Romney Retreats From 4% Unemployment Promise
Obama Campaign
Courts LGBT Voters
Stu Varney Says ... Facebook (VIDEO)
TPM Editors’ Blog Opinions, Context & Ideas from TPM Editors
Performance Art, Right?
It won’t be easy. I know. But take a moment to plumb the depths of your memory and peer far back through the mists of time to … last Friday, when CNBC was freaking out over Facebook’s IPO. And then compare that to today, when CNBC was freaking out over Facebook’s IPO for entirely different reasons.
Who Did What – And When
The Facebook IPO as a cultural event was bizarro, especially if you suffered with a vicious hangover after the .com boom. But the allegations of selective disclosure of material information about the company’s business prospects to preferred investors in advance of the IPO? That’s a different story entirely. We’ve put together a timeline of the events relevant to these new allegations.
It could turn out that the selective disclosure investigations may provide us, as if we needed it (see, e.g., JP Morgan), with another window into the systemic corruption of Wall Street. In that sense, these allegations may reveal less about Facebook, Inc., than about a financial system that survived its own self-inflicted near-death experience in 2008 with its venality intact.
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Both Sides Agree: It’s The Economy, Stupid
Click here for full-size player.
‘La-La Land’
House GOP to Obama: You’re in ”La-La Land” on a debt limit increase.
Fake!
Hawaii’s actual verification of President Obama’s birth.
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Thanks, Ken Bennett
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett last night finally called an end to his ill-advised investigation into the undisputed facts of President Obama’s birth.
Hawaii was even kind enough to furnish him with a souvenir of the week that was.
Stu Varney Says Facebook
Courtesy of our video captain Michael Lester, the most bizarrely excellent clip you’ll watch today.
Carney to Reporters: BS
Press Secretary Jay Carney berates “BS” reporting of Obama ‘spending spree’, reporting based on “sloth and laziness.”
On His Own Terms
Patrick Fitzgerald steps down as U.S. attorney in Chicago.
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You Don’t Say?
DC Republicans reinvent themselves as Keynesians to warn of the impending harm to the U.S. economy of cutting government spending.
Counter-Narrative Alert
How does federal spending under Obama stack up against recent past presidents? Take a look.
The John Edwards Trial In Pictures
While the jury continues to deliberate, a look at the cast of characters from the monthlong trial.
Motion Control Computing Wars
One day soon you’ll be moving your finger through the air to read this piece.
BRAAAINS
Birtherism. The undead dream that just won’t go away.
Boom! Hawaii Replies
Hawaii replies to Arizona’s birther-curious Secretary of State, officially confirming Obama’s birth.
Prosaically Named ‘Dashboard’ Debuts Tomorrow
The Obama campaign is debuting its new and much-hyped social/organizing/recruiting dashboard tomorrow. They’ve named it ‘Dashboard’.
Birther No More
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett backs off his birther quest: “If I embarrassed the state, I apologize but that certainly wasn’t my intent.”
Bennett also said that Obama will “be on the ballot as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has.”
Nick Martin has the latest.
Will He Probe Romney?
Ken Bennett, the Arizona Secretary of State who is threatening to take President Obama off the state ballot, turns out to be Mitt Romney’s state campaign co-chair. Will he investigate Romney’s birth certificate too?
Bold Talk
The White House says that another debt limit showdown will be political suicide … for Republicans.
Waiting For A Road To Damascus Moment
Harry Reid to Senate GOP: Drop your ”blind adherence to Tea Party extremism” on tax policy.
Sentencing Means White Supremacist 'Serial' Bomber Likely To Die Behind Bars For Arizona Attack
Chances are, unless he lives to 102, a white supremacist who bragged about being a serial bomber will die in prison.
An Obama Spending Spree? Hardly (CHART)
You’ll often hear the national political discourse turn to talk of Obama’s big spending spree. It’s not true.
Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters
Senate Cybersecurity Bills Under Fire From CISPA Opponents
Fearing that the U.S. Senate will soon vote to pass a cybersecurity bill that could erode Web user privacy, a prominent Internet freedom advocacy group has launched a new online campaign to get the American public to confront Senators face-to-face during their weeklong Memorial Day recess at the end of the month. Fight For the Future, a nonprofit advocacy group that in late 2011 helped launch the successful massive online protest against the much-hated anti-online bill known as SOPA …
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Obama Camp Hits Back At ‘Romney Economics’ On Education
The Obama campaign fired back at Mitt Romney’s speech Wednesday on education, in which Romney put forward school choice proposals, holding a conference call with reporters in which they tied “Romney economics,” of short-term gains, to their opponent’s positions on education. “Mitt Romney might not want to talk about his lackluster record in Massachusetts, but it’s an important window into what he would do as president,” said Obama campaign national press secretary Ben LaBolt…
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From Investor Exuberance To Congressional Investigations: A Timeline of Facebook’s Rocky IPO
It is safe to say that the Facebook IPO has not gone as planned. A slumping stock price, and several sensational reports about what went on behind the scenes, have resulted in lawsuits, attention from regulators, and a lot of sniping and second-guessing from pundits. This week’s critical coverage is a complete 180 from the breathless, rapturous reports in the days leading up to last Friday. Take a step back. Here’s a timeline of key events in the run-up to and brief history of…
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GOP To White House: Call Our Bluff On Debt Limit – We Dare You
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is once again insisting that Congress won’t raise the debt limit this winter absent dollar-for-dollar spending cuts. The response from numerous White House officials amounts to calling Boehner’s bluff. We’re not going to replay last August again, they say, and we don’t think you’ll shoot the hostage – the politics, and the economic consequences are just too deadly. Republicans insist they’re not bluffing. It’s not just about their desire to tie…
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Arizona’s Secretary Of State Finally Gets What He Asked For
This is what Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett has to show for two months of writing emails and nearly a week of nationwide ridicule in his investigation of President Obama’s birth certificate: a single sheet of paper.
Hawaii officials sent the man in charge of Arizona’s elections a one-page verification late Tuesday that President Obama was indeed born in their state in 1961.
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Romney Retreats From ‘Unrealistic’ Four Percent Unemployment Benchmark
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has come a long way from insisting “anything over four percent [unemployment] is nothing to celebrate.” That benchmark, which he set earlier in May, drew criticism from economists of every political persuasion, including GOP loyalists. On Tuesday, he set a new goal for himself – one that won’t create a hoped-for contrast with President Obama. “I can tell you that over a period of 4 years, by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we get …
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Obama Campaign Launches Outreach To LGBT Voters
No one is sure what impact President Obama’s newfound support for same-sex marriage will have on the election in November. But the Obama campaign isn’t just going to sit back and wait and see. The Obama campaign on Wednesday announced the launch of Obama Pride: LBGT Americans for Obama, an outreach effort targeting the LGBT community. The new initiative, which coincides with Pride Month in June, will prioritize efforts to engage the community and mobilize voters. LGBT-targeted…
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Sentencing Means White Supremacist ‘Serial’ Bomber Likely To Die Behind Bars For Arizona Attack
Chances are, unless he lives to 102, a white supremacist who bragged about being a serial bomber will die in prison for his role in the 2004 mail bombing of a city office in Arizona.
Dennis Mahon, 61, was sentenced by a federal judge on Tuesday in Phoenix to spend the next 40 years in prison for the bombing, which injured three employees of the Scottsdale city government, including its diversity director.
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The Motion Control Computing Wars Get Real
In a few months, you may be not be clicking on this or any other article online, but instead gesturing in the air to navigate your way around the Web. That’s the promise of Leap, a $70 motion control device for Mac and Windows PCs that was unveiled by the San Francisco-based startup company Leap Motion earlier this week. The Leap, which is accepting pre-orders online, with an estimated shipping date between December 2012 and January 2013, is a small, USB device that its makers…
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CBO: Coming Fiscal Cliff Will Devastate The Economy (CHART)
A giant austerity bomb is timed to go off at the beginning of next year, and the threat of significantly higher taxes and lower spending has Republicans running around the Capitol sounding more like John Maynard Keynes than John Boehner. Automatic, across-the-board reductions to domestic and defense spending, combined with the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, will dramatically consolidate the budget in the next calendar year, if Congress does nothing. And despite bemoaning. …
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An Obama Spending Spree? Hardly (CHART)
A dominant theme of the national political discourse has been the crushing spending spree the U.S. has ostensibly embarked on during the Obama presidency. That argument, ignited by Republicans and picked up by many elite opinion makers, has infused the national dialogue and shaped the public debate in nearly every major budget battle of the last thee years.
