Trump: Media are biggest threat to Romney's presidential campaign

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Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney talks about today's bleak jobs report, repealing Obamacare and his role in private equity.

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By NBC's Andrew Rafferty

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Donald Trump on Friday warned that the media are the biggest threat to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, but added that the press he has garnered for the Republican nominee has caused his poll numbers to rise "very substantially." Speaking at the North Carolina GOP Convention, Trump praised Romney for his business experience and promise to stand up against China and fight for American economic interests.  But the business mogul also focused a portion of his speech on his questions about where President Obama was born.  It is the reason why on Tuesday, when Romney earned the 1,144 delegates necessary to secure his party's nomination, much of the news cycle was devoted to his decision to appear with Trump at a fundraiser that day.

Romney discloses his net worth

A desire by the media to protect Obama is the reason Trump told the more than 1,000 people gathered here that reporters are "really dishonest" and "the biggest thing Mitt Romney has to fear is the press.  They don't tell the truth."   But, speaking to reporters after the speech, Trump said it was the media attention he drew for Romney that led to a spike in the polls.  "I think he got the headline on a day where I did get a lot of press, and interestingly, since then, his polls numbers have gone up very substantially," Trump said of his appearance with Romney.  "So I really think, and he really thinks, that the press has helped and it's been good."

And during his address, Trump again used his appearance as a platform to question the president's birth certificate, the reason he has branded himself as a controversial figure on the national political scene.  Calling for the president to release his college records, Trump said, "There is one line called place of birth, I’d like to see what he said..Perhaps it’s going to say Hawaii, perhaps it’s going to say Kenya."

He dismissed that his motives were based in race by citing his recent decision to award African American actor Arsenio Hall the winner of his reality TV show "Celebrity Apprentice."
"Somebody said, 'Oh, because I brought up the birth certificate, I'm a racist.  I said, 'How can I be a racist, I just picked Arsenio Hall," said Trump.

Asked after the event why he continues to bring up the issue of the president's birth certificate, Trump said it was the demand from people who want to hear him talk about it, pointing out that the loudest applause line of his nearly hour-long speech came when he was questioning the president's birthplace.  Trump's speech tonight hit on many of the themes that made him a popular figure a year ago when he was mulling over his own presidential run.  He called the United States "a patsy" for not take a stronger stance towards China, and he even gave credit to former President Bill Clinton and Newark Mayor Cory Booker for not condemning Romney's work at Bain Capital.  He urged the United States to take oil from Iraq to help pay for the war there.

Trump, who has said he likes making money and creating jobs, used Friday's news of an uptick in unemployment to bolster his argument against Obama's economic record.  "This is bad news and frankly you could say good news for the Republicans in terms of an election, but I don't care. We love the country first, so it's bad news as far as I'm concerned."

But despite his ability to excite some members of the Republican party, he dismissed any talk of joining a presidential ticket.

"A lot of people tell me that, but I don't see it," said Trump.

Joe Scarborough: Mitt Romney “Cynical,” “Doesn't Have A Worldview”

Morning Joe host says Romney has been “bouncing around like a ball in a pinball machine” on China, Russia, and Syria policy. Says Romney's embrace of neoconservative policies is “cynical.”

Zeke Miller  

BuzzFeed Staff

posted May 29, 2012 7:39am EDT

Breastfeeding Military Women Cause Freakout

This is a big deal for some as yet undetermined reason. 

Gavon Laessig
BuzzFeed Staff 
posted about a day ago
If you find these photos disgusting, then you better go ask your moms if they breastfeed you as infants.   Everybody has been pushing breastfeeding as natural, healthy, and can be thought of another form of contraceptives .  The article below you can finish reading by clicking the title, the links below will take you to alternative birth control while breastfeeding.
My two cents worth.......

Breastfeeding and Birth Control 

As long as the nursing mother is exclusively breastfeeding, (nursing frequently day and night with no supplemental feedings), the baby is younger than 6 months of age, and the mother has not started having periods, she is more than 98% protected against pregnancy. This period of exclusive nursing means not only no supplemental feedings of water or formula, but also little or no pacifier use. All of the baby’s sucking needs are met at the breast, which means demand feedings around the clock. As long as the mother has had no vaginal bleeding after 56 days postpartum, and the baby receives no supplemental feeds, she has only about a 2% chance of becoming pregnant (this compares to the combined birth control pill, which is about 98%-99% effective if taken every day without missing a dose).
It is important to understand that as soon as there is a decline in breastfeeding, due to the baby eating supplemental feedings or nursing less often, the contraceptive protection decreases, and other methods should be considered.
Fertility is most effectively suppressed when the baby goes no longer than 4 hours during.....
These site has information about all types of birth control for nursing moms:
Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FAMs) 
Birth Control While Breastfeeding

Air National Guard members Terran Echegoyen-McCabe (L) and Christina Luna (R) have drawn a lot of attention, including scorn, for these photos in which they're breastfeeding while in uniform.

Via: facebook.com

The seemingly harmless photos were posted on the Facebook page of breastfeeding support group Mom2Mom, and the reaction was overwhelming. While most supported the two women, a vocal minority claimed the photos were disrespectful to the uniform.

Via: facebook.com

There are no rules in military conduct against breastfeeding in uniform and the moms say they do this all the time on Fairchild Airforce Base in Spokane, Washington. Mom2Mom were forced to issue a statement saying they support the troops and are in no way attempting to exploit or disparage the military.

Vietnam's 'napalm girl' comes to terms with iconic photo

40 years after photo showed her fleeing attack, she now accepts it as 'powerful gift' 

I remember this photo as if it were the first time I saw it. Powerful, moving, life changing. At the time and for years wondering what had happened. was she alive? Or just another nameless victim of a war we never intended to be in.  Now we all know her courageous story and the photojournalist who helped make it happen.  I am glad to know she is free, happy, and loved.

Nick Ut  /  AP file

In this Pulitzer Prize winning photo from June 8, 1972, 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, runs down Route 1 near Trang Bang, Vietnam after an aerial napalm attack.

