Dream Ticket, For Democrats

In a puff piece so sweet it would rot a whole set of teeth, The Washington Post's Philip Rucker described the marvelous time Mitt Romney and Representative Paul Ryan had hanging out together, sharing a little man-love.    He wrote

On the campaign trail here, Romney has alternately called Ryan “a great leader,” “a wonderful speaker” and “a great man.” After Ryan endorsed him Friday in Appleton, Romney said: “This is a guy who’s willing to stand for something. He didn’t just go to Washington to be seen and to have a little job there. He went to Washington to make a difference"...

Later that day, it was Romney making the jokes. “This guy here, this is not my son,” he told one crowd in Middleton, poking fun of Ryan’s relative youth. Addressing another audience, he joked that Ryan was only 10 years old when Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980.

“I did have a Reagan bumper sticker on my locker in the third grade,” Ryan offered.

“This guy was born conservative!” Romney quipped.

Paul Ryan is now the newest hot name being promoted as former Governor Romney's running-mate.      If only Romney were that stupid, we all could breathe a little easier, confident that Barack Obama, by far the lesser of two evils, will be re-elected in November.

Fortunately for Democrats, that Paul Ryan.      As chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan recently released a budget, which then was approved by the GOP-dominated House, which would harm the middle class, eviscerate programs for the poor, and leave defense spending untouched.    It would allow the deficit to rise less quickly than would President Obama's plan, only because it includes elimination of various tax deductions.     Those deductions are conspicuously unspecified, so if you're a middle-class homeowner, hold on to your wallet.    He's coming for it.

If Ryan were to join the ticket, he could dance and dodge through a lot of his phony budget.   Medicare, however, would be- to quote Jim DeMint in a slightly different context- his Waterloo.    As described by the Center for American Progress

The House budget would provide vouchers to Medicare beneficiaries to purchase either a private health insurance plan or the traditional Medicare plan. This plan would shift costs to seniors, making many seniors pay sharply higher premiums to stay in traditional Medicare and keep their current choice of doctors. For these seniors the choice of traditional Medicare would be a false one in reality.

This premium support plan would also limit growth in Medicare spending to growth in the economy plus 0.5 percentage points. But since it’s unclear how this cap would be enforced, it’s likely that the cap would limit the amount of the vouchers provided to beneficiaries. Since the proposed growth rate is much slower than the projected growth in health care costs, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that new beneficiaries could pay more than $1,200 more by 2030 and more than $5,900 more by 2050.

What’s more, private plans could “cherry pick” healthier seniors, driving up premiums for those who remain in traditional Medicare. And private plans would be able to undercut traditional Medicare in other ways, such as by offering free gym memberships or other perks. As a result more and more seniors would gradually shift to private plans over time. This gradual privatization of Medicare does not make sense because traditional Medicare costs less than comparable private coverage. But with fewer beneficiaries Medicare would have less leverage to contain the growth in health care costs.

The House budget would also shift costs to seniors by raising Medicare’s age of eligibility to 67. Some seniors who would no longer be eligible for Medicare would pick up employer coverage—but they would pay more in premiums and cost sharing. And since the budget would scale back or eliminate other coverage options, hundreds of thousands of seniors would become uninsured.

With age, Ryan has gotten a little more flexible.     Unlike in his previous plan, he now would allow Medicare spending to grow at .5% greater than the growth in the economy.    Moreover, instead of completely replacing Medicare with vouchers, he now would allow elderly to choose to remain in the Medicare program.     But as CAP explains, the projected, and likely, result is the same.       The healthier elderly individuals would select a private plan, a result which would be accentuated by various offers made to entice the healthier persons.

Those incentives probably, at the outset, would be almost irresistible.     It would not be unlike the arrival of Wal-Mart to an area.     Prices start out almost ridiculously low, service is great, and the store is kept clean.     As smaller merchants are driven out of business, the store's standards, whether in terms of prices, service, and/or ambiance, decline markedly because the competition has been eliminated.

