Markets closed down on Wall Street today: Dow -0.13 percent S&P -0.04 percent Nasdaq -0.13 percent Oil -0.67 percent Gold -0.25 percent On the commodities front: Oil ( NYSE:USO ) fell to $97.18 a barrel Gold ( NYSE:GLD ) down to $1,723.10 an ounce Silver ( NYSE:SLV ) fell 0.99 percent to settle at $33.67 (Related: More Than Half of Wall Street Says Bonuses Met Expectations ) Today’s markets were down because: 1) Greece: Stocks slipped lower today as investors awaited a Greek government decision on budget cuts required as part of a deal to secure a second bailout. Analysts believe that another bailout is necessary to avoid a disorderly default when 14.5 billion in bond payments are due March 20. No deal was reached over the weekend on austerity measures and financial reforms necessary to secure the bailout package from the European Union, International Monetary Fund, and European Central Bank. Furthermore, a formal offer for a debt swap with private creditors must be made by February 13 if all procedures are to be completed in time for the troika to release the bailout funds before the bond redemption next month. 2) Companies: A relative absence of major news, unfortunate in the instance of Greece, allowed companies to take the fore on Monday. Micron Technologies was trading down after CEO and chairman Steve Appleton died in a small-plane crash on Friday . Mark Duncan was appointed over the weekend to take his place. Coinstar, Verizon, and Netflix all climbed higher today after Coinstar, the parent of video rental company Redbox, announced that it had formed a joint venture with Verizon to compete against rival Netflix. 3) Earnings: Earnings season is still in full force, and results are being looked to as economic indicators. Hasbro shares climbed after fourth-quarter earnings beat forecasts by a penny a share, though sales fell short, while Humana shares dropped nearly 5 percent after reporting that fourth-quarter profit rose from a year earlier while providing upbeat guidance for 2012. Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, also rose Monday in anticipation of results due after the bell. [ Editor’s note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet . ]
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Market Recap: Greece Continues Drag on Markets
Lindsay Wood read the Bible to the man who slashed her throat, police say. (Image source: WSOC-TV)
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Woman Reads the Bible to Her Attacker — After He Slashed Her Throat With a Knife
File this under “Well, Crap.” Kimberley Strassel has a real upper of a column at the Wall Street Journal today: “Reimagining Speaker Pelosi.” While the GOP and the Right are focused on the fight for the White House and getting rid of President Obama, there’s a creeping political menace that too many are not seeing: The 2010 takeover of the House could be short-lived. Conservatives are by nature optimists. They are intensely focused on retaking the White House and the Senate. But what if, in that optimism, they are missing a growing threat? That threat is to the House of Representatives. Republicans claimed a sweeping victory there in 2010, a win that stopped President Obama’s marauding legislative agenda. Yet that has led to a certain Republican nonchalance about the House in 2012. What the optimists are missing is that the House remains the linchpin of all their future ambitions. A Republican presidency will mean little with Speaker Nancy Pelosi redux. Mr. Obama may well win re-election. What leverage will a Republican-run Senate have in the face of that, and a Democratic House? Or consider the possibility that Republicans botch both the Oval Office and the Senate. True, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), under Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, is aware of the challenge and is energetically fund-raising and recruiting. True, the party is already coaching its newer members about the rigors of re-election. And true, John Boehner and Eric Cantor are going all out to collect money for their members. The speaker alone raised some $46 million in 2011—nearly double his take for the entire last election cycle. What Messrs. Boehner and Cantor know is that they’ll need all this, and more. The House is no sure thing. Read the whole thing for a sobering account of what could happen if the Right and the GOP don’t get their act together.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Republican strategist Karl Rove says Mitt Romney has had an advantage in news coverage of his campaign from “traditional” outlets: February has only two primaries (Michigan and Arizona, both on the 28th) and one debate (on the 22nd). Mr. Romney can duplicate his Florida strategy, where his campaign and super PAC outspent the Gingrich forces on ads by a ratio of 5 to 1 during the last three weeks. But dangers lurk. While traditional news organizations have been balanced or slightly favorable in their coverage of Mr. Romney, the GOP blogosphere has been decidedly negative on him all January, pointing to continuing unease among conservatives. It’s probably true that Romney hasn’t received much love from conservative bloggers. Search “Romney” on RedState, a leading conservative blog, and the top three results are: “Mitt Romney as the nominee: Conservatism dies and Barack Obama wins,” “The unelectable Romney” and “Not Romney.” But it’s decidedly not true that Romney has received “balanced or slightly favorable” coverage from “traditional news organizations.” A study published mid-January by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that Romney got the most negative coverage of any of the Republican candidates on the three network nightly news broadcasts and even Fox News’ “Special Report”: On the broadcast networks, evaluative comments of Romney were 78% negative vs. only 22% positive. By contrast, on-air judgments of Ron Paul were 73% positive vs. 27% negative, evaluations of Jon Huntsman were 71% positive vs. 29% negative, Rick Santorum ’s evaluations were 56% positive vs. 44% negative, and comments about Newt Gingrich were 52% positive vs. 48% negative. Other candidates received too few evaluations to be statistically meaningful. FOX Results Romney fared slightly better on FOX “Special Report”, than on the networks, with 63% negative vs. 37% positive evaluations. By contrast, Ron Paul fared less well than he did on the networks, with evenly balanced coverage — 50% negative and 50% positive comments. Rick Santorum did best on FOX with 63% positive vs. 37% negative judgments. These were the only candidates who received enough evaluations on FOX for meaningful analysis. This doesn’t take newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times into account. But come on. Let’s not kid ourselves.
