The Romney Quandary

Update Friday pm PST: According to NBC News and now the AP, Romney's vp pick is Paul Ryan.  So the answer is, yes, the Romney campaign is in panic mode about getting out the Rabid Right base.


Is the Romney campaign in panic mode? Update Thurs aft.: If so, with good reason.  Three new polls say he's down by 7 to 9 points, and in one only a third believe he'll win.  They seem to be unleashing their random attack ads sooner than expected, although they are fully in character with the Romney campaign so far, being composed of lies and racism.  They are now trying to counter the Obama ad fingering Romney for paying a lower tax rate than most Americans and proposing tax policies to give himself an even bigger break--an ad that got the unusual Washington Post rating of being completely true--with an ad supposedly on Obama's policy on welfare that "takes a shameless distortion and turns it into an outright falsehood"--in other words is a complete lie.   And it is the most overt play yet of the race card--the "food stamp president" dog whistle linking Obama to "his base" (Romney's words) of shiftless black people who he is favoring with free government money.

Romney's next political play is his v.p. pick, and as far away as I'd like to stay from this moronic topic, it almost got interesting this week.  Last week the media Conventional Wisdom was that Romney was going to pick somebody bland and safe, Tim Polenta or more likely Rob Portman, a budget director under Bush (drawback) who is now a Senator from Ohio (a plus supposedly.)  But early in the week there was a flurry of speculation and winger wish fulfillment about bolder if crazier choices.  And the C.W. makes a strong argument for why.

Romney has probably two chances left to reverse the image that the Obama campaign has given him.  The v.p. pick is first, his convention acceptance speech is second.  If he doesn't do something to change the narrative with those, the debates may not matter (and since he can't talk substantively about anything, it's hard to see how he impresses anyone in the debates.)  In his convention speech he has to open up, i.e. create a Romney character, and maybe even make some actual specific proposals.  But his v.p. pick is also a statement.  There are two ways he can possibly help himself, though both are risky.

He could go bold.  On Tuesday at least there was something going on in GOPer circles either to promote Chris Christie or to reflect the possibility that he's actually being considered at this point.  I happened to see Morning Joe on msnbc and somebody on Fox talking about Christie and the very same speech and signal achievement of his term in New Jersey--at virtually the same moment.  It could be coincidence.  But anything to do with GOPers suggests there's a real if invisible hand monkeying with the puppet strings.

But is this just Beltway GOPer desperation?  Drudge floated Gen. David Petraeus, who himself quickly shot down the "rumor."  The suggestion though is that Romney needs somebody with establishment foreign policy/military policy cred.  Unfortunately for them, this country is not in a warmongering mood.

If not bold, he could go harder right.  The theory here is that he's doing so badly that he absolutely needs to be able to depend on the Rabid Right base, a group that doesn't really trust him.  That would mean Paul Ryan.  And the boomlet on Wednesday was for Ryan. Update Thurs aft.: The Ryan boomlet continues, bolstered by a Wall St. Journal editorial. Meanwhile Portman depresses speculation that he'll be the v.p. nominee. Romney says his v.p. will have 'a vision for the country,' which sounds like Ryan but could be budget hawk Portman. What makes this more of a temptation for Romney was the violent and dare we say rapidly rabid response by Rabid Right leaders (Ann Coulter prominently among them) over a single comment by the Romney spokesperson who cited Romneycare in MA in a positive way.  There's some question whether this was "misspoken" (it certainly was awkward in terms of Romney's past position and disdain for Obamacare as it implied that the MA system ought to be available elsewhere, which is the effect of Obamacare) or an Etch-a-Sketch moment as Romney tacks towards the Independent center.  Update Thurs.: the campaign goes silent as attacks continue on this.

And this is Romney's political quandary at the moment. As evidenced by this furor, Romney does not have the loyalty of the Rabid Right base, who appear to be on hair-trigger response for abandoning him.  He can't win without this base voting in great number. But he can't win without Independents and disillusioned Dems either.  Ryan helps with the base, but Ryan cements Romney to the kill Medicare budget, which is not attractive beyond the base.  That's worse than Portman nailing him to Bush.

Does the v.p. matter?  Nate Silver crunches the numbers and says the only possible positive of any of these is Portman perhaps--and it's a big perhaps--getting Romney another 1% in Ohio.  There are few if any ways Romney wins without winning Ohio.  If Romney is confident about his strategy he'd most likely go with Portman for the boring white guys ticket of the century. If he goes bold or hard right, he's gambling for a "game changer" as McCain did in 2008.

So the real effect of the v.p. pick--which is the main reason to pay attention to it--is in what it says about the presidential candidate.  In 2008 Obama impressed people by picking Biden, and McCain picking Palin, eventually not so much.  In 2012 we get some insight into Romney's thinking, though perhaps only of his thinking about this campaign and what his strategy is.

3 Stories of Today and the Future

Three important news stories of today illustrate likely features of the future as well as the present.

Two of these stories were widely reported.  The one that wasn't will likely be the most important, at least for what it portends.

That story was the release of a new study conducted by James Hansen, the most respected scientist in the world on the subject of the climate crisis.  It is a statistical study of recent summer heat waves.  Hansen previewed the findings in a Washington Post oped on Sunday: "Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."

"Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide. When we plotted the world’s changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe."

Hansen begins the oped with a confession: "When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels. But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic." 

"My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather."

Other climate scientists responded to the study Monday.  According to the AP story: The science in Hansen's study is excellent "and reframes the question," said Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.

"Rather than say, 'Is this because of climate change?' That's the wrong question. What you can say is, 'How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global warming?' It's so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global warming," Weaver said. 

Hansen ended his oped discussing the new present his research suggests, and the future:

 "This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.
There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution."

So this is the story that was ignored: a story about how a new reality has begun and human civilization is threatened.  It got more attention in 1988 when it was a dire warning that it does in 2012 when it is a dire description of the future's leading edge cutting into the present. This new normal of climate cataclysm will mean that life is going to change as it takes hold, and eventually change almost completely.  So it is too big, too complicated and in some ways too familiar to take in, even though a lot of  thoughtful action is required.