But the numbers tell a different story.
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Key Democrat Praises Rubio’s ‘Sincere Conversion’ On Immigration Reform
An election-year effort by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to advance a scaled-back DREAM Act is drawing praise from Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), the Democrats’ most vocal crusader for comprehensive immigration reform. “The problem [on immigration reform] has never been the Democratic Party. The problem has been Republican votes,” Gutiérrez told TPM in an interview Tuesday. “And Rubio is the first light reaching out of the tunnel. So I wish him success.” Rubio has yet to release his bill…
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The Deck Is Stacked Against Obama In Nevada – And He’s Leading Anyway
If you were betting on President Barack Obama’s chances to win Nevada in a Vegas casino, you would probably consider the state’s staggering unemployment rate, its history of voting for Republicans in seven of the last 10 presidential elections and its large Mormon population. And you might be wise to put your chips on him anyway. Despite the many factors working against Obama in the Silver State, he is still favored to beat Mitt Romney there in November. Nevada bore the brunt of…
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Know Your Spox: A Look At The Obama Campaign Staff
With the general election firmly in its “non-stop shouting” phase, spokesmen and women for both candidates are flooding the zone with cable TV appearances, statements to the press and oh so many snarky tweets. If you follow the campaign closely, you’ll likely see their names and faces hundreds of times before we hit November, so you might as well get acquainted now. Here’s a rundown of a few of the most prolific mouthpieces for the Obama camp. (Tomorrow: A look at Team Romney.)
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Undead Birtherism: The Zombie Conspiracy Can’t Be Killed
Like the monster at the end of a horror movie, birtherism refuses to stay down, no matter how many times it’s left for dead. It has been over a year since the White House tried to shove a long-form stake through the heart of the conspiracy, and yet some Republican politicians continue to offer fodder for the fringe which refuses to accept that Barack Obama is the legitimate President of the United States.
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NBC/WSJ Poll: Obama Leads By 4, Still Struggles On The Economy
It’s beginning to look a lot like 2004, according to a new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal. President Obama leads presumptive former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 4 points, 47 percent to 43 percent, in the new national survey, in line with most national polls on the presidential race over the last two weeks. “Obama’s chances for re-election … are no better than 50-50,” Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican Bill McInturff…
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Bennett Backs Off Birther Threat, Apologizes To Arizona
Updated: May 22, 2012, 7:01 PM After days of ridicule for launching a conspiracy theory-fueled investigation into Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett on Tuesday backed off his threat to keep the president off the ballot in November and apologized to his state. “If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR. “He’ll be on the ballot as long as he fills…
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Is Mitt Romney A Unicorn? Arizona Secretary Of State’s Birther Probe Ridiculed (Update)
In case there was any doubt about it before: The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has no plans to investigate Mitt Romney’s birth certificate the way he’s been looking into President Obama’s.
“No, we haven’t contacted Michigan,” a spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Bennett told TPM in an email on Tuesday. “I don’t know if Michigan has the same statute that Hawaii has.”
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Microsoft Engineers’ Side Project Wins Energy Dept. App Contest
Updated 4:16 pm ET, Tuesday, May 22 It would take roughly ten to fifteen trees to offset the amount of carbon produced by leaving your computer on every night for a month. Does knowing that motivate you to turn off your computer tonight? It should. At least, that’s the idea behind Leafully, an app that was on Tuesday awarded $30,000 and the grand prize in a public competition held by the U.S. Department of Energy for developers to create software that allows homeowners and…
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Senior Admin Officials: Debt Limit Brinksmanship Is Political Suicide … For Republicans
Ever since House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) signaled a return to debt limit brinksmanship this coming winter, White House officials have been adamant that the administration’s not going to countenance a repeat of last August. “[W]e’re not going to recreate the debt ceiling debacle of last August,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted from the podium last week. “It is simply not acceptable to hold the American and global economy hostage to one party’s political ideology…
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