By Margie Mason

updated 6/1/2012 2:57:39 PM ET

TRANG BANG, Vietnam — In the picture, the girl will always be 9 years old and wailing "Too hot! Too hot!" as she runs down the road away from her burning Vietnamese village.

She will always be naked after blobs of sticky napalm melted through her clothes and layers of skin like jellied lava.

She will always be a victim without a name.

It only took a second for Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut to snap the iconic black-and-white image 40 years ago. It communicated the horrors of the Vietnam War in a way words could never describe, helping to end one of America's darkest eras.

But beneath the photo lies a lesser-known story. It's the tale of a dying child brought together by chance with a young photographer. A moment captured in the chaos of war that would serve as both her savior and her curse on a journey to understand life's plan for her.

"I really wanted to escape from that little girl," says Kim Phuc, now 49. "But it seems to me that the picture didn't let me go."
_________________
It was June 8, 1972, when Phuc heard the soldier's scream: "We have to run out of this place! They will bomb here, and we will be dead!"

Seconds later, she saw the tails of yellow and purple smoke bombs curling around the Cao Dai temple where her family had sheltered for three days, as north and south Vietnamese forces fought for control of their village.

The little girl heard a roar overhead and twisted her neck to look up. As the South Vietnamese Skyraider plane grew fatter and louder, it swooped down toward her, dropping canisters like tumbling eggs flipping end over end.

"Ba-boom! Ba-boom!"

The ground rocked. Then the heat of a hundred furnaces exploded as orange flames spit in all directions.

Fire danced up Phuc's left arm. The threads of her cotton clothes evaporated on contact. Trees became angry torches. Searing pain bit through skin and muscle.

"I will be ugly, and I'm not normal anymore," she thought, as her right hand brushed furiously across her blistering arm. "People will see me in a different way."

In shock, she sprinted down Highway 1 behind her older brother. She didn't see the foreign journalists gathered as she ran toward them, screaming.

Then, she lost consciousness.
______________
Ut, the 21-year-old Vietnamese photographer who took the picture, drove Phuc to a small hospital. There, he was told the child was too far gone to help. But he flashed his American press badge, demanded that doctors treat the girl and left assured that she would not be forgotten.

"I cried when I saw her running," said Ut, whose older brother was killed on assignment with the AP in the southern Mekong Delta. "If I don't help her — if something happened and she died — I think I'd kill myself after that."

Back at the office in what was then U.S.-backed Saigon, he developed his film. When the image of the naked little girl emerged, everyone feared it would be rejected because of the news agency's strict policy against nudity.

But veteran Vietnam photo editor Horst Faas took one look and knew it was a shot made to break the rules. He argued the photo's news value far outweighed any other concerns, and he won.

Benoit Doppagne  /  AFP/Getty Images

Kim Phuc hold a print of the famed 1972 photo while delivering a speech in Brussels, Belgium on Sept. 24, 2003.

A couple of days after the image shocked the world, another journalist found out the little girl had somehow survived the attack. Christopher Wain, a correspondent for the British Independent Television Network who had given Phuc water from his canteen and drizzled it down her burning back at the scene, fought to have her transferred to the American-run Barsky unit. It was the only facility in Saigon equipped to deal with her severe injuries.

"I had no idea where I was or what happened to me," she said. "I woke up and I was in the hospital with so much pain, and then the nurses were around me. I woke up with a terrible fear."

Thirty percent of Phuc's tiny body was scorched raw by third-degree burns, though her face somehow remained untouched. Over time, her melted flesh began to heal.

"Every morning at 8 o'clock, the nurses put me in the burn bath to cut all my dead skin off," she said. "I just cried and when I could not stand it any longer, I just passed out."

After multiple skin grafts and surgeries, Phuc was finally allowed to leave, 13 months after the bombing. She had seen Ut's photo, which by then had won the Pulitzer Prize, but she was still unaware of its reach and power.

She just wanted to go home and be a child again.
_______________
For a while, life did go somewhat back to normal. The photo was famous, but Phuc largely remained unknown except to those living in her tiny village near the Cambodian border. Ut and a few other journalists sometimes visited her, but that stopped after northern communist forces seized control of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, ending the war.

Life under the new regime became tough. Medical treatment and painkillers were expensive and hard to find for the teenager, who still suffered extreme headaches and pain.

She worked hard and was accepted into medical school to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. But all that ended once the new communist leaders realized the propaganda value of the 'napalm girl' in the photo.

She was forced to quit college and return to her home province, where she was trotted out to meet foreign journalists. The visits were monitored and controlled, her words scripted. She smiled and played her role, but the rage inside began to build and consume her.

"I wanted to escape that picture," she said. "I got burned by napalm, and I became a victim of war ... but growing up then, I became another kind of victim."

She turned to Cao Dai, her Vietnamese religion, for answers. But they didn't come.
"My heart was exactly like a black coffee cup," she said. "I wished I died in that attack with my cousin, with my South Vietnamese soldiers. I wish I died at that time so I won't suffer like that anymore. ... It was so hard for me to carry all that burden with that hatred, with that anger and bitterness."

One day, while visiting a library, Phuc found a Bible. For the first time, she started believing her life had a plan.

Then suddenly, once again, the photo that had given her unwanted fame brought opportunity.

She traveled to West Germany in 1982 for medical care with the help of a foreign journalist. Later, Vietnam's prime minister, also touched by her story, made arrangements for her to study in Cuba.

She was finally free from the minders and reporters hounding her at home, but her life was far from normal. Ut, then working at the AP in Los Angeles, traveled to meet her in 1989, but they never had a moment alone. There was no way for him to know she desperately wanted his help again.

"I knew in my dream that one day Uncle Ut could help me to have freedom," said Phuc, referring to him by an affectionate Vietnamese term. "But I was in Cuba. I was really disappointed because I couldn't contact with him. I couldn't do anything."
_________________
While at school, Phuc met a young Vietnamese man. She had never believed anyone would ever want her because of the ugly patchwork of scars that banded across her back and pitted her arm, but Bui Huy Toan seemed to love her more because of them.

