Showing posts with label sleazy republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleazy republicans. Show all posts

Thursday, January 10, 2013

E-mails Reveal Walmart CEO Was Repeatedly Informed of Bribery Scandal in 2005












































E-mails Reveal Walmart CEO Was Repeatedly Informed of Bribery Scandal in 2005

Two Democratic Congressmen today released internal Walmart documents which they said appear to directly contradict Walmart’s recent claims regarding alleged rampant bribery by its Mexico subsidiary. They include what appear to be seven year-old e-mails in which current Walmart CEO Mike Duke was directly informed of the scandal. At the time, Duke was serving as Walmart vice chairman, responsible for Walmart international.

“We are concerned that your company’s public statements that the company was unaware of the allegations appear to be inconsistent with documents we have obtained through our investigation,” representatives Henry Waxman and Elijah Cummings wrote in a letter to Walmart CEO Michael Duke released this morning. “Contrary to Wal-Mart’s public statements, the documents appear to show that you were personally advised of the allegations in October 2005.” Cummings are Waxman the ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Education & Commerce Committee, respectively. Walmart did not immediately respond to The Nation’s request for comment.

The congressmen’s findings echo those of a separate investigation by the New York Times, the paper that first broke news of the scandal in April. In a 7,600 word expose published three weeks ago, the Times found that in 2006, Walmart headquarters shut down an internal investigation of bribery in Mexico, despite “a wealth of evidence” supporting the allegations, and thus “authorities were not notified.” Unlike today’s letter, the Times story did not mention Duke himself.

The December 17 New York Times story reported, also based on confidential documents, that Walmart de Mexico used illegal payoffs in its pursuit of at least 19 Mexico store sites. According to reporters David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic von Betrab, those included a field just outside the historic pyramids in Teotihuacan, an area where Walmart otherwise “almost surely would not have been allowed to build…”

Many Americans might be under the impression that since Republicans are constantly whining about  pro business policies, that conservatives are pro business. That is not the case. Republicans are pro organized crime. They do not want Congress to interfere with businesses like Walmart or Monsanto or BP perpetrating their crimes. It is all code words. Conservative business policies are pro organized crime policies. As simple as that. To add insult to injury - see chart above - middle-class and low wage Americans subsidize Walmart's crimes. 

Friday, September 14, 2012

Mitt Romney, Who Told 533 Documented Lies in 30 Weeks Says Obama Will Lie In Debates



















Mitt Romney, Who Told 533 Documented Lies in 30 Weeks Says Obama Will Lie In Debates

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Mitt Romney discussed his reaction to the Libyan attacks, his poll numbers, and how he is preparing for debates. He says he is preparing to face a liar:

“I think the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren’t true,” Romney said. “I’ve looked at prior debates.  And in that kind of case, it’s difficult to say, ‘Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren’t quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?”

Yet Mitt Romney has proven to be one of the prolific morally bankrupt liars to ever run for office, Over the past 30 weeks, Mitt Romney has told lie after lie after lie: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX. That's five hyperlinks to get anyone interested off to a good start. The rest can be found here.

Limbaugh: Al-Qaida “gave up Osama”
He says the terrorist group wanted to "mak[e] Obama look good" so he would remain in the White House VIDEO. let's say this fantastical tale is true. Then who better to have in the White House than someone who makes terrorists give up just by being president.

The Muslim Protests: Two Myths Down, Three to Go

Right-Wing Media Dubiously Accuse Hillary Clinton Of Ignoring Warnings Of Embassy Violence

7 Mitt Romney Statements As Idiotic as His Libya Response

2. Romney Insults Gay Veteran On Marriage

Last winter, before the New Hampshire primary, Romney was followed [4] by cameras into a diner where he assumed that an elderly man wearing a Vietnam Veterans hat and red wool jacket was a fellow conservative—not a gay veteran who asked whether Romney was opposed to gay marriage (he is) and then lambasted the presidential candidate. "He's not getting my vote. He just told me I'm not entitled to constitutional rights," said Bob Garon. "I think and man and a woman, and a man and a man should be treated equal. What the hell's the difference?"