So, too, is the GOP objective the elimination of Medicare.     Given the Republicans' overall strategy, you can hardly blame them: it is a government program that works, and we can't have that.     Messes up the whole narrative.

A national campaign by a Romney-Ryan ticket would dramatically draw attention to the Repub strategy.     President Obama already has begun the attack, labeling the GOP budget a Trojan horse," one “antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who’s willing to work for it — a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class.”      Republicans can trot out their worn attack on Democrats for "class warfare";  but, if they're ready to drive a stake through Medicare, the strategy will only backfire.

Mitt Romney has only one road to victory- framing the election as a referendum rather than a choice.    Nothing will turn the campaign into one of choice, rather than referendum, faster than aiming a figurative sword directly at the older generation, unavoidable if Ryan is on the ticket.

President Obama, and Democrats generally in the Age of Obama, have faced serious obstacles gaining support from elderly voters.     Selection of Paul Ryan to run with a candidate who, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, himself pays a lower tax rate than the janitor at the grandchildren's school would obliterate those obstacles.    Go Mitt, go.




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Atkins Calling Out The Bipartisan Myth


David Atkins, blogging on Hullabaloo, slams the cult of centrism and those who subscribe to it.He describes the lurch to the right by the Republican Party the last thirty years and decries Democratic accomodation with it. This makes the Fourth Estate's hand-wringing about bipartisanship an obsession which  long has been divorced from reality, and is increasingly so.   It is, further, grossly inadequate to the challenges the nation has faced for decades.Atkins notes

Bipartisanship and centrist legislation, meanwhile, has a horrible track record in the modern era. NAFTA was a bipartisan law beloved by centrists. So was the legislation that killed Glass-Steagall and deregulated the banks, allowing them to gamble away the nation's economy. The AUMF to invade Iraq was also very bipartisan and favored by centrists. It was centrists who watered down the Affordable Care Act; but for Joe Lieberman, Medicare would be available to anyone over 50 today, allowing for lower involuntary unemployment and lower healthcare costs overall. Centrists don't solve problems. Centrists CREATE problems.

That's a little bit harsh, but only barely so, and highlights another critical point Atkins makes. Neither centrist nor liberal policies ever will please most conservatives and splitting the difference," he argues persuasively, "would be bad public policy."    Instead, the two sides, he observes, "will be forever at war with one another, and that's precisely as it should be."

Atkins (his thoughts in bold; excerpt from This American Life in italics) wants us to

Consider the case of Colorado Springs recently highlighted in This American Life. The town refused to increase taxes in a recession, and chose to force residents to pay for their own street lights and park cleanups. That in turn led more affluent sections of the city to pay for services directly--at higher cost than their taxes would have been for the same--while the less affluent sections suffered. They binged on privatizing as many city services as they could, which didn't save them any money, but didsatisfy their worldview:

Overall, the city's budget for parks is about $12 million now, a lot smaller than it was at its height. But that's mostly because the parks department is doing less. They've closed swimming pools and laid off community center employees. They're replacing fewer playgrounds and fences and bridges. And Roland, for his part? He's not going back to the parks this summer. He hurt his back.

What I learned, though, from talking to the people in Colorado Springs is that for a lot of them these calculations don't really matter. They don't care if privatizing actually saves the government money, so long as the government is doing less.

City councilwoman Jan Martin says she hears this all the time. That it's become a matter of faith in the city that private is better. And she tells us a story. In the dark days, after the tax measure was defeated, city council was having another meeting about slashing government.

Jan Martin: And a gentleman came up to me and actually thanked me for the adopt a street light program. He had just written a check to the city for $300 to turn all the street lights back on in his neighborhood. And I did remind him that for $200 if he had supported the tax initiative, we could have had not only streetlights, but parks and firemen and swimming pools and community centers. That by combining our resources, we as a community can actually accomplish more than we as individuals.

Robert Smith: And he said?

Jan Martin: He said he would never support a tax increase.

