Adelson tells all, or at least some of it

When you're one of the richest  guys in America, you don't have to be asked twice to share your views with the Wall Street Journal.  As a record contributor to Republican candidates against
President Obama,  here we have multi-multi-billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson  stepping up to explain why he's a former Democrat who has staunchly supported the Republican team.

You may recall that it was Newt Gingrich, alas, the lone GOP candidate to promise that he would build  a permanent base on the moon, who got a political life preserver stuffed with $20 million from Adelson before  Newt, for all of his dreamy chutzpah,  landed on the dark side of the lunar landscape.  That was when Adelson switched his allegiance to Romney, with the explanation that he didn't leave the Democratic Party but rather, it left him.  Nice try, for a guy whose fortunes are amply inflated by his investments in Macau, his Chinese  Mecca for high rollers. (I keep waiting for a poor crossroads preacher to buck the uber wealthy class and stand up to  say that  Obama is a nice guy.)

Adelson,  a devoted advocate of Israel, said he doesn't trust Obama to defend that nation  and doesn't mind saying so. . On domestic matters,  he is not thrilled with unions, either,  and is said to own the only non-union casino in Vegas.   On that score, when he says he no longer shares Democrats' values, I'd say good for them.

A one-liner for Romney on how he sees himself

As we mercifully approach  the calling hours for the presidential election, allow me to wrap up the entire Romney campaign with a single line on how he appeared to me (as distilled from his many first-person opinions of himself as the new CEO in the Oval Office" :

                       "Trust me: Whatever I was is whatever I might be"

Republican Rick Scott hacks the vote in Florida's hot sun

My question of the day: What the hell is Florida Gov. Rick Scott, one of the GOP's certified hacks, doing in a photo with the American flag?  They are mutually exclusive.  The flag is intended to signify the noble American spirit.  Scott signifies  that he is only one of the GOP's certified hacks.

He revived that title again this election season  with his directives  to shorten the hours of early voting in his state.  It led to lines at the polls that caused delays (in the Sunshine State)  of three to four hours - and longer.

But he doubtless was tutored by his  fellow-Republican vote shrinker, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who repeatedly defended his shameless action  by declaring it to be "fair" and "honest".
So what has Scott had to say under the barrage of criticism that he is hacking the election in Florida?

'"I'm focussed on making sure that we have fair, honest elections," the Washington Post quoted Scott, who had an approval rating in the state of 39 pct. - even before he set out to shutter the election for his side.

Oh, another thing, now that Scott has got me started:  The cars of some of those who stood in line for hours were towed away.

This is how they do it in those countries that we say we hate.

Dubya returns - still much like The Shadow

The Cayman Islands are a rich man's offshore piggy bank nestled just south of Cuba. They are easily accessible by private jets that are met by limos at the airports.   They are  an escape by oppressed  folks who have so much money that   there's not much more they can do with it so they hide it from the tax collectors until something better comes along - which it won't.

For these miillion-billion-zillionaires, since it is not possible to get to heaven while they are still breathing, the Caymans are their  luxurious tax-free destination of choice. Smart money-guys like Mitt Romney would have it no other way.

The true Republican brand of the  party's moneyed achievers  was again disclosed a few days ago when reports filtered out of the Caymans that George W. Bush was on hand to be the keynote speaker at a global investment conferfence.  In the perfect fit of the Ritz-Carlton. On Grand Cayman Island.

But then  we lost the narrative of Dubya's sudden reappearance like Jacob Marley's ghost. Until then we had given up on seeing the former president again inasmuch as his party declared him to be a non-person in the current campaign.   We could be heard shouting, "George W. Bush LIVES!"

But no sooner  than we wanted to eavesdrop on his return, the entire trip was blacked out.  Reporters were banned from covering the speech and the participants who paid $4,000 to hear it were  told not to say a word about it. Conference spokesman Dan Kneipp said the restrictions were  imposed by Bush's staff.

As long as the topic is investment savvy, do you think that somebody might have asked Dubya about why he approved the trade of Sammy Sosa when he was a managing partner of the Texas Rangers?  Or how Texas oilmen rushed to his aid  to buy his cash-poor oil company?  "I'm all name and no money," he once said.  But now as his party is concerned, it's the other way around.







   

I am Grumpy Abe and I approve this ad:

As further public service we offer this alert:

An open letter to Josh Mandel from his cousins

To continue the narrative of the final days of the election season, you may find it interesting to read a letter, in its entirety from from members of the Mandel family to Josh Mandel, Republican candidate for the U.S.  Senate, forwarded  to me by a reader:


