In this episode of the Moment of Clarity Show, I ask why America has so many great characteristics and so many bad ones at the same time. We also speak with special guest Roseanne Barr.

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Lee

Al Jazeera reports that the European Central Bank has rejected Ireland's proposals to restructure some of the country's huge debts. The government wants to avoid paying tens of billions of dollars over the next decade to underwrite a failed bank. But one community in southern Ireland is unwilling to accept the terms of the bailout, blaming the government and banks for the economic crisis.

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.

Ouch! This one has to sting, because it's all so true.

Mitt Romney's reinvention convention is starting with the theme "We Built It." Mitt Romney will try to sell himself to the American people as a "Mr. Fix It" who knows how to turn a business around. Of course, once you examine his record, it's clear Mitt Romney knows less about turning businesses around and more about running them into the ground.

Mitt Romney made millions of dollars bankrupting companies, shuttering factories, offshoring jobs and putting profits before people. The theme of the Republican National Convention paints a rosy picture, but the theme of Mitt Romney's time as a corporate raider is less flattering. Mitt Romney didn't build that -- he destroyed it.

"Mitt Romney: You Didn't Built That — You Destroyed It"

"On Tuesday, June 19, the sheriff posted a 24-hour eviction notice on the front door I have come home to for the last 17 years. I have nowhere to go. I am standing up for myself, my family and community. Although American Indians make up 1% of the population in Minnesota, 11% of homeless adults are American Indian. I can afford to pay for my house."

"All that I am asking is for Woodlands National Bank to sit down and negotiate with me, so I can stay in my community. They are an Indian bank that serves Native people, and right now homelessness is revenging our community. With the support of my neighbors and community, I know Woodlands bank will negotiate witth me, and become part of the solution to the housing crisis we face."

So begins yet another foreclosure story in post-Occupy America. Anita Reyes is working with her neighbors, community, and Occupy Homes MN to stop her foreclosure. Here she tells some stories about the home she has owned for seventeen years, shares thoughts about her personal feelings related to her foreclosure and places a demand on the bank to keep her in her home.

"I'm not moving," she says in the film. "I'm 52 years old - too old to start over."

Please sign Anita's Petition to stay in her home.

This al-Jazeera documentary exposes Charles and David Koch, radical libertarians who use their money to oppose government and virtually all regulation as interference with the free market. They are each worth about $25 billion, which makes them the fourth richest Americans. When you combine their fortunes, they are the third wealthiest people in the world. The Kochs are also in a class of their own as players on the American political stage. Their web of influence in the U.S. stretches from state capitals to the halls of congress in Washington DC.

"I am a 27 year old veteran of the Iraq War. I enlisted to protect the American people, but ended up making profits for politically-connected contractors. I returned to a country whose economy had been devastated by bankers with the same connections and the same lack of ethics. It might be cliche by now, but this is the second time I’ve fought for my country and the first time I’ve known my enemy. I am the 99%."

[Via "We are the 99 percent"]