Robert Smith: So for him it wasn't the money. He was willing to pay more to turn on the street lights than to pay for all city services.

Jan Martin: That's right. And it's because of a total lack in trust of local government to spend those services, which was part of Steve Bartolin's letter. That prevailing sense that government won't take care of our money, that brings somebody to the conclusion that, I'll take care of mine. You go figure out how to take care of yours, because we don't trust government to do it for us.

See, your average resident of Colorado Springs is willing to pay more money for worse services while letting his poorer neighbors do without street lights or clean parks--just as long as that money stays in the hands of private corporations rather than the nasty government.

It's not only in Colorado.     The Turnpike Commission in Pennsylvania wants to eliminate all toll booths on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and, as The Philadelphia Inquirer explains,"instead charge drivers as they pass at highway speed under overhead gantries equipped with electronic readers and cameras."

A motorist driving the full length (actually, width) of the state, from its border in New Jersey to that in Ohio, wold pay $30.17 utilizing E-Z pass and $53.10 if billed by mail.

But that's not all.     Expanding revenues, even at the cost of throwing citizens and taxpayers out of work, is a nearly irresistible lure for most states.     However, this proposal is motivated not by a desire to cut costs or increase funding.    The report prepared for the Turnpike Commission "estimated it would cost $320 million to install all-electronic tolling on the turnpike, and about $83 million a year to operate it.  All-electronic tolling would save money by eliminating the cost of toll collectors - currently $65 million a year."

The initial, fixed cost is estimated at $320 million, and cost overruns or additional costs not directly attributable to "overruns" usually run a bill much higher than the preliminary estimate.Moreover, licenses will have to be photographed, bills sent out by mail and collected, and violators penalized, what the report's authors termed "a robust violations enforcement, legal, and administrative framework."        

So on a year-to-year basis, costs are projected to be higher in a fully automated system than with the current system.     The latter is (somewhat) labor-intensive, actually employing Pennsylvanians, and therefore the state's power structure wants it eliminated.     If it is, as with street lights and park cleanup in Colorado Springs, the money would remain, as Atkins puts it, "in the hands of private corporations rather than the nasty government."    Not only would government officials, including Governor Fracking, benefit by handing out lucrative contracts to private concerns, the size of government would decline, notwithstanding the likelihood of greater cost to the taxpayer.    It's a win-win; considering the decline in employment, a win-win-win.

For most conservatives, as Atkins, suggests, decreasing net costs, pragmatic though it is, is not an asset, but actually a bug.      Clearly, the vision of ideological-free, bipartisan government ignores not only  the interest of conservative and neo-liberal officials in turning government over to the private sector, but also the desire of many conservative voters to kick government in the teeth to.... well, just to kick government in the teeth.





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That Shoe On The Other Foot

A little whine with that cheese, please.

Under the misleading Yahoo headline, "Combative Obama warns Supreme Court on health law," reporter Stephen Collinson wrote the President delivered "what will be seen as a warning shot to the Court" when "in a highly combative salvo," he maintained

With respect to health care, I’m actually -- continue to be confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law.  And the reason is because, in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional.  That's not just my opinion, by the way; that's the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices that said this wasn’t even a close case.

I think it’s important -- because I watched some of the commentary last week -- to remind people that this is not an abstract argument.  People’s lives are affected by the lack of availability of health care, the inaffordability of health care, their inability to get health care because of preexisting conditions....

And I think it’s important, and I think the American people understand, and the I think the justices should understand, that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care.  So there’s not only a economic element to this, and a legal element to this, but there’s a human element to this.  And I hope that’s not forgotten in this political debate. 
 
Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. 

An apparently frightened Rush Limbaugh chipped in

But he says things in these sound bites which you'll hear coming up and they're chilling to me. "The court has to understand..." "The court must understand," is one of his sound bites. No, the court must not -- does not have to -- listen to you. What is this, "The court must understand"? That is a threat! How many of you think it possible that Obama will make a trip to the Supreme Court before the vote, before the final vote? Can you see it happening? I can.

