McCain: ‘Free Enterprise System Can Be Cruel’
George Will Calls Trump A ‘Bloviating Ignoramus’
Bill Maher: Obama Is A ‘Lousy’ Socialist (VIDEO)
TPM Editors’ Blog Opinions, Context & Ideas from TPM Editors
The Week In TPM Videos
Catch up on what you missed this week in the TPM video vault.
Cruel, Cruel World
John McCain, defending Mitt Romney’s Bain record: “Yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel.”
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Walker/Barrett Debate
The Walker-Barrett Wisconsin gubernatorial recall debate is underway right now and we’re following it at LiveWire. Follow our updates here.
You Can Never Get Tired Of The Duke
A forlorn and still-self-pitying Randy “Duke” Cunningham is asking for his right to bear arms back when he leaves prison later this year. But the judge in his case had an ironic reply for the former congressman sent up for bribery. Ryan Reilly has our report.
Carr’d
The New York Times’ David Carr talks to TPM about journalism, social media, and what he’s reading.
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Size Matters?
Obama campaign slamming Romney for wanting to increase the number of students in classrooms – even though Obama’s education secretary has described class size as “a sacred cow and we need to take it on.” Benjy Sarlin reports.
Oracle
Trump says Obama was definitely born in Kenya.
Birther About-Face
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO): Republicans should really stop talking about all that crazy birther stuff I talked about.
Don’t Mess With Rush
So beloved a son of Missouri is Rush Limbaugh that the House of Representatives will install an $1,100 security camera to keep vandals at bay.
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Dragon About To Dock With ISS
You can watch it here.
Smartest Thing You’ll Read Today
Brian Beutler, on the tension between the two seemingly incompatible arguments – more fiscally responsibility and less austerity – that both Obama and Romney are making. If you’re looking for a conceptual framework for the budget debate, this is a good place to start.
Splendid
The sun like you’ve never seen it before.
Today’s Very Cool Thing
Afraid of needles? Scientists at MIT have developed a new kind of injection just for you.
Nothing To See Here
SEC reportedly decides against any enforcement action against former executives of Lehman Brothers for the collapse that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis.
‘Clarification’ Of The Day
Grover Norquist: Hey, lay off! I was comparing Chuck Schumer to Weimar Germany, not Nazi Germany.
Never a Shortage of Morons
NJ Mayor and 22 year old son arrested for hacking an email account and website being used to organize a recall effort against him.
Wow
Google logged 1.2 million copyright complaints … last month.
The New Patron Saint Of Anti-Tax Zealots
Chuck Schumer, on conservatives defending Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin: “In the name of low taxes for the wealthy, they have lionized an inherently unpatriotic person.”
That’s The Way To Do It
If you’re going to endorse a hardcore anti-Muslim candidate, do it on letterhead from one of George Wallace’s presidential campaigns.
Deafening Silence?
Are other TPM Readers in Wisconsin having the same experience as TPM Reader DS …
Maybe you’re already hearing this from other sources, but it is 2 weeks from an historic recall election and the virtual silence in the air is really palpable around here. If you’re not watching TV (where I have to assume there are ads running by the thousands) you wouldn’t even know an election was happening.
Read More →Walker, Barrett Spar In First Wisconsin Recall Debate
Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett met for another debate face-off -- the first of the 2012, as the former 2010 foes battled in what has become a high-stakes recall election.
Obama and Romney Spar Over Who’ll Cut More
Are Mitt Romney and Barack Obama fighting two sides of the same losing battle on the economy?
