TPM News

Romney Camp Not To Blame For Empty Stadium, Organizers Say

2012-02-24T23:49:58Z

Mitt Romney's speech in front of a 98% empty football stadium was the result of a last minute security change, according to two highly placed officials with the event's organizer, the Detroit Economic Club.

The stadium was only chosen after a smaller venue sold out. Beth Chappell, president and CEO of the group, told TPM that the new plan was to hold the event in the stadium's atrium, which wouldn't have had a panoramic view of the venue's empty 65,000 seats, but that the security team -- which included Secret Service, Detroit police, and Ford Field security -- did not approve.

"The security team had concerns when they did walkthrough so we had to move meeting to the field," she said. "I am just sick that this has become an issue where there is none. We were thrilled with turnout."

Following Friday's speech Chappell sent the Romney campaign a letter clarifying the process after the setting was widely panned by commentators across the political spectrum, a development she wrote was "very disappointing after such a terrific meeting." She added, "I so apologize for the confusion."

Another board member, who asked not to be named, confirmed Chappell's account and noted that the attendance was impressive for a club-organized event.

"I'm just being really honest with you, 1200 is a good crowd. Twelve hundred is one of the largest crowds they've had," the board member said. "It wasn't sparse -- it was the way that they set it up."

The member confirmed the Club president's story that the event was moved to Ford Field because there wasn't enough time to find a smaller venue for the (relatively) large crowd. They also confirmed the Secret Service's role in moving the event from the atrium to the field itself, where cameras caught the mass of empty space that ended up overshadowing Romney's speech.

Even though the truth might help Romney, whom the board member opposes, the member said it was important "to be fair."

"I was there. And it was not sparsely attended," the board member said. "That was one of the largest economic crowds I have ever seen."

A spokesman for the Secret Service said that as a rule, they never discuss deliberations with staff publicly, but that in general it's "very common" for the Secret Service to coordinate with campaigns about selecting the location of events.

Romney may not have had control over the visual optics of the event, but not all the negative headlines came from the empty space at Ford Field. While the speech was mostly unmemorable, Romney waxed poetic at one point about the Cadillacs his wife owns, a gaffe that entered the pantheon of Romney missteps, right up there with "I'm unemployed" and "I'm not concerned about the very poor."

Chappell's full letter to the Romney campaign explaining the stadium seating is below:

To: Katie Packer-Gage, Romney Campaign
Dear Katie:

Thanks so much again for a great day. It was a privilege to host Governor Romney and we were delighted to have such a terrific turnout of 1200 members and guests. Folks at the strolling luncheon afterwards were happily abuzz.

Sadly, I just heard that there is some confusion in the media regarding the selection of today's venue. That is very disappointing after such a terrific meeting.

As I said in my remarks today, we sold out the previous venue in 90 minutes and were delighted that Ford Field was available and could accommodate the DEC. Further, we thought it a wonderful Detroit landmark to host this nationally broadcast meeting.

The original plan was to host the Romney meeting in the atrium, which is where we host DEC meetings when at Ford Field. During our walk through with the security team there were further issues raised due to the size of the crowd so we moved the event to the field. Had we followed our normal plan in the atrium, the football field would not have been visible - and the room would have been packed.

I so apologize for this confusion. Thank you again.

Best,

Beth

Ryan J. Reilly contributed to this report.

White Supremacist 'Serial Bomber' Convicted, Twin Acquitted In Arizona Trial

2012-02-24T22:50:00Z

Updated: February 24, 2012, 6:24 PM

A white supremacist who once claimed to be a serial bomber was convicted Friday in federal court in Phoenix for a 2004 Arizona bombing while his twin brother was acquitted in the same trial.

Dennis Mahon was convicted of three felonies related to the mail bombing of a city diversity office that injured its director and two other employees.

His twin brother, Daniel Mahon, was acquitted of a felony count of conspiring in the bombing plot. The judge ordered him to be set free.

The mixed verdict is a blow for federal authorities, who spent years investigating the two men and finally had enough cause to arrest them in 2009.

