*** It looks like Republican Josh Mandel, Ohio's absent Treasurer, has been against our country. Mandel and his wife could make big money if the country went into default. Think Progress has the details:
...According to personal financial disclosure documents examined by
ThinkProgress, Josh Mandel’s wife owns an undisclosed amount of ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury
exchange-traded fund (ETF). This ETF aggressively “shorts” U.S.
Treasury bills, meaning that it bets against U.S. debt and spikes when
Treasury bill values drop. If a default were to occur, the desirability
of Treasury bills would plummet and Mandel’s ETF would skyrocket in
value.
That precise scenario could become more likely if Mandel wins his
race against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). One of the top issues Mandel
lists on his website is to “Stop increasing the debt ceiling.” Similarly, when Congress was embroiled in the debt ceiling fight last year, he stated that he “would have voted against the debt deal” that narrowly staved off a default.....
....Though Mandel’s Treasury-shorting holdings may not be gigantic at the
moment, their value would soar in the event of a debt default....
Don't you think it suspicious that Josh Mandel was against raising the debt ceiling??? I just don't know how people can sleep at night knowing that they make money when their country fails.
*** Republican Mitt Romney continues his foot-in-mouth tour.
YahooNews:
...The Daily Telegraph suggested Romney's "Olympic gaffe" had overshadowed his trip to London....
Romney's comments led newscasts
on both Sky News and the BBC on Thursday night and early Friday morning,
just hours ahead of the Olympic opening ceremonies here.
"Is this guy really prepared to
be president?" one Sky News reporter asked in his Thursday night report
about Romney's day in London. The reporter trashed the GOP candidate's
comments as "just daft."
Of course, the British were quite upset about Romney had written in his book.
Time:
...The pounding continued on Thursday when reporters excavated a passage from his book No Apology
that includes some unflattering remarks about the U.S.’s chief European
ally. “England is just a small island,” he wrote. “Its roads and houses
are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that the rest of
the world wants to buy. And if it hadn’t been separated from the
continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s
ambitions.” (The context of the quote is a rumination on why nations
rise and fall.)
At home, these flaps would quickly disappear into the maw of the news
cycle. The standard is different on foreign soil. Romney’s blunders
have undercut the entire purpose of the trip, which was to prove he
could adequately represent U.S. interests with international leaders
despite his scant foreign policy experience. He hasn’t met that standard
so far....
In foreign diplomacy, Mitt Romney gets an "F" on his report card.