by Greg Palast

He’s kidding, right? Did I just hear Mitt Romney say, “I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry”

Really? REALLY?

Here’s the facts, ma’am:

As I reported in this week’s Nation magazine cover story “Mitt Romney’s Bail-out Bonanza,” the Romneys are in a special partnership with the vulture fund that bought Delphi, the former GM auto parts division.

The Romney vulture fund investment syndicate shipped every single UAW production job – EVERY job – to China.

Just after The Nation broke the story, Washington newsletter The Hill received the Romneys admission of profiteering:

“Romney’s campaign did not deny that he profited from the auto bailout in an email to The Hill, but it said the the report showed the Detroit intervention was ‘misguided.'”

The truth? On June 1, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that Detroit Piston’s owner Tom Gores, GM and the US Treasury would buy back Delphi. The plan called for saving 15 of 29 Delphi factories in the US.

Then the vulture funds pounced.

The Nation discovered that, in the two weeks immediately following the announcement of the Delphi jobs-saving plan, Paul Singer, Romney’s partner, secretly bought up over a billion dollars of old Delphi bonds for pennies on the dollar.

Singer and partners now controlled the company…and killed the return of Delphi to GM.

These facts were revealed in a sworn deposition of Delphi’s Chief Financial Officer John Sheehan, confidential, but now released on the web.

Sheehan said, under oath, that these speculators threatened to withhold key parts (steering columns), from GM. This would have brought the auto maker to its knees, immediately forcing GM’s permanent closure.

The extortion worked. The government money that was supposed to go to save jobs went to Singer’s hedge fund Elliott and its partners, including the Romneys.

Once Singer’s crew took control of Delphi, they rapidly completed the move to China, sticking the US taxpayers with the bill for the pensions of the Delphi workers cut loose.

Dan Loeb, a million-dollar donor to the GOP, who made three-quarters of a billion dollars off the legal scam, proudly announced that, once he and Elliott took control, Delphi kept “virtually no North American unionized labor”

In all, three hedge funds run by Romney’s million-dollar donors have pocketed $4.2 billion, a return on their “investment” of over 3,000%, all care of the US taxpayer. The Romneys personally earned minimum $15.3 million, though more likely $115 million – a range their campaign does not dispute.

Frankly, I’m no fan of the way Obama handled the Delphi bail-out. Allowing these speculators to crank the US taxpayers for $12.9 billion in subsidies – and losing almost all the auto parts jobs in the process.

But when I heard that Son of a …Detroit, Mr. Romney, tell us, “I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry,” I thought I’d lose my dinner. I suggest Romney repeat this directly to the Naylor family of Kokomo, Indiana.

Bruce Naylor lost his job at Delphi, then his health insurance (terminated by the Romney syndicate) – then his home to foreclosure.

Should Obama have done something about that? You bet. If I were the president, I’d have started with putting the vulture speculators out of business – including Elliott’s silent, hidden partner, one Mitt Romney.

And a question to the US media: HELLO, ANYBODY HOME?

This info on Romney’s profiteering and the shipping of Delphi jobs to China by his cronies is on the COVER of The Nation magazine and in a New York Times bestseller (Billionaires & Ballot Bandits). So, where is the New York ‘Paper of Record’? Or, for that matter, MSNBC?

Bill Press explained it to me when I was on his show this morning, “Sorry, Greg. There’s no more investigative reporting in America. No reporters, just repeaters.”

That’s why I fear Jimmy Carter’s statement that, “The American people deserve a president as good as they are.” Now I’m afraid that’s exactly what we’ll get.

Greg Palast is the author of the recently published New York Times Top 10 Bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, which is available via Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Indie Bound. Author’s proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.

[..]

by ChrisSick

The final debate, the final days, and all the horror that these things entail.

You know that feeling you sometimes get, like someone is slowly pushing an ice pick into your forebrain through your temple?

No?

Maybe it’s just me.

This campaign is almost over, now, and if the signs I’m getting from my pounding head are any indication, I’m clearly ready for it to be. Luckily, tonight is the last debate I had to stay up late watching and then writing about. Judging by my Twitter feed, and the various blogs and news websites I follow to get a sense of the media narrative, I’m not the only one who seems to give a much bigger shit about that than who actually won the debate.

If you’re curious, I’m pretty sure it was Obama, mainly because Fox News declared it was a tie and that’s usually a pretty reliable sign that the Democrat won.

More seriously, CBS just released their first snap poll flashing across my Twitter feed, indicating that the President won their survey by a massive, thirty-point margin (53% – 33% – 24% undecided). Just judging by a quick glance around the internets, it looks like this is now the quickly congealing media narrative — Obama won this debate.

