the respect of the world community or someone who on a recent diplomatic trip abroad provoked the ire and ridicule of other world leaders? Do we want a country where everyone is fending for themselves or where everyone is pitching in and working together? Do we want to go backward with Mitt Romney or move forward with President Obama?
On Tuesday, November 6th, the American people will have the power to make that choice. And I hope everyone, young and old, from red state to blue state, chooses progress over corporate profit. And over the course of the next four years, I hope we can all come together to re-build an America where opportunity and prosperity is once again within everyone's reach.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Romney may have just lost the election - lksfrancis@gmail.com - Gmail

Romney may have just lost the election - lksfrancis@gmail.com - Gmail:
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https://pol.moveon.org/donate/knockout.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=52110-23767553-%3DyUtwCx&t=1

Mitt Romney may have just lost the election with his incredibly insulting comments that almost half of all Americans are "dependent on government" and "believe they are victims."1

The Romney campaign is on the ropes, and we have a chance to put him away for good.

Click here to donate $5 to help deliver the knock-out punch to Mitt Romney.
Your donation will help us run the largest independent get-out-the-vote operation in the country.
MoveOn's 7 million members have joined forces with the massive power of the labor movement to create a wave of votes that Romney won't be able to overcome. No one else in the progressive movement is doing anything like it.
Here's how it works: We're going door-to-door talking to real voters about why it's so important to vote for Obama. Research shows that this face-to-face communication is dramatically more effective than big-budget TV ads.
And using some cutting-edge technology, we're able to pinpoint the people who are most likely to be persuaded and mobilized by a conversation with our volunteers. One canvasser can now do the work of five.
And frankly, after Mitt Romney insulted half the country, it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to convince people to vote for Obama—if we can get out there and talk to them RIGHT NOW. We can't sit back and trust that his breathtaking arrogance and 1% attitude is enough to lose the election—there's still a boatload of voter suppression, plus the possibility of an October surprise. And not everyone is paying attention to what's on the news—so we need to seize this opportunity NOW.
Can you chip in 5?
Thanks for all you do.
–Adam R., Milan, Robin, Emily, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters," Mother Jones, September 17, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=280924&id=52110-23767553-%3DyUtwCx&t=4

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 7 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Carter grandson arranged Romney video's release - Yahoo! News

Carter grandson arranged Romney video's release - Yahoo! News:
'via Blog this'
Soon after, Carter persuaded the source to trust Corn with the full video — on the condition that he keep the source's identity a secret. Corn ran with it, using clues in the video to triangulate when and where it had been recorded.
Then on Monday and Tuesday, Corn posted the clips to his magazine's website, sparking a firestorm for the Romney campaign over remarks claiming that nearly half of Americans "believe they are victims" deserving government help and that the Palestinians have no interest in peace with Israel.
"James: This is extraordinary. Congratulations! Papa," the former president told his grandson Tuesday morning in an email obtained by the AP.
For Carter, whose Twitter profile notes he's looking for work, his success in unearthing the video was followed by a string of job offers Tuesday, from the Ohio Democratic Party to online news sites like The Huffington Post and ThinkProgress.
But the coup de grace for Carter is the irony that Romney has spent many months assailing the elder Carter's record on everything from foreign affairs to small business policy, hoping to saddle the incumbent president with the less popular vestiges of his Democratic predecessor.
"I've gotten a lot of Twitter messages from people supporting me and saying that it's poetic justice that it was a Carter that uncovered this, considering the way that the Romney campaign has been talking about my grandfather," Carter said. "I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly."

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

X Factor USA 2012 - Carly Rose Sonenclar's Audition.wmv


When 13 year old Carly started to sing Feeling Good by Nina Simone, no one could believe their ears. She has an amazing voice - one that left everyone...

Jackie Chan: Portrait Of The Action Star At 58 : Monkey See : NPR

Jackie Chan: Portrait Of The Action Star At 58 : Monkey See : NPR:
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                                                                                                                                                              Jemal Countess/Getty Images
 Actor Jackie Chan appears at the Toronto International Film Festival.       

At 58, Chan may be the most famous Asian entertainer in the world, but in Hong Kong — the territory where he was born, and the one that first embraced him — his popularity has recently cooled. In 1999, his squeaky-clean image was punctured when he fathered a child with a former Miss Asia, and in 2006, he drunkenly interrupted a concert and cursed at the audience. His close relationship with the Mainland Communist government, and his controversial suggestion that "We Chinese need to be controlled," led to him being voted one of Hong Kong's "least trusted" public figures in a Reader's Digest poll.
But those stories are difficult to process seeing him onstage at TIFF, flashing his Jackie Chan smile and singing Edwin Starr's "War" on request. He's Jackie Chan. And on this afternoon, everybody likes Jackie Chan.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Breaking News Alert - The New York Times Saturday, September 1, 2012 -- 6:06 PM EDT

Inquiry on Tax Strategy Adds to Scrutiny of Finance Firms

Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed more than a dozen firms seeking documents that would reveal details about their tax strategies.

Financial Firms Face Subpoenas on Tax Strategy

The New York attorney general is investigating whether some of the nation’s biggest private equity firms have abused a tax strategy in order to slice hundreds of millions of dollars from their tax bills, according to executives with direct knowledge of the inquiry. The attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has subpoenaed more than a dozen firms seeking documents that would reveal whether they converted certain management fees into fund investments, which are taxed at a far lower rate than ordinary income.

Among the firms to receive subpoenas are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president.
Executives at some firms said they feared that Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat with ties to the Obama administration, was seeking to embarrass the industry because of Mr. Romney’s roots at Bain. Others suggested the subpoenas might be part of an effort to recover more tax revenue for New York.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/business/inquiry-on-tax-strategy-adds-to-scrutiny-of-finance-firms.html?emc=na