The two decided to marry in 1992 and honeymoon in Moscow. On the flight back to Cuba, the newlyweds defected during a refueling stop in Canada. She was free.

Phuc contacted Ut to share the news, and he encouraged her to tell her story to the world. But she was done giving interviews and posing for photos.

"I have a husband and a new life and want to be normal like everyone else," she said.

Na Son Nguyen  /  AP

AP photographer Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut.

 

The media eventually found Phuc living near Toronto, and she decided she needed to take control of her story. A book was written in 1999 and a documentary came out, at last the way she wanted it told. She was asked to become a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador to help victims of war. She and Ut have since reunited many times to tell their story, even traveling to London to meet the Queen.

"Today, I'm so happy I helped Kim," said Ut, who still works for AP and recently returned to Trang Bang village. "I call her my daughter."

After four decades, Phuc, now a mother of two sons, can finally look at the picture of herself running naked and understand why it remains so powerful. It had saved her, tested her and ultimately freed her.

"Most of the people, they know my picture but there's very few that know about my life," she said. "I'm so thankful that ... I can accept the picture as a powerful gift. Then it is my choice. Then I can work with it for peace."

© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Pauls Build A Libertarian Machine

From Kentucky to Texas, libertarian acolytes are poised to win primaries and take over their party. “We need reinforcements,” says Rand.

Rosie Gray BuzzFeed Staff

Ted Cruz and Rand Paul on the steps of the Texas Capitol for a Tea Party Express rally May 6. Source: gageskidmore

Posted May 29, 2012 12:57pm EDT

Ron Paul, still, if barely, a presidential candidate, suffered another landslide defeat in the Kentucky primary last week. But the Pauls won anyway: Their hand-picked candidate Thomas Massie, backed by Kentucky senator Rand Paul and funded by a wealthy 21-year-old Texan Paul acolyte with a super PAC, won his hotly-contested House primary by a decisive margin.

Quietly, from the remnants of two failed presidential campaigns and the formidable online Paul organizations, a political machine is being born. The Paul agenda of extremely limited government, suspicion of economic elites, and their true outsider street cred have broad appeal in their party’s politics that go well beyond the sometimes-eccentric standard-bearer.

The Republican Senate nominees in Wisconsin and Minnesota this cycle owe their nomination in part to the Paul influence. A Paul acolyte, Ted Cruz, is on the cusp of an upset victory over the establishment favorite in Texas Republican Senate primary. And Paul’s son Rand, the junior senator from Kentucky, is now mentioned seriously as a prospect for the 2016 Republican nomination should Mitt Romney fall short in November.

This new attention to state races is, a Paul advisor said, a matter of strategy.

“As Ron Paul moves on to a different phase, there will be other leaders who are in a position to emerge,” said the Republican strategist close to the Paul campaign. “Obviously the more people who are sympathetic to their issues, a host of those is a positive thing for the bigger movement. That's part of the objectives.”

Of the major strategic goals that Paul’s camp is focusing on now — picking up delegates, getting issues onto the platform at the convention, and getting libertarians included in the mainstream Republican party — the last is “critical,” the strategist said:“You’ve got a bunch of other people who can go and lead and build off our infrastructures.”

And while much of the coverage of Paul’s twilight campaign has centered on the role his delegates could play at the Republican National Convention, where they may have a voice on the party’s platform, Paul’s aides say the family’s focus is elsewhere.

Getting libertarians elected “easily transcends having that influence on the platform, which is basically a document and nothing else,” said Doug Wead, a Paul senior adviser.

The Pauls’ individualistic dogma and their solitary character make them unlikely bosses, even of their own de facto libertarian party.

“I don’t like anyone telling me how to vote,” Rand Paul said in his video endorsing Massie, the the Lewis County, Kentucky, Judge-Executive and victorious congressional candidate. “I make up my own mind and vote for the candidate who best supports term limits, balanced budgets and the constitution.”

“Kentuckians sent me to fight the Washington machine and I’ve done that,” Paul says into the camera. “But the mess is even worse than I thought…That’s why we need reinforcements.”
Along with being an ideological twin of Paul’s, Massie was benefitting from a more traditional form of politics. He was a rare Kentucky official to endorse Paul’s 2010 Senate bid, and was reaping the reward.

Indeed, unlike many political figures, the Pauls have demonstrated a capacity to lead their armies to other politicians — and by doing so, into the Republican coalition. This is how the Ron Paul movement is staving off a bleak period after Paul’s imminent retirement: handing over the reins to a set of younger politicians with similarly libertarian views. The Pauls have thrown their lot in with many candidates around the country, some by directly contributing resources or helping to fundraise, some by a simple endorsement.

“Congressman and Senator Paul are both deeply dedicated to helping elect principled Constitutionalists to office and are both working directly and indirectly with dozens of candidates across the country,” said Paul campaign manager Jesse Benton.

A few high-profile candidates, like Ted Cruz in Texas, have been particularly successful at profiting from the Paul anointment. Father and son appeared with him at a rally in Texas and conducted a moneybomb for him. And recent polling suggests Cruz will make it into a runoff with Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in July, a scenario many believes favors the outsider.

Kurt Bills, a Minnesota congressman who recently won his primary to face off against Sen. Amy Klobuchar, also benefited from an unusually strong Paulite apparatus in that state, one that also took over the states convention. Bills benefited, too, from Paul himself campaigning and fundraising with him, and sending out fundraising emails on his behalf.

An email on Paul’s Bills endorsement from the end of March: “If elected to the U.S. Senate, Kurt will join my son, Rand, in leading the fight for fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and constitutional principles in Washington, D.C.”

The Pauls have done even more for other candidates, like Mark Neumann, a Senate candidate in Wisconsin. Neumann is looking strong on the way to an August 14 primary, in no small part because of a little help from Rand, who did a tele-town hall with Neumann and has “written letters, sent e-mails, and urged conservatives to unite behind Mark,” according to Neumann’s campaign manager Chip Englander. Englander added that Neumann and Paul met in person pre-endorsement.