Instead the news media paid attention to other stories, because there are always other stories.  There's the latest outrages of the presidential campaign, and the latest Olympic winners, both surprises and coronations.  But mostly there were these two stories, and in their own way, they bear upon the climate crisis future.

The first was the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.  Ironically, Hansen is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and it was this amazing triumph of NASA that competed successfully with his study for media attention.  NASA has borne the brunt of criticism lately, for a lack of innovation, for an obsolete Shuttle fleet and nothing to replace it.  But this mission, in the works for a decade, engineered and deployed cutting edge technology in creatively designed and very daring combination to do something that has never been done--send a complex spacecraft to Mars and land a complex piece of engineering the size of a car on the Martian surface, exactly where it was supposed to land.  It is the greatest space achievement of the decade, perhaps longer.  No private corporation could have afforded to devote the manpower, the expertise and the time as well as the resources to such a feat.

As the climate crisis worsens and deepens, technology to fix the effects and stop the causes from wreaking fatal damage will become vital, essential.  And by sometime in the next century, even that may not be enough.  It may be then, or sooner, that humans look a great deal harder at the possibilities of survival in space.

But long before that, the climate crisis is likely to cause disruptions of a frequency and magnitude to challenge the social fabric, even in the U.S. which may well not bear the brunt of the physical changes, at least at first.  That's where the third story comes in.

The story about the attack of (apparently) a lone gunman on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, where he killed 6 people and then died himself in an exchange of gun fire with police.  The apparent shooter was a white separatist, and the FBI is treating the attack as domestic terrorism.

This act of violence would be more shocking had it not been preceded by a lot of racist and xenophobic talk in the political world, including by candidates and elected officials.  Indeed, the very little made of this connection in the aftermath testifies to its pervasiveness in establishment politics.

 This dark trend in America right now is happening when the economy is weak and when a lot of society is changing, including demographically.  Even this level of disquiet is roiling up violence, and there are plenty of guns and bullets out there to create havoc.  Yet today's dislocations--and today's tragedies-- may be minor compared to what is ahead due to the climate crisis.

So this is not a happy trend.  It suggests the apocalyptic visions of the future all too common in movies and novels these days--of social breakdown, violent gangs, a blasted landscape ruled by medieval warlords.  But there is more to this story in Wisconsin.

Because it is also the story of heroes, of ordinary people who sacrificed themselves automatically for others.  The story now is of Sikh Temple of Wisconsin president Satwant Singh Kaleka, who fought off the gunman to protect others, and paid with his life.  And of  Oak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy, critically wounded as he came to the aid of wounded victims.

There were similar stories told about the all-too-recent rampage in the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre, when ordinary people--who seconds before were just there to watch a movie--sacrificed themselves to protect others, and endangered themselves to help others.  Like Kaleka and Murphy, they have little in common but their humanity, and the sense that helping others is just something you do.  Maybe it is their version of the American way, or it's just the human way--the simple conviction that "you'd do the same for me."

That's the humanity that is our best hope in the times to come, when because of the failures of many politicians, the insidious blind selfishness of certain corporate leaders,  and the exploitable weaknesses of the rest of us, we have not addressed the climate crisis in time to stop it from causing severe consequences.  Ordinary people will have to deal with those consequences.  Some will go crazy with blame, some will go crazy with fear and the impulse of violence.  But some will do the right thing.  Many will depend on them to right the balance--will depend on their intelligence, competence and their commitment.

For I don't agree with James Hansen that we can "solve" the challenge, nor do I agree with Al Gore that we can "solve" the climate crisis.  You can't solve a challenge, or a crisis.  You can meet a challenge, you can address the causes and effects of a crisis.  There will be no complete solution.  There will just be lots of attempts to deal with the crisis, to meet the challenges, and those efforts will go on for decades.  They will be the substance of people's lives.  If things go well enough, they will be their careers--very exciting careers.  Or they will be their jobs--relentless jobs.  Nobody will be untouched by what's got its foot in the door.

Because this is Hansen's message.  It's human nature perhaps--or at least the media attention span--that when a warning has been issued since 1988, it isn't noticed when the warning starts to come true.  In effect, it's the boy crying wolf.  When the wolf isn't at the door immediately, the next warning gets discounted.  But people forget what happened in that story, what that story is about.  It's not about a boy who was prone to panic, who rushed to judgment when his data suggested something really bad might happen.  It's equally about the people who didn't listen.  Because the wolf came, and they weren't ready.

That's what Hansen is saying.  The wolf is here a little early.  But the wolf is here.      

Curiosity Has Landed

The Curiosity Rover--the size of a car--is safely on the surface of Mars, getting ready to begin two years of scientific research that may bring us closer to knowing whether there is or was life on Mars.  That's one of the first photos it sent back moments after landing--seeing its own shadow on the Martian surface.  

It was amazing to watch the Jet Propulsion Lab--"mission control"--while the spacecraft was making its complicated approach and landing.  On a day when life on Earth is not going so well, there really is something exciting and transcendent about feats like this, and the reality of such a venture on the surface of another world.      

Golden Gabby

I haven't been following the Olympics, but the triumph of Gabby Douglas reminds me that what first fascinated me about the Olympic games were the women gymnasts, beginning in the 1976 Olympics and the young Russian Nadia.  Now Gabby Douglas, a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal, has won her individual Gold Medal.   "Douglas is the first African-American and first woman of color in Olympic history to become the individual all-around champion, and the first American gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympics."  Congratulations! 

The Persuadables

Polarization is the rule in 2012 it seems, and the conventional wisdom is that relatively few voters in Ohio, Florida and Virginia are likely to decide the presidential election.  Several billion dollars will be spent trying to persuade voters, one way or another.  All that is certain about this process is that if you own a media company, your ad revenue this fall is going to be very, very good.

But I believe there are persuadable voters, and they can best be persuaded by information provided by their friends.

Political arguments over hot button ideologically- defined issues are fruitless, as are most arguments over the relative merits of a party or a candidate.  But polls typically show that most political information (the facts as well as the lies and effluvia) is just being ignored.  This provides an opening into which information can be received from an informal source, especially on a few key topics that concern everyone.