As TPM detailed in January, the trial hinged on the use of a civilian woman who went undercover and befriended the men while federal investigators recorded their conversations on audio and video.

During the investigation, court records show, the brothers told the woman they had been involved in numerous bombings since the early 1980s. Dennis Mahon told her he had bombed an abortion clinic, a Jewish community center and offices of the IRS and immigration authorities.

Dennis Mahon was a former leader in the Ku Klux Klan. But more recently he and his brother were connected to the White Aryan Resistance, a loose association of white supremacists who encourage each other to live "lone wolf" lifestyles to avoid detection by law enforcement.

Even though the jurors convicted Dennis Mahon in the bombing, they determined the attack was not motivated by the race of the office's director, Don Logan, who is black.

Officials with the US Attorney's Office and US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Arizona did not return calls for comment.

Dennis Mahon is scheduled to be sentenced May 22.

Just Why Does Mitt Romney Love Michigan's Trees?

2012-02-24T22:45:17Z

DETROIT, MI -- Mitt Romney loves Michigan. He loves the cars. He loves the people. He loves the...tree size? So he keeps telling us at least.

"This feels good, being back in Michigan," he said in an economic speech on Friday. "You know, the trees are the right height." It was the second time in the week that the Michigan-born Massachusetts governor praised the relative growth of the state's flora as one of his favorite features.

But are they the right height? And is it a really weird thing to bring up? TPM set out to discover the truth of the matter (take that, Politifact) and found an intense horticultural debate that crosses traditional partisan lines.

Let's start with the most fundamental question: how tall are they? We asked David Neumann, a silviculturist with the state Department of Natural Resources' forest division, to run down the basics.

"The hardwoods can range from 50 feet at maturity to about 100 to 120 feet," he said. "Most hardwood forests are right around 70 to 80 feet tall."

Romney's deep emotional attachment to arboreal matters may explain why he's spent so much time in Massachusetts, where he was a student, businessman, and governor, and New Hampshire, where he currently has a home. According to Neumann, Michigan's trees are "fairly similar" to the New England region: "The trees are probably not that much different in height out there."

Indeed a rundown of street trees in Boston, courtesy of the city parks and recreation department, puts the peak height of most species around 60-70 feet. The real regional distinction tree-wise is from the forests way out west: California's gigantic redwoods and the Pacific Northwest's lush rainforests, for example.

Still, Michiganders are intensely divided as to whether Michigan's tree height is fair game.

"It's bizarre," state Democratic chair Mark Brewer told TPM when asked about Romney's line "Nobody in Michigan talks about Michigan that way."

Portia Coates, 24, a waitress in Warren, Michigan was just confused when we asked her about Romney's line.

"I have never heard anyone say that in my life," she said. "I'm all about 'Go green,' but who cares how tall the trees are?"

But even among some of Romney's political opponents in the state, there's some shared affection for the loftiness of Michigan vegetation. Believe it or not, the Detroit area used to be known as the City of Trees. Well, before Dutch elm disease and a host of other maladies wiped them out, at least.

State Sen. Arlan Meekhoff (R), a Rick Santorum supporter, has no objections to the tree talk even as he believes Romney has failed to connect with Michigan residents in general.

"I think what he was pointing out is there was a period of time when the people who were taking care of the land didn't take very good care of it," Meekhoff said. "So a lot of the trees got lumbered, the land was cleared for agriculture. So a lot of the forest growth that's happened has all happened in one period of time. That's what I read into it."

He added: "I hope I'm correct."

The most prominent defender of Romney's botanic tastes this week is about as far away on the political spectrum as you can get. Flint, Michigan's Michael Moore proudly stood up for his hometown trees -- and flipped off neighboring states' -- in an appearance on MSNBC.

"He does have that right," Moore said of Romney. "The trees in Michigan are just the right height. In Wisconsin, they go way -- you can't even see the top. In Ohio just a bunch of shrubbery."

Given the available science and the various arguments before us, TPM rates Romney's claim that the stature of Michigan's greenery is good and proper "true enough." If you care about that kind of thing, at least.

Benjy Sarlin reported from Washington.

Composite picture contains an image from benchart/ Shutterstock

"The Streets Are Just Right": The Mitt Romney Story

2012-02-24T22:33:11Z

With the Oscars approaching, there was fevered speculation across the networks over winners, losers and who will have the best outfit, distracting temporarily from the 2012 race.

Not to be overshadowed, Mitt Romney caught the eye by giving an address in an almost empty stadium. With 1,200 people in attendance, a decision was made to move from their cramped space in to a 65,000 seater stadium, with additional seats on the field.

So, in the spirit of Oscar weekend, Day In 100 Seconds presents our submission. A tale which has emotional twists, intriguing characters and a lovable lead character that will always have you coming back for more...

MPAA's Chris Dodd Sends 'Olive Branch' On Piracy

2012-02-24T22:18:20Z

The fight over anti-online piracy legislation in Washington has faded from the headlines, but former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is still talking about it.

Dodd, who became CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America in March 2011 after deciding not to run again for Congress, had quite a lot to say about the subject -- much of it now conciliatory -- as he explained to the Atlanta Press Club on Wednesday.

"Let me be clear: Hollywood is pro-technology and pro-Internet," Dodd told journalists, reading from prepared remarks. "I firmly believe that our industry cannot survive without the innovations that come out of Silicon Valley every day - and know that we must have a free and open Internet to keep those innovations coming."

However, Dodd did note that "a few tried to disrupt this important debate with misinformation."

As he continued:

"Despite their claims, these few critics are simply not interested in solving the problem of intellectual property theft - a position that may be explained by the fact that many of them profit from piracy themselves, through online advertising and search engine placement."

He concluded by inviting listeners to pressure their local representatives to come up with a means of combatting piracy, and encouraged tech companies to join him in the effort.

"If you believe, as I do, that the content industry and the technology industry have more to gain from working together than from fighting each other - then I invite you to join this coalition and help us move towards a solution to this problem," Dodd said.

The MPAA was among the most prominent supporters of the two bills -- the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate -- both of which sought to curb online piracy by forcing U.S. websites to block and advertising and payment processing ties with foreign websites accused of piracy by copyright holders.

Neither bill made it into law, though. In fact, both are presently pretty much dead politically. More on that here. Dodd fought back on several fronts against SOPA protesters throughout and after the ordeal, but seems to have changed his tune now that the political winds have shifted decidedly against his group's will.

"MPAA's Chris Dodd extends SOPA olive branch to Silicon Valley," is how Hollywood blog The Wrap characterized Dodd's comments to the Atlanta Press Club. Dodd had been invited to speak to the organization of local journalists as part of its "newsmaker luncheon" series of talks.

Dodd also referenced the sheer volume of Web traffic devoted to piracy as a reason why even those in the tech sector needed to get more serious about fighting the problem.

"A study by Envisional found that nearly one-quarter of all global Internet traffic is copyright theft," Dodd said in his remarks. "And at the heart of the problem is the proliferation of parasitic foreign rogue sites whose sole purpose is to facilitate, and profit from, the theft of intellectual property."

The study Dodd refers to by Envisional, a UK cybersecurity and anti-piracy firm, was initially published in January 2011, indicating 23.8 percent of all Internet traffic around the world was dedicated to infringing content (though pornography wasn't included due to the "difficulty" of establishing its copyright status. The study was updated early this year, finding the same level of piracy. The study was commissioned by NBCUniversal, another of the leading supporters of the anti-piracy legislation SOPA and PIPA.

But David Price, the head of Envisional's piracy research department and the author of the study, told TPM that although NBCUniversal paid for the study, it didn't exert undue influence on the results.

"When the study was commissioned, neither Envisional or NBCU knew what kind of overall figure would be produced at the end of the study," Price told TPM via email on Friday.