Ignorance is no excuse, even for Rush Limbaugh, for whom it is de rigueur.       The ignorance Limbaugh seems to be displaying, a lack of awareness that "the vote" already has been taken by the Justices, is a mere feint.     Rush must have his listeners believe, however briefly, that the vote has not yet been taken, in order to justify his claim that the President is trying to intimidate the Court by issuing a threat.

Quite a threat, that:     urging the Justices to "understand" what "I think the American people understand."      It is understandable, though, that Rush wouldn't want people to remember, as Obama noted a moment later, that the right for years has decried "judicial restraint -- that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. "

Jennifer Rubin, conservative columnist at The Washington Post, is doing her part to erase the history of the last thirty years.    She writes

If the president does not defend the rule of law and urge civil debate and acceptance of the court’s decisions, he is opening a Pandora’s box — contempt for the rule of law and further politicization of the court confirmation process. Imagine if President Eisenhower before Brown v. Board of Education had heckled, “Those unelected judges better not be dreaming up ways to undo the decisions of elected school boards around the country on how to run their schools.”  

Imagine, also, if the the 1984 Republican platform read

We commend the President for appointing federal judges committed to the rights of law-abiding citizens and traditional family values. We share the public’s dissatisfaction with an elitist and unresponsive federal judiciary. If our legal institutions are to regain respect, they must respect the people’s legitimate interests in a stable, orderly society. In his second term, President Reagan will continue to appoint Supreme Court and other federal judges who share our commitment to judicial restraint.

Or that the 1996 Republican platform read

Some members of the federal judiciary...make up laws and invent new rights as they go along, arrogating to themselves powers King George III never dared to exercise. They free vicious criminals, pamper felons in prison, frivolously overturn State laws enacted by citizen referenda.

The federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court, has overstepped its authority under the Constitution. It has usurped the right of citizen legislators and popularly elected executives to make law by declaring duly enacted laws to be “unconstitutional” through the misapplication of the principle of judicial review. Any other role for the judiciary, especially when personal preferences masquerade as interpreting the law, is fundamentally at odds with our system of government in which the people and their representatives decide issues great and small.

Or that the 2004 Republican platform read

In the federal courts, scores of judges with activist backgrounds in the hard-left now have lifetime tenure. Recent events have made it clear that these judges threaten America’s dearest institutions and our very way of life. The Pledge of Allegiance has already been invalidated by the courts once, and the Supreme Court’s ruling has left the Pledge in danger of being struck down again—not because the American people have rejected it and the values that it embodies, but because a handful of activist judges threaten to overturn commonsense and tradition...We believe that the self-proclaimed supremacy of these judicial activists is antithetical to the democratic ideals on which our nation was founded.

Or that in 1986 a prominent politician had stated

we’ve had too many examples in recent years of courts and judges legislating. They’re not interpreting what the law says. In too many instances they have been actually legislating by legal decree what they think the law should be.

That was not from a mere party platform, but from a sitting President of the United States.      Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6).       Saint Reagan, of "What Would Reagan Do?" fame.

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Engaging On The Court


Greg Sargent was right.     Tuesday, he wrote

Between the nixing of Obamacare, should it happen, and the Citizens United decision, which Obama strongly opposes, you’d think the President would respond by casting the Supreme Court as a leading villain. He could hammer the Court as another symbol of the way the GOP, beholden to special interests, has consistently frustrated reform and stacked the system against ordinary Americans.

But don’t expect Obama to launch a full-blown campaign against the Court....

So expect Obama to strike an important balancing act: He’ll refrain from directly attacking the Court, while.... 

Later that day, President Obama, while apparently trying to prod the Court in a responsible direction, instead incurred controversy by remarking

I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. And I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.

