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Missouri School Allegedly Protects Rapist

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REPORT: Texas Ranks Last In Job Creation

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Karl Rove: It’s ‘Offensive’ To Say We’re A Christian Nation

Politics

Exclusive: Goldman Sachs VP Changed His Name, Now Advances Goldman Lobbying Interests As A Top Staffer To Darrell Issa

By Lee Fang on Aug 18, 2011 at 3:21 am

BERJAYA

Peter Haller, also known as Peter Simonyi, a former Goldman Sachs VP now working for Chairman Issa to block regulations on Goldman Sachs

Has Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) turned the House Oversight Committee into a bank lobbying firm with the power to subpoena and pressure government regulators? ThinkProgress has found that a Goldman Sachs vice president changed his name, then quietly went to work for Issa to coordinate his effort to thwart regulations that affect Goldman Sachs’ bottom line.

In July, Issa sent a letter to top government regulators demanding that they back off and provide more justification for new margin requirements for financial firms dealing in derivatives. A standard practice on Capitol Hill is to end a letter to a government agency with contact information for the congressional staffer responsible for working on the issue for the committee. In most cases, the contact staffer is the one who actually writes such letters. With this in mind, it is important to note that the Issa letter ended with contact information for Peter Haller, a staffer hired this year to work for Issa on the Oversight Committee.

Issa’s demand to regulators is exactly what banks have been wishing for. Indeed, Goldman Sachs has spent millions this year trying to slow down the implementation of the new rules. In the letter, Issa explicitly mentions that the new derivative regulations might hurt brokers “such as Goldman Sachs.”

Haller, as he is now known, went by the name Peter Simonyi until three years ago. Simonyi adopted his mother’s maiden name Haller in 2008 just as he was leaving Goldman Sachs as a vice president of the bank’s commodity compliance group. In a few short years, Haller went from being in charge of dealing with regulators for Goldman Sachs to working for Congress in a position where he made official demands from regulators overseeing his old firm.

It’s not the first time Haller has worked the revolving door to help out Goldman Sachs. According to a report by the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, Haller — then known as Peter Simonyi — left the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2005 to work for Goldman Sachs, then quickly began lobbying his colleagues at the SEC on behalf of his new firm. At one point, Haller was compelled to issue a letter to the SEC claiming he did not violate ethics rules. A brief timeline of Haller’s work history underscores the ethical issues raised with Issa’s latest letter to bank regulators:

– After completing his law degree in 2000, Haller was employed by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as an economist, and later with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Office of Enforcement.

– In April of 2005, Haller resigned from the SEC to take a job with Goldman Sachs. He soon began lobbying the SEC on behalf of Goldman Sachs.

– On September 2, 2009, Haller left Goldman Sachs to take a job with the law/lobbying firm Brickfield Burchette Ritts & Stone.

– In January of 2011, Haller was hired to work for Issa on the Oversight Committee. Under the supervision of Haller, Issa sent a letter dated July 22, 2011 to bank regulators (including the heads of the Federal Reserve, FDIC, FCA, CFTC, FHFA, and Office of Comptroller) demanding documents to justify new Dodd-Frank mandated rules on margin requirements for banks dealing in the multi-trillion dollar OTC derivatives market, like Goldman Sachs.

When he took over the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee this year, Issa dramatically shifted the committee’s focus away from its traditional role of investigating major corporate scandals. Instead, Issa has used the committee to merge the responsibilities of Congress with the interests of K Street and Issa’s own fortune.

In June of this year, ThinkProgress broke the story about Issa’s own complicated relationship with Goldman Sachs. We revealed that Issa purchased a large amount of Goldman Sachs high yield bonds at the same time as he used the Oversight Committee to attack an investigation into allegations that Goldman Sachs had systematically defrauded investors leading up to the financial crisis. This conflict of interests, along with our exclusive story about Issa’s earmarks benefitting his own real estate empire, received coverage in a recent piece by the New York Times.

We also broke a story last month revealing other revolving door conflicts within Issa’s staff. Peter Warren, Issa’s new policy director, maintains some type of financial contract with a student loan lobbying group he led last year, and received a bonus from the lobbying group before leaving to work for Issa. Since joining Issa’s staff, Warren and his colleagues have fought to weaken the recently created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new agency charged with overseeing student loans.