The endorsement “certainly energizes a large part of the party,” Englander said. And the effects have been “fantastic.”

“Mark's raised the most money of all the candidates,” Englander said. “He’s out-raised the establishment in this race and gotten the biggest and best endorsements: Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, the Club for Growth, Erick Erickson.” (Paul did a nearly five-minute-long video with Jim DeMint explaining his endorsement of Neumann).

Some of the Paul protégés have been careful to try and not look too much like carbon copies of the Pauls, like Bills, who told Minnesota Public Radio he wasn’t a Ronald Reagan or a Ron Paul Republican, but a “Kurt Bills Republican." Or like Cruz, whose Rick Santorum endorsement receives higher billing on his website than Rand Paul’s.

But regardless of whether or not they want to share the Paul image, these candidates are happy to plug into the networks that the Paul movement has built since 2008.
“These congressmen and state officials and new federal officials are lining up with us because we have the soldiers,” said Paul adviser Doug Wead. “If you want to run for office, you have to have them. They are the activist base of the Republican Party now.”

Indeed, the influx of conservative-libertarian candidates who parrot classic Paul positions — ending the Federal Reserve or the EPA, staying out of foreign affairs — looks something like the Tea Party bumper crop two years ago, albeit quieter.

The Tea Party has “lost its meaning, lost its significance,” said Wead. Instead, the mini-Pauls are “riding the wave,” he said. “This is a genuine movement and many people have been downplaying it and underestimating it, and it can be seen for what it is now with the election of some of these candidates.”

The Number That Will Matter In Wisconsin

In the epic showdown between Big Blue and Big Red, Walker's margin may be the number being watched from Chicago and Boston. A Walker blowout means trouble for the president.

John Ellis BuzzFeed Contributor

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (L) and Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talk during a debate held at Marquette University Law School yesterday. (Reuters / Darren Hauck)

Posted Jun 1, 2012 3:00pm EDT

The Wisconsin special gubernatorial recall election next Tuesday is the most important election of the campaign season to date. It will tell us a lot about the 2012 presidential race. And there will be policy repercussions because of it, in states all across the country.
At issue is whether Wisconsin should continue to move away from the Blue Social Model or not. The names on the ballot are Governor Scott Walker (R) and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D). But they are basically proxies for a larger policy battle. Simply put: Governor Walker is a vote against and away from Big Blue, Mayor Barrett is an affirmation of it.
The last time Wisconsinites voted on Big Blue was in April of 2011. The "race" back then was a special State Supreme Court Justice election. A vote for the incumbent (the swing vote on the 7-person Wisconsin Supreme Court) meant that Governor Walker's proposed attack on Wisconsin's Blue Social Model — dramatic reductions of the power of public sector labor unions — would go forward. A vote against the incumbent meant that the Walker plans would be stopped dead in their tracks.
The results of that election were exceptionally close. The morning after, in fact, it appeared that the conservative incumbent had lost by a whisker. He later was proclaimed the winner when the votes from the town of Brookfield were properly included in the Waukesha County tabulation. Brookfield had somehow been left out of the original Waukesha count.
You can see just how close this election was by clicking here (scroll down to Spring 2011 Election Cycle and open up the county-by-county Excel spreadsheet, which has both the first tally and the recount tally). These results will serve as a very useful baseline for this coming Tuesday's count. If Gov. Walker outperforms, consistently, across the county table, that will be read as a decisive defeat for Labor and its allies in the Democratic Party. A Walker "outperform" will also mean that Wisconsin is "in play" in the presidential election. Which in turn will mean that "likely" and "lean" Democratic states like Minnesota and Iowa will no longer be seen as "likely" or "lean" Democratic.
If Gov. Walker under-performs, then it will be a huge win for the Liberal-Labor coalition. The Obama campaign will feel the warm rush of political valium, soothing their November jitters. Everyone expects Gov. Walker to win this election, despite the razor-thin margins of every special election that has been held across Wisconsin since the 2010 general election. The polls say he will win by 6 percentage points, at least. So a Walker defeat on Tuesday would be the biggest story of all.
Is there any chance that Barrett can pull off an upset? Probably not. If he was leading in the polls, President Obama would be campaigning for him this weekend. The fact that the president is not campaigning for him this weekend means two things: (1) Barrett is behind in Team Obama polling by more than the margin of error, and (2) a presidential appearance would not provide enough of a lift for Barrett to make the difference. So, using the Obama test, Mr. Barrett is a goner.
The key to this election, however, is not really whether Governor Walker wins. More or less everyone expects him to do that. The key is how much he wins by. The crude calculation is this: Walker defeat equals certain Obama win in November. Walker win by 1-5 percentage points equals very close presidential general election (nationally). A Walker win by 6 points or more equals Mitt Romney is the favorite to win in November.
The entire political world will be running the numbers Tuesday night. Truly important elections don't come along that often. This one matters.

Older, unemployed and pessimistic -- will they vote?

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By Tom Curry, msnbc.com National Affairs Writer

When the Labor Department releases the monthly jobs report on Friday morning, employment numbers among Americans over the age of 50 will be worth a look– for both the long and short term implications.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Must-Read Op-Eds: Mika Brzezinski reads from a Steve Rattner NYT column on why "it's appropriate" to question Mitt Romney on his ability to create jobs. Brzezinski also reads from a Washington Post editorial on the president's relationship with private equity.

In the jobs report for April, more than 2.5 million of the nation’s 12.5 million unemployed were between the ages of 50 and 64. Those born in the mid-1950s would ordinarily be in their lifetime peak earnings and taxpaying years. The decline in the percentage of people in their 50s who are employed creates problems not only for them -- inadequate retirement savings, for one -- but also for the Treasury: a worrisome loss not only of current tax revenues but expected future revenues -- due to workers’ skills becoming rusty and outmoded.