"I was obviously aware of NBCU's general position on piracy when putting the report together," he continued. "However, we have worked in this area for a range of clients for some time and are valued for our independent research and analysis. Clients come to us for our research experience and neutral consultancy."

Price notably even came out against SOPA and PIPA when presenting the latest results of his research at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, as Ars Technica reported.

"When I talk to content owners I try to tell them this is not the way to go," Price said at the time. "You don't want to hurt people. You want to try and go with a compete approach, put the content out there and hope people will come to you."

It seems that now, Dodd and the MPAA are finally beginning to listen to his advice.

Denny Rehberg's Drunk Boating Joke Hits Close To Home

2012-02-24T21:49:13Z

Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), who is running for Senate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, told an audience that society needs to rebuild trust in its institutions, and the idea that we're all in this together -- using an interesting choice of joke.

Rehberg spoke Thursday at the Montana Rural Water Systems Convention. And a Democratic tracker video shows the Congressman making a point about American society.

"And that's one of the problems that we have with the government today, people don't believe in the institution of Congress. You look at the favorability rate. People are continually trying to tear down, not just the president, but the presidency," said Rehberg. "And we still have the best system. So one of the things that we need to do is try to return credibility back to those that take the time to serve - you at the local community level, our state legislators, we at the federal level, whether it's in the executive branch, the judicial, the presidency. We still have a lot of time to do that, because you know, we're kind of all in this together."

He then told an amusing joke, in the Midwestern and Western tradition of "Ole and Sven" fables, to illustrate the idea that everyone is in it together.

"Always remember the story of Ole and Sven -- and I won't tell it in an accent, because I'm not particularly good at that. But Ole and Sven lived on the other side of a lake from a bar, and they use to always walk around to the bar, party it up and walk home, well one night they had a little bit too much and so they decided to go down to the water and they saw a row boat and they stole it, they stole the row boat and they got about half way across the lake and started taking on water and Ole said to Sven, 'Sven start bailing, we're sinking', and Sven said, 'Ole, its not our boat.'

As the crowd laughed, he pointed to one individual in the crowd. "Want me to slow down?" he said jokingly, then returned to the main point: "But we're all in this boat together."

However, a joke about a drunken boating accident might not be the best analogy for Rehberg to be making -- as he was himself injured in a serious boating accident in August 2009. The driver of the boat, then-state Sen. Greg Barkus, was found to have had a blood-alcohol content of .16, in a test conducted two hours after the crash. A top Rehberg aide suffered a serious head injury, but later made a remarkably strong recovery and has since gone on to start his own political consulting firm.

In December 2010, Barkus pleaded no contest to a charge of felony criminal endangerment, as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors in order to receive a deferred sentence.

When asked by TPM for comment about the tracker video, Rehberg spokesman Chris Bond e-mailed back:

"Liberal, hapless Senator Tester and his liberal, hapless New York City friends at TPM are so out of touch they can't even get an Ole and Sven joke right. No wonder they supported ObamaCare, taxpayer-funded bailout bonuses to AIG executives, and anti-gun Supreme Court judges. This type of silliness is one of many reasons why five straight polls show Denny in the lead."

More Internal Strife For The Tea Party Patriots As Co-Founder Resigns

2012-02-24T21:39:53Z

Mark Meckler, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, announced Friday that he would be leaving over differences in the group's direction.

"Mark Meckler's resignation as an employee and from the Tea Party Patriots board follows months of discussions and good-faith differences on how best TPP can serve the Tea Party movement," the Tea Party Patriots said in a statement. "He felt it necessary to step aside and pursue other endeavors. We extend our best wishes to him. He has done many good things for the movement."

"The movement and Tea Party Patriots will continue to grow stronger and to build an enduring grass-roots organization that increases public support for our ideals of fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets," the statement said.

Meckler, who founded the group along with Jenny Beth Martin and is a prominent spokesman for the Tea Party movement, reportedly sent an e-mail to the Board of Directors of the TPP saying that he has "fought long and hard" to keep the group "as an organization that is run from the bottom up, with the intent of serving the grassroots."