Greg Sargent in the Washington Post writes about a Hofstra University poll which supports what other polls have shown: a lot of people who take different positions on general issues and propositions wind up agreeing on specifics important to their lives.  In this case, the study was of suburban voters:
 
"* More than seven in 10 suburban residents say they favor cutting federal spending in general. But when you get specific, 87 percent oppose cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits. And 65 percent support increasing government spending on infrastructure and public works projects.

* A majority, 51 percent, says government regulation of business usually “does more harm than good.” But when you get specific, nearly two thirds of them say the environment should be protected by doing ”whatever it takes.” Even when you add into the equation that regulation might cost jobs, a bare majority still says strict environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost."

These seem to me to be persuadable voters.  They probably do not know that the Ryan plan that Romney promises to follow will turn Medicare into a voucher program and end Medicare as Americans have known it, used it and liked it.  They probably don't know that the Ryan budget also threatens the integrity of Social Security.

They probably don't know that the Ryan plan and Romney himself promise to cut vital environmental regulations that safeguard communities and resources from predatory corporations.

And by the way, they probably don't know that the Obama administration has cut their taxes, or that Obamacare is responsible for the check they might be getting next month from their health insurance company, compensating them for the money the company spent on p.r. instead of providing care.

But it may not be necessary to go beyond Medicare and Social Security.  These are such vital programs and of such non-controversial longstanding that people simply assume them.  It should be remembered that an early Tea Party demonstration featured the sign "Keep government out of my Social Security."  People don't necessarily relate the program with the government, or with the political danger it is in.

There are some people who honestly believe that voucher programs, stock investments and other forms of privatization are not just methods for corporations to make easy and huge profits but as the only way these programs can be saved.  But even without getting into the details, it may be something of a revelation to many people that these programs may be threatened if Romney is elected.  Even Tea Party people get sick, and there's no ideological qualification for getting old. 

By the way, the Hofstra poll shows that President Obama has made up 8 points among suburban voters and is now essentially tied.  Another story quotes "Roslyn political consultant Brad Gerstman, who has worked with both major political parties, said swing voters "do not want to see fringe ideology on either side. They want to see pragmatic ideas that move the country forward."

Why the RomneyRove Carpet Bombing May Not Work

It's August, and the decisive phase of the presidential campaign begins: the conventions, the debates, the last few days when the last undecideds decide.  Sometimes it doesn't matter how things look at this point--but sometimes it does.  So while President Obama's lead (10 points nationally in the Pew poll, and ahead in most of the swing states, with the top vote nerd giving him a 70% chance of reelection) could change, there are a couple of possibilities for why July may have been more decisive than usual.

First is the possibility that Romney has been defined, definitely.  His record of sending jobs overseas, his evading releasing his taxes while his tax plan is shown to benefit the rich at the literal expense of everyone else, etc. are showing up in strong negatives--the lowest favorability rating of any presidential candidate in recent decades.  His negatives increased in the past month, according to Pew and other polls.

I've suggested here that the only way Romney's seeming indifference to his image, the need to disclose his taxes, the call for more specifics on the issues, etc. as well as the unforced dumbness of a host of decisions large and small, makes any sense (like his handling of the appearance of the Romney horse in dressage competition in the Olympics--instead of putting those who criticize it on the defensive, he's expressed complete disinterest, says it's his wife's thing, he won't watch the competition--making his sound like an idiotic husband as well as a rich elitist)--is because he's relying on a strategy of carpet bombing the airwaves with a billion dollars or so of strident anti-Obama ads in the last two months.

But that leads to the second possibility: it may be too late already for that to work.  Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein is among those who suggest that President Obama has already taken most of the hit he's going to take on the state of the economy, and unless the economy changes dramatically one way or another, voters have already factored in this weak economy in their assessment.  Bernstein writes: "We all know what we're looking at by now: an economy which is far too weak to assure Obama of an easy re-election, but strong enough that it doesn't make him a sure loser."  He is specifically arguing that the monthly jobs reports--like the one coming today--aren't going to matter much, absent a big change.  But the larger point may also pertain.

Of course, the RomneyRove carpet bombing is still going to happen, and indeed is happening now.The Romney forces have outspent the Obamas 2-1 in the last week.  By the third week in July, GOPer outside groups had spent $188 million but Obama groups "only" $20 million.  But the Obama forces are aware of the coming deluge and are preparing for it--with $30 million in reserved time in swing states for the last two months of the campaign. 

That's still far less than the Romney forces will likely spend but so far, the Obama candidacy is clearly winning on effectiveness of their ads.  They are defining Romney and perhaps making people more receptive to what President Obama has to say about what he wants to do in a second term.

It may be that by now, voters know the incumbent President and they've heard every negative thing about him and his administration.  They don't know Romney as well, so they are paying attention to what he says and what's being said about him.  So RomneyRove's negative barrage may fall on deaf ears.  And if Romney was himself defined in July, anything that supports that narrative will solidify that identity.    

Happy birthday to Mike! He's the one in the cap.  This photo taken by his lovely (and much younger) wife Alice on their recent cross-country trip.













Here's an even more recent photo, with our mutual friend Clayton.  He's the youngest of the three of us (but not by much.)

Free Advice to the Obama Campaign

Hello Chicago!  You're doing a great job and you certainly don't need my two cents, but --hey, I've got a blog!  So here are a couple of ideas (and excuse my ignorance if you're already doing this stuff...)

1. Make the economic argument for the Affordable Care Act.  Romneyoids like to say President Obama didn't concentrate on jobs and the economy and instead wasted a year on health care.  But apart from the benefits for health in general and specifically for those who couldn't afford insurance, health insurance reform was an economic program.  Health insurance is a huge burden on businesses, especially small businesses.  It's a huge burden on middle class paychecks.  By controlling costs, reforming the system and making long-term health better through preventive care, lots of money is saved in the economy and in particular by state and federal governments.  It's a big help for deficit reduction.  And so on.

2.  President Obama makes the case that the Romney economic plan is the same prescription for economic growth that the Republicans preached and tried, and which failed--spectacularly.  Elaborate that argument with video of key Bush administration Republicans making exactly the same argument as Romney, and tie their words to what actually happened.  Somebody like Rob Portman would be a real plus.  But show it---this can't be taken out of context, because it's their faces.  

