Video credit to Think Progress via the NYT.

Update: Obama for America is using the footage in this video in an ad circulating in southeast Ohio to push back on Mitt Romney's messaging on coal:

“Seen these new ads where Mitt Romney says he’s a friend of country?” the ad says, showing a clip of Romney’s advertising. “This is the guy who wants to keep tax breaks for companies that ship American jobs overseas.”

NYT:

One of the first issues Mr. Romney and Mr. Foy tackled involved an aging coal plant in Salem that was spewing dirty particulates and was required by state regulations to clean up by 2004. The plant’s owner wanted extra time. The governor said no; three weeks into his administration, he denounced the company at a news conference.

“He strongly wanted to clean up the air,” said Eric Kriss, who founded the private equity firm Bain Capital with Mr. Romney and followed him to the Statehouse to become finance secretary. The governor and his entourage drove to Salem, where Mr. Romney confronted angry pickets — coal workers who said he was costing them their jobs.

“I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people,” Mr. Romney thundered. “And that plant, that plant kills people.”

Of course, Mitt Romney never did follow through and see to it that the coal plant cleaned up the air, nor did he ever sign on to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Massachusetts did later join RGGI when Deval Patrick succeeded Romney as governor, and it went on to create 16,000 regional jobs and pump $1.6 billion into the economy, according to a November 2011 report by the Analysis Group, a Boston consultancy.

Then within three years, RGGI states had reduced C02 by a whopping 23 percent:

Average annual CO2 emissions for the three-year period were 126 million short tons, a 23 percent reduction when compared to the preceding three-year period, 2006-2008. Three-year average electricity consumption across the ten-state region declined only moderately, by 2.4 percent, between the same periods, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

CO2 emissions were collectively reduced to 33 percent below the annual pollution cap of 188 million short tons.

Aside from Romneycare, it seems Mitt Romney's decision not to seek re-election as Governor was the best thing he did for the people of Massachusetts.

In this new ad from team Obama, legislators from Massachusetts share how they feel about Mitt Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor.

“Hollow promises…distracted… disengaged from the beginning.”

“The man Did. Not. Care.”

“His office doors were closed… his staff was not available…”

“It was almost like there was a moat system around the Romney castle.”

“He had aides walking around with fake ear pieces in their ear… pretending that they were secret service agents… made sure no one had access to the governor’s office whatsoever.“

It amazes me that the media allows Romney to label the Obama campaign's ads as "attack ads," because as in this one, it's just the cold hard truth. Mitt Romney wasn't much of a governor, and if you doubt this just take a look at the poll numbers for Massachusetts. President Obama has over a 23 point lead over Romney.

Once again, the most unwelcome phrase in Romney headquarters, via Andrew Kaczynski: Speaking at a St. Patrick's Day breakfast in Boston in 2005, then Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romey spoke of his childhood ambitions, “When I was a boy, I used to think that becoming rich and becoming famous would make me happy. Boy was I right.”

There's not so much wrong with childhood dreams, but at this time for Mitt Romney, with the release of the leaked "47%" tapes, and pretty much anytime he opens his mouth he's coming across as either an idiot or an asshole. This video, which shows Romney’s need for fame and fortune certainly isn't going to endear him to voters, it only serves to amplify Romney's disdain for the majority of Americans.

Here's an extended version :

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Embed

Moments after Paul Ryan's speech Wednesday night, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin got into a fiesty and heated exchange with the MSNBC panel. Walker defended Ryan's false claim that Obama failed to save a Wisconsin auto plant, and even appeared to claim that for Wisconsin workers, the Obama administration's auto bailout hasn't been a success.

The problem with Ryan blasting Obama for the closure of the Wisconsin General Motors plant is that the plant actually closed under George W. Bush.

Ryan said, "Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That’s what he said in 2008."

"Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year," Ryan continued. "It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."

In June 2008, Ryan sent a letter along with his Wisconsin colleagues Senators Russ Feingold (D) and Herb Kohl (D) protesting the closure of General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin.

“We ask that you reconsider the decision to close the Janesville GM plant and request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss OM’s plans for the Janesville plant, including the possibility of retooling the plant for different production lines,” said the letter from the three lawmakers to GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

Ryan actually voted for a Bush-era effort to expand government loans to GM, a plan that failed to save the Janesville plant.

In 2008, Ryan supported the Bush loans that Romney infamously opposed in an editorial titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Scott Walker was apparently trying to assist the Romney-Ryan campaign's efforts to re-write history, but as you can guess, Rachel, Ed, Al and company didn't let him off the hook.

Maddow kept her cool as she spoke to Walker, "It is surprising to hear you run down the American auto industry at a moment that it really has come back and to see such a bright spot in the economy, you talked as if things haven't worked out in the auto industry since the bailout," she said. "It's a surprise."

