Last Call

The gang at Odyssey Marine Exploration have struck gold again in the increasingly high stakes and high-tech shipwreck salvaging department...or in this case, struck silver.

The company retrieved 1,203 silver bars, or about 1.4 million ounces of the metal, from the SS Gairsoppa, a 412-foot (126-meter) British cargo ship that sank after being torpedoed by German U-boat in February 1941, Tampa, Florida-based Odyssey said today in a statement. The metal, worth $38 million at today’s prices, is being held at a secure facility in the U.K.

Odyssey said the recovered silver represents about 20 percent of the bullion that may be on board the Gairsoppa, which lies about 300 miles off the coast of Ireland. The operation, the largest and deepest recovery of precious metals from a shipwreck, should be completed in the third quarter.

“With the shipwreck lying approximately three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, this was a complex operation,” Greg Stemm, Odyssey chief executive officer, said in the statement. “Our success on the Gairsoppa marks the beginning of a new paradigm for Odyssey in which we expect modern shipwreck projects will complement our archaeological shipwreck excavations.”

With the caliber of equipment that these guys can afford, with major investors and international backing, not to mention pretty good prices these days for precious metals, the Odyssey guys have a winning formula and have struck a number of major finds in the past.  Publicly traded on NASDAQ and everything, these guys.

They find the hard stuff that takes a serious investment and recovery effort, but that money pays off with finds of this level every year or so.  Kinda wish I could be running a company like this.

The Michigan Rag

If anyone's been absolutely staying on top of the nasty, corrupt, divisive and possibly illegal actions of Michigan's state Republican party, it's my good friend Chris Savage at Eclectablog.  Today he's got a doozy of a story involving Michigan's GOP House Speaker Jase Bolger in a tale of fraud, party-flipping, and what could be termed outright election rigging.

A press release from Kent County Prosecuting Attorney William Forsyth (pdf) has revealed a jaw-dropping level of corruption and fraud on the part of Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger and Democrat-turned-Republican Representative Roy Schmidt. You can read the back story on Schmidt’s last minute dick move switch from Democrat to Republican that effectively ruined any chance of Democrats having a viable candidate HERE and HERE.

Forsyth’s investigation reveals that Schmidt and Bolger conspired to hire the weightlifting buddy of Schmidt’s nephew, Matthew Mojak, to run as a Democrat but not actually campaign. This would have forced Democrats to run a REAL Democrat in the primary as a write-in candidate, virtually assuring they would lose and that Schmidt would essentially have no opponent in the November general election.

It gets worse.  Bolger's plan was pretty ugly, too.  he paid Mojak to run and lose on purpose and split the Dem vote, assuring Schmidt would win.

Prosecutor Forsyth, himself a Republican, is clear repulsed by what he uncovered, a position made more galling by the fact that none of it was actually, in a technical sense, illegal. He wrote in his conclusion, “Although this scheme by Rep. Schmidt and Speaker Bolger was clearly designed to undermine the election and to perpetrate a “fraud” on the electorate, it was nonetheless legal … Incredibly, while it would be illegal to pay a boxer to take a “dive” or a basketball player to “point-shave’, it is not currently a crime in Michigan to recruit someone to run for public office, place them on the ballot at the “eleventh hour” and essentially pay them to make no effort to win … As a Republican elected official, I am embarrassed and offended by what transpired. "

Amazing stuff here.  Do read the whole thing.  Bolger has to resign as Michigan House Speaker, immediately.

Tax Return Of The King

Mitt Romney's running out of support for refusing to release his tax returns from the Bain years.  Over a dozen major conservative figures and politicians are calling for him to rip the bandages off and take the pain now, but it's become painfully clear that the returns are so awful otherwise this would have been done years ago when he ran for Governor.  He got away with that back then.  Today, not so much.

Ezra Klein argues the returns most likely show that Romney's tax gymnastics and offshore shell account games meant he paid little to no federal taxes in those years.

For what it’s worth — and, since I haven’t see Romney’s 2009 tax return, it’s not worth much — my guess is he paid some federal taxes in 2009. The sort of tax sheltering he would have needed to get to zero would be quasi-suicidal for a presidential aspirant. But his effective federal tax rate may only have been 3 or 4 or 5 percent, which would be nearly as bad as zero. Add in a couple of shelters that Romney fears would look particularly bad, and it’s probably enough to persuade him that enduring a bit of bad press for tax decisions people think he might have made is preferable to a media feeding frenzy over tax decisions he definitely made.

The question none of this answers is why Romney didn’t clean up his taxes in 2008 and 2009. But it’s always worth remembering that the people running for office are human beings who procrastinate and make bad decisions and get distracted by other things. And given that Romney moves in a world where aggressive tax planning is the norm rather than the exception, he might simply have failed to recognize what a priority simplifying his taxes really was. My hunch is that the person spending the most time wondering why Romney didn’t get his taxes in order in 2008 is…Mitt Romney.

And yes, considering how much damage he's taken from his 14% effective tax rate for last year,  if that number is something like 4% at the depths of the worst recession in generations, he's a goner and he knows it.  Ironically conservatives like George Will and the editors of National Review really are giving him good advice:  release the returns, take your lumps and ride it out.

Either way however, the Obama administration is winning this fight.  Either Mitt paid almost nothing in taxes, or they can say he's hiding something for the next 3.5 months.



Which makes me think there might even be something worse in there that happened after the McCain vetting in 2008.

A Special Place In Hell

Does hell have skillets, I wonder?

SENATH, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman is facing charges for allegedly striking her 2-year-old son in the head with a cast iron skillet.

The Kennett Daily Dunklin Democrat (http://bit.ly/LUwSGW ) reports that 23-year-old Tameca Bryant of Senath is charged with first-degree domestic assault, armed criminal action and endangering the welfare of a child. She is jailed on $100,000 bond.

Authorities say the boy was injured on June 2, but Bryant waited until the next day to seek medical attention. Doctors discovered the toddler had many injuries including a broken arm, skull fracture, a brain injury, bruises and dried blood in his left ear.

I suppose we should be grateful that she got the child medical attention at all.  I cannot imagine how much pain he must have been in.  That's a hell of a thing to do to anyone, those things are freaking solid.  I grabbed one once when I thought there was an intruder, and I had no doubt at all that I'd cave in a skull if I tried.

Romney Admits Obama Is The Most Powerful Being Ever

Because apparently Obama can take hard numbers and turn them into lies.  That's the reason Romney states when refusing to give his tax information.

"In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy," Romney told Robert Costa of National Review. "And I'm simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about."

How can Obama lie when facts are there for the proof?  What is he so afraid that Obama can distort or lie about?  Surely it isn't the numbers, the only thing that can't be spun or filtered through bullshit.  Numbers don't lie.

It's for our own good, see.  Mittens is so complicated it would cause us to suffer from neglect if he supplied those pesky numbers.  He's doing us a favor by withholding the information and we're fools for not seeing it.

Jackass times infinity, plus one dipped in chocolate and covered with jackass sprinkles.

Getting Serious On Syria, Part 7

Things just got taken to a new level in Damascus this morning when a suicide bombing attack at a meeting of Assad regime ministers claimed the life of Syria's defense minister and his top deputy minister.

Defense Minister Dawood Rajiha and Deputy Minister Assef Shawkat -- who is al-Assad's brother-in-law -- were killed in the explosion during a meeting of ministers and security officials, state TV reported.

They are the highest-ranking Syrian officials killed in the uprising.

The bombing resulted in other casualties among attendees, state TV reported.

With the Syrian government restricting access to the country by foreign journalists, there was no immediate way to confirm reports on the blast.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said initial reports indicate a car bomb caused an "intense explosion" in Damascus.

More as this comes in.

Fiscal Cliff Hangers

Senate Dems are pressing their advantage on the Bush tax cuts this year, knowing that if there's no agreement, the cuts expire for everyone.  Republicans have always warned that the cuts need to be made permanent or else, and now it seems Harry Reid's boys are calling that bluff.

Senate Democrats — holding firm against extending tax cuts for the rich — are proposing a novel way to circumvent the Republican pledge not to vote for any tax increase: Allow all the tax cuts to expire Jan. 1, then vote on a tax cut for the middle class shortly thereafter.

The proposal illustrates the lengths lawmakers are going to in an effort to include new federal revenues in a fix for the “fiscal cliff,” the reckoning in January that would come when all Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs kick in. 

Virtually every Republican in Congress has taken the pledge, pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, never to vote for a tax increase — a pledge both parties see as a serious impediment to a tax compromise. But if tax rates snap back to the levels of the Clinton presidency on Jan. 1, any legislation to reinstate some of those tax cuts — but not all of them — would be considered a tax cut. 

“Many Republicans are starting to realize something important: On Jan. 1, if we haven’t gotten to a deal, Grover Norquist and his pledge are no longer relevant to this conversation,” Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said this week in a speech at the Brookings Institution. “We will have a new fiscal and political reality.” 

That's a dangerous game, potentially.  Certainly if the GOP keeps the House and wins the Senate, the resulting legislation would be everything they want:  permanent tax cuts that favor the wealthy.   This plan only works if the Democrats keep control of the Senate, and both sides know it.

It's good however that the Democrats are at least willing to go to the mat on this.  We're going to have to back them up.  Numbers are starting to get grim in a couple of Senate races, most notably in Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Virginia.  Should Florida, Nevada and South Dakota go all pear-shaped too, things could get bad fast.

Those Senate races are in a lot of ways more important right now.  Obama's holding his own for President, we need to worry about the Senate.

StupidiNews!

• The FDA has approved a second diet drug this year, Qsymia, for weight loss, but critics are concerned there may be side effects.
• Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio is accusing the President of a fraudulent birth certificate and is demanding a federal congressional investigation into its authenticity.
• South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint continues to block legislation that would give health care benefits to Marine families affected by water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
• The Bank of England has made a 7-2 policy vote to recommend more financial stimulus and to cut interest rates to boost the UK's sagging economy.
• Microsoft introduces Office 2013 this week as the Windows maker brings cloud computing and social networking support to its flagship productivity software.

Last Call

And Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu advances the ni-CLANG clock closer to midnight.

In a brutal campaign conference call Tuesday organized by Mitt Romney's campaign, several of the candidate's surrogates went after President Obama with fiery attacks accusing him of socialism, and being un-American.

"I wish this president would learn how to be an American," said former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu said toward the beginning of the call. Asked later to explain his comment, Sununu said he was referring to Obama's economic philosophy, and apologized for not being clearer.

Sununu also said that by asserting Romney had committed a felony, the Obama campaign was inviting an investigation into its own "Chicago-style" politics. He concluded the call by calling Obama's campaign "clearly and unequivocally liars."

Among the other jabs at Obama were Kyle Koehler, an Ohio tool manufacturer, accusing the president of supporting socialism, and Renee Amoore, a Pennsylvania small business advocate, delivering a passionate diatribe about how her shared race with the president wouldn't win her support.

"Well, I've been black for a long time and he won't get my vote," Amoore said.

Awesome.  The Romney campaign responds to "We have legitimate questions about your tax returns which you refuse to release" with "President Obama is a pot-smoking Kenyan socialist and even black people hate him."

They're swirling around the drain now, folks.  It's getting bizarre now.

Mark Halperin: Professional Douchecapacitor

I’m trying to figure out what Time’s Mark Halperin’s problem here is this morning with his bleating about Bain and how Mean Old Obama shouldn’t be trying to win or anything and should assume the position like a good Centrist Dem, but then I recall that the passive-aggressive Halperin is a douchecapacitor that stores grudges against the President and occasionally discharges his anger in order to keep from overloading and detonating like he did with the whole unfortunate “Obama is a dick” incident.  Here’s the opening of his salvo today:

Pause for two beats and pay Prizzi’s Honor-style homage to the ruthless killing machine that is the combined White House-Chicago operation.

Just no.  We’re really saying Romney’s decade-long self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot is Obama’s fault, ten years after the fact?

 

They have parceled out their opposition research in a manner both strategic and tactical, selecting specific news organizations at times of their choosing to maximize the drip-drip-drip of the twin stories. They have used left-leaning Web outfits as recipients of over-the-transom gifts as effectively (cumulatively) as the Romney campaign uses Drudge. And they have seen the Boston Globe use its credibility to drive a ton of news.

Remember, there’s no difference between Drudge and MSNBC, they’re both full of propaganda partisans, unlike me, Mark Halperin.  You can trust me, not those awful lying partisans who are not Mark Halperin.  Remember, I think that Obama is just as bad for pointing out Romney’s idiocy as Romney is for being an idiot.  I’m a Centrist.

 

The Obamans have dominated numerous consecutive news cycles since the last unemployment numbers came out. And there is more to come for sure. The Gang of 500 is confident it is just a matter of time before Romney relents and puts out additional years of tax returns, an eventuality that the Obama campaign will drag out for days. When some said that the Bain issue was burning out through its use by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and others in the nomination fight, Chicago was quietly confident the matter could be easily revived with new information and heavy advertising — and Chicago was right. And, make no mistake, the Obamans are sitting on even more research that they will unfurl down the road.

The rest of the GOP Clown Car Cavalcade couldn’t stick the knife in like that dick Obama. He’s just as bad if not worse than they are.  You should be careful around him or you’ll get CHICAGOED by OBAMANS.

 

From the President, to Joe Biden, to senior White House aides, to the entire re-elect operation — there has been impressive coordination on every one of their Bain-tax return hits, and there’s no reason to think that the teamwork will stop.

Teamwork is another word for thuggery.  CHICAGOED BY BIDEN.

 

So why is Halperin working the refs here when Halperin is the ref?  Real simple, he has to make up for this:

 

Halperin tweeted Sunday that he was uncomfortable with his image being used to back up a political point from the Romney campaign.

“To echo what NBC News’ Tom Brokaw said in January, when his image and voice were used in a Romney campaign TV ad, ‘I am extremely uncomfortable with the use of my personal image in this political ad. I do not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign,” Halperin said in a series of tweets.

So yeah, he can’t be IN THE TANK FOR OBAMA, so we get this mealy mouthed passive-aggressive bullshit.  The Douchecapacitor strikes again.  And now he has credibility where he can say “Hey I stayed out of this mess!” while continuing to attack the President he loathes.

It’s a good job if you can get it.

Statistics, Damn Statistics, And Libor

Remember folks, the Libor rate is the main international rate for determining borrowing costs from everything from car loans to your adjustable rate mortgages.  And for quite some time now, Barclays Bank has been playing that rate to benefit itself at your expense.

A top Barclays executive who quit over the bank’s rigging scandal told British lawmakers Monday that he was instructed by his former boss Bob Diamond to manipulate key inter-bank lending rates.

Jerry del Missier resigned two weeks ago over the scandal, which has also claimed the jobs of Diamond and Barclays chairman Marcus Agius and rocked the City of London, one of the world’s top financial hubs.

It had emerged that del Missier told Barclays traders to manipulate the bank’s submissions for the Libor and Euribor rates in a bid to make it seem as if other banks were more willing to lend to Barclays than they actually were.

Diamond has said that del Missier did this after “misinterpreting” a phone conversation between Diamond and Bank of England (BoE) deputy governor Paul Tucker in October 2008.

But asked by the British parliament’s Treasury Select Committee on Monday whether the phone call was “an instruction” from Diamond to cut the submissions, del Missier replied: “Yes, it was.”

Diamond, who stepped down as Barclays chief executive hours before del Missier on July 3, previously told the committee he had not instructed del Missier to manipulate the rates.

In other words, Jerry Del Missier knows where the bodies are buried, because he was the guy with the shovel.  He says he was acting under CEO Bob Diamond's orders at the time.  You're mad if you think that Barclays wasn't the only bank to shave points like this too.  they had every incentive to do so.

The Libor scandal basically works like bidding on valuables on one of those online auction sites.  Everyone names their price and they go from there, but if you knew ahead of time what the price was going to be by hacking the site, you could make your bid higher or lower to benefit yourself and then lie to everyone else about what your bid was, then pocket the difference.

You could say you bid $100 for that pair of shoes or whatever, actually pay $80, keep the $20 for yourself and nobody's the wiser.  The guy on the other end of that sale got stiffed $20 and he didn't know any better, too.  Barclays did the same thing only they skimmed a bit off the top of the daily Libor trade every day.  It added up to big, big money, and you and me were the guys getting stiffed.

And keep in mind Barclays' crime was getting caught.  The other banks?  I'm betting they did it too.  In fact all of us too that particular bet, and we lost billions playing.  That's the problem.  The purveyors of free market economics say we need less regulation in order to unleash the power of capitalism, and every time we do capitalism comes along and makes it a sucker bet in a rigged carnival game.  Libor is just another game rigged by the house so that the players always lose.

And as bad as the Dems are on this subject, always remember the Republicans want even more of that.

Now Those Are Some Long Odds

As a geek, I have zero athletic skill.  None.  For the most part I'm cool with it, but I do wish I could play golf.  I love walking the courses, and the satisfaction of hitting a ball Just Right is enough to keep me at the driving range.

I've never met this guy, but he'll be a legend on local golf courses.  Forever.  He just had his 13th career hole-in-one.  That in itself is amazing, especially for a great golfer but not a professional who just has sheer numbers going for them.

Now it gets crazy.  It's his third in 43 days.  It's his fourth in a year.

I'll be the first to admit I suck at math, but I can't even wrap my brain around those odds.  I know my odds better than to put money against him, though.

Celebrity Sighting, Springfield Style

John Goodman caught a Cardinals game in Springfield Friday.  He was in town for the Tent Theatre 50 Year Anniversary.  Goodman, a Springfield native and MSU graduate, has always been generous in supporting the arts and the community. It is rare for him to get out and be so social, however.

You can see Goodman in the shots of the game over here.  He's looking good, much healthier than the last several times I've seen him.

Eyes were peeled for Kathleen Turner and other famous Springfield citizens, and of course Brad Pitt.  So far reports were mum, but the odds are they'll turn up in random shots in the background.

It's not that we have famous people who have hailed from Springfield, but that they come back long after they have moved on to bigger cities and globe-trotting lifestyles that makes me happy to live here.  It reminds me that humble beginnings can lead to big things, and that I come from a place that is so awesome they still come back.

If nothing else, I figured Pitt would say a word about the new movement to decriminalize marijuana in Springfield.

Oops! FDA Spied On Employees

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration's secret monitoring of its staff raised hackles in Congress on Sunday after lawmakers learned their own offices were apparently targeted by the surveillance operation.

Six current and former FDA scientists and doctors filed a lawsuit in January claiming the agency tried to repress warnings about potential corruption in device reviews.

Documents detailing the surveillance operation suggest it was large-scale and that the FDA kept a list of targets including lawmakers and their aides, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

"It is absolutely unacceptable for the FDA to be spying on employees who reach out to members of Congress to expose abuses or wrongdoing in government agencies," said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

Well, it doesn't feel so good when it hits home, does it?  Citizens have suffered incredible losses on the privacy front, and with less reasoning than what's going on here.

The FDA is going to have some uncomfortable moments in the coming weeks or months as this is investigated.  So far, the information coming in points towards a serious, widespread problem.  It will also draw a line and force an updated decision on what is reasonable, and what rights to privacy government employees can expect.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

OK, this is just about half a mile past too much on the Road to Oblivion, anyway.

A female relative accused George Zimmerman, charged in the murder of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, of sexually molesting her from age 6 to 16, according to new documents made public on Monday by prosecutors.

The female relative's name and exact relationship to Zimmerman was deleted from an audio tape version of her witness statement that was released to the media. Identified only as 'Witness #9' she would be aged about 27 now.

A spokesman for Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara told Reuters the defense team was preparing a response to the molestation allegations to post on its website later this afternoon and had no immediate comment.

Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth R. Lester ordered the document released under Florida's public records law.

I need a drink.  And I don't drink.   Seriously, this is just completely bonkers now, John Grisham on meth and Doritos couldn't write this legal disaster.

Is there anyone who George Zimmerman has met whose life he hasn't turned to a flaming pile of crap?