3. Brag on the Obama tax cuts.  Don't describe each kind, just the amount that the non-rich are saving every year.  You might start out with some Romneyoid talking about President Obama having raised taxes, and then hit the numbers, in a half dozen different ways.  That approach does double duty: points up the lack of credibility of the Romneyoids, and brags on lower taxes.

So that's my three cents, in addition to the real money I sent you last month (and the month before...and..)

P.S. Oh, and one more thing: you're doing a great job nailing Romney on his tax plan.  The import of it for the future of the campaign is that the middle class (broadly speaking) includes most Republicans, most of all demographics that currently aren't polling predominantly for Obama.  So this is an opportunity to dramatize the breadth of the impact of a lot of policies Romney favors.

Here's what I mean: beginning with his 2004 convention speech, Barack Obama made a name for himself talking about how we're not blue states or red states but the United States.  This theme can be fleshed out to talk about how these policies affect everyone.  Because Polish American workers in Pennsylvania get sick and need medical care they can afford.  Tea Party activists get old and need Social Security and Medicare they can count on.  Farmers in Iowa who have voted Republican all their lives still need dependable power and jobs, and they can see wind energy is helping.  And so on.  

Happy Women's Health Day

It's not an official day of celebration yet, but maybe soon it will be, because today--August 1, 2012--eight different provisions of the Affordable Care Act go into effect that benefit women's health, including a range of preventive services that insurers must now offer, for free.  These "Obamacare" provisions immediately affect some 47 million women.   

Kiss My Ass, America

"Let's face it, Romney can't win, but Obama can lose."
That's not just the opinion of GOP consultant Ed Rodgers.  That's the Romney campaign strategy.

Maybe lost in the gaffe-fest of Romney's overseas trip is what he actually did and didn't do.  What he did was raise money from billionaires at fundraisers with bankers in London and very wealthy American Jews in Israel, including Sheldon Adelson.  I don't recall this being on the itinerary for previous presidential candidates or certainly Presidents when overseas.

What he didn't do was answer questions from the media.  In Poland, his press aide told clamoring reporters very simply, "Kiss my ass," and that's a quote.

With his priorities on this trip, Romney's intentions are very clear: he's going to stonewall and otherwise just survive this period until he can unleash the many millions he's collected to carpet bomb President Obama with scurrilous negative ads in the last month or months before the election, with some cash also devoted to voter suppression and bullying voters on election day.

Still the real Romney comes through.  His arrogance in stonewalling, in refusing to release his tax returns, his and his campaign's persistent lying.  His campaign's xenophobia and racism became more obvious on this trip right at the start, when an aide was quoted as saying that President Obama doesn't understand the Anglo-Saxon connection between the UK and the US.  But the candidate himself revealed his own racism (in the words of a Palestinian spokesperson) when he repeated (from remarks in one of his own books) that Palestinians are poorer than Israelis because of their inferior culture.  He said the same is true of Mexico.

It's more than a strategy to link unfettered capitalism and white cultures, and socialist cultures to non-white cultures (even though it's highly inaccurate--witness the "socialized medicine" of the UK and Israel)--it is a belief within the Romney campaign.

As less than dogmatic wild-eyed GOPers drop away and say their party is too extreme to govern, while the most extreme GOPers (backed by Club for Growth and other billionaire money) take over, the country is in peril of careening quickly to a new Dark Age.  But Romney and his ilk will do their best to obscure what will happen if they take over.  Romney will hide behind his lies and racist dog whistle campaign against Obama, without ever saying what he actually will do if elected.  Because you peons exist only to be manipulated by money.  Because according to Romney, America you can kiss my multimillionaire ass.   

America Inside Out 2012

This has been my thesis since the mid-1990s: America has its inside out, and its outside in.  It internalizes external problems while it acts out its inner struggles, or more briefly, it acts as if its unconscious were its conscious (rational) self, partly as a way to avoid acting on the dangers of the outside world.

This plays out in all sorts of ways, but its function at the moment is explaining the utter madness of the Rabid Right.  It's more than being convinced of an alternate reality proposed by institutions and media promulgating the fossil fuel industry line, or even by the sense of belonging to a mad as hell talk radio fan club/tea party. 

It's more than believing and (in the case of certain increasingly craven politicians like Tim Polenta) repeating the vile Romney lies, although it does explain why the Romney people feel no pressure to stop lying even when the usual news media arbiters call them on it. 

It's the complete refusal to believe what a marginally sane society regards as proven facts.  This is willed ignorance, with a substructure of reasons (as all unconscious shadows produce) but coming from those unconscious dark depths.

The most important example is the dogma that the climate crisis isn't happening, that it isn't caused by greenhouse gas pollution, etc.  This in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus, which now includes one of the more respectable (former) skeptics.

But there is that additional and very powerful factor of fossil fuel money and power--from companies (including 7 of the top 10 largest) that have most of the money in the world.  This however is not the case when it comes to simple biographical facts about Barack Obama.

A new poll shows only half the Americans surveyed "know" that Obama is a Christian.  Some of that (some part of the 31% who 'don't know') is attributable to nonexistent attention ( only 40%  know how many Supreme Court Justices there are.)  But there is a persistent set that refuses to accept all the evidence concerning Obama's birthplace, his education and so on. 

And it is refusal.  David Maraniss recently published a biography of Obama that included original research, naming sources and quoting people all along the line.  But he keeps getting resistance from people who claim the opposite from the facts he carefully presents.

There is enormous appetite for the lies however.  Another purported biography, by Edward Klein, has been widely denounced as scurrilous and scandalous tripe.  Klein is well known for this in recent years.  Even when he seemed to be legitimate, as the editor of the New York Times Magazine for instance, he had the contempt of the people who worked for him.  I was told by someone who was in the room that when it was announced to the staff that he was leaving the Magazine, they stood up and cheered.  That, believe me, is (or at least was) very unTimesian behavior.

But Klein's diatribe is #1 on the Times best seller list.  Klein was interviewed by C-Span as if he is a legitimate author.  And as Political Wire noted on Monday, his book has sold 137,000 copies, while Maraniss' has sold 19,000.