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Wrong, Rove; news coverage of Romney not ‘slightly favorable’
From Monday’s drive time, “10 at 10″ from 1965 at The Sound LA : Get Off of My Cloud – Rolling Stones Gloria – Them In the Midnight Hour – Wilson Pickett Do You Believe in Magic – Lovin’ Spoonful The Kids are Alright – The Who Wooly Bully – Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs Set Me Free – The Kinks Like a Rolling Stone – Dylan For Your Love – Yardbirds You Won’t See Me – Beatles Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall” You thought they were all kidding you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hanging out Now you don’t talk so loud Now you don’t seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal How does it feel How does it feel To be without a home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely But you know you only used to get juiced in it And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street And now you find out you’re going to have to get used to it You said you’d never compromise With the mystery tramp, but now you realize He’s not selling any alibis As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes And ask him, “Do you want to make a deal?” How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns When they all come down and did tricks for you You never understood that it ain’t no good You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat Ain’t it hard when you discover that He really wasn’t where it’s at After he took from you everything he could steal How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They’re drinking, thinking that they got it made Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it, babe You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone?
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‘Like a Rolling Stone’
Markets closed down on Wall Street today: Dow -0.05 percent S&P -0.25 percent Nasdaq -0.16 percent Oil -0.59 percent Gold -0.21 percent On the commodities front: Oil ( NYSE:USO ) fell slightly to $98.97 a barrel Gold ( NYSE:GLD ) falling to $1,731.70 an ounce Silver ( NYSE:SLV ) fell 1.04 percent to settle at $33.44 (Related: The Decline and Fall of Print Media ) Today’s markets were down because: 1) Greece: Stocks slipped today as investors awaited news from a European summit in Brussels where leaders are expected to approve a permanent rescue fund for the euro zone and put the finishing touches on a so-called “fiscal compact” for stricter budget discipline. But discussions devolved into a sparring match between Greece and other nations critical of Greece’s half-hearted efforts to get its deficit under control. The country has yet to effect a debt writedown deal with private creditors needed if Greece’s troika of lenders — the European Union, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund – are to release its 130 billion-euro bailout now thought to be insufficient to buoy Greece’s flailing economy. 2) Spending: Consumer spending was completely flat in November, the Commerce Department reported this morning. Though spending rose 4.7 percent for the year, when adjusting for inflation, it fell 0.1 percent in the final month of 2011, breaking three months of gains and setting the tone for a slowdown in 2012. 3) Banks: Financial stocks were among the worst performers on Monday, with Bank of America ( NYSE:BAC ) the biggest decliner on the Dow, falling about 3 percent. Citigroup ( NYSE:C ), Wells Fargo ( NYSE:WFC ), Goldman Sachs ( NYSE:GS ), and Morgan Stanley ( NYSE:MS ) all declined between 1 percent and 2 percent. [ Editor’s note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet . ]
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Market Recap: Stocks Decline on Greek Crisis
In an article titled “ Rick Santorum for President ,” conservative authoress Michelle Malkin throws her support behind the former Pennsylvania senator. Malkin argues that Santorum would be the best choice for the GOP and she does this by citing his political record. However , lest she be written off as a shameless Santorum shill, she also makes sure to point out that like the other Republican candidates, he has some shortcomings. Malkin begins by highlighting Santorum’s conservative credentials: his opposition to TARP, the fact that he didn’t “cave when Chicken Littles in Washington invoked a manufactured crisis in 2008,” that he is not among the GOP nominees (i.e. Romney and Gingrich) who supported the bailouts and he didn’t have to “obfuscate or rationalize his position then or now, like Rick Perry and Herman Cain did.” Furthermore, Santorum “strongly opposed the auto bailout,” the Freddie and Fannie bailout, “porkulus” bills, and he “ clearly and forcefully ” opposed individual health care mandates. He also voted against cap and trade in 2003, voted “Yes” to drilling in ANWR, and, unlike