While centrist columnist Ruth Marcus termed it merely "rather unsettling," another Washington Post columnist, righty Jennifer Rubin, labeled it a "judicial witch hunt" and "irresponsible," presumably to distinguish it from responsible witch hunting.    (She is a conservative Republican, after all; perhaps she does believe in responsible witch hunting.)     Senate Majority Leader McConnell termed it an "attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court" (which) "falls well beyond distasteful politics"      Rush Limbaugh found the comments "beneath the office of the presidency," a startling claim for someone who considers the President a "Halfrican" whose "entire economic program is reparations."

But in fact, Sargent's prediction has come to pass, if months before he expected.     Choosing to be, as The Washington Post would editorialize, "more careful in the details and tone of his critique," Obama the following day explained

And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress.  And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this. 

Now, as I said, I expect the Supreme Court actually to recognize that and to abide by well-established precedence out there.  I have enormous confidence that in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the Court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our Supreme Court has.  As a consequence, we’re not spending a whole bunch of time planning for contingencies. 

The remarks were mild, though well summarized when Obama noted

It doesn’t make us weaker when we guarantee basic security for the elderly or the sick or those who are actively looking for work.  What makes us weaker is when fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the goods and services our businesses sell, or when entrepreneurs don’t have the financial security to take a chance and start a new business.  What drags down our entire economy is when there’s an ever-widening chasm between the ultra-rich and everybody else.

Even the initial remark, however, was "pretty timid stuff, indeed," according to Sargent and "more of a nudge than an attack," according to Suprreme Court historian Jeff Shesol.       Better than this weak tea would have been the following, borrowed heavily from suggestions of Digby::

As Ronald Reagan said back in 1986, 'we’ve had too many examples in recent years of courts and judges legislating. They’re not interpreting what the law says. In too many instances they have been actually legislating by legal decree what they think the law should be.' I agree with Ronald Reagan that some judges show little regard for the authority of the president, the Congress, and the states. They display even less interest in the will of the people.





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No Problem To Sign



"How," asks a wise commenter on firedogake.com, can he sign this bill, yet get credit for signing Dodd-Frank(as weak as this is)?"

President Obama has promised to sign on Thursday the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act which includes, as described by Bloomberg, "measures that would among other things undo a ban on closely held firms soliciting investments, increase the number of investors such firms can have and exempt newly public companies with less than $1 billion in revenue from some reporting requirements of the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley laws."       The people who watch the industry understand the implications.    Former SEC chief accountant Lynn E. Turner had warned "It won’t create jobs, but it will simplify fraud.     This would be better known as the bucket-shop and penny-stock fraud reauthorization act of 2012."     A statement released by the spokesman for the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated chairman Mary Schapiro  “believes that portions of the legislation either unnecessarily eliminate important investor protections or are not balanced with sufficient safeguards."    

As a measure which would undermine Dodd-Frank, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act excited Republicans, pleased President Obama, and delighted Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Wall Street).  

But there are other reasons Barack Obama would sign the bill, even beyond the clever acronym JOBS Act, which makes it somewhat difficult to oppose, given the willingness of the media to mischaracterize it as an actual measure to create jobs.     (It would be far more politically palatable to oppose it as the "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act," and far easier than saying it ten times fast.)       One clue may be in the numerous websites, a few set up since almost before Obama became President, cataloging his "accomplishments."    

Here is one only recently listing fifty (50).      It in turn links to one established two years earlier, which lists ninety (90) alleged accomplishments, including the awesome "held first Seder in the White House," "has put the ball in play for comprehensive immigration reform," "has announced his intention to push for energy reform," and "has announced his intention to push for education reform."    

The cynical among us might question how announcing an intention is an accomplishment and those paying attention might want to note that the Obama-Duncan education reform scheme is one meant to undermine the public school system.      Still, promulgating such lists are a tactic for pushing the idea that a chief executive, any manager, has done things.They may be discontinued, as in cash-for-clunkers and tax write-offs for purchase of hybrid vehicles; grossly inadequate, as in a "housing rescue plan;" or obscenely misleading, as in "respecting the Freedom of Information Act.    Or the alleged accomplishment could be mere means toward an end, as in "visited more countries and met with more world leaders..."Nevertheless, they can be catalogued, however disingenuously, as "accomplishments."