So what's on the outside, masquerading as rationality, is hate.  And there's no fact that can change it.

This clearly has the legitimate media flummoxed.  Because without an agreed-upon standard of fact, the whole rational system collapses.

Weekend Update

Dept. of Corrections:  CNN says using the song Stupid Girls "to introduce a segment on Sarah Palin was unintentional and not meant as a commentary on the former Republican vice presidential candidate," The Wrap reports.

Baseball Update (Monday): The SF Giants got a power hitting outfielder, Hunter Pence, from Philadelphia, where he led the team in hitting.  That's a damn good move.  Meanwhile,  the Dodgers got another Phillies outfielder, Shane Victorino, to lead off.  Both teams got help from these trades, the pros are saying the Dodgers overall made the best trades.  Meanwhile, the Pirates got an all-star first baseball (Gaby Sanchez) and some pitching.  
The Olympics have started but I only have eyes for baseball.  My Pittsburgh Pirates are still going strong in a tough division (though fans in Pittsburgh are despairing over a recent rough patch.)  But my San Francisco Giants stumbled badly by losing a 3 game series to the LA Dodgers, and losing first place to them in the process, while revealing their comparative (and probably fateful) weaknesses: they don't have the depth, especially in bringing hitters off the bench.  They were without Pablo Sandaval and may be for awhile, their other best hitters have cooled, their first baseman has been in a deep slump (as has one of their formerly dependable best pitchers.)  The season starts grinding about now.  Their one trade wasn't all that impressive.  They are a close team, though, so they might still make a run.  Unfortunately for them, the Dodgers matched their latest winning streak, and now are back at full strength--with Matt Kemp hitting homers again--and they acquired a good new hitter (who beat the Giants himself) and just acquired more pitching.  I believe both the Pirates and Giants are three games out of first place, to highly touted teams.

A Level of Concern

So cable TV has a function after all.  I caught a talk on public access given this past spring here in Arcata--the kind of event I never take the trouble to attend or even know about--by a scientist for the Forest Service, Michael Furniss, talking about sea level rise and its impacts, especially locally but elsewhere, too.  I learned a lot in several different ways.

I learned more about why this amazing oasis of summer (it's cooler than usual if anything, rarely breaching 65F) will probably remain an oasis for the climate crisis of this century.  That's partly because the big earthquake that is likely to hit in this century will have greater impact than just about anything the climate crisis can throw at us, short of total polar ice loss and a sea level rise of 200 ft.  But it also goes beyond our coastal climate.  We have and will likely have enough water.  We aren't dependent on mountain snow melt, which is declining.  He believes, contrary to some recent studies, that we're not losing moisture via fog, and that there's good reason to believe that fog will actually increase. (High fog--the "marine layer"--is an almost daily feature here, like right now as a matter of fact.)   Which is good for the redwoods (which depend on moisture from fog) and he says since they've probably been here a million years, they're likely to survive.

On sea level rises, he notes that another factor that has to be considered is the land level rising or falling, which it naturally does.  Right now the land is rising in Sitca, Alaska faster than the sea level.  But the land level is lowering in Galveston, Texas.  Like sea levels, land levels are the product of complex interrelationships and forces, but even more locally determined than sea levels along a given coast.

He notes that globally, sea levels have changed a great deal over the Earth's history--responding for example to Ice Ages--but they've been relatively stable for the past 6,000 years: pretty much all of human civilization.  So the idea that it can change is not part of our history. 

In judging sea level rises, one of the factors is that warmer water takes up more space--and this thermal expansion is basically what the IPCC calculated in their initial prediction of about a 1 meter rise by 2100.  They didn't even attempt to figure in ice melt, it was too controversial at the time.  Now others have made those calculations, and that roughly doubles the rise, to over 2 meters.  That's without rapid melt, the kind scientists are worried about now because of this summer's news from Greenland and Antarctica.  That might result in a 10 to 15 meter rise in a few decades.

Sea levels have been slowly rising for the past quarter century, and this is accelerating because of the climate crisis.  At first the impact will be felt only in extreme events--"perfect storms" that involve periodical tidal events--when the extremes are more extreme, leading to greater flooding that seen previously.

But by the end of the century, the impact will be enormous, even with the most conservative estimates (he notes, by the by, that projections for Humboldt Bay don't change very much from a 1 meter to a 2 meter rise.)  The San Francisco Bay area is very vulnerable.  The airport will be under water, for one thing.  Much of Florida will be inundated, and the U.S. East Coast hit pretty hard.

Elsewhere in the world it's even worse, especially in Vietnam, Bangladesh, other southeast Asian countries.  He notes that in Asia there is no debate over the climate crisis.  The discussions are on what to do about it.

As for our neck of the woods, the information is incomplete but is coming.  Some areas that I would have thought were vulnerable turn out not to be, but others really are: like a lot of highway 101, our link to the outside world, and especially Arcata's link to Eureka and points south.

Some solutions involve engineering, but he warns against taking a total concrete and steel approach--you can't build seawalls everywhere (rivers that need access to the sea are a big problem) and a lot of ecological analysis, land analysis, etc. has to be done to protect against unintended consequences.  Even if there is enough money to do it.

Furniss ended on a note of optimism.  The changes will take place over decades, presumably with enough time to respond intelligently.  His last slide said simply, " We are adaptable.  We'll be okay."  But he also noted (without making a big point of it) that financial support for research into what to do is lacking.  Significantly, local scientists are doing almost all the local research on possible impacts as a volunteer effort, and not part of their regular jobs.

So I don't take away the idea that it won't be so bad, in due course things will be okay all on their own.  The disruptions will be enormous, even in much less than worst case scenarios.  They will require concerted and dedicated attention.  But they will occur over time, and so they will be the work of people over the next decades, even apart from responding to particular crises and events caused or made worse by the climate crisis.  But it's really really time to get started in a bigger way.

Democracy in Pennsylvania

No matter who is in power, no matter how much power the rich and the corporate empire have, no matter how feckless and idiotic and remote to reality that the media gets, no matter how your views and your voice go uncomprehended and unheard, in America you have one power, one act, one node of participation that--when joined with others who might be similarly outcast--can be decisive.  You have the vote.