Schultz wasn't having any of it, and broke in hitting back at Walker's claims. "It was not Barack Obama's economic policies that closed that GM plant," he insisted. "That plant was closed in December 2008. That's in the Washington Post right now Governor. It has nothing to do with Barack Obama's economic policy whatsoever. You can't get away from that fact."

Walker smugly repeated the tired "managed bankruptcy would have been more effective" meme and Schultz quickly snapped back that Walker could not guarantee the plant would still be operating under that strategy.

Al Sharpton tried to enter the fray, but Walker retorted, "If you want to talk over and not let me talk that's fine. Apparently that's what you do a lot of."

If there weren't so much at stake this November for so many people, this would all be quite the comedy. *Sigh.*

Time to Rebel! Five Ways We Can Break the Big Banks' Death Grip on the Economy

Wall Street’s incredible greed and arrogance may have finally handed us the tools and leverage we need.
Read it at Truthout.

Court orders Occupy Hong Kong to leave HSBC

Occupy Central in Hong Kong, one of the last outposts of the global protests sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement, has been ordered to clear its encampment outside one of the world's largest banks.

Credit Card Debt Collection Flawed

Up to 90 percent of cases filed by credit-card companies to collect bad debts may be flawed, according to one New York judge who says he has heard as many as 100 in one day. The problem, say many of the judges who oversee the slew of suits filed by American Express, Citigroup, and other credit-card companies, is that they all follow the same he-said-she-said pattern—companies eager to collect debts try to make their cases with partial records and improper documents, leaving substantial holes in their arguments. The companies disagree, with one American Express spokesman telling The New York Times that the company has “a strong process in place to ensure accuracy of testimony and affidavits provided to courts.”

Occupier Charged With Terroristic Felony

David C. Gorczynski, 22, was charged on Tuesday with attempted bank robbery and terroristic threatening, both felonies, as well as one misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Police detained him after he walked into an Easton, PA Wells Fargo branch with a sign that read “You’re being robbed” and another that said “Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob a country.”

Police Take Down Occupy Memphis

Officers with the Memphis Police Department on Friday morning began dismantling the Occupy Memphis camp on Civic Center Plaza in Downtown Memphis, WMC-TV reports.

The effort began around 4 a.m. Friday. City of Memphis CAO George Little told the news station the site has evolved into a homeless encampment.

Continue reading »

Mitt Romney is going to have some unwanted company on his upcoming bus tour across several swing states.

The Democratic National Committee announced on Thursday that it will stage its own four-day bus tour alongside the Romney campaign’s trip through Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. The tour, called “Romney Economics: The Middle Class Under the Bus Tour,” will begin on Friday with a news conference in Alexandria, Virginia.

Organizers said they will highlight Mitt Romney’s record of failure as Governor of Massachusetts, the lack of support small businesses received from Governor Romney’s Administration and Romney’s proposed tax hike on middle-class families to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The DNC’s latest tour represents a reprise of the successful tour by the same name that the DNC conducted in June to respond to Mitt Romney’s tour at the time, which included stops in NH, PA, OH, IA, WI and MI.

“Throughout Mitt Romney’s career, middle-class families have frequently found themselves thrown under the bus as a result of his failed record and top-down economic policies,” the committee said in a news release. "When Romney was Governor of Massachusetts, the number of business start-ups fell by 10 percent and hit its lowest point during his last year in office. Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 in job creation, and Romney hiked taxes and fees by $750 million a year in addition to saddling the Commonwealth with the highest debt per person in the country."

The committee further stated that "Policies Mitt Romney has embraced as a candidate would only further erode middle-class security. Mitt Romney would hike taxes on the middle class to pay for massive tax cuts for wealthy Americans like Romney. Independent economists found that Romney’s plan would raise taxes on the average middle-class family with children by $2,000 in order to give hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires."

They also hammered Romney for favoring a tax plan that benefits millionaires and billionaires like himself while raising taxes on the middle class, as he continues to refuse to release more of his own tax returns. The DNC tour organizers insist that "Americans have a right to learn more about why Romney had a Swiss Bank Account, how low a tax rate he has paid and if he even paid taxes at all some years, and what his finances looked like while he was outsourcing jobs, offshoring his own money and laying off workers in the private sector."

Speakers on the tour include Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the committee, Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and Chet Culver, a former governor of Iowa. Two state representatives from Massachusetts will speak at the opening news conference: Kathi-Anne Reinstein and David Linsky, both long-serving Democrats.

The Romney campaign announced its bus tour earlier this week, leading to speculation on what the itinerary might say about his pick for vice president. The final stop is in Ohio, the home state of the rumored front-runner, Senator Rob Portman.

The side of the committee’s bus features tire tracks over the words “Middle Class” and the slogan: “Romney Economics: Outsourcing, Offshoring, Out of Touch.”

Scotty, We're Coming for You from Occupy Riverwest on Vimeo.

Now that makes a statement! A governor who has a criminal defense fund, destroys workers' rights, slashes 800 million from public education in favor of tax breaks for the rich, and divides a state more than deserves the title of "Governor Crappy".

