Mitt Romney is still making millions of dollars from layoffs engineered by Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped to start.

As revealed by the New York Times, Romney negotiated a backroom deal with Bain that gave the already wealthy Romney a share of Bain’s profits even after he left the firm.

Schurick sent out a voice mail targeted to black Democrats that said the election had already been decided and that they should stay at home.

This is what Republicans do all over the country. Luckily here in Maryland, they got caught in the act.

Many of the same Republicans who fought hammer-and-tong to keep the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts from expiring on schedule are now saying a different “temporary” tax cut should end as planned. By their own definition, that amounts to a tax increase.

The tax break extension they oppose is sought by President Barack Obama. Unlike proposed changes in the income tax, this policy helps the 46 percent of all Americans who owe no federal income taxes but who pay a “payroll tax” on practically every dime they earn.

Remember, these are the “serious” people. Those of us who think the rich ought to pay a fair share — that they can afford, we’re “crazy” ones.

There were also some silly things that happened that are still hard to believe. One consulting firm of his created artificial people to tweet. [The campaign] wanted to question my support in the African American community, but they couldn’t recruit an African American person to do it, so on Twitter they used a stock photo of a black person. One of the people who supported my campaign clicked on the image and found out it was a singer from Atlanta. The Twitter address was registered at the same location as one of Mr. Perry’s political consultants.

I wonder if Gov. Perry shares friends with Stephen Colbert? (via Sarah)

Yawn. I’ve seen this show before. The media swoons over a cliche-ridden Texas twang. They take his proclamations as if they’re something serious, etc. I think Perry matches up versus Obama worse than Romney, and I don’t think America is yet ready to give a chance to someone who is not only a Bush clone ideologically (most of the GOP field is that) but also physically.

He’s also a terrible judge of character.

This isn’t the first time this has happened with the Keystone Kongress.

Last night the Chicago Sun-Times broke the story that Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who has spent months lecturing President Obama and Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children. Laura Walsh has asked a judge to suspend his driver’s license until he pays his child support. Despite loaning his own campaign $35,000 — and paying himself back at least $14,200 for the loans — Walsh claims he failed to make the payments because he “had no money.”

GOPers chant ‘fire him’ at Paul Teller

House Republicans on Wednesday morning were calling for the firing of the Republican Study Committee top staffer after he was caught sending e-mails to conservative groups urging them to pressure GOP lawmakers to vote against a debt proposal from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Infuriated by the e-mails from Paul Teller, the executive director of the RSC, members started chanting “Fire him, fire him!” while Teller stood silently at a closed-door meetings of House Republicans.

NYT

Members of the House Republican caucus said after a morning meeting that Mr. Boehner opened by urging the rank and file to “get your ass in line,” but then listened as many of them voiced lingering concerns.

Insisting to members that their bill, rather than the one offered by Senate Democrats, was the path to an agreement, Mr. Boehner added: “This is the bill. I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me,” recalled people who attended the meeting.

It makes this nonsense about criminal fundraising seem even more like the desperate gambit it is.

During a discussion on “Fox News Sunday” of a proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. that has drawn protests, legal challenges and even arson, host Chris Wallace asked the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO his feelings about communities that wish to ban mosques.

“Yes, they have the right to do that,” Cain replied.

No, none of these people have either read the constitution nor have they understood it.

A 1998 voting guide published by a leading neoconfederate group and obtained by Salon not only endorses Perry for lieutenant governor, it also describes him as “a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.” Perry’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the governor’s possible membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

America is a massive country, and besides the legislative process, it takes a lot to keep it working. As such, its always best if you appoint competent, capable people to help you run the government.

In the case of George W. Bush, there were three kinds of people he installed in the government. The smallest group was actual, competent people. Very few of these were in place during the Bush years.

The second group of people were the totally incompetent. That includes people like Michael Brown, who had no business running FEMA or Donald Rumsfeld, who got more American servicemen killed as a result of bungled war planning than probably any Secretary Of Defense in U.S. History.

The third, and often most damaging group, were ideologically conservative zealots — people who drink the right-wing kool-aid so much that they would rather bend reality than face it. This group, of course, included the President and Vice-President themselves.

It is this group of people who perverted the Justice Department, made a mockery of diplomacy at the State Department, botched military operations at the Pentagon, and made a general mess of things while running the country. Granted, some people in the Bush administration were incompetent ideological zealots. Alberto Gonzales comes to mind.

(I would also argue there aren’t nearly enough ideological people in the Obama administration.)

In this third group were the people executing the administration’s policy of supporting deregulated commerce, admittedly a holdover from the Clinton era – showing us that badly conceived conservative economic policy knows no party.

In this NY Times profile of outgoing FDIC chair Sheila Bair, we get a taste of what Bush’s policies had done to actual regulation of the work being done in the mortgage industry:

Arriving at the F.D.I.C. that summer, Bair found an agency that was floundering. “There hadn’t been any bank failures in a long time,” she said. “We were in this so-called golden age of banking, regulation had fallen out of favor and the F.D.I.C., which had a reputation as a tough regulator, had fallen on hard times.” Its budget had been slashed, employees had been let go and morale was terrible. Except for a 10-second handshake, she never even spoke to Henry Paulson her first year or so in office.

Alone among the regulators, though, the F.D.I.C. began to home in on subprime lending. By 2006, the subprime industry was running amok, making loans — many of them fraudulent, with hidden fees and abusive terms — to just about anyone with a pulse. Most subprime loans had adjustable interest rates, which started low but then jumped significantly after a few years, making the monthly payments unaffordable for many homeowners. The lenders didn’t care because they sold the loans to Wall Street, which bundled them into mortgage-backed bonds and resold them to investors.

Curbing subprime-lending abuses should have been the job of the Federal Reserve, which has a consumer division. But the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, with his profound distaste for regulation, could not have been less interested. The other bank regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates the savings-and-loan industry, should have cared, too. But their responses to the growing problem were at best tepid and at worst hostile. (The O.C.C. actually used its federal powers to block efforts by states to curb subprime abuses.) By the time Bair got to Washington, the O.C.C. had spent a year devising “voluntary subprime guidance” for the banks it regulated, but it had not yet gotten around to issuing that guidance.

Ah, “voluntary” regulation, the regulatory version of Bush’s famous “you covered your ass” statement about the threat of terrorism before 9/11. Even Bush’s SEC chairman, Chris Cox (I would place him in the incompetent appointment category) admitted that expecting our modern robber barons to police themselves was the height of folly.

But that’s what they did here, instead of providing oversight of an industry, they left the industry to its own devices – ignoring the warning signs, then using our money to bail out their pals.

If we had in our government people who truly believed their jobs were about helping America, instead of the zealotry of the Bush era, we’d be much better off today.

The only people in the Huntsman business is the media, specifically Matt Bai and the New York Times. Other than that, there is no Huntsman support. He’s their candidate, nobody else’s.

Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable. (A short is when the trader hopes to profit from the decline in the value of an asset.)

According to his latest financial disclosure statement, which covers the year 2010 and has been publicly available since this spring, Cantor still has up to $15,000 in the same fund. Contacted by Salon this week, Cantor’s office gave no indication that the Virginia Republican, who has played a leading role in the debt ceiling negotiations, has divested himself of these holdings since his last filing. Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.

Having seen the two of them, up close and over a long period of time, it is clear to me that while Tim Pawlenty possesses the judgment, the demeanor, and the readiness to serve as president, Michele Bachmann decidedly does not.

The Bachmann campaign and congressional offices I inherited were wildly out of control. Stacks upon stacks of unopened contributions filled the campaign office while thousands of communications from citizens waited for an answer. If she is unable, or unwilling, to handle the basic duties of a campaign or congressional office, how could she possibly manage the magnitude of the presidency?

BURN.

If Congress fails to raise the national debt limit by early August, the Obama Treasury Department will have to choose between defaulting on obligations to the country’s creditors — triggering higher interest rates and perhaps damaging the country’s credit rating for months and years to come — or freezing outlays to contractors, entitlement beneficiaries and others who are also expecting prompt payment as well. In either case, the macroeconomic impact will be staggering, according to Zandi.

“I think we go into recession and my forecast would be blown out of the water,” he said. “I think if we get to August 2nd and there is no debt ceiling [increase] and there has to be significant spending cuts, I think even if Congress and the administration reverse themselves days later, I think the damage will have been serious and we’ll probably be thrown into a recession.”

I would advise President Obama to appeal to their sense of patriotism, but who are we trying to kid here?