President Obama can, and will, sign the bill, moreover, because that's what he does:    sign bills.      According to wikipedia (which is usually up-to-date), our current president has vetoed two (2) bills.    Two bills- compared to 12 by Bush/43, 37 by Clinton, 44 by Bush/41, and 78 by Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6).    It would be too much to quip that Barack Obama has never met a legislative measure he didn't like- but not by much.

But, inadvertently, House Majority Leader Cantor said it best.    "What we're trying to do," he explained, "is regain the confidence of the people that sent us here."      They sent the economy hurtling toward destruction, bankrolled Obama's candidacy, then switched their allegiance to GOP congressional candidates and now Mitt Romney.    What Dick Durbin said in 2009 about the banks applies now to the financial industry generally:     "hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."








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The China Guy



Terming President Obama "a near-supplicant to Beijing," Mitt Romney in March had taken to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and vowed

Unless China changes its ways, on day one of my presidency I will designate it a currency manipulator and take appropriate counteraction. A trade war with China is the last thing I want, but I cannot tolerate our current trade surrender.


We must also maintain military forces commensurate to the long-term challenge posed by China's build-up. For more than a decade now we have witnessed double-digit increases in China's officially reported military spending. And even that does not capture the full extent of its spending on defense. Nor do the gross numbers tell us anything about the most troubling aspects of China's strategy, which is designed to exert pressure on China's neighbors and blunt the ability of the United States to project power into the Pacific and keep the peace from which China itself has benefited.

Romney's focus now has shifted westward.      A week ago, he stated on CNN "In terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that's on the Security Council, and as of course a massive nuclear power, Russia is the geopolitical foe."       After being roundly criticized, Romney later in the week contended

In contrast to President Obama, Governor Romney is clear-eyed about the geopolitical challenges Russia pose. Russia's nuclear arsenal, its energy resources, its geographic position astride Europe and Asia, the veto it wields on the UN Security Council, and the creeping authoritarianism of its government make Russia a unique geopolitical problem that frustrates progress on numerous issues of vital concern to the United States.

Romney has failed to make the argument that Russia presents "a unique geopolitical problem."      And it will not do so, as long as the People's Republic of China exists.     Although the GOP candidate did not address the threat posed by the PRC, his recent, overheated statements about Russia represent a critical pivot, a change of focus.      

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald has reported

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his family, who have kept Newt Gingrich's flagging presidential campaign alive with donations, seem poised to send millions of dollars to Republican-allied groups and possibly a "super" political action committee backing front-runner Mitt Romney, according to fundraisers with ties to the casino owner.


Adelson, his wife Miriam and other family members have donated $16.5 million to a Gingrich-backing super PAC, which is allowed by law to take unlimited campaign donations.


A private dinner March 22 at Adelson's Las Vegas home drew the chairman of the Republican National Committee plus some of the GOP's best-known fundraisers and donors. The diners were in Las Vegas early for a weekend summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group that Adelson has backed heavily.


During the soiree, the Adelson family members privately sent strong signals to Romney allies that they'd donate millions of dollars, perhaps on par with their support for Gingrich, to a super PAC that has heavily supported the former Massachusetts governor's campaign for the GOP presidential nomination - assuming that Gingrich eventually drops out. Gingrich is badly trailing and as of the end of February, his campaign was in debt.


Adelson, a staunch Israel supporter whose fortune is pegged by Forbes at almost $25 billion, is a prime example of the new breed of donor who, thanks to court rulings in 2010, can give unlimited amounts to outside groups that spend independently to support candidates.

Israel is not the only country Sheldon Adelson is enthusiastic about.     In May, 2004 Adelson opened the Sands Macao and in less than three years, Macao, a special administrative region of the PRC, became the most popular gambling destination in the world.     Soon, Adelson became the third wealthiest American.    In 2008 he boasted

“We’re the largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” In early August, during the Olympic Games, Las Vegas Sands will launch the Adelson Center for U.S.-China Enterprise, in Beijing, which seems positioned to wield substantial influence. If you were an American businessman coming to China, the Sands’s Bill Weidner testified at the Suen trial, “you might need a logistics partner to deliver your goods. You might need a manufacturer to manufacture your goods. You might need a law firm. You might need an accounting firm. Whatever it would take to get you involved in business in China, we would—the center would help arrange for you.”