"Unfortunately, it is my belief that I have lost this fight," Meckler said, according to the Daily Caller. "I probably fought the internal fight longer than I should have, but I wanted to give absolutely every possible effort to preserving what I believe was the unique nature of the TPP organization."

Meckler did not return TPM's request for comment.

Meckler's departure is decidedly more amicable than that of Amy Kremer, now the Chairman of the Tea Party Express, who was ousted from the TPP Board of Directors in 2009.

Kremer, who also helped to found the group, joined the Tea Party Express in September 2009, and was canned from the TPP board because of concerns that the TPX was too closely tied to Republicans. Shortly after, TPP sued Kremer over the rights to the Tea Party Patriots name, which they said she was using in activities not affiliated with the group.

In October of last year, Kylie Kremer, apparently Amy's daughter, sued the TPP and alleged that Jenny Beth Martin and her husband, TPP's CEO Lee Martin, defamed her on "a public group in Facebook" under the alias "Dale Buttersworth" with a post that she "had been raped, reported the rape to the police and was kicked out of her home by her mother and her mother's boyfriend as a result of reporting the rape."

The TPP called the suit is part of Kremer's "long-standing animosity" against them.

Presented By:

2012-02-24T21:39:53Z

Climate Change Scientist Used G-Mail Account To Trick Anti-Climate Science Think Tank

2012-02-24T20:28:14Z

Emails released by the Heartland Institute this week show that scientist Peter Gleick apparently created a G-mail account under the name of an existing board member to trick the group, which casts doubt on the science of man-made climate change, into sending him internal documents that he later sent to the press.

"Can you please add... this personal email address to the Board mailing list for all future Board communications?" Gleick allegedly wrote in an email on Jan. 27. "Do not delete my [redacted] address, just add this one as a duplicate."

Gleick admitted to sending the emails under a fake name earlier this week and apologized for his actions. The internal documents have already sprung a call for a congressional hearing into whether, as laid out in the documents, a scientist in the Interior Department was paid by the group, an apparent violation of rules for federal workers.

Gleick evidently continued sending emails requesting additional documents like past board minutes through at least Feb. 8.

The Heartland Institute said in a press release that the first email was sent on the same day as Gleick "rejected a cordial invitation to debate climate science at The Heartland Institute's 2012 anniversary benefit dinner in August." The group also called on news outlets which have published the "stolen" documents and a climate change strategy memo they maintain was "fake" to take the material offline.

Image from olly / Shutterstock

Bloomberg Defends Legality Of NYPD Spying On Muslims

2012-02-24T19:09:32Z

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday defended the legality of the NYPD's covert monitoring of Muslims in New York and New Jersey.

"Everything the NYPD has done is legal, it is appropriate, it is constitutional," Bloomberg said on WOR radio.

The city's authorities have to be "first preventers" not "first responders," Bloomberg said, referring to thwarted terror attacks in New York City. Bloomberg said the city will not repeat the same mistakes it made in the past. "We just cannot let our guard down again. We cannot slack in our vigilance. The threat was real. The threat is real. The threat is not going away."

The Associated Press has reported extensively on the NYPD's spying on Muslims, building a network of intelligence even though dozens of the monitored mosques weren't linked to terrorism. The NYPD even monitored mosques in Newark, New Jersey, without notifying Mayor Cory Booker. U.S. senator from New Jersey Bob Menendez and Booker have called for an investigation into the NYPD's activities in New Jersey. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne in a statement said New Jersey police were "briefed before and afterwards, and a Newark liaison officer accompanied NYPD personnel when they were in Newark."

Still, Bloomberg insists the NYPD doesn't target people based on race or religion, despite the evidence suggesting otherwise. Bloomberg said police follow leads and follow protocol. "We have to be perfect every single time," he said. "The terrorists only have to be right once."

Media Fixates On Near-Empty Stadium Rather Than Romney's Speech

2012-02-24T18:53:38Z

Mitt Romney's big speech in Michigan Friday was delivered before a crowd that organizers pegged at roughly 1,200.