“People who lose their jobs often take jobs that pay less than the job they had,” said Jason Fichtner, the former chief economist for the Social Security Administration who is now a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “The lower wage tends to result in a level downward shift in lifetime wages … the longer it takes them to find a job, the greater their lifetime wage gap is likely to be. This not only has implications for financing Social Security, but also for financing all government spending. If wages are lower, then taxes collected will be lower too (all else being equal).”

You can get some idea of the revenue that’s being lost by looking at the most recent available tax return data from the Internal Revenue Service on income, broken out by age groups.
That data from 2007 shows that taxpayers aged 45 to 55 were the highest earning age group with average salary and wage income reported on their tax returns of $69,559. Tax filers in the 55 to 65 age group reported salary and age income of $63,567 in 2007. A year out of work for a person who was earning $65,000 would mean a loss to the Treasury of $9,425 in federal tax revenue, assuming an effective tax rate of 14.5 percent.

Although there are signs of economic recovery, it is striking that federal individual income tax revenues so far in the current fiscal year -- $664 billion -- are still 11 percent below where they were at the same point in 2008.

Polling data from the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll reveals a higher level of pessimism among older Americans than among the population at large: among all poll respondents, 58 percent said the nation is “off on the wrong track,” but among people aged 50 to 64, 63 percent said the country was on the wrong track.

When poll respondents were asked whether what they had seen, heard or read in recent weeks had made them more optimistic or less so about the direction of the economy, 53 percent said they were less optimistic. But among people aged 50 to 64, 57 percent were less optimistic.

And older people tend to give Obama a lower rating on his handling of the economy. Among all poll respondents, 52 percent said they disapproved of Obama’s handling of economic policy. But among those aged 50 to 64, 56 percent disapproved of the president’s handling of the economy.

A big unknown for November is whether this segment of the population -- unemployed, over age 50, and generally not happy with Obama’s handling of the economy, will vote or will be so disaffected that they won’t bother to turn out.

Political scientist Matthew Incantalupo at Princeton University points out that it is not enough to simply compare voter turnout among the employed and the unemployed -- since the unemployed usually include large numbers of younger, less educated and lower income Americans -- groups which traditionally have relatively low voter turnout.

Incantalupo’s research delves deeper into the data and finds that in prosperous times, as during the 1996 and 2000 elections, job loss had a negative impact on voter turnout. If you were unemployed you were less apt to vote in those years.

But in 2008 and 2010 job loss had a positive effect on voter turnout. "Job loss has a mobilizing effect on turnout during periods of high unemployment, such as the one brought about by the most recent economic recession," he said.

“This Is About Me”: John Edwards Walks Away

Posted by Amy Davidson

May 31, 2012

 In a funny way, the jurors in the John Edwards trial, who on Thursday acquitted him on one count and deadlocked on five others, decided that they had some faith in friendship and affection, if not love. That is not what one might expect the lesson to be in a case full of counterfeit emotions and intimate betrayal. But they found, in their single “not guilty,” that whatever the motives of Rachel Lambert Mellon, known as Bunny, were when she gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Edwards, the government did not prove that they were to influence an election—that they constituted an illegal campaign contribution—and so, in effect, their use was more personal than electoral. The “Bunny Money” went to hide Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter, and Quinn, the baby girl whom Edwards, whose wife was dying of cancer, had with her, and whom he had persuaded an aide to claim as his own. That does not make one like him very much. The question for the jury was whether it made him a criminal.

“Thank you for the jurors,” Edwards said when he came out to speak afterward. After eight and a half days, they told Judge Catherine Eagles that they only had one verdict. The defense wanted a mistrial; the prosecution wanted more talking. Eagles read the jury an Allen charge—which basically tells them to remember their duty, that they are as smart as any jurors who could be found, that someone has to decide and to get back to work—but after just an hour more they told her that they just couldn’t.

“This is about me,” Edwards said in his press conference. He went on to talk about what he was willing to admit. “I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. And there is no one else who was responsible for my sins.” He thanked his father and mother, and his daughter Cate, who had been there every day, having to listen to ugly “evidence about her dad, evidence about her mom.” He also mentioned Emma Claire and Jack, the fourteen- and ten-year-olds, and then said what everyone wondered whether he might:

And finally, my precious Quinn, who I love more than any of you could ever imagine.

He said that he was grateful for Quinn, and all of his children. And so unless the government wants to go through this all again, that’s it. Edwards—former Senator, Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee in 2004, contender in 2008—could have faced thirty years in jail.
Now he won’t even lose his law license; he said that he didn’t think God was done with him. “All I can say is thank goodness that we live in a country that has the kind of system we have.”

What kind of system is that, though? As I wrote recently at Daily Comment, this case did matter. It asked a jury to think about what we consider the boundaries of the political life to be, and where and when a campaign begins and ends. It may have mattered to the jury that by the time Mellon gave her money it was pretty clear to everyone that Edwards was not going to be President, ever; that was less the case with money Fred Baron, who had been Edwards’s finance chair in the 2004 race and helped raise funds for him the next time, came up with for Hunter. And it should give anyone cause to think hard about the tendency of candidates to bend themselves and their careers toward a handful of wealthy donors—or even just one. This will be an even more critical question in the post-Citizens United era. The Edwards trial put the question in crude terms—What do you owe the rich donor who helped hide your mistress?—but a lot of politicians have a lot of debts as well as secrets that are increasingly inaccessible to the public.

Mellon did not testify. She is a hundred and one years old—she looks middle-aged in the photographs of her conferring with Jackie Kennedy. Her money comes from everything from Listerine to banking, and there is a lot of it. She had an interior decorator, Bryan Huffman, who endorsed checks supposedly for pieces of furniture that cost more than a hundred thousand dollars; in Bunny terms, that was a way to be inconspicuous. He also told the jury that she was “euphoric” when she spoke to Edwards; it “always made her extremely happy.” She liked him, and she believed deeply in what she thought he believed when he talked about helping poor people. She also thought, according to Huffman, that the twenty-three-hundred-dollar limit on individual campaign contributions was pretty low.

The same word might be applied to Edwards, and to the political process he played to. Trying to make a point about responsibility, he said, in his press conference, “I don’t have to go any further than the mirror.” Did he ever?