FYI

>
> Open Letter to Josh Mandel, Republican
>
> Candidate for U.S. Senator from Ohio
>
> Dear Josh,
>
> Four years ago you came into our family. We still remember the excitement
>
> surrounding your wedding, and how happy our family members were as they
>
> described it afterwards. So we were deeply saddened when you announced during
>
> your October 18th debate with Senator Sherrod Brown that you believe only some
>
> people should share this right to marry the person they love, while others should not.
>
> Your cousins, Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, are among the many wonderful
>
> couples whose rights you do not recognize. They were married almost eight years ago
>
> in Massachusetts, at a time when it was the only state in the nation to allow same-sex
>
> marriage. Their wedding, like yours, was a beautiful and happy occasion for all of us in
>
> our family. It hurts us that you would embrace discrimination against them and
>
> countless other loving couples in Ohio and around the country.
>
> We are equally distressed by your belief that gay men and women should not be
>
> allowed to serve openly in the military. Like you, Cholene spent many years in the
>
> armed forces. A graduate of the Air Force Academy and an accomplished pilot, she
>
> became the second woman in history to fly the U-2 reconnaissance plane. And yet,
>
> you have argued that she, like many gay and lesbian soldiers, should be forced to live
>
> a life of secrecy and lies.
>
> Josh, as you know, our roots are deep in the Cleveland area and we have friends and
>
> family we love throughout Ohio. This family is sprawling and diverse, but it has
>
> always believed strongly in the values of equality and inclusiveness. Your
>
> discriminatory stance violates these core values of our family. Nevertheless we hope
>
> that over time, as you advance in years and wisdom, you will come to embrace the
>
> values of inclusiveness and equality as well.
>
> Your cousins,
>
> Michael Ratner, Bruce Ratner, Karen Ranucci, Pamela Lipkin, Rebecca Ratner,
>
> Elizabeth Ratner, Patrick Markee, Jacob Ratner. Ana Ratner 

Score one for Husted, at the bottom of the wash

From today's pile of dirty laundry:

You can be sure that Secretary of State Jon Husted, Ohio'a vote suppressor- in - chief,  is feeling rather puffy today now that the appellate court in Cincinnati voted 2-1 to uphold his  heavy hand in denying provisional ballots to voters even if they were misled by poll workers on their valid polling places.

As has been widely reported throughout the long election season , Republican Husted has resorted to  various ploys  of restricting certain voters in a Frankenstein role  with the voice of a canary.  "The rules are clear, and we can now focus on a fair election, " Husted proudly chirped,  with a familiar reprise of intellectual dishonesty.

But the rules in this election have never  been clearly articulated by him ever since the Republican  preservationists  cynically  set out to  use voter "fraud" as their lame excuse for excising blacks,  the elderly  and other urbanites  from the rolls.  Mythical fraud, of course.   So Husted then inserted meaningless  terms like "uniformity" and "fairness" to gird GOP  hopes of winning the state.

Make me laugh. Never have the rules of electoral engagement - even recalling the messy handiwork of former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell - has anybody worked harder and more deliberately, expending taxpayer money and his own office's energy,  as Husted to game the system.  If you don't think so,  you also would agree to  accept a poll tax.

Some of the sewage stapled to anti-EPA trash

Crowded in the deluge of political emails and flyers that I've received was one that had an unusual symbiotic twist.  Stapled to a door-hanger attacking Sen. Sherrod Brown for supporting EPA regulations, courtesy of Dick Armey's right-wing  FreedomWorks, waa a more modestly produced assault on Brown that declared his EPA positions will raise the cost of sewer upgrades in Akron hundreds of  millions of dollars of taxpayers money. Since there are no precise figures for the costs over a 15-year period, we are reluctant  to reveal this handout's figure.

The stapled attachment was created by an outfit named the Summit County Citizens for Sewer Reform - and if you have the time to track down the sponsors, more power to you.   It's pure anti-Brown, anti-EPA political sewage referring to the issue of sewer  discharges into the city's system.  Interesting how Brown and other Democrats  are named as the sole perps in this saga.

As has been reported  often, there have been agreements between the Federal and State EPAs that seemed close enough to a solution to move on with the project, only to be rejected by Federal Judge John Adams, a Bush appointee who continues to insist that the work be concluded much sooner.   The long delays following his two rejections of the plan have naturally extended the period of completion.

The issue is back in Adams' court with all concerned waiting for a  consent decree by Adams.

Not that  it means  anything to  the anti-EPA crowd that in the same breath  mentions the good side   as Mitt Romney, Josh Mandel, Jim Renacci and Marsha Agana.

Think there's some political hatchets at work here?.

In case you still have doubts!

You might want to forward this to all of your...um...stupid friends, assuming you have a few. If not, George Will and Rush Limbaugh will do.  

Groundskeeper Romney in a New Jersey allegory

Once upon a time - say, this week - a Republican presidential candidate  and savvy one-time groundskeeper boasted to a small gathering in Kettering, Oh., of his success in helping to clean up the debris from a football field.

It was another of candidate Mitt Romney's expressed can-do experiences while marooned in the Dayton suburb while Gov. Chris Christie and President Obama were taking care of business together in the destructive winds and tides of New Jersey in a mutually congratulatory  manner.

But as the can-do candidate has often asserted in his metallic utterances,  "I did it before and will do it again".  Yet,  perhaps saving the best of his tales for last in the closing days of his campaign,  there he was helping out with canned goods to be sent -  where? - "to New  Jersey, I think"-  while recalling his luminous business-like moment cleaning  up a football field.

Gather 'round.  Let the can-do candidate tell you how he solved the problem at his high school.

There had been a a big celebration at the field and some classmates were assigned to clean up the mess, "And I thought, 'how are we going to clean up all the mess on this football field?'" Remember,  class,  he was a mere teenager   already experiencing on-the-Bain-job can-do training.    (We are now deeply into the New Jersey allegory of man against nature spoken by a marooned presidential candidate who was not invited to the wedding on the eastern shores.)

 And it was determined that the cleaner-uppers would each take a different yard line "and just walk down and do your lane. And if everybody cleans their lanes, we'll get it done".

And so it happened that Obama and Christie and FEMA  and the other emergency crews were so busy they didn't find time to thank the can-do president when he said, "And so today, we're cleaning one lane if, you will."

You'd think that they could find a submerged high school football field  in Atlantic City (That's in New Jersey,  I think)  that would require a veteran like the can-do -president to clean it up.