That's why ongoing GOPer voter suppression efforts are such a basic threat.  They are clearly, manifestly and pretty openly attempts to deep six democracy, by preventing people they fear and don't like from voting.  Voter suppression laws passed in states where GOPers are in total power--most of that having happened in 2010--now cover a majority of the American electorate.

Every study shows that those who are most likely to be newly ineligible to vote are the poor, non-whites, urbanites, the young and the old.  Except for the category of the old, those groups tend to vote for Democrats.

I have watched from afar, and with weary dismay, as my home state, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, rapidly deteriorates under the 2010 extreme version of GOPer rule.  By gutting or ignoring environmental protections, and even preventing municipalities from governing their own zoning, PA is trying very hard to turn itself into West Virginia: an Appalachia of a few rich and a lot of poor run by fossil fuels corporations, in a rapid race to the bottom, while destroying its own natural habitat.  They have bought into all the other extremes as well, including unconstitutional and unconscionable intrusions on women's health and reproductive rights.

But if any of these are worst, it is the Pennsylvania voter suppression law.  Studies indicate that a million citizens may not be permitted to vote, including--incredibly-- 43% of the population of Philadelphia.

The intent is very clear, even if a PA GOPer legislator hadn't admitted it.  As TMP wrote: "The number of Pennsylvania voters who most likely lack a valid form of photo identification now doubles President Barack Obama’s margin of victory in the Keystone state in 2008. A group contracted to educate voters about the new law is stacked with Republicans and is headed by a bundler for Mitt Romney."    

The best hope of overturning this law is the suit by the ACLU and others that went to court last week and is likely to be decided next week.  Though incredibly the official defenders of the law admitted there was no evidence at all of voter fraud--supposedly the reason for the law--they propose the rationale that the legislature was within its rights to regulate voting, an argument that apparently convinced the U.S. Supremes to uphold a voter ID law in Indiana.

However, those attacking the law have strong arguments based on the Pennsylvania constitution, which makes voting a fundamental right.  A procession of witnesses stating their right to vote is being denied began the proceedings.  There are other arguments as well, though I'm not sure they are making them: the arbitrary and capricious nature of the ID being required (a college student in PA--interning at Lawrence O'Donnell's  show--discovered that her student ID is not valid because it doesn't show an expiration date), and in particular the burden of obtaining an ID before the November elections.  This example demonstrates what some observers fear: that a lot of people believe they have the required ID but don't (the ACLU estimates a million), and may not find out until they're denied a ballot on election day.  A lot of people also don't even know they must bring a required ID to the polls or they lose their right to vote.

At issue on a federal level is the nature of the law as equivalent to a poll tax, as Attorney General Eric Holder noted.  That's because getting an ID solely for the purpose of voting (which may well require paying for a birth certificate) is a financial burden for people who have the gall to be poor and/or old and infirm, and still consider themselves citizens with the right to vote.  So the U.S. Justice Department is also looking into the PA law.

As a Pennsylvanian born and bred, I believe the state court will overturn this law, and that the PA Supreme Court will uphold that decision, and declare it invalid for this election.  But even before that decision, there is already resistance: one local election official has announced he will not enforce the law.  The Florida voter suppression efforts by means of culling registration rolls have fallen into disarray, partly and decisively because local election officials refused to cooperate.

Changes in voter eligibility has only gone one way in American history: it has expanded.  To begin taking away rights--and especially this fundamental right--is not just a step backward.  It is a goosestep towards the abyss.

Above photo: AP/ Sacramento Bee.

Consequences

Heat, drought and fire.  Apart from the suffering, illnesses and death, the consequences mount up.  Forecasts of higher food prices--even significantly higher prices--by fall have led to speculation (unfortunately in both senses) on the human as well as economic consequences.

The consequences on infrastructure are already been felt, including some that were simply not foreseen.  The New York Times article on this subject begins: "From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought and vicious storms."

Examples include a passenger airliner getting stuck on a heat-softened runway, heat-stretched subway rails, heat contracting the ground beneath highways causing splits while the highways themselves expand and buckle.  Too-hot water in both intake valves and cooling pools threatens power generated from nuclear plants--and it is the power grid in general that is most in danger from the consequences of heat and storms.

Infrastructure is designed with locally "normal" extremes in mind.  But not for extreme extremes, and certainly not for long.  But now such extremes are becoming normal.  The Times:

 "The frequency of extreme weather is up over the past few years, and people who deal with infrastructure expect that to continue. Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) temperatures. " 

Dealing with all this costs money, and while some of that spending may come from companies that are at least partly "private" (like some power companies), much of it must come from government.  But without leadership acknowledging this new reality, especially on the federal level,  these problems are not likely to be adequately addressed.  This too is already becoming evident where the problems and their consequences occur.  

It's an unsustainable situation. The longer it goes on, the worse the problems become, and the greater the suffering--and the fear.

This Fast

Strange, sudden and massive, according to the AP story.  It's the announcement by NASA that: " For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists.

On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July."

That's almost all of the surface ice.  In four days.

Update: New evidence that melting is happening faster in the Antarctic as well.  News reports on the Greenland melt note that NASA suggests that whether the melt there will lead to an immediate rise in sea levels is unknown at this time, but possible.

Mittpocracy

The Rabid Right and its GOP are so regularly hypocritical that they are daily setting new standards for hypocrisy, as well as merely outrageous lying.  In response to the Colorado shooting they warn gun control advocates not to politicize a tragedy, when they are the ones that have turned societal problems into partisan political issues, with the question of what to do about gun violence high on the list. 

And so the argument goes on with lots of heat and little light.  Besides which, it's not the only societal question that has become politically partisan--there's the one I emphasized here, the support of public agencies that deal with these crises.  To stop all such tragedies in this society is just about impossible, though they can be reduced.  But responding to them is a need for every single one, and despite their hollow words of support, GOPers want to cut funding for police, fire, first responders as well as counseling and other support services.  That's the clear implication of their budgets.