Most Recent Latest news stories from TPM reporters
McCain On Bain Capital: ‘The Free Enterprise System Can Be Cruel’
In defending Mitt Romney’s private sector experience Sunday, top surrogate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) explained that capitalism can be “cruel.” “This is the free enterprise system. The only place in the world that I can recall where companies never failed was the old Soviet Union,” McCain said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel.” The Obama campaign has run attack ads highlighting jobs lost at companies owned by Bain Capital, which Romney led. Host…
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Alan Simpson Lashes Republicans For Anti-Tax Rigidity
In remarkably colorful terms, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) on Sunday lashed out at members of his party for their unyielding opposition to new tax revenues, whom he described as stymieing a debt reduction agreement. “I guess I’m known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in name only, because, I guess, of social views, perhaps, or common sense would be another one, which seems to escape members of our party,” said Simpson, a co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission, on…
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Walker, Barrett Spar In First Wisconsin Recall Debate
Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett met Friday night for the first of two televised debates, in the high-stakes Wisconsin recall election – and both candidates came out swinging. The second debate will be held next week on Thursday, May 31, and the general election itself the following Tuesday, June 5. Walker entered the debate ahead in the TPM Poll Average, with 50.4 percent support for Walker against Barrett’s 45.4 percent. His job in the…
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The Week In 100 Seconds: May 21-25
As the week comes to a close, take a look back at how the news cycle evolved in the latest installment of the Week in 100 Seconds. Watch another Obama surrogate getting off message, SpaceX making history, and an auction house trying (and failing) to sell former President Ronald Reagan’s blood, all in less than 2 minutes
Trouble viewing this video? Try disabling ad blockers or click here. You can also view this video on YouTube…
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From Behind Bars, Randy “Duke” Cunningham Begs For The Right To Own A Gun
Randall “Duke” Cunningham, the disgraced former congressman currently serving an eight year sentence for his involvement in one of the biggest bribery scandals in congressional history, would like his second amendment rights restored when he leaves prison so he can hunt, fish and protect himself from rabid cougars, he wrote in a letter to a federal judge this month. Unfortunately for 71-year-old Cunningham, that wouldn’t happen because legislation passed during his time in Congress…
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DNC Chair: ‘There Aren’t Going To Be Any Repercussions’ If Walker Wins In Wisconsin
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has said Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s “attacks on workers’ and women’s rights are the definition of a fireable offense” and that recalling him would “[send] a powerful message to the far-right extremists.” But on Friday she downplayed expectations for her party if Walker stays in office. In an interview Friday, Wasserman Schultz said “there aren’t going to be any repercussions,” nationally if Wisconsin voters decide to …
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Despite Obama Campaign Attack, Romney And W.H. Have Similar Take On Class Size
The Obama campaign is going after Mitt Romney hard this week on education, warning parents that he wants to expand classroom sizes, a move they say would damage their childrens’ education. Muddying their message, however, is that the president’s own education secretary has taken a similar position. Romney had a testy exchange with teachers on the issue while visiting a Philadelphia school this week, in which he insisted that his experience in Massachusetts and supporting research…
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SpaceX Dragon Succeeds At Docking With Space Station
History was made high above the Earth on Friday morning, when an unmanned cargo spacecraft called the SpaceX Dragon became the first-ever commercial vessel to successfully dock with the International Space Station. “Looks like we caught a Dragon by the tail,” said NASA astronaut Don Pettit as he controlled the space station’s robotic arm, grasping the Dragon at 9:56 am ET. Mission flight controllers at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California and at NASA’s Johnson Space Center…
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The Wisconsin Surrogate Gap: Scott Walker’s Week With The GOP Cool Kids
Tom Barrett is getting a little help from his friends – but Scott Walker is getting a lot. In contrast to the nationalization of the Wisconsin governors race by Republicans, with big-name GOPers dropping into the state to appear with Gov. Scott Walker, Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has been keeping things local and low-key. Walker is closing out a week of high-profile visits from GOP superstars. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty campaigned with Walker on Tuesday;…
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Rep. Coffman On His Birther Rant: ‘When We’re Not On Message, The Other Side Is Winning’
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) took to conservative radio on Thursday to explain why he walked back his statement that the president is “not an American,” regardless of whether debunked conspiracy theories about his origins are correct. Above all, he had a warning for birthers: You’re practicing bad politics. “If I had to do it over again I think I would have said, ‘Let’s move from this birther question, the president was born in the United States, period,’” Coffman said in an interview…
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Missouri House Drops $1,100 For Camera To Guard Limbaugh Bust
So you’ve made a bronze bust of Rush Limbaugh and put it in your Hall of Famous Missourians. Now what do you do? If you’re the Missouri House, you spend $1,100 on a security camera to watch over the thing. Limbaugh was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians last week, in a closed-door ceremony. The Hall includes statues and busts of the Show-Me State’s most illustrious citizens: Harry S. Truman, Walt Disney, Stan Musial. Limbaugh’s is the only one with a dedicated camera…
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‘Political Greek God’: Even Republicans Think Carmona Has a Chance In Arizona
“Political Greek god,” “amazing” and “tremendous” are all words used to describe Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Richard Carmona – by Republicans. Many Arizona Republicans think the Democrat who was personally tapped by President Obama to run could be the first Democrat Arizonans send to the Senate in 22 years. His compelling biography is a big reason why. Carmona, the former surgeon general under President George W. Bush, identifies as both a doctor and a law enforcement…
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TPM Interview: New York Times Media Columnist David Carr
David Carr, media columnist and culture reporter for The New York Times, talked recently to TPM about the future of news, the “glorious” view of the Port Authority Bus Terminal from his desk and what would happen if Twitter went dark tomorrow. What is your writing/reporting day like? Today, I spent far too much time on email and Twitter, and far too little time reporting a story I’m working on. I stayed up until 2 o’clock last night. I did sort of a personal elegiac post aboutTimes,. …
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Are Romney And Obama Competing For The Austerity Prize?