The new revelations about Peter Haller, however, raise even more significant ethical concerns than Peter Warren and other ex-lobbyists working for Issa. Why did Issa hire a high-level Goldman Sachs executive to work on stopping regulations on banks like Goldman Sachs? Haller’s direct involvement in the July letter brings Issa’s ability to lead the Oversight Committee — charged with conducting investigations on behalf of the public interest — into serious doubt.

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Economy

Confronted At Town Hall, Romney Falsely Claims Raising Payroll Tax Cap Wouldn’t Strengthen Social Security

By Travis Waldron posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Aug 17, 2011 at 8:35 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from Berlin, New Hampshire.

BERJAYAFormer Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) was confronted at the Iowa State Fair last week for indicating that, as president, he would not support lifting the income cap on taxes used to finance Social Security (currently, income above $106,800 is exempt).

Romney was again asked about his plans today in New Hampshire, where a questioner asked him why he supported raising the retirement age instead of raising the payroll tax cap. Romney reiterated that raising the cap amounted to a tax increase he would not support, and falsely claimed that it wouldn’t “begin the solve the problem” facing Social Security’s long-term viability:

ROMNEY: What I want to do is make sure Social Security is there for your generation.

ATTENDEE: By raising the retirement age, though?

ROMNEY: There are two ways we could go, you can tell me your choice. One is we can keep Social Security –

ATTENDEE: Raise the cap.

ROMNEY: That doesn’t begin to solve the problem. [...] My guess is [people] are going to say, give me lower benefit growth but don’t raise my taxes.

Watch it:

Upon Romney’s proclamation that raising the cap on income taxed for Social Security purposes would not “begin to solve the problem,” the woman presented evidence backing up her claim, telling him that raising the cap would ensure the program’s solvency for at least 75 years. Romney responded, “I don’t agree with your numbers.” He then guessed that Americans would rather face benefit cuts than an increase in the amount of income taxed, despite poll numbers showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to benefit cuts.

But whether Romney agrees with the numbers is moot because the questioner’s evidence is correct. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, fully eliminating the cap without increasing benefits would create a long-term surplus for Social Security and would indeed ensure its solvency for at least 75 years. None of the other “solutions” Romney proposed — means testing benefits, changing the way benefits are calculated, or raising the retirement age — would strengthen the program so substantially without drastically cutting benefits.

Romney is, however, correct in one way: raising the cap on the amount of income taxed for Social Security purposes does not begin to solve the problem. Instead, it solves the problem altogether.

Politics

VIDEO: Corporate Lobbyist Concedes He Does Not Always Register As A Lobbyist For ALEC Bills He Helps Write

By Lee Fang and Scott Keyes on Aug 17, 2011 at 7:30 pm

BERJAYAThe American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit that touts itself as a “Jeffersonian” limited government organization for state lawmakers. In reality, the group is little more than a sophisticated front group that allows corporate lobbyists — from companies like Peabody Coal, McDonalds, AT&T, and others — to literally write big business-friendly legislation and pass it off to state-level legislators to be eventually introduced and passed into law. As we have reported, health insurance lobbyists drafted ALEC’s anti-health reform legislation, private prison lobbyists drafted ALEC’s harsh immigrant detention policies, and as the NRDC has documented, multitudes of other corporate giveaways have been drafted as ALEC reform legislation.

Some have challenged the very model of ALEC, claiming that it is designed to skirt state disclosure laws requiring corporate lobbyists to register. A corporate lobbyist can avoid disclosure by simply writing bills via ALEC, at conventions or other meetings with legislators, so when the bill is introduced it no longer has the fingerprints of whatever corporation is employing the lobbyist who wrote the law.

At ALEC conference in New Orleans earlier this month, we ran into Victor Schwartz, an attorney with the firm Shook Hardy and chair of an ALEC task force (the committees charged with writing draft legislation). Schwartz runs what he calls “the iron triangle” at Shook Hardy, a business practice comprised of litigation, lobbying, and public relations to limit liability for corporations. We asked Schwartz, who has helped pass tort reform laws across the country, at times using the support of ALEC, about the ethics of the ALEC strategy for passing laws without lobbying disclosure:

FANG: If Representative Joe Schmoe from Nevada meets with you here in New Orleans, gets a great idea from you, you helped him write this law, he goes to his state and introduces it; you’ve never been to Nevada, let’s say, and he introduces that law, the citizens of Nevada don’t know Victor Schwartz helped write that law.