It's implied as well in their latest lies: distorting President Obama's words to make their severely hypocritical battle cry of individuals building businesses on their own without help or support.  It supports their ideology, which justifies lower taxes for the wealthiest as somehow generating jobs for the middle class.  But the reality is very different.  Not only in the simple but profound notion that taxpayers support the infrastructure that supports businesses--a point it is necessary to make because GOPers want to cut funds for that infrastructure, as they are doing now.  But behind the valiant individualist businessman that Romney is supposed to symbolize is truly shameless hypocrisy about how Romney and his ilk actually succeed and make tons of money.  They do it largely and sometimes principally by taking government money.

More news emerged about the guy featured in Romney's latest anti-Obama ad who wants everybody to know that he and his family built their business, nobody else helped.  He'd already admitted that indeed government supported a teacher who was important to him, and built the infrastructure that allowed his business to thrive.  On Monday it was further revealed that his business had received direct government assistance and tax breaks--several times, with some pretty big bucks involved. 

But even this is small potatoes for the Romney class.  Romney's Bain made much of its money exploiting tax breaks, tax havens and taking government money.  Other corporations, eager to get on the Romney bandwagon, conveniently forget about the special deals with state and local governments that pave special roads for them, give them a free ride on taxes, turn over millions in taxpayer money to them.  They thrive because of government money they get that small businesses let alone middle class families never get, and probably don't even know about.  They are the richest hypocrites on the planet. 

Procrasti-nation Continued

I like this photo as a symbol of where we are on the Climate Crisis because it is at once a reality--those encroaching fires were real--and a metaphor for the national attitude towards the oncoming storm: the traffic of the usual while the fires burn the horizon. 

In those cars, people may well be listening to news of other crises.  They may be horrified by the killing of 12 in a movie theatre in Colorado, as are we all.  There are always other crises and shocking events, other problems looming, competing for our attention.  There are also the stories we mostly don't hear, like 37 people killed in a huge rainstorm in the capital city of China, or the scores that die in U.S. heat waves.  Update 7/23: Death toll across China is currently 100 from these rains.

To be fair, a lot of people in those cars are frightened by the climate crisis and worried about the future, and they want it to be addressed, and may well be frustrated by the paralysis and inaction, especially in our political system, and most especially in Washington.  They may even be the majority.  But the power of the fossil fuel industry, so deeply dependent not only on the flow of oil but the future of oil for the money that floats them now, grips our system tight.  And it's looking to grip it even more firmly in this year's elections.

But the climate crisis isn't waiting.   Much of the U.S. is in serious and protracted drought (as much as 80%), and by fall the Midwestern drought in particular will result in rising food prices.  This summer's record-breaking heat is likely to continue into fall. And so the drought is expected to worsen.  The effects continue to spread, already with economic costs.  This alone will become impossible to ignore very soon.

But drought is not the only cost now spreading nationally.  Fires, damage from rain, hail and floods in the U.S. There's simple misery and the effects of heat on the human brain and body.  Strains consequently on the electric power grid for air conditioned protection--a grid, by the way that is decaying rapidly.

In other parts of the world, hotter temperatures have brought mosquito-borne diseases to places where they haven't been before, and where public health is not equipped and people have no immunity.   Before this, the ignorable Native communities in the north have been the principal victims in North America.  But they are no longer alone.  Once again, scientists are looking at possible tipping points for abrupt climate change.

But what we know already is bad enough.  Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on the climate crisis in 1989, said in an email to those on his 350.org mailing list that he regards his new article in Rolling Stone as the most important thing he's written since then.  In that article, he reviews this year's stark numbers and some of the more remote, less reported weather events, such as "Saudi authorities reported that it had rained in Mecca despite a temperature of 109 degrees, the hottest downpour in the planet's history."  (I am reminded all too often of the 'sensationalistic' early scenes in the 2004 climate crisis disaster film The Day After Tomorrow, many of which have since happened.)

In the fight to slow down global heating, McKibben writes, "I can say with some confidence that we're losing the fight, badly and quickly – losing it because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in."
McKibben reviews the attempts by environmentalists to slow down the death march on both the individual and political levels, and judges them obviously ineffective.  Change through the political system hasn't work so far and is unlikely to in time. He thinks action requires a global movement, centered on the real enemy: the fossil fuel industry.

"But what all these climate numbers make painfully, usefully clear is that the planet does indeed have an enemy – one far more committed to action than governments or individuals. Given this hard math, we need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization. "Lots of companies do rotten things in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them to change those practices," says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about the climate crisis. "But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It's what they do."

For a long time McKibben has been advocating that the climate crisis be approached as a moral issue, akin to the Civil Rights movement.  Now he believes that like Bull Connor and southern segregationists, this movement needs an immoral enemy--but this time it is an enemy that itself must be controlled in order for change to happen. 

What would success look like?  Maybe like a hefty carbon tax, with the proceeds devoted not only to addressing the causes of future global heating (financing green energy and a host of carbon-reducing strategies) but also to dealing with the effects of the climate crisis, now and likely in the future, everything from mobilizing for emergencies to a real public health system, and eventually much more.  There will be likely be huge engineering projects necessary.  In not so many decades, that really will be the choice: deal with the effects as a society while dealing with the causes, or fall into violent anarchy and international war over resources, or simply as the only way we know how to mobilize anymore.

Update 7/23: Add to the warning voices today economist Paul Krugman: "For large-scale damage from climate change is no longer a disaster waiting to happen. It’s happening now."

The Bets

The Obama campaign is betting heavily that they can define Romney now in a way that essentially disqualifies him in the minds of enough voters in the swing states to make the difference.  They've outspent the Romney campaign 2 to 1 so far trying to do this, and there is evidence that they are getting voter attention.  They are counting on voters who want to make up their minds now, and ignore the rest of an increasingly exhausting media campaign.   So far however the polls don't show Obama gaining advantage, although in truth the polls are all over the place--except the ones that are very close either way.

The Romney campaign is betting that as unemployment continues to be high, month after month, voters will be receptive to his negative ads, which distort the President's words shamelessly, but which could sew enough doubt or disgust to engender an "anybody but Obama" vote.  They are piling up money to do huge media after the Democratic convention.  They are betting on low information voters who make up their mind when they absolutely have to, close to election day.