The American economy will sink back into recession if Congress fails to unwind a messy coil of austere fiscal policies that will trigger automatically at the beginning of the year. Across the spectrum, experts are imploring political leaders not to be myopic and unyielding: delay the budget cuts until the economic recovery really takes hold, but be ready with a more considered course of deficit reduction when that moment arrives. Yet Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and theirrivals as …
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The FBI Informant Who Ran Drugs For The Hells Angels
The FBI informant who brought down an Alaska militia headed by Schaeffer Cox last year admitted this week that he ran drugs for the Hells Angels motorcycle gang before he began working with the feds.
The federal trial of Cox, Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon began earlier this month and could last several weeks. They are charged with plotting to murder government and law enforcement officials.
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Voters’ Response To ‘Bombshell’ Romney, Warren Stories: A Collective Yawn
Members of the media worked themselves into a frenzy over two separate “bombshell” stories affecting two marquee 2012 contests. The voters? Not so much. The first story, by the Washington Post, detailed Mitt Romney’s sometimes cruel behavior at a tony preparatory school, including one incident in which he and his friends held down a male classmate suspected of being gay and cut his hair. The second story revealed that Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren listed herself as…
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No More Needles: MIT Develops High-Powered Liquid Injection Device
If you’re queasy about getting shots because you don’t like needles, MIT scientists have developed a new drug injection method just for you. Instead of pricking the skin, a prototype handheld injector device instead delivers medicine as an extremely thin, exceptionally high-powered jet of liquid, which has enough force to breach skin, yet does so with such precision and speed that it doesn’t cause pain or discomfort, nor does it leave behind a noticeable hole, according to the MIT …
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Arizona GOPer Stonewalls On Endorsement From Controversial Anti-Immigration Group
Jesse Kelly has a funny way of avoiding questions he doesn’t want to answer. The Iraq War veteran, who is the Republican nominee in the special election next month for Gabrielle Giffords’ House seat in Arizona’s 8th District, is refusing to answer questions from local reporters about an endorsement from a controversial anti-immigration group with reported extremist ties. In a recent sit-down interview with KGUN9 News in Arizona, Kelly fielded a question submitted by a viewer about …
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Report: Schilling’s Video Game Company Lays Off All Staff
Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game company, 38 Studios, has laid off all its employees, an anonymous source at the company told The Boston Globe on Thursday. The company, which moved from Massachusetts to Rhode Island in 2010 in exchange for $75 million in guaranteed loans, started to get headlines earlier this month after it missed a $1.1 million loan payment to the state. While it later made the payment, it was reportedly having trouble making payroll. Schilling has …
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GOP Group Floods Mailers Into Wisconsin Recall – For State Senate
No holds are barred in the Wisconsin recalls – even the down-ballot races for state Senate. A national GOP group is sending a volley of mailers into one key race, including one key piece that graphically depicts a physical attack on a woman, and suggests the Democrat in the race is directly to blame for the criminal’s presence on the streets. The Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that focuses on down-ballot state races, has targeted the 21st District recall…
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