Former Arizona Gov. Raul Castro, who in the 1970s served as the state's first and only Hispanic governor, and U.S. ambassador to Argentina,was detained at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint for 30 minutes in the triple-digit desert heat just a day after he underwent heart treatment. Castro was removed from his car and taken to a sweltering tent for inspection after his pacemaker apparently set off a radiation sensor on the highway, about 24 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.* "I don’t condemn them for doing a job,” said Castro, “but once I was identified and I was 96 years of age and told them I had medical treatment the day before, I expected a little more."

He spoke further to Arizona's The Republic:

"The sun was blazing on me," he said. "Once I identified myself, who I was, and that I had been to the doctor, I was under medical care, I have a pacemaker on my heart, (I would have thought) that they would have been more considerate and said, 'Keep on going.' But that didn't happen."

Castro's wife said of the incident, "It's traumatic, to say the least, for an old man," and that the Border Patrol officials need to use "more common sense."

The checkpoint incident happened on June 12, as Castro was headed from his home in the border town of Nogales to a luncheon in Tucson to celebrate his 96th birthday. The car was driven by Anne Doan, daughter of former Nogales, Ariz., Mayor Arthur Doan and a family friend of the Castros.

Doan, who is also a professor at the University of Arizona, was a bit more critical in a column she wrote for Nogales International:

"I was embarrassed as I watched the governor being needlessly treated like a nuclear threat, especially because they knew he had just had a treatment at Tucson Heart Hospital the day before. I felt he was being disrespected as a senior citizen, much less the amazing statesman that he is."

Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties of Arizona, said Castro's experience with agents was not unique.

"This happens all the time in terms of these types of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing," Soler said, "Agents should have used discretion instead of relying solely on technology," in deciding to detain the former Governor.

* The ACLU notes that the US Border Control does "not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a 'routine search'" on areas within 100 miles of the "external boundary" of the US, an area which the ACLU estimates includes two thirds of the US population, or 197.4 million people.

UPDATE: Salon interviewed former AZ Gov. Castro, and apparently this was not his first run-in with the border patrol...or even the second! Full story here.

Thousands will be marching on the California State Capitol in in Sacramento on June 25th to ask the Legislature and governor to impose an immediate three-year foreclosure moratorium for California. Family Friendly-children encouraged to participate! We encourage everyone to make signs and banners that tell how foreclosure has affected you.

10 AM
RALLY on the Capitol grounds. Speakers include homeowners, activists, union leaders, clergy, and others. Guest MC/musician: Michelle Shocked, Singer (Occupy Fights Foreclosure Activist).

11 AM
MARCH in downtown Sacramento. Route to be announced.

1 PM

LOBBYING TEACH-IN AND LOBBYING. We will lobby legislators and the Governor to stop the hemorrhaging of California home ownership.

TEACH-INS will be held throughout the afternoon.

————————————————–

The banks are foreclosing on families while at the same time promising loan modifications. We cannot trust the banks to do the right thing. The governor, attorney-general and Legislature must become involved. The San Francisco County Recorder’s Office has audited a sampling of foreclosures and found that 84 percent involved one or more clear violations – proof of illegal foreclosures is housed in recorder’s offices in every county.

We must halt foreclosures with a moratorium to allow for an audit of ALL home loan and foreclosure records. NO MORE THROWING FAMILIES OUT OF THEIR HOMES. We also demand investigation and prosecution of those who unfairly took advantage of homeowners. We call for cooperation between county recorder’s offices, district attorneys and the state to track down all those who illegally profited from stealing the homes of thousands of families, putting many more in precarious situations and wrecking the U.S. economy for years, if not decades to come.

Are you in foreclosure? Know someone in foreclosure?

Angry about predatory lending and dual tracking?

Angry about how the banks have sucked up our money and stolen our homes?

Angry about their refusal to reduce homeowner debt to current values instead of foreclosing and selling
to “investors” for even less?

Angry about how the banks are killing the proposed California Homeowner Bill of Rights legislation?

Want to ask your state assembly member and senator why?

STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD! DO NOT ALLOW THE BANKS TO STEAL YOUR HOME! COME OUT TO SHOW YOUR RESISTANCE TO THE BANKS! DEMAND THE GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATURE IMPOSE AN IMMEDIATE FORECLOSURE MORATORIUM TO STOP THE BLEEDING!

More information at RallyforHomes.com

Defeat Scott Walker on Tuesday, June 5th:

This is it. This is history. After months of historic division, job loss, criminal corruption and partisan power grabs, Tom Barrett offers Wisconsin a new start.

Walker's sleazy money can't vote, and it's clear that the people of Wisconsin will take the opportunity with a leader like Tom Barrett to give Wisconsin a new start at healing our great state and beginning the long job of repairing the devastation wrought by 17 months of irresponsible rule.

Watch for updates on Twitter here.