Apparently the seats had sold out so fast that the campaign had been obliged to shift from its initial venue to a larger space. The site they found was the enormous Ford Field Stadium. The problem: it seats 65,000 people. So early-on the campaign was faced with the issue of how to make it look like he wasn't addressing a near-empty arena.

Their solution was to set up the seats in the middle of the field. However, despite those efforts, a live feed of the event clearly showed tens of thousands of unfilled seats and Romney's speech had an audible echo as his voice bounced around the cavernous space.

In his opening remarks Romney referenced the size of the venue.

"I guess we had a tough time finding a large enough place to meet, and this certainly is," he joked.

But humor didn't prevent people from picking up the story. On Twitter, reporters from across the spectrum seemed far more interested in the optics of the event than the substance of Romney's speech, in which he called for lower tax rates and entitlement spending as part of a broad reform package he released this week.

Conservative columnist Byron York of the Washington Examiner posted a brutal long distance shot of the 98% empty stadium. Neil King of the Wall Street Journal put up a photo of empty seats by Romney's stage as well.

Empty seats are never a good look for a presidential speech, let alone one billed as a major address, but in Romney's case the optics are made worse by the fact that he's competing to unseat a president who has a history of filling stadiums with enthusiastic supporters. John McCain ran into a similar media frenzy in 2008 after delivering a widely panned speech before a small audience in front of a lime green background the same night that Barack Obama celebrated clinching the nomination.

Romney Camp Can't Hold Back From Editing Endorsements

2012-02-24T18:31:44Z

Mitt Romney's campaign is fast developing a reputation for selectively omitting quotes and passages that reflect poorly on the candidate in its press releases.

The latest blow up is over a pair of newspaper endorsements that Romney received this week, both of which were generally positive but tempered with some criticisms of his position on various issues where they disagreed.

The latest came on Friday, as the Romney campaign sent out another newspaper endorsement, this one from the Arizona Republic, that left out sections criticizing Romney's position on immigration policy as well as his skills as a campaigner. It did also leave out some more positive passages as well on his foreign policy views.

As reported by TPM this week, Romney's campaign recently e-mailed out an endorsement from the Detroit News that left out a paragraph criticizing his handling of the auto bailout:

We disagree with Romney on a point vital to Michigan -- his opposition to the bailout of the domestic automobile industry. Romney advocated for a more traditional bankruptcy process, while we believe the bridge loans provided by the federal government in the fall of 2008 were absolutely essential to the survival of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. The issue isn't a differentiator in the GOP primary, since the entire field opposed the rescue effort.

The editors who wrote the endorsement were upset over the Romney camp's move, calling it a "distortion" of their words. Although a spokesman for Romney said they were only complying with copyright laws by not including the full editorial, a top First Amendment lawyer told TPM that he was unaware of any relevant legal issues.

Last month, Buzzfeed reported that the Romney campaign was also editing transcripts of its own conference calls with the press to leave out pointed questions and less than stellar answers from its surrogates. In addition, the campaign edited an article on supporter John McCain to leave out a section on their past disagreements and left out concerns in a Des Moines Register endorsement over Romney's history of changing positions on some issues.

Charges Of Topless Dancing Dirty Tricks Fly In New Mexico Mayor's Race

2012-02-24T17:59:31Z

The race to replace a New Mexico mayor -- who once signed $1 million in architecture contracts while drunk -- is now plagued with allegations that one candidate tried to set up another by hiring a topless dancer to go to his office, and have the incident filmed.

Gerardo Hernandez of Sunland Park, New Mexico told KVIA-TV that he was meeting with his campaign manager and a job applicant in his office, when a topless woman came in and began to dance for them. "She started dancing and she was suggestive," he said.

Hernandez claims that the man he was meeting with, a "Mexican national fleeing threats south of the border [who] offered to assist his campaign," according to the Associated Press, brought the woman to the meeting. He then put on some music and said she liked to dance, which she proceeded to do. "As any gentleman would know, it was a lap dance," Hernandez said.