In fact, I was struck most by how listless Romney seemed in comparison to previous debate performances. It was as though Ed Gillespie told him his job tonight was not to attack, but to focus on looking presidential. So mostly, he didn’t go after Obama as hard as he had previously, and just smirked a lot.

And agreed. A lot. In fact, both men agreed, with Obama praising previous policy positions Romney had staked out, only to then highlight how Romney had shifted away from them in the primary and general. Romney agreed with the President’s specific policies only to pivot away to attacks on vague and airy concerns about projecting weakness instead of strength, and apologies.

And after reading that paragraph you aren’t thinking of the line “and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom” just go ahead and picture it in your head. The whole thing was a lot like that.

When the dust settles, beyond the instant reaction, the bigger questions that come out of tonight will be how it affects the polls heading into the final two weeks. Given the short span of time between the last debate and tonight, and the overall volatility of the race, a clear consensus never emerged of what — if any — effect last week’s debate had on the electoral race.

Just today, Real Clear Politics average of polling opened with a 0.2% lead for Obama, that became a tie, then a 0.4% lead for Romney as new polling data came in throughout the day. At no point over the last three days has any candidate lead by more than half-a-point.

Fivethirtyeight, on the other hand, is showing Obama regaining ground very slowly, but steadily, now giving him a 69% chance to win the election. That’s up significantly from the immediate reaction after the debacle in Denver, but much reduced from the point when the prediction was edging towards a 90% certainty.

One of the most interesting polling results — widely touted by Republicans — from the previous debate was that, although Obama won, voters shifted towards thinking Romney was better suited to handle the economy and the Federal budget. Combined with the messiness of the polls in the wake of the Long Island debate, it’s hard to see what the President necessarily won by winning.

If the previous debates have taught us anything, it’s that the media narrative following the debate is going to be more important than the actual debate. This is an important topic that’ll see deeper consideration in later posts starting this week. These last two weeks will grind out, as the candidates go back to stump speeches and hold as many events as they possibly can in the final days. We might even get lucky and hear some more ridiculous stories about how badly members of Romney’s family want to beat up the President.

As in any election, though, the most interesting day is the next one. The President won tonight, and if the media narrative shapes up the way it looks like it’s headed right now, he may see a bounce that could sustain him all the way up to a win on Election Day. But given where his numbers were just thirty days ago compared to where they are now, I’m reminded of William Gibson talking about how he would feel now if he were to meet his younger self:

“I’d buy him a drink, but I don’t know if I’d loan him any money.”

Barack Obama will probably still be your President three weeks from now, but the getting there stopped being any fun quite some time ago. Which is usually a sign that it’s time to go to bed.

Meme @DellCam

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by Lee Camp

Have you been abducted by ET’s? Have you spotted Bigfoot? Then you might have more than you realize in common with Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann. Check out the video to see what I mean.

[..]

by Blogbot

Every week we ask the ladies and gentlemen of the web to show us their finest ink in celebration of #TattooTuesday.

Our favorite submission from Twitter wins a free 3 month membership to SuicideGirls.com.

This week’s #TattooTuesday winner is Tristan Reid a.k.a. @inkednaturalist who snagged his comp 3 month SG subscription with work that was done to raise money for Turkish conservation, which we think is extra awesome.

Enter this week’s competition by replying to this tweet with a pic of your fav tattoo and the #tattootuesday hashtag.

Good luck!

A few things to remember:

• You have to be 18 to qualify.
• The tattoo has to be yours…that means permanently etched on your body.
• On Twitter we search for your entries by looking up the hashtag #TattooTuesday, so make sure you include it in your tweet!

Check out the Tattoo Tuesday winners of weeks past!

Harajuku Suicide in Eros

• INTO: Silliness, having adventures, geeky indulgences, magic, smiling, esoteric imagery, tattoos, fresh fruit, laughing until it hurts, fierce Japanese fashion, bright colors, kick ass music, loving life.
• NOT INTO: Blood tests.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: The night sky, cats doing silly things, manga and anime, Metallica, sunshine, unicorns, poor judgment, persistence, shenanigans, new tattoos, Poptarts, cotton candy, the art of Audrey Kawasaki, making new friends, Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series, dry British humor, nature.
• HOBBIES: Adventuring, crushing extreme, public drunkenness.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Family, friends, excitement, new experiences, kitties.
• VICES: Candy, peach green tea, things that glow in the dark, whiskey.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Piercing the heavens with my drill.

Get to know Harajuku better over at SuicideGirls.com!