I have to believe there is a second component to the Obama campaign, a positive one, with real action from the White House and an exciting vision for the second term.  It may not be enough to define Romney as the wrong solution (which of course he is, to a devastating extent) or to continue a general theme campaign.  Confronting the realities of this summer would also be helpful.  Let's hear Romney deny global heating.  But the Obama campaign, and President Obama himself, need to add something new.

The question for the Obama campaign will be whether there will be any air time left to buy, let alone money to buy it.  They need a strong convention and strong debates.   It's not clear that Romney has a second act to his campaign.  He's betting that he doesn't have to release his tax returns or state actual positions or make actual proposals on issues--he's betting on the power of millionaires to lie him into the White House.

Tragedy

The tragic shooting in Colorado late last night at once reveals two public policy needs.  The first is obvious: gun control and the control of ammunition.  The shooter got literally hundreds of rounds off the Internet, including for his assault rifle.  The NRA has dominated political decisionmaking on this and other issues for far too long. 

But the second public policy need is revealed by the positive outcome of this tragic event: the effective response by police, EMTs and other public agencies.  Police were so swift in responding that they caught the alleged shooter as he was returning to his car--judging from the extent of his armory and his garb, it seems likely he was about to drive to his next target location.

But there are many places in America right now where the police and other agencies are so understaffed that response like this is unlikely.  All kinds of situations that require the quick and effective intervention of public agencies--including public health agencies--are happening with increasing frequency now, and will happen on even greater scales in the future as the climate crisis causes more emergencies.

 Right now the Republican party and the Republican candidate for President are willing and eager to sacrifice the public good and the training, equiping and simply the livelihoods of public servants on the front line of trouble, all to further line the pockets of people who have more money already, and a greater percentage of shared resources, than makes any sense.  The Republicans in Congress have blocked any attempt to help the states keep their public employees, and those public employees--teachers, police, fire, emergency medical, etc.--are being fired by droves.  It's there in every monthly unemployment report.  It's hurting our national economy, and it's hurting communities.  It's scandalous.  And it will only get worse if Romney and Republicans are elected to federal and state office.  

Witness to the Procrastination

"Here’s what American exceptionalism means now: on a per-capita basis, we either lead or come close to leading the world in consumption of resources, production of pollutants and a profound unwillingness to do anything about it. We may look back upon this year as the one in which climate change began to wreak serious havoc, yet we hear almost no conversation about changing policy or behavior."

So begins an online opinion column by Mark Bittman of the New York Times.  Yes, and that exceptionalism has been quantified: again this year, Americans ranked last in the world in sustainable behavior, and they don't appear to be upset about it.

Meanwhile, new heat waves are embroiling the Midwest, teasing the East Coast and contributing to drought in many areas.  The impacts are starting to mount up.  Heat and drought is threatening the Midwest corn crop, with ripple effects through the food chain.  Even grass-fed cattle in Oregon are being deprived of their feed by fire.  And the heat has helped lower water levels in the Mississippi river, which is making barge shipping more difficult--thus a major threat to commerce-- and may be allowing pollution of the drinking water in New Orleans with seawater.

And oh yeah, another huge iceberg the size of Manhattan has broken off from a Greenland glacier and is sailing out to sea.

But it's what's happening in the U.S., and our national non-reaction to it so far, that is most remarkable.  Writes Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker:

"One of the most salient—but also, unfortunately, most counterintuitive—aspects of global warming is that it operates on what amounts to a time delay. Behind this summer’s heat are greenhouse gases emitted decades ago. Before many effects of today’s emissions are felt, it will be time for the Summer Olympics of 2048. (Scientists refer to this as the “commitment to warming.”) What’s at stake is where things go from there. It is quite possible that by the end of the century we could, without even really trying, engineer the return of the sort of climate that hasn’t been seen on earth since the Eocene, some fifty million years ago.

Along with the heat and the drought and the super derecho, the country this summer is also enduring a Presidential campaign. So far, the words “climate change” have barely been uttered. This is not an oversight. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.

And so, while farmers wait for rain and this season’s corn crop withers on the stalk, the familiar disconnect continues. There’s no discussion of what could be done to avert the worst effects of climate change, even as the insanity of doing nothing becomes increasingly obvious."

The Big Shoe

Of all the millions of dollars given to SuperPacs so far for this year's presidential candidates--the overwhelming majority going to support Romney--80% of it was provided by a total of 196 people.  Since much of this is given in secret, it is only an educated guess, but it is likely that the single person who has provided more millions than any other for Romney and other GOPer candidates--with an on the record boast that his giving could be "limitless"-- is multibillionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Known during the primary circus season as Newt's Vegas sugardaddy, Adelson's global casino business enables him to provide millions to the Romney campaign and to its SuperPacs.  He hasn't been shy about his intent to in effect buy the presidency.  But his motives seemed to be ideology and vanity.  Now another motive may have emerged.  A big shoe has dropped.  He may be buying the presidency to keep himself out of jail.

A PBS Frontline and ProPublica investigation suggests that Adelson and his gambling empire may have criminally violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by in effect bribing an official to pave the way for an extremely lucrative mega-casino in Macau, the only place in the whole wide country of China where gambling is legal.  Adelson's company is being investigated for just such possible crimes by federal officials. This may also have involved money going to the Chinese mob.

Violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a federal crime, so it really really helps if you own the U.S. Justice Department.  Which might well be among Adelson's acquisitions should Romney be elected.

Romney may need to own the Justice Department for his own defense as well--against perjury, for instance.  But his needs would likely be secondary to Adelson's. 

Rachel has her usual sterling storytelling and analysis of the Adelson affair (though she takes awhile getting there in this clip) and here's more on the story from ProPublica.

This attempt at a get out of jail free card is precisely the kind of corruption that laws limiting campaign contributions and providing full disclosure and oversight were meant to limit if not stop.  It's why these laws were created and passed, even with opposition from those who benefit from these opportunities for corruption.  At least until the current Supreme Court decided that money is speech and corporations are people, and that there is no evidence that unlimited and unaccountable campaign money leads to corruption.  

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.  The great instrument of moral good is the imagination."

Shelley
(a quote I copied in a notebook in 1966.)