SCHWARTZ: Well people don’t know who—I’ve worked with Congress every day. No one knows who writes all the laws in Congress.

FANG: Isn’t that problematic? For the critics of ALEC, that kind of validates their criticism. […] You understand the criticism that ALEC is just a proxy to get around all the disclosure, the transparency that many states require.

SCHWARTZ: No. Because people, every Dick, Moe, and Joe knows just the way you found me. I co-chair the civil justice task force.

FANG: Not every Dick and Joe understands ALEC. […]

SCHWARTZ: If you all think the laws should be changed, then go and change them. I don’t see any hidden thing. […]

FANG: But ALEC is a very convenient identity. The person could say ‘I’m a Jeffersonian individual liberty, you know conservative, I’m not here representing Phillip Morris or whatever.’ It’s a front, that’s the accusation and you haven’t really deflected that.

SCHWARTZ: Well all the people, all the people who sponsor ALEC on the webs and everything say these are the people who sponsor and if in my experience when I’ve testified – I don’t do it too much – if someone is there, they will say well Victor is representing ALEC. And everyone knows who sponsors ALEC, General Motors and everything, and they list them.

Watch it:

Victor Schwartz insisted to us that ALEC is an open organization with nothing to hide. But it’s not clear who exactly is paying Victor Schwartz (or his law firm) to write tort reform laws, or which legislators around the country are busy passing laws written by Schwartz and his committee. Moreover, there is no information about which corporations pay Schwartz or some the other private sector lobbyists helping him craft model legislation.

According to the Minnesota Independent, ALEC appears to have broken state lobbying laws in Minnesota. The group hosted an event with lobbyists and state GOP lawmakers without registering its agents as lobbyists.

Although ALEC has been around since the late 70s, only recently has the group gained national attention for its powerful role in setting public policy at the state level. When we tried to attend the ALEC conference, ThinkProgress reporters were violently attacked by security guards who said they were acting on ALEC’s behalf.

Justice

Missouri School Sued For Allegedly Making Special Ed Student Write Apology Letter To Her Rapist

By Marie Diamond posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Aug 17, 2011 at 5:25 pm

BERJAYAIn one of the most brazen examples of “blaming the victim” in recent memory, a school in Springfield, Missouri, has, according to a lawsuit, not only dismissed the rape claims of a seventh grade special education student, but also forced the girl to write and hand-deliver an apology letter to her alleged attacker. The lawsuit claims that the same student later raped her again. The school and other defendants have denied all charges.

According to the lawsuit, after the second attack, a rape kit was administered and the boy pleaded guilty to unspecified charges in juvenile court. But the school still refused to take the girl seriously — and even suspended her again, this time for “Disrespectful Conduct” and “Public Display of Affection.” The seventh grader reported her rape in the spring of 2009, and even though school officials are required by law to report such incidents to the authorities, Republic Middle School failed to do so:

The lawsuit alleges that school officials told her they didn’t believe her, and after “multiple intimidating interrogations,” she recanted. The lawsuit also notes that a school psychological report said the girl “would forego her own needs and wishes to satisfy the request of others around so that she can be accepted,” meaning she might have been especially susceptible to pressure to change her story.

But the pressure allegedly didn’t end there. The girl says she was made to write an apology note to her attacker and hand-deliver it to him. She was also expelled for the remainder of the school year.

When she came back the following year, the school allegedly refused her mother’s request for extra monitoring and did not separate her from her alleged attacker. In February 2010, the lawsuit says he “was able to hunt [her] down, drag her to the back of the school library, and again forcibly rape her.” She and her mother reported this rape to the police, and a rape kit tested positive for her attacker’s semen — he plead guilty to charges in juvenile court.

The lawsuit claims that the school forced the girl to write this apology letter without seeking her mother’s permission, and then expelled her for filing a false report. When the same student began harassing and assaulting her again when she came back to school, she did not tell school officials because she was afraid they would accuse her of lying and kick her out again. The victim’s family is seeking punitive damages “to deter School Officials and others from similar conduct in the future.”