Hernandez claims that the woman was sent by his opponent in the Sunland Park mayoral race, Mayor Pro Tem Daniel Salinas, who he says is trying to strong-arm him out of the race by threatening to release a tape of the incident. Hernandez says he was approached by a man who "said, 'We have a video of you and we're going to release it if you don't withdraw from the race.' And I said, 'Well, you can release it, because I'm not going to withdraw from the race.'"

"[Hernandez] is going come up with a lot of excuses," Salinas said. "He's a married man, so I'd be thinking of a couple of excuses and try to blame this on different people and trying to make up my little story."

In August, it was revealed that current Sunland Park Mayor Martin Resendiz admitted in a 2010 deposition that he had signed $1 million worth of contracts with a local architecture design firm after "a good two and a half, three hours" of drinking," to the point where he was too drunk to drive home and had to be picked up by his sister. The deposition was part of a lawsuit filed against the city by the architecture firm for $1 million to cover work it did under the contracts. Salinas was also named in the lawsuit, and also admitted to being drunk during the meeting.

Hernandez and Salinas are two of the three candidates vying for Resendiz's seat. Resendiz withdrew a challenge for Rep. Steve Pearce's seat after the drunken contracts scandal.

On Tuesday, New Mexico state police with a search warrant raided city hall and temporarily shut it down. From the AP:

City Manager Jaime Aguilera said police were looking for video evidence from surveillance cameras pointed at the parking lot, but the district attorney's office has not confirmed whether the sex tape allegations are connected to the raid. The details of the search warrant are sealed by a court order.

"I was told that it recorded an incident in the [city] parking lot, but I don't know what that incident was," Aguilera told the Las Cruces Sun-News.

Image from VikOl / Shutterstock.

Dems Salivate Over Coming GOP Birth Control Misstep

2012-02-24T17:44:11Z

The GOP's ongoing push to allow employers to deny contraceptive -- or any -- health care coverage has Democrats in an amusing position: outraged that the Republican party has reignited the culture wars, and simultaneously salivating over what they believe is a deadly GOP political misstep.

In the days ahead, Senate Republicans, led by Missouri's Roy Blunt, will vote on a controversial amendment to pending transportation legislation -- one that would enshrine employers' right to limit health care benefits for moral reasons.

On a conference call with reporters Friday morning, top Senate Democrats were of two minds: incensed that the GOP is pushing a non-germane issue so hard, and also ecstatic about it.

"We'll hold this vote whenever the Republicans want," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the Dems' top political minds.

The GOP's top leaders sense the danger, and would love to put this particular battle behind them. But they've lost control. So they're standing by their argument that the Obama administration's new health care regulation requiring most employers to provide contraceptive coverage to female employees is an intrusion on an employer right that's been there all along.

Dems say that's nonsense.

"It's not the status quo," Schumer said. "It's a giant step backward the likes of which we haven't seen certainly since 1965."

Washington Post Launches 'Personal Post' News Aggregator

2012-02-24T17:25:21Z

The Washington Post on Friday unveiled a new product on its website, "Personal Post," a custom news aggregator that displays stories from across the newspaper's sections in a vertical column, designed specifically to appeal to an individual reader's story preferences.

The product, which is in a public beta right now and available at personalpost.washingtonpost.com, works like this: Users can sign-in with Facebook or their previous Post online accounts and begin manually picking which sections of the newspaper they would like to appear in their Personal Post. Or, users can choose from a list of curated sections and blogs put together by the paper's staff called "story streams," such as the "National Pulse" stream, which includes news from the "Policy & Regulation" and "Polling" sections, and columnist/reporter Ezra Klein.

The stories appear as headlines and summaries in an individual user's Personal Post, sometimes accompanied by large photos. Clicking on a story summary will take the user to the full text on the Post's main website. If a user doesn't like a particular story or wants less of that type of content in the Personal Post, the user can hover their cursor over the story and click "Remove from top stories." The product then "learns" to show less of that type of content going forward.