Photograph by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images.

Richard Drew / AP

Trader John Panin, left, and specialist Frederick Edwards work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday. Stocks fell sharply Friday after the release of a dismal report on U.S. job creation.

tocks see worst day of the year after weak jobs report

22

hours

ago

By Roland Jones

A gloomy U.S. jobs report and signs of a global economic slowdown hammered Wall Street Friday, wiping out the stock market’s gains for 2012 and leaving investors wondering where to turn.

The Dow Jones industrial average sank 275 points, or 2.2 percent, chalking up its biggest one-day drop since November. The market index closed down 0.8 percent for the year and off 2.7 percent for the week.

Market participants had expected to see a mildly negative employment report Friday, but they “hadn’t discounted the kind of numbers we saw this morning,” Barton Biggs, a hedge fund manager at Traxis Partners, told CNBC Friday.

Biggs also warned that the chance of a “mild double-dip recession” is now about 40 percent.
“I’m not that bearish about the economy and the market, but am I ready to step in in a big way? No,” he said.

Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department showed the U.S. economy created only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, as the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent in April -- the first increase in 11 months.

The government also said the economy created far fewer jobs in the previous two months than first thought, revising numbers down to show 49,000 fewer jobs created.

Friday’s steep market drop spooked investors. The VIX index, a measure of investor fear, rose to levels not seen in five months. And the value of government bonds and gold soared as investors sought safe places to park their money.

The weak U.S. outlook added to a growing global sense of gloom. New data from the euro zone Friday showed unemployment in the region was 11 percent in April -- the highest level since records began in 1995. And there are signs that manufacturing in China -- a driver of global growth in the recession -- is slowing.

Many had looked to the U.S. as a bright spot of growth in the global economy, but Friday’s jobs report added more evidence to the view that growth in the U.S. is slowing, suggesting weaker corporate earnings ahead and weighing on stock prices.

Related: Recession storm clouds threaten global economy

Stocks saw their worst month in two years in May, ending more than 6 percent lower, as investors worried about Europe’s ongoing debt crisis. The downturn in the aggregate U.S. market has shaken some $1 trillion out of investors’ pockets.

Investors will have to put up with more uncertainty in June, analysts say, as the fate of the euro zone waits to see the outcome of Greece’s elections on June 17.

Greece, which unleashed the financial turmoil in the euro zone, will go to the polls for a crucial second election on June 17 that may determine whether it remains a member of the currency union. Investors are concerned about the unknown consequences of a Greek exit, fearful that it may precipitate the disintegration of the euro zone.

Despite the market downturn Friday and global economic fears, Peter Sorrentino, senior portfolio manager at Huntington Asset Management, counsels that investors can still find value in the market.

“We’re seeing stock prices back down where they were at the beginning of the year, but earnings are still there,” he told CNBC, noting that company balance sheets are very strong, as corporations have spent years paying off debt and raising cash to record levels.

Sorrentino added that, after Friday’s downturn, bargains can still be found in the agriculture and energy sectors.

Shares of Facebook continued to slide below their initial public offering price of $38, closing down 6 percent at $27.72.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Are there any bright spots in the market?

Jason Alexander Joins the 99%

Millionaire Jason Alexander attends a 99% rally to try and find out how to become a part of the 99%ers movement.

Mitt Romney Wins Over The Right By Confronting Obama

Behind his confrontational strategy: A bet that the base cares more about grit than policy, and doesn't want him to apologize for Donald Trump. “This is right out of Breitbart's playbook,” says Thor. 

McKay Coppins 

  BuzzFeed Staff

Romey, in front of Solyndra Thursday. (Getty Images / Justin Sullivan)

Posted Jun 1, 2012 1:03am EDT

BOSTON, Mass. — After a day spent waging bi-coastal combat with the Obama campaign, Mitt Romney's team in Boston earned the highest compliment Rush Limbaugh has ever paid them Thursday afternoon: "I'm telling you," he said. "This is not the McCain campaign."

Once-skeptical conservatives knew exactly what he meant. In the eyes of many on the right, John McCain's 2008 presidential bid was a disaster not because he lost, but because he refused to fight. Conservatives believe McCain bought into a liberal media narrative that personal attacks on Barack Obama were unseemly and even racist. The conservative caricature of Candidate McCain that emerged in the wake of the Republicans' defeat wasn't of an unreliable moderate — rather, it was one of an Establishment figure paralyzed by political correctness, and unwilling to go blow for blow with Obama.

But if the Vietnam veteran disappointed conservatives with his gun-shy campaign in 2008, Romney is uniting the right by playing the role of the bomb-thrower.

The unapologetically aggressive tone of Romney's campaign is manifest at every turn — from his aides' fierce Twitter wars, to the candidate's surprise press conference at failed green solar company Solyndra, and the campaign's continued refusal to apologize for Donald Trump's outlandish conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate. It's all part of a deliberate — and, so far, successful — strategy aimed less at convincing undecided voters, and more at rallying the Republican Party around its candidate.

“There were a lot of folks who didn’t think he’d have the edge to really take on the president,” a Romney advisor, who outlined the campaign strategy on the condition of anonymity, told BuzzFeed, refrring to “the Santorum people and conservatives who have been off the bandwagon.”

“They’ve been pretty surprised and impressed at how willing Boston has been to push back,” the advisor said. “We’re raising money, and I’m getting calls from people saying, ‘This is amazing… I didn’t think this would happen.”

“Now there’s a narrative that this guy is going to fight back and that’s not going to be a McCain situation where they get to attack you and everything you say is off limits,” he said.
The conventional wisdom of the chattering class has been that Romney is captive to the Republican Party's conservative base, desperate and anxious to maintain their tepid support.

But his new appeal to the right marks a recognition that he can court conservatives without, in any traditional sense, "tacking right." His aggressive tactics stand in for the sort of policy compromises that could damage him in November; better, his advisers argue, to court conservatives with a press conference shouting match than with a high-profile fight over abortion or gay marriage. What’s more, they say, the media obsession with Romney “pandering” to the right represents a misunderstanding of conservatives, who can live with Romney’s moderate record – as long as he’s a fighting moderate.