The school district has denied the girl’s allegations. Most disturbingly, its response letter claims the girl “failed and neglected to use reasonable means to protect herself.”

Economy

Perry Calls For Even Bigger Corporate Tax Repatriation Giveaway Than Corporations Have Asked For

By Pat Garofalo and Travis Waldron posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Aug 17, 2011 at 4:35 pm

BERJAYAA group of corporations have launched a campaign, known as “WinAmerica,” in an attempt to convince Congress to implement a corporate tax repatriation holiday. Such a holiday would allow corporations that have stashed money offshore to bring those funds back at a dramatically lower tax rate than the 35 percent to which they are usually subjected.

The justification for such a move is job creation, but Congress already tried a repatriation holiday in 2004, with disastrous results: the corporations that benefited most from the tax holiday wound up cutting jobs in subsequent years. Kristen Forbes, who was on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers when the last repatriation holiday was approved, told the Boston Globe that the policy “didn’t accomplish the stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the US.’’

House Republicans have proposed a repatriation holiday that would have corporations pay a 5.25 percent tax rate on any money they repatriate. But even that is too high for new presidential contender Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who said today at an event in New Hampshire that corporations should be allowed to repatriate money without paying any taxes at all:

And here’s another issue from my perspective. Corporate profits that are offshore, that we tax at 35 percent. We know for a fact that money’s not coming back. They’re going to leave that offshore. So why not look at, and talk about, how you repatriate those dollars and have those dollars focused on job creation, but allow them to come back in at a substantially lower rate than 35 percent. Say, something like, if it’s clearly going for job creation, like zero, to get this economy working again.

Watch it:

Even the corporations lobbying for a repatriation holiday haven’t gone as far as to call for the elimination of taxes on repatriated earnings, instead calling for simply a “reduction.”

The fact that the 2004 repatriation holiday didn’t create the jobs that were promised is not even the worst part of its legacy. Following that holiday, corporations increased their offshore holdings, moving more capital out of the country, in anticipation that another holiday would come along. Perry’s proposal would give the corporations who pushed money offshore everything they could have hoped for.

The repatriation holiday supported by the House GOP would cost nearly $80 billion over 10 years, a price that would obviously rise significantly under Perry’s plan to simply scrap any attempt to raise revenue from repatriation at all. Amongst GOP candidates, Herman Cain has also called for tax-free repatriation, while Mitt Romney has endorsed a repatriation holiday, but not a particular rate.

Health

Exclusive: New ‘Non-Partisan’ Health Repeal Front Group Comprised Entirely Of Republicans

By Lee Fang posted from ThinkProgress Health on Aug 17, 2011 at 3:55 pm

BERJAYA

Screen shot from the "Democrats for the Health Care Compact" front group

Longtime political operative Eric O’Keefe has a new plan to undermine health reform. Called the “Health Care Compact,” the effort is a legally dubious campaign to enroll states in an interstate compact to take control of all federally funded health care programs. As reporter Stephanie Mencimer notes, the law would not only unravel the Affordable Care Act, but also major health programs like Medicare. The Compact, once approved by Congress, would allow states with Compact laws to use Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health program funds any way they wish, with no “strings” attached, like reimbursing doctors at a fair rate or ensuring program money is spent on actual health services.

The Health Care Compact campaign started earlier this year, when O’Keefe’s new group donated $250,000 to a Tea Party Patriots convention for a kick-off event. However, ThinkProgress has found that the group isn’t only reaching out to Tea Party members; it’s deceptively recruiting Democrats as well. The “About us” section of “Democrats for the Health Care Compact,” a group affiliated with O’Keefe, lists three influential Republicans, and no actual Democrats, as members:

– “Democrats For Health Care Compact” Member Leo Linbeck III: Born into an elite Texas family, Linbeck is the head of Aquinas Companies, LLC, the Houston-area construction and building management company connected to the fortune of Linbeck’s grandfather. Currently acknowledged as one the major financiers of the Health Care Compact campaign, Linbeck was a George W. Bush donor and has provided funds to a recently formed Republican political action committee called Citizens PAC. Linbeck’s father, Leo Linbeck Jr., is a major Republican fundraiser who helped create the groups to reduce liability for corporations and drastically reduce taxes on upper income individuals.