3. Romney Tells Medical Pot Patient He’d Arrest Him

Romney told the Republican Convention how compassionate he was—and would be as president. But that compassion does not extend to permanently disabled people who find medical marijana’s theraputic value as a sedative helps them with their chronic illness. Here Romney is asked by a young man in a wheelchair if a Romney administration would arrest someone like him, after explaining that pharmaceutical marijuana isn’t helpful—but the plant itself it. Romney said medical use would still be a crime.

4. Romney Likes To Fire People

This clip raised eyebrows when it was first aired in the primary season, but it has new resonance now as Romney is seeking to make the economy and job creation the number one issue in the election. Taken together with the preceeding clips, it shows a man who obviously is more in touch with accounting spreadsheets than with living, breathing employees.

5. He Knows What It’s Like To Be Unemployed

There’s more to this clip than the theatre of the absurd—argably the richest man ever to run for president telling Florida voters that he knows what it’s like to be unemployed, because as a candidate he is unemployed. What’s happening here—and this is also visible in other Romney pronouncements where he obviously is following a script from his campaign’s advisors—is he is not just patronizing people, but you really don’t know what’s going on inside his mind, if it’s not just saying anything to win votes. 

6. ThinkProgress’s “Top Ten” Out of Touch Moments

This video [5] compilation quickly presents many of the most-heard sound bites: saying he knows what it is to get fired, that corporations are people, that making more that $300,000 a year as a speaker “is not very much,” that he drives a pickup while his wife has the Cadillacs, that he is not very concerned about the poor because there are government safety nets. 

7. Romney Likes Neo-Con Ideas More Than People

The ThinkProgress video [5] is one of many that show the most pointed barbs, but it’s worth looking at the entire exchange behind some of these comments—such as the questions that lead to Romney’s infamous “corporations are people, my friend” quote, as they reveal far more about his thinking and values.

Here is the full exchange that prompted the "corporations are people" quote. It starts off as a question about cutting back on future Social Security and Medicare benefits, where Romney says those entitlements must be parred back because he will not raise taxes to pay for what’s needed to sustain the system’s current barely adequate retirement programs. Romney’s comments are right from the pages of liberatian think tanks—just like his comments attacking Obama after the death of Ameican diplomats in Libya. These radical rightwingers elevate their ideology over the impact of their ideas on people—whether it is in domestic or foreign policy.

8. Romney Versus Obama on Libya—You Decide

Now contrast the comments [3] by both Romney and Obama in response to the murders of the U.S. diplomats in Libya. Romney is reciting more neo-con talking points, akin to the arguments made by George W. Bush before he launched his war of choice in Iraq. In contrast, Obama says the U.S. honors the service of the deceased, will not give up on Libya’s new democracy, notes how some Libyans tried to defend the Americans and declares that the U.S. will bring those responsible to justice.
The anti-American conservative movement keeps asking for Obama's birth certificate. America should demand to see the certification that Romney is sane enough to be walking around without being in a straightjacket with a drool cup.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Neo-Nazi Conservative Site The Daily Caller Opinion Page An Embarrassing Spectacle Of Conspiracy Theories

Neo-Nazi Conservative Site The Daily Caller Opinion Page An Embarrassing Spectacle Of Conspiracy Theories

The Associated Press and CNN recently debunked an op-ed featured at The Daily Caller that suggested a recent ammunition purchase by the Social Security Administration evidenced an Obama plot to kill American citizens en masse. The bizarre theory is hardly the first conspiratorial idea to be promoted on the opinion page of The Daily Caller.
The AP And CNN Eviscerate Op-Ed Suggesting Obama's Mass Murder Plot

Regular Contributor Jerry Curry: Each Round Of Ammo Procured By SSA "Represents A Dead American." From an August 17 op-ed published by The Daily Caller discussing the procurement of 174,000 rounds of ammunition by the Society Security Administration for its law enforcement arm:

    What would be the target of these 174,000 rounds of hollow point bullets? It can't simply be to control demonstrators or rioters. Hollow point bullets are so lethal that the Geneva Convention does not allow their use on the battle field in time of war. Hollow point bullets don't just stop or hurt people, they penetrate the body, spread out, fragment and cause maximum damage to the body's organs. Death often follows.