"I thought we were going to see John McCain all over again,” said Brad Thor, a bestselling novelist and popular figure on the right who supported Santorum. “But you know what? That fire I've felt for previous candidates, I'm starting to feel it. And that surprise presser at Solyndra was like pouring accelerant on the fire."

Thor said when he heard about the Solyndra stunt, he cheered aloud: "Way to go Mitt!"
"My God, this is right out of Breitbart's playbook. I love it!" he said. "I swear to God, if he roller skates into the DNC convention, or hijacks an Obama press conference — if he does either one of those I’m going to give my kid’s college money to his Super PAC.”

That appetite for confrontation has a particular appeal for the vibrant online right.

"I unquestionably see more excitement on the right as Mitt Romney takes the gloves off and comes out fighting," said Kat McKinley, a Tea Party activist and blogger. "The more he does the opposite of what John McCain did, which was NOT fight, the more conservatives will like him.”

Romney’s aides and advisors tick off a series of punches and counterpunches that form the core of this new brand of conservative outreach, beginning with his staff’s decision to turn Democrats’ absurdist attacks on his treatment of a family dog into an absurdist assault on Obama’s memory of having eaten dog meat as a boy in Indonesia.

“Same thing with the Mormon issue,” said the advisor, noting the course of MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell’s attack on Romney’s faith. “The nex thing you know you’ve got Ricketts talking about Jeremiah Wright” — a planned Super PAC, unconnected to the campaign, which threatened to air ads attacking Obama’s former pastor — “and David Axelrod comes out and says everything is off limits.”

Also part of this pattern has been the campaign's refusal — mystifying to liberals and the media that praised McCain — to stand up Trump's birther crusade. President Obama has even questioned the candidate's "moral leadership" as a result of his alliance with The Donald. But the Romney campaign sees instances like McCain's publicly rebuking a supporter who called Obama an "Arab" as moments of political weakness — the equivalent of throwing the base into an ice bath when he most needed them fired up.

His campaign's most recent muscle-flexing stunt came Thursday, when Romney pulled off the surprise visit to Solyndra in San Francisco, using the bankrupt company's headquarters as a backdrop to hammer the president for "picking winners and losers" in the economy. Meanwhile, 3,000 miles away, campaign aides, interns, and volunteers crashed a press conference scheduled by senior Obama adviser Axelrod on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse. The rowdy crowd drowned out the speakers at times with loud boos, blew bubbles at them when they were talking, and interrupted with chants of, "Five more months!"

"They were on our home turf," campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said. "They had this botched sneak attack. This was personal for us since they were right up the block. We’re not just going to sit by and let them do that — we're not weak."

Kevin Madden, a Romney adviser, said they're simply making good on their promise in the primaries to take the fight to Obama.

"As a campaign, we won't cede even an inch when it comes to delivering the governor's message," he said.

And Romney himself said his supporters were merely responding to rowdy Democratic behavior.

“And at some point you say, ‘You know what, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,'" he said. "If they’re going to be heckling us, why we’re not going to sit back and play by very different rules. If the president is going to have his people coming to my rallies, and heckling, why, we’ll show them that, you know, we conservatives have the same kind of capacity he does.”

That kind of talk has won approval from the Republican grassroots figures who took McCain’s civility for surrender in 2008.

"Time and again, he pulled back from lines of attack that could have been productive against Obama," said Rick Wilson, who cut slashing ads for the National Republican Trust PAC, an outside group McCain denounced. "He undercut surrogates and supporters. His consulting team acted like it was wine-tasting night at the Borgia's."

"Conservatives want a fighter, and Romney's been stepping up fast on that front,” he said.
Romney aides, too, privately contrast their no-holds-barred approach to McCain apologizing for his party's rowdy base in 2008. And for now — while swing voters go on vacation, and activists stay tuned in — the campaign is welcoming the comparison to a confrontational icon of the conservative movement.

Told that conservatives were comparing Romney’s tactics to Breitbart’s, one aide responded: "Oh great, that's what we were going for."
With Zeke Miller in Boston.

First Thoughts: Ouch for Team Obama

Obama maintains his battleground-map lead in latest NBC News map… But today’s job report is an “ouch” for Team Obama: Just 69,000 jobs created in May, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2%... Summing up yesterday’s political activity: a day of stunts… Team Romney and riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger… Bill Clinton’s praise of Bain not helpful to the Obama camp… Edwards’ acquittal and what’s stopping the future Bunny Mellons?... And are Walker and Obama following the same campaign playbook?

1

day

ago    1096comments

By NBC’s Chuck Todd, 

Mark Murray, 

Domenico Montanaro, and 

Brooke Brower

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama speaks before signing the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank at the White House in Washington May 30, 2012.

*** Ouch for Team Obama: Why is this presidential race close? And why might it get closer? Look no further than today’s jobs report for May, which is a gut-punch for Team Obama. According to the report, employers added just 69,000 in May -- the fewest in a year -- and the unemployment rate increased to 8.2%. The AP: “U.S. employers created 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate ticked up. The dismal jobs figures could fan fears that the economy is sputtering. The Labor Department also says the economy created far fewer jobs in the previous two months than first thought. It revised those figures down to show 49,000 fewer jobs created.”

** Obama maintains his battleground-map lead: After our new rounds of NBC-Marist polls, as well as our conversations with the presidential campaigns, we’ve unveiled our latest NBC News Battleground map. And it shows -- surprise, surprise -- a very competitive contest. We have 237 electoral votes in the Democratic column and
We have 191  electoral votes in the GOP column .
That’s a slight change from our last map in April, when it was 231 to 197.
The big changes in our map:

• We moved New Hampshire and Wisconsin from Lean Dem to Toss-up; 

• Iowa from Lean GOP to Toss-up; and 

• Pennsylvania from Toss-up to Lean Dem. 