– “Democrats For Health Care Compact” Member Eric O’Keefe: O’Keefe has made a career out of orchestrating anti-government front groups, some with no actual members. He has played a pivotal role in the U.S. Term Limits “movement” (bankrolled by the Koch brothers and investor Howie Rich), the Sam Adam Alliance (a Tea Party mobilization group and planning group), the Center for Competitive Politics, a group that filed briefs in support of the Citizens United decision, and a sprawling network of TABOR groups designed to cripple state governments. Recently, O’Keefe has gained attention for his role in the Wisconsin Americans for Prosperity network and the Wisconsin Club for Growth, two groups that have aggressively promoted the right-wing agenda of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI). He is also a regular presenter at the secretive Koch brothers gatherings that have acted as fundraisers for Republican attack groups.

– “Democrats for Health Care Compact” Member Michael Barnhart: Barnhart is currently the head of the Sunshine Review, a libertarian nonprofit closely linked with O’Keefe’s Sam Adams Alliance and the GOP training organization called American Majority. Barnhart’s career makes for a strange Democrat: he began his career working for various Republican members of Congress, moving on to work a Republican lobbying firm and the Washington Times.

The trio of Republicans are playing doctor as well. A group called “Physicians for the Health Care Compact” lists only Leo Linbeck III, Eric O’Keefe, and Michael Barnhart as members, despite the fact none of them are physicians. The contact for the group, Meghan Tisinger, is a political operative working for the Franklin Center, a fake news site set up by O’Keefe and other Sam Adams Alliance political staffers. Tisinger doesn’t appear to be a doctor either.

It’s not clear if the fake Democrats’ site, registered in March of this year, or the fake physician site has attracted any actual Democrats or doctors yet. But the larger Health Care Compact campaign has caught fire with Republicans.

Last month, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) was the latest to sign the measure into law. So far, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Missouri have already passed O’Keefe’s Health Care Compact law, and several other states may follow suit.

NEWS FLASH

Karl Rove: It’s ‘Offensive’ To Say We Are A Christian Nation | Social conservatives often insist the U.S. was founded to be a “Christian nation,” and they accuse progressives and President Obama of undermining these supposedly core values. But leading conservative strategist Karl Rove called the notion that the U.S. is Christian “offensive” on Fox News last night. “We are based on the Judeo-Christian ethic, we derive a lot from it, but if you say we’re a Christian nation, what about the Jews, what about the Muslims, what about the non-believers?” Rove said the president, in one of his books, inaccurately quoted Rove as calling the U.S a “Christian nation,” a misquote he was clearly offended by. Watch it:

Green

Rick Perry: ‘Substantial Number’ Of Climate Scientists Have ‘Manipulated Data’ For Money

By Brad Johnson posted from ThinkProgress Green on Aug 17, 2011 at 2:40 pm

BERJAYAChallenged in New Hampshire today about his accusation that global warming is a “contrived phony mess,” Rick Perry dug in, accusing climate scientists of a for-profit conspiracy. At the Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire, Perry was questioned by Jim Rubens, a former New Hampshire Republican legislator and technology investor, who noted that the National Academy of Sciences, which has advised presidents since its founding by Abraham Lincoln, has concluded that global warming is caused primarily by fossil fuels.

“If observed scientific data and the National Academy of Sciences are both wrong on an issue involving thousands of scientists, and an issue as prominent as global warming,” Rubens asked, “doesn’t this call into question the entire science discovery process that forms the foundation of a hundred years of America’s technological preeminence?”

“You may have a point there,” Perry replied, arguing that “there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects”:

You may have a point there, because I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes our climate’s changed, they’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed. But I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating this information.

And the cost to the country and the world of implementing these anti-corbon programs is in the billions if not trillions of dollars at the end of the day. And I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money still on a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is being put more and more into question.

Watch video shot by ThinkProgress’ Travis Waldron:

“Rick Perry is a very impressive candidate in demeanor and personality, but he is simply citing false information and implying that there is some large-scale conspiracy among scientists, including the National Academy of Sciences,” Rubens told ThinkProgress Green in a phone interview. “Candidates running for president need to cite the facts as they are.”

