May 2012
56 posts
- What I wrote: "This timeline takes into account the traditional summer news cycle, which includes a period of relative inactivity around the July 4 holiday. Publicity for product launches is not advised during that period."
- What I meant: No one -- not me, not you, and certainly not journalists -- wants to work around the Fourth of July, so let's leave reporters alone for awhile.
Let's not stop talking about JPMorgan
Three directors oversaw — “oversaw” — risk at JPMorgan. Here are their qualifications — “qualifications” — for that gig, according to Bloomberg:
- A museum head who sat on American International Group Inc.’s governance committee in 2008
- The grandson of a billionaire
- The chief executive officer of a company that makes flight controls and work boots
“The committee, which met seven times last year and hasn’t changed its composition since 2008, approves the bank’s risk-appetite policy and oversees the chief risk officer, according to the company’s April 4 proxy statement.”
“[I]f Trump and his ilk want to be fair about it, a white presidential candidate with a foreign-born father deserves to be badgered into releasing his birth certificate just as much as a black presidential candidate with a foreign-born father.”
—Dana Milbank
A petition to stop giving Donald Trump airtime →
change.org
Someone filed this petition with change.org an hour ago.
“You’re beginning to sound ridiculous.”
—Wolf Blitzer, in the understatement of the year, to reality television subject and Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Donald Trump. Trump was on CNN today to make sounds with his mouth about President Obama’s place of birth, or something. [video]
“There are 55 million single women in the United States. If they got motivated, they are a big enough block to swing the election.”
—Stephanie Mencimer, in Mother Jones
Were he not a wealthy white kid I suspect this would have ended much more poorly.
Yeah, no doubt.
Mitt Romney declining to disclose names of campaign bundlers →
freep.com
Romney is not required by law to disclose the identities of his fundraisers with the exception of those who work as federal lobbyists. Releasing the names of bundlers, however, has been standard in presidential campaigns for more than a decade.
Republican George W. Bush established the pattern in the 2000 election, revealing the names of fundraisers who collected at least $100,000. He repeated the practice in 2004. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee four years ago, had disclosed his fundraisers by this point in the 2008 campaign, releasing a list of 106 bundlers on April 18 of that year. …
President Obama has released his fundraiser list every three months during this campaign. …
Romney campaign officials did not respond to several interview requests this week. Last year, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told USA TODAY that Romney discloses “the information about our donors as required by law.”
Poetry of the Subject Line
This is pretty awesome, from PdF:
Do you have a minute?
Marriage
What got me to apply
I am just so happy
My best friend
Romney economics
Romney’s qualifications
1,959,743 Americans and counting
“The defeat of Barack Hussein Obama”
GottaVote.org
My place, June 14th
I’m hosting
An evening with two presidents
Sarah Jessica is hosting
Anna Wintour, too
—B.H. Obama, May 2012Going up
I need your vote today
Lucky you
Thank you, America
Almost over
Elections are about choices
It’s still the economy
We’re not stupid
Not fooling us
Meeting you
—W.M. Romney, May 2012
Gingrich's private ventures are going bankrupt →
reuters.com
The Gingrich Group bankruptcy proceedings spotlight the remarkable reversal of fortune of the half-dozen organizations associated with Gingrich. The presidential contender recently ended his campaign $4.8 million in debt. A political nonprofit he headed, American Solutions for Winning the Future, which raised $52 million between its founding in 2007 and its dissolution last July, also ended in debt.
The decline of the health policy center began earlier than previously realized. When Gingrich began considering a presidential bid in early 2010, “the membership began to drop off,” according to Nancy Desmond, who served as managing partner of Gingrich Group LLC, which did business as the Center for Health Transformation. She was one of three owners of the company, but as the managing partner she alone testified at the May 9 meeting of creditors on the third floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building.
Opened in 2003, the center pulled in $59 million over nine years from more than 300 companies, some of which paid as much as $200,000 in dues. Among its activities, the center and Gingrich helped push a mandate requiring everyone to carry health insurance. At the time, the position was beneficial to the center’s healthcare industry members, but Gingrich later repudiated it as a candidate.
Desmond said revenues fell from just under $7 million in 2010 to $4 million in 2011 and then to less than $300,000 in the first quarter of this year. Some $1.2 million in dues that had been expected earlier this year never materialized because those members also decided not to renew. By March the center was no longer able to pay the rent on its suite of offices in Atlanta and Washington.
And that's when I clicked 'Close Tab'
“Newt Gingrich warned President Obama and his campaign against further criticism of Mitt Romney’s private sector record, admitting that his own attempts at using the Bain Capital line of attack were …” —Huffington Post