It's no surprise, then, that in March 2007 Adelson had

said that many members of Congress criticize China for its human-rights record, but he added that he liked the way the Chinese run their country. “People seem to be living a good life in China,” he said. “Look at the incredible progress China has made. How can someone say they’re doing the wrong thing?” He added that those who don’t approve of the way China is governed need not go to the country. “I don’t think the U.S. should be the policeman of the whole world,” he said.

Adelson's holdings haven't escaped the attention of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which

are probing the Las Vegas Sands for alleged bribery of foreign officials. The investigation was launched after a civil lawsuit by a former company executive alleged the casino had “involvement with Chinese organized crime groups, known as Triads, connected to the junket business.” The Sands is headed by Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner who has given millions toward Newt Gingrich’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination. Adelson denies any wrongdoing.

Earlier, the casino mogul had offered kind words for the former Massachusetts governor while actively bankrolling a hopeful Gingrich.       Throughout, Romney was all hot and bothered about a looming threat posed by mainland China.     It may be a coincidence, but at least a happy one, that Mitt's tune is changing just as big money may be coming his way from one of the behemoth's proponents.





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In Praise Of Coulter

Ann Coulter is a vile human being.      The woman who once 'joked' "I would comment on John Edwards but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot'" and later remarked "If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist asssassination plot" is always up for something crude and nasty.    

But it turns out that Coulter is wise, in a way.      On the "roundtable" on ABC's This Week, Coulter said of speculation that Mitt Romney would tap Florida Senator Mark Rubio as his running mate

I think that would be a mistake because the same people who loved Rubio loved [former presidential candidate and Texas Gov.]Rick PerryI want someone who’s been a bit more tested.

Ann at least recognizes someone who's not ready for prime time.     Moreover, Rubio already has been tested- and found to be a liar.     A year ago, we learned from The Huffington Post

Rubio's official biography stated that his parents "came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover," a compelling narrative for a rising South Florida politician. In Miami and surrounding communities, Cubans and their politics have long been divided among the older generations who left the island after Castro's rise to power and those who migrated later for economic reasons.

The Post reported that documents showed that Rubio's parents left Cuba more than two-and-a-half years before Castro took power in 1959. Rubio insisted that his story was based on family lore, but his official Senate bio was corrected following the Post story to say the senator "was born in Miami in 1971 to Cuban exiles who first arrived in the United States in 1956."

This ain't beanbag, and it's not a private issue of sex, which would have aroused much more interest and would have been much less significant.

GOP politicians got excited about Rubio not only because he's hispanic but also because of the narrative involving parents escaping Communist Cuba to come to the land of the free and the brave.    Rather, Marco's parents were refugees from the regime led by Batista, friend to (some) American politicians and, especially, Mafioso.      It stretches credulity to believe that Senator Rubio actually thought that his parents had escaped from Fidel Castro's clutches.   But it was a convenient falsehood for a young, rising politician.

Selection of Rubio would send a tingle up the leg of the mainstream media, which would contentedly imply that the GOP had proven that it is not the province of rich white men.      Of course, that would not be the point:    it still would be the party of the 1%, no matter the ethnicity of its presidential and vice-presidential nominees.      After a short time, further, it would dawn on the media that Cuban-Americans are not identical to Mexican-Americans or to Puerto Ricans.

We live in a country where, for the first time, we have a president who seems to believe that all young men of one race look alike.      Still, the Cuban experience in the U.S.A. is unlike that of any other people and reaction to a Rubio nomination would correspond far more to other factors, including to what would be a growing realization that he is not ready, in case of emergency, to be President.



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