some of the other GOP candidates, he never “dabbled with eco-radicals like John Holdren , Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi ,” as Malkin puts it. “Santorum is strong on border security , national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement,” Malkin writes, “Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values — not just in word, but in deed .” Another feather in his cap: unlike Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and the former Speaker of the House, Santorum hasn’t attacked Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital with, in the words of Malkin, “ contemptible Occupier rhetoric .” However, as mentioned in the above, Santorum also has some shortcomings. “As I’ve said all along, every election cycle is a Pageant of the Imperfects,” Malkin writes. Santorum “lost his Senate re-election bid in 2006, an abysmal year for conservatives” and he was a ” go-along, get-along Big Government Republican in the Bush era,” according to Malkin. “He supported No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit entitlement, steel tariffs, and earmarks and outraged us movement conservatives by endorsing RINO Arlen Specter over stalwart conservative Pat Toomey,” Malkin continues. “I have no illusions about Rick Santorum. I wish he were as rock-solid on core economic issues as Ron Paul,” she writes. So, why isn’t she writing an article titled “Ron Paul for President”? Because, according to Malkin, the Texas congressman is a “far-out, Alex Jones-panderer” on foreign policy, defense, and national security. Malkin writes: If Ron Paul talked more like his son, Rand Paul, about the need for common-sense profiling of jihadists at our State Department consular offices overseas and if he talked more about the need for strengthened visa screening and airport security scrutiny of international flight manifests, I might have more than a kernel of confidence that he would take post-9/11 precautions to guard against jihadi threats and protect us from our enemies foreign and domestic. But he doesn’t, so I can’t support Ron Paul. What about Mitt Romney? Mitt Romney has the backing of many solid conservatives whom I will always hold in high esteem — including Kansas Secretary of State and immigration enforcement stalwart Kris Kobach, former U.N. ambassacor John Bolton, and GOP Govs. Nikki Haley and Bob McDonnell. With such conservative advisers in his camp, Romney would be better than Obama. And a GOP Congress with a staunch Tea Party-backed contingent of fresh-blood leaders in the House and Senate will help keep any GOP president in line. Romney’s private-sector experience and achievements are the best things he’s got going. Only recently has he risen to defend himself effectively. But between his health care debacle, eco-nitwittery, and expedient and unconvincing political metamorphosis, Mitt Romney had way too much ideological baggage for me in 2008 to earn an endorsement — and it still hasn’t changed for me in 2012. Should we even ask what she thinks of Newt Gingrich? Then there’s Newt, who has long made a career out of trashing progressive Saul Alinsky while employing his tactics at every turn. I’ve been making this point for years and have chronicled his dalliances with leftists as long as anyone in the conservative blogosphere. Many grass-roots conservatives were awakened to Newt’s double-talk and double-dealing during the NY-23 race . Inconvenient truth: Newt’s transgressions are not from decades ago. It’s not ancient history. It’s here and now. Readers of this blog know the truth: It’s not just “the GOP establishment” that’s repulsed by Gingrich’s combination of moral baggage and K Street/Beltway culture of corruption. It’s the very grass-roots that Gingrich’s cheerleaders purport to represent. Lest we forget, this election is not about choosing a showboat candidate to run against John King or Juan Williams or Wolf Blitzer. It’s not about “raging against” some arbitrarily defined GOP “machine.” For many grass-roots conservatives across the country, Romney and Gingrich are the machine. Therefore, given that two of the four remaining GOP candidates are, in her eyes, part of “the machine,” and that she finds Paul’s stances on foreign policy and national security inadequate, this leaves her with one option: the former senator from Pennsylvania. “Rick Santorum represents the most conservative candidate still standing who can articulate both fiscal and social conservative values — and live them,” Malkin writes.
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Michelle Malkin: ‘Santorum for President’
The Wall Street Journal is visiting three swing counties in swing states—Florida, Ohio and Colorado—periodically this year to gauge how the election campaign is unfolding.
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Swing Nation
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