Shot-Up Image of President Draws a Secret Service Inquiry
By MARC LACEY Published: January 26, 2012
PHOENIX — The Secret Service said Thursday that it was looking into a photograph posted on the Internet that showed a group of young Arizona men posing in the desert with guns while holding up what appeared to be a bullet-riddled image of President Obama’s face.
The photograph showed seven casually dressed young men, four of whom clutched weapons and one of whom held up a T-shirt covered with small holes and gashes and bearing a likeness of Mr. Obama above the word “HOPE.” The weapons held aloft appeared to be a revolver, a bolt-action rifle and two assault rifles.
“We’re aware of it, and we’re conducting the appropriate follow-up steps,” said Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman in Washington.
The photo, along with the remark “Another trip to the ranch,” was posted on Jan. 20 on the Facebook page of Sgt. Pat Shearer, a police officer in Peoria, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb. The image was removed from Sergeant Shearer’s page on Thursday afternoon shortly after inquiries about it to the Peoria Police Department. Sergeant Shearer, a decorated officer who was honored in 2007 for helping to save a driver trapped in a burning vehicle, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Jay A. Davies, a police spokesman, said in an e-mail that the department was conducting “an administrative investigation into any possible policy violations on the part of our employee.”
The photograph was also posted on the Facebook page of one of the young men holding a gun in the image. He was identified as a student at Peoria’s Centennial High School.
Danielle Airey, a spokeswoman for the Peoria Unified School District, said district officials were conducting an investigation and working to identify any students involved. “We will also wait to hear from local and federal authorities to cooperate with their investigations,” she said in an e-mail.
The Secret Service has an Internet Threat Desk that reviews online comments and images that raise potential threats to protected officials, especially the president. Mr. Obama made a brief visit to the Phoenix area on Wednesday.
“Individuals certainly have a right to free speech, but we certainly have a right to speak to individuals to see what their intent is,” Mr. Donovan said.
Secret Service investigates picture from Peoria Police Sergeant
By Lindsey Reiser Posted: Jan 27, 2012 12:02 AM CST Updated: Jan 27, 2012 12:06 AM CST
PEORIA, AZ (KPHO) - The Secret Service is now investigating a picture posted on a police officer's Facebook site and Peoria Police are investigating one of their own. This comes just one day after another memorable Arizona photograph went viral.
The picture in question was actually posted on Facebook a week ago, but it wasn't until one day after the infamous finger-pointing photo went viral that someone cried "foul" and the photograph was removed.
"We received information about a possible policