Bulgaria Bombing's Gitmo Connections

The Times of Israel is reporting that the suicide bomber that attacked and killed five Israelis on a bus in Bulgaria was a former Gitmo detainee.  If this is true, the odds of Congress ever closing Gitmo went from "small" to "none ever."

Bulgarian media on Thursday named the suicide bomber who blew up a bus full of Israeli tourists, killing five Israelis and a local bus driver, in the Black Sea resort of Burgas on Wednesday as Mehdi Ghezali.

There was no independent confirmation of the veracity of the information. The reports surfaced soon after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly accused Hezbollah, directed by Iran, of responsibility for the bombing. The Prime Minister’s Office made no comment on the reports.

The Bulgarian reports, rapidly picked up by Hebrew media, posited various versions of how the bomber had detonated the bomb, including the suggestion that the bomber had not intended to die in the blast, but may have wanted to place the bomb on the bus and flee.

Ghezali was reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He was released to Swedish custody in 2004, and the Swedish government did not press charges. He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009.

OK.  I trust the Israeli media about as far as I can throw the Wailing Wall, but it's pretty easy to check if this is the guy.  If it's true, there is now zero chance Gitmo will ever close in our lifetimes.  Period.  Members of Congress will immediately be accused of Israel-hating anti-Semitism for even suggesting Gitmo should be closed, and all debate in the US will end on this for good.  Even discussing this will be a grave insult to the memory of the victims of the blast.

We'll see where this goes, but my guess is we'll have another situation where Obama will be blamed by all sides for something that happened in Bush's first term.

How Hot Is It?

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Farmers throughout Missouri affected by the heat and drought that has gripped the state will now have access to low-interest loans and other assistance from the federal government. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack declared all 114 counties as primary natural disaster areas, following a request by the governor.

USDA on Tuesday announced the designation of 97 additional counties, in addition to the 17 counties previously announced.  Because it is contiguous toSt. LouisCounty, the City of St. Louis also is included in the designation.

“This designation can help livestock and crop farmers across the state who are suffering great losses because of the heat and lack of rain,” said Gov. Jay Nixon, who is surveying damage at farms in Lewis, Atchison and Polk counties on Tuesday.

It's getting dire in many places, but I can speak firsthand for this pocket of Missouri.  Crops are browning or dying, and no relief in sight.  Several days of hard rain would be great, but still not enough to replenish the water levels.  Livestock will be feeling this for a long time to come, even if the rain came now.

The rivers and lakes are low enough that entire stretches are dried up.  The Sac (pronounced "Sock" for you non-locals) is dusty and stops completely for as far as one can see in places.  I've only seen it this bad once before, and it took years to recover.

Obituary Confession: Doing It Right

A Utah scientist used his obituary to admit to colleagues that he didn't actually graduate from college, let alone get a Ph.D.

Val Patterson, a scientist from Salt Lake City, Utah, also confessed to a theft in the obit that he wrote himself.

"I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June 1971," he wrote.

He also told Disneyland and San Diego's SeaWorld they could throw away his "banned for life" file from their records.

Patterson said he lived by the philosophy of "anything for a laugh" and tried to have the last one with his obit which he wrote himself before he died July 10 from throat cancer. He was 59.

High on his list of things he confessed to -- or bragged he got away with -- was his educational resume.

He admitted he hadn't earned his Ph.D. and said it was mailed to him by the University of Utah in error. Patterson said that he hadn't even earned enough credits to graduate from the state university, and "never did even learn what the letters 'PhD' even stood for."

"For all the electronic engineers I have worked with, I'm sorry, but you have to admit my designs always worked very well, and were well engineered, and I always made you laugh at work," he wrote.

He does give his wife kudos for loving him through his illness, and expresses regret that he caused her so much pain, watching him die.   He cleared the air, for sure.  I'm not sure how successful his "anything for a laugh" truly was... how does one get banned for life from SeaWorld?  Whether he was funny or not, this guy was a character.  A talented liar who was able to live up to the expectations he created.  He picked a hell of a career to fudge on his education.  His stories would have been interesting, even if they were a tad bit scary.

I was just talking to my husband about this over the weekend, while I worked out a fictional character.  I decided I would leave a letter to be opened if I had murdered someone or stolen a fortune.  I'd clear those left behind, and set any records straight.  What about you guys?  Would you keep quiet or come clean?