Also, when navigating the rest of the Post's main website (not just the Personal Post section), a user can click on an orange "P" button in a box to the left of every story to add more of that topic to their Personal Post page.

"We're excited about Personal Post and hope you'll like it," the paper's editors wrote in a blog post on Friday. "This is in beta, so we are committed to making it better by adding new personalized content and features -- things such as galleries and videos, ways to keep up with your neighborhood, your favorite author or the local high school, and breaking news on topics you haven't explored."

Intriguingly, the Post explained to TechCrunch that the Personal Post isn't supposed to be especially integrated with social media. Indeed, the Personal Post's FAQ section, it specifically states "Personal Post is not a social reading feature, so what you read on Personal Post is not visible to others."

And yet, every story that shows up in the user's Personal Post does come equipped with the now ubiquitous "share" buttons to post the story on a user's Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter account.

The new product was designed using technology from Trove, the broader, stand-alone news aggregator app launched by the newspaper in April 2011. Trove requires a user to log in using Facebook Connect, but pulls content from around the Web, not just The Washington Post. (The Washington Post Media Group's CEO, Donald Graham, is Chairman of Facebook's board of directors and maintains a friendship, or so-called "bromance," with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.)

Both products were also the work of WaPoLabs, the Washington Post Media Company's Web and software research arm.

That said, as excited as the paper's editors might be about such products, it's worth pointing out that not everyone else at the organization feels the same way. The Washington Post ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton penned a notorious column in January entitled "Is The Post innovating too fast?"

As Pexton wrote:

I know from talking to folks in the newsroom that all the change may be exhausting the staff, too. Many of these innovations require considerable staff time, as well as more time from editors and reporters to monitor them. Staffers point out that The Post has 108 blogs; the New York Times has only 62 but with a much larger staff to fill them.
Staffers say that sometimes they feel as if the innovations are just tossed against a wall to see what sticks, without careful thought as to which of them will enhance and shore up The Post's reputation and brand.

It's not clear if the new Personal Post is one of the many "innovations" that Pexton was referring to. It's also too early to tell how the Personal Post will affect the paper's brand, or perhaps more importantly, declining circulation and ad revenue, going forward. But for now at least, the team behind it is proud of their work and want readers to give it a go.

Obama Fundraiser Turned Ambassador Was Largely Absent From Bahamas Post

2012-02-24T16:35:00Z

The last time we checked in on a big Obama donor who got appointed to an ambassador gig was when a State Department Inspector General report found the Ambassador to Luxembourg had made most of her staff spend their time finding her a temporary residence that met her standards, tried to be improperly reimbursed twice for a queen mattress she insisted on buying and left her staff so demoralized that some of her top staffers chose to go to embassies in war zones rather than continue to serve under her.

Now another State Department IG report examines issues with the leadership of Nicole Avant, who was an Obama fundraiser and served as Ambassador to the Bahamas from late 2009 until November of 2011. The new report released this week said that Avant presided over "an extended period of dysfunctional leadership and mismanagement, which has caused problems throughout the embassy."

As first reported by Josh Rogin, the report found that Avant was absent from the embassy for 276 days from Sept. 2009 through last November. That number included 102 "personal" days and 77 "work travel" days, but just 23 were on official orders.

Inspectors also found that many of the cables written in the past year "show little political reporting or analysis on international crime, drug smuggling, and illegal migration or on prevention of terrorism."

On the bright side, the report did find that Avant "has been active in promoting business education and development and "invited a music industry executive and former basketball player Magic Johnson to the Bahamas to speak to the Bahamian Chamber of Commerce."

Rogin notes that Avant has been active on the campaign trail since she resigned, joining Michelle Obama on Jan. 31 at a Beverly Hills residence "for a fundraiser along with her husband, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Saranados, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steve Bing, Quincy Jones, Harvey Weinstein, and other celebrities." She also attended a $35,800 per plate dinner on Feb. 15 with celebrities like George Clooney and James Belushi.

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2012-02-24T16:35:00Z