Transcript: Read more

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Economy

VIDEO: GOP Super Committee Member Fred Upton’s Constituents Angrily Ask, ‘Where Are The Jobs!?’

By Zaid Jilani posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Aug 17, 2011 at 1:56 pm

BERJAYAEarlier this week, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) — who was recently appointed to the powerful congressional super committee that will be tasked to design a special debt deal — held a town hall in Kalamazoo, Michigan where he discussed a variety of issues with his constituents.

The town hall, which was captured on YouTube, featured an angry audience that was upset that Upton was not addressing job creation. As Upton began to discuss the role Medicare plays in the nation’s debt, a man shouted, “Where is job creation on your chart?” After that, a woman stood up and asked Upton to “cut from the top,” not from middle class Americans who’ve already beared the brunt of effects from the recession.

The woman drew applause, and audience members began chanting in favor of creating jobs, urging the congressman to make it his priority. Watch it:

At the town hall, Upton pledged not to raise the retirement age as part of the debt deal, and said that he wouldn’t “chop” entitlement benefits for today’s seniors (obviously leaving the door open to cuts for future beneficiaries). (HT: Michiganradio YouTube account)

Security

‘NUTS!’ — Allen West’s Strange, One-Word Response To Being Called Out For Ties To Islamophobes

By Zaid Jilani posted from ThinkProgress Security on Aug 17, 2011 at 1:10 pm

BERJAYA Earlier this month, a local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent Rep. Allen West (R-FL) a letter asking him to cut off ties with leading anti-Muslim activists like Pamela Geller and Brigitte Gabriel with whom he had shared stages before. “Muslims protect and serve our great country and are afforded equal protection under law,” said the letter. “We shouldn’t have to defend our rights to worship freely or participate in the governing of our society.”

Now, CAIR has received a letter from West with a one-word response to their request. In what the Miami New Times is calling possibly “dumbest thing ever written on congressional stationery,” West simply wrote back, “NUTS!” Here’s a copy of the letter:

BERJAYA

One has to wonder why West chose to respond in this bizarre way. One possible explanation is that West is channeling a famous line by an American general fighting the Nazis during World War II. During a battle with German troops in Western Europe, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe was told that the Germans wanted his men to surrender. He replied, “Us surrender? Aw, nuts!” Whatever he meant by his response, one thing West did not appear to offer is any sort of condemnation of the radical anti-Muslim company he has been keeping.

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Politics

Mitt Romney Attacks Obama For Going To Martha’s Vineyard — On The Same Day He Will Be There

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Aug 17, 2011 at 12:20 pm

BERJAYA Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney repeatedly has attacked President Obama’s upcoming trip to Martha’s Vineyard, saying Obama should “devote some time” to jobs, “not just going to vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard.” “A lot of Democrats in Martha’s Vineyard, I don’t know know why,” Romney quipped Monday in New Hampshire. (Not everyone can be so lucky as Romney to have a $10 million lake house in the early primary state of New Hampshire.) Watch it:

Romney’s Vineyard jab is ironic considering that he is scheduled to be on the chic Massachusetts island the very same day as Obama. The Boston Herald reported in late July that Romney planned to hold a $2,500-per-person fundraiser on Aug. 27, just across the island from where the Obamas are staying. “They could have a ‘This island isn’t big enough for the two of us’ moment,” a Boston University politics professor joked to the paper. Romney’s event appears to be a part of tour of his former state’s tonier summer communities, as it follows a fundraiser in Osterville, on Cape Cod, hosted by one of the Koch brothers, and another event on Nantucket.

Romney held fundraisers on both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket during his 2008 campaign as well.

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Green

More Big Oil Astroturf Across The Country: Missouri Front Tells Activists To Plant Anti-EPA Questions At State Fair

By Lee Fang posted from ThinkProgress Green on Aug 17, 2011 at 11:40 am

BERJAYA

Oil lobbyists plan to send people to the 2011 Missouri State Fair to ask politicians questions about the EPA

In June, ThinkProgress broke the story about the latest big oil front group, called the Iowa Energy Forum. The Iowa Energy Forum — with funds from oil giants like Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil, and direction from lobbyists in DC — organized “grassroots” activists to appear at GOP primary events, lobbing loaded questions to candidates to get them on record supporting oil and gas public policy positions, like building the new Keystone XL pipeline from Canada through the United States.