New Mexico, Old Issues

Tom Jensen and the folks at Public Policy polling have surveyed the state of New Mexico and have noted that as expected the race between Romney and Obama is tightening up a bit in the Land of Enchantment.

PPP's newest New Mexico poll finds the race for President there getting a lot more competitive. Barack Obama continues to lead but his advantage is down to 5 points at 49-44, a far cry from the leads of 14 and 15 points he had on our previous two polls of the state.

The big difference between now and April comes with Democrats. Previously Obama was winning them 85-12 but now that lead is down to 73-21. New Mexico is a state, like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where any chance at victory for Romney is going to require winning over a significant number of conservative Democrats. Right now he's doing a pretty decent job of that.

New Mexico still looks like a lean Obama state, but a surprise choice by Mitt Romney of Susana Martinez as his running mate could make the state a toss up. With her on the ticket Obama's lead drops all the way down to 48-47. That's a testament to Martinez's appeal with Democrats. She would reduce Obama's lead with them even further to 70-25. There aren't a lot of potential VP choices who would make a big difference in their home states, but there also aren't a lot with a 56/34 approval spread.

Gary Johnson's potential impact on the race in New Mexico just keeps on declining. In December he was polling at 23%. By April that was down to 15% and now we find him at only 13%. Interestingly he hurts Obama a little bit more than Romney, pulling the President's lead down to 42-38. He gets 24% of the independent vote, and a lot of his support is coming from more Democratic leaning independents. Voters in the state are closely divided on Johnson with 39% rating him favorably and 40% unfavorably.

I don't see any way Susana Martinez makes Romney's ticket.  He'd have a clean shot in New Mexico, but it would hurt him in a number of other states, probably losing as many xenophobic and misogynist while male voters as Latino and women voters gained.  Romney's going to need more than a wash to beat Obama at this point.  It's very telling that I can't think of a single VP that can help the guy, either.

Poor dude.

Not A Student Of Presidential Political History, Our Mitt

A bit of a breathless story from HuffPo about Mitt Romney's tax returns this morning on the mindset of the Romney camp intimates that Romney simply thought that the recent rules of releasing them simply didn't apply to him in the first place.

Mitt Romney has been determined to resist releasing his tax returns at least since his bid for Massachusetts governor in 2002 and has been confident that he will never be forced to do so, several current and former Bain executives tell The Huffington Post. Had he thought otherwise, say the sources based on their longtime understanding of Romney, he never would have gone forward with his run for president.

Bain executives say they've been instructed to keep company and Romney-specific information completely confidential, tightening the lockdown on an already closed company. 

That's something of a sensationalist lede that raises the question of "what's in those returns anyway?"  It's a valid question however, considering his 2010 released return is missing all the offshore funds information.

Mitt Romney has not released his full tax records from 2010, including key documentation connected to his Swiss bank account.

Although President Barack Obama and an increasing number of Republican politicians have called on Romney to release tax returns from years prior to 2010, the public criticism has so far failed to note that Romney has not disclosed all of his tax documents for 2010 itself -- the only year for which the GOP presidential nominee has presented any final tax forms.

Romney released his 2010 tax return in January of this year, a document that first informed voters about the existence of his Swiss bank account and financial activities in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But people who own foreign bank accounts are required to file a separate document with the IRS that provides additional details on such overseas bank holdings, and Romney has not released that form to the public.

Whatever he's hiding, HuffPo is building the narrative that it's so awful that the Romney camp believes it would cost Mitt the race, and that he never would have gotten into the race otherwise. I'm not sure if any of this is true, but the one thing that would put this to rest is Romney releasing his returns, and he continues to insist that will not happen.

This has gone from something mildly embarrassing to something potentially much worse for Romney, and the Obama team knows it.  They're standing on Mitt's neck, and they're not budging either.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge has ordered Tennessee to make a final building inspection of a mosque in Murfreesboro, long delayed by anti-Islam opponents, which could see it open as early as today.
• A huge chunk of ice twice the size of Manhattan Island has broken off of Greenland's Petermann Glacier as polar warming continues.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued its first formal major ruling as an agency, ordering bank Capital One to refund $140 million to consumers over "deceptive" credit card add-ons.
• Volkswagen's Audi division plans to complete the acquisition of legendary Italian motorcycle brand Ducati today in a deal worth over $1 billion.
• Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer is roundly criticizing the Justice Department's suit against Apple and others over e-book pricing, saying it could "wipe out the publishing industry as we know it."

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.