    Potentially each hollow nose bullet represents a dead American. If so, why would the U.S. government want the SSA to kill 174,000 of our citizens, even during a time of civil unrest? Or is the purpose to kill 174,000 of the nation's military and replace them with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) special security forces, forces loyal to the Administration, not to the Constitution? [The Daily Caller, 8/17/12]


Associated Press: SSA Conspiracy Theory "Illustrates What Can Happen When A Seemingly Salacious Tidbit Gets Amplified And Embellished On The Internet." From a September 4 article by AP reporter Stephen Ohlemacher:

    It didn't take long for the Internet to start buzzing with conspiracy theories after the Social Security Administration posted a notice that it was purchasing 174,000 hollow-point bullets.

    Why is the agency that provides benefits to retirees, disabled workers, widows and children stockpiling ammunition? Whom are they going to use it on?

    "It's not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest," the website Infowars.com said.

    Another website, The Daily Caller, said the bullets must be for use against American citizens, "since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens."

    The clamor became such a distraction for the agency that it dedicated a website to explaining the purchase. The explanation, it turns out, isn't as tantalizing as an arms buildup to defend against unruly senior citizens.

    The bullets are for Social Security's office of inspector general, which has about 295 agents who investigate Social Security fraud and other crimes, said Jonathan L. Lasher, the agency's assistant IG for external relations.

    [...]

    The episode illustrates what can happen when a seemingly salacious tidbit gets amplified and embellished on the Internet. [Associated Press via Huffington Post, 9/4/12]

Conservatives have such an unhinged hatred of government - when there is a Democratic president anyway - that their heads becomes so infused with hatred and paranoia they cannot even think of a conspiracy theory that is marginally plausible.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Paul Ryan (R-WI) Has The Values Of A Sleazy Conman - Tell Ryan To Tell The Truth About GM's Janesville Plant



















Paul Ryan (R-WI) Has The Values Of A Sleazy Conman - Tell Ryan To Tell The Truth About GM's Janesville Plant

The list of falsehoods Paul Ryan told at the Republican National Convention last night isn't short, but there's one, in particular, that seems to be generating the most attention.

    "My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

    "A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: 'I believe that if our government is there to support you ... this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That's what he said in 2008.

    "Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."

For regular readers, the anecdote may have sounded familiar -- Ryan has incorporated the anecdote into his speeches before, I took it apart two weeks ago.

To their credit, plenty of campaign reporters immediately recognized one of the major flaws in Ryan's attack -- the GM plant in Janesville was shut down before Obama took office. Take a look at that photo included above, and then notice the date on the banner. GM's press release announcing the closing of the plant was issued in June 2008. One of the local papers ran this headline in December 2008, the month before Obama's inauguration: "Hugs, tears as GM workers leave Janesville plant for last time."

Republicans are going to great lengths to argue that Ryan didn't actually mislead the country. They're wrong; Ryan's argument was obviously and deliberately deceptive. The truth matters, and Ryan's version of reality isn't it.

But the closer one looks at Ryan's attack, the more bizarre it appears.

At the surface, there's just no reason to suggest Obama is responsible for a plant closing initiated under Bush. But even beyond the surface-level lie, the ideological disconnect is almost as striking.

President Obama, as you may have heard, rescued the American auto industry in 2009, over Republican objections. In the process, Obama not only saved GM, he rescued plants, workers, and communities.

Ryan, unwilling to respect Americans enough to talk to us like adults, is trying to make a child-like appeal: the plant is closed, Obama is president, ergo blame Obama for the plant closing.

But that's ridiculous. If it weren't for the president's policy, the Janesville plant wouldn't have been the only one closed. Indeed, Ryan's running mate would have allowed all the GM plants to close as part of his "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" policy.

Obama did visit the plant while running for president saying he supported the GM government sponsored bankruptcy so they could reorganize and stay in business. part of GM's decision was to close that plant. Ryan says that Obama uses too much big gov'mint power, so Ryan is being dishonest and hypocritical by saying that Obama should have intervened and micromanaged GM's business decisions. The Janesville plant was making SUV's whose sales had bottomed out during the 2007-2008 financial collapse. I guess Ryan wanted Obama to force people to buy a car model no one wanted as well.

The GOP’s tough-love approach, heavy on the tough. Funny how the GOP version of tough love always means working class Americans making more sacrifices and the wealthy getting yet another tax cut.

The 5 Weirdest Bits in the 2012 GOP Platform. Conservative Republicans may have a simple medical problem, their tin foil hats are on way too tight.