The American Petroleum Institute, the umbrella lobbying organization for the oil industry, has apparently set up a number of other front groups focused on similar astroturf efforts as the Iowa Energy Forum. The Missouri Energy Forum, another API organization, sent an e-mail alert yesterday afternoon urging its staffers and activists to attend the Missouri State Fair to press public officials about opposing environmental regulations. The Missouri Energy Forum suggests that its supporters ask Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer (R-MO) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) about the EPA’s new ozone regulations, because such regulations will supposedly “hurt Missouri’s farmers and business’s [sic].”

View a screen grab of the e-mail below (click to enlarge):

BERJAYA

The oil industry has blanketed the country with millions of dollars in political advertisements for several years now to remind the public that the oil and gas sector creates jobs, and must never pay for its carbon pollution or lose its billions in taxpayer subsidies (view one of the many API advertisements here). But what kind of jobs is the industry creating? A brief search shows that API lobbyists have been busy hiring other state-based lobbyists to push a big oil political agenda in every corner of the country:

– The Keystone Energy Forum calls itself “a growing community of concerned citizens committed to two goals achieving energy security for our country and holding our elected officials more accountable in shaping energy policies.” Rather than being a group of “concerned citizens,” the Keystone Energy Forum is a front funded by the American Petroleum Institute and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association to pushing the interests of the fracking industry. Bill Stewart, a former state legislator, is the head of the group, which was formed in January.

– The Florida Energy Forum hired Nicolás J. Gutiérrez, Jr., a lawyer who has worked with a number of trade association and is a partner at the firm Gutiérrez & Zarraluqui, LLP.

– The Northstar Energy Forum bills itself as a “community of concerned citizens throughout the state” of Minnesota. The language from the Northstar group is nearly identical to the API front in Pennsylvania, except for the word “growing.” However, the group does not disclose who actually works for the organization in Minnesota.

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Security

Joe Lieberman: Obama Has ‘Encouraged Israel’s Enemies’

By Ali Gharib and Ben Armbruster posted from ThinkProgress Security on Aug 17, 2011 at 11:05 am

BERJAYAAppearing on Fox News, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told host Sean Hannity that President Obama has encouraged Israel’s enemies and made it more difficult for the Jewish State to make peace with its neighbors. Baited by Hannity into discussing one of his favorite topics — how anything short of right-wing orthodoxy is not pro-Israel enough — Lieberman jumped at the opportunity to accuse Obama of essentially giving moral support to opponents of Israel:

HANNITY: I worry about the President. I didn’t feel he treated the prime minister [of Israel] correctly, when he came to town the first time. I didn’t like when he sprung on him, they got to go back to ’67 borders. I wanted to get your thoughts.

LIEBERMAN: I agree with you. I think the President is not anti-Israel. I think he’s pro-Israel but I think he’s handled the relationship with Israel in a way that has encouraged Israel’s enemies and really unsettled the Israelis. Because the Israelis have one really good friend in the world, it’s us, it’s natural and of course, they are very loyal to us too.

But when the President of the United States acts in a way that makes the Israelis wonder whether we are for them. Really what it does is to discourage them from taking the risk that they would ever have to take to have a peace agreement with the Palestinians or anybody else.

Watch the video:

It’s unclear why Lieberman didn’t like Obama’s 1967 borders statement. Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t see any problem with it. And Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said recently that the President’s critics had misrepresented what he said. “I should tell you honestly that the President didn’t say that Israel should go back to the borders of ’67,” Barak said.

But Lieberman is no stranger to attacking Obama using right-wing inspired baseless charges that the President is anti-Israel. Perhaps that’s why he said yesterday that he’s considering voting Republican in 2012.

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NEWS FLASH

Poll: Tea Party Less Popular Than Muslims, Atheists, 21 Other Groups | The debt ceiling deal has left the Tea Party more disliked than ever, as a recent New York Times poll shows. In April, 2010, 21 percent of Americans approved of the Tea Party while 18 percent disapproved of it. Now, 20 percent approve while a stunning 40 percent disapprove of it. Ironically, the conservative movement is now more unpopular than two often-marginalized groups it sometimes rails against — Muslims and atheists — and is the least popular of the 23 groups the poll asked about:

The Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

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