Why the Pennsylvania move when the current polling suggests that Obama has just a modest lead over Romney? The Romney camp simply isn’t spending the money or building the organization; the state appears to be lower on their target list than others, at least for now. The way Republicans are treating Pennsylvania is akin to how Democrats appear to be treating Missouri.
One way to judge how a move in the perception of the economy can shift landscape? Focus on the “leans” in on our map; a tick upward in Obama’s direction puts more of these lean GOPers in play… a move, like we may be seeing today with the May jobs report would shift those Lean Dem states to the right. Here’s our map as of today:

• Solid Dem (no chance at flip): DC, DE, HI, ME (3 EVs) MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (70 electoral votes)

• Likely Dem (takes a landslide to flip): CA, CT, IL, WA (94)

• Lean Dem: ME (1 EV) MI, MN, NJ, NM, OR, PA (73)

• Toss-up: CO, FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, VA, WI (110)       These are the important states for both candidates

• Lean GOP: AZ, GA, IN, MO, NE (I EV) (49)

• Likely GOP (takes a landslide to flip): AL, LA, MS, MT, ND, SC, SD, TX (79)

• Solid GOP (no chance at flip): AK, AR, ID, KS, KY, NE (4 EVs) OK, TN, UT, WV, WY (63)

*** Stunt men: How do we sum up yesterday’s dueling campaign events? It was a day of stunts. There was the Obama camp holding a press conference in Boston; Team Romney trying to crash that presser; and Romney making a secret stop to Solyndra. What struck us was how both campaigns seemed to be more worried about winning the news cycle than making their point.

• Did Team Obama really not think that holding an event in the city where the Romney campaign headquarters is located could be interrupted? Likewise, 

• does anyone think Romney would have received more attention with his Solyndra trip if they had actually publicized it instead of keeping it a secret? 

(Also, they might have tried picking a time other than the very moment all the cameras and attention were focused on George W. Bush at the White House.)  

When you chase the news cycle like McCain and Clinton did a lot in 2008 -- something Team Obama rarely did in ’07-’08 -- you forget about other things. Both campaigns chased the news cycle yesterday, and neither got what it wanted.

*** Riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger: Buzzfeed has this additional observation about yesterday’s stunts by the Romney campaign: They are winning over the Limbaughs and other parts of the GOP base. “[Romney’s] aggressive tactics stand in for the sort of policy compromises that could damage him in November; better, his advisers argue, to court conservatives with a press conference shouting match than with a high-profile fight over abortion or gay marriage. What’s more, they say, the media obsession with Romney ‘pandering’ to the right represents a misunderstanding of conservatives, who can live with Romney’s moderate record – as long as he’s a fighting moderate.” As one conservative remarked to Buzzfeed about yesterday’s Solyndra stunt: "My God, this is right out of Breitbart's playbook. I love it!" The question is whether riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger is good long-term politics. After all, you ride that tiger -- and everything that comes with it -- at your own peril, especially if you’re looking to be able to govern after winning, never mind trying to win swing voters in the fall. We get that the campaign believes swing voters are NOT paying attention now, but there’s a line.

*** Bill Clinton’s praise of Bain: The folks in Chicago are probably “shocked, shocked” that Bill Clinton wasn’t on message when he praised Romney’s business background and work at Bain Capital on CNN yesterday. "I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say 'This is bad work. This is good work.” And:
"I think the real issue ought to be, what has Gov. Romney advocated in the campaign that he will do as president? 
What has President Obama done and what does he propose to do? How do these things stack up against each other?"
A few points here:

1.  like Cory Booker, Clinton didn’t do Team Obama any favors here. 
2.  remember that Clinton wasn’t always on message even when campaigning for Hillary (remember South Carolina in ’08?). And 
3.  notice that all of the Dem praise of Bain has come from folks who live and work in the Acela Corridor (Booker, Rendell, Ford, Clinton). We’ve yet to hear from a single Democrat from Toledo or Green Bay about private equity’s virtues. So be careful assuming Bain attacks don’t work.  

*** What’s stopping the future Bunny Mellons? As you may have noticed, we haven’t had much to say about John Edwards and his trial in North Carolina. But after a jury acquitted him on one charge -- and was unable to reach a verdict on the others -- we have this political observation: Campaign-finance loopholes remain a mile wide. If wealthy donors/patrons can cut large checks to hide an affair and love child, there’s nothing to stop future ones from being able to find new ways to curry influence with the politicians they sponsor. What about a $1 million check to help a politician’s friend start up a new business? Or a $1 million check to help pay off someone’s debt? (Then again that donor or patron could always start up -- legally -- a Super PAC.) As the New Yorker writes, “The Edwards trial put the question in crude terms—What do you owe the rich donor who helped hide your mistress?—but a lot of politicians have a lot of debts as well as secrets that are increasingly inaccessible to the public.” Ultimately, what we learned from the whole ordeal: Campaign-finance cases are VERY hard to criminalize. One other thing we’ve heard from folks close to the Edwards family: They want him to stay out of the public spotlight. So far, John Edwards is showing he’s learned nothing from how he got into trouble. He still has no self-awareness.

*** Are Obama and Walker following the same campaign playbook? We’re just four days away until the Wisconsin recall, and one of us wrote yesterday that despite their ideological and stylistic differences, Scott Walker and Barack Obama are trying to run the same kind of campaign. Turn the race into a choice, not a referendum; argue that progress has been made, no matter how slowly or controversially; and link your opponent to your even more unpopular predecessor. Of course, there are some differences here, including the difference between a gubernatorial recall and a presidential contest. But just take a look at some of the pro-Walker ads that are airing in Wisconsin. Their messages -- disqualifying the challenger, touting any good economic news, and reminding you of the even more unpopular predecessor -- aren’t going to be much different from the pro-Obama ads you’ll see in September and October.  By the way, Walker and Tom Barrett squared off in their final debate last night, and it was pretty contentious.

• Countdown to WI recall: 4 days

• Countdown to GOP convention: 88 days

• Countdown to Dem convention: 95 days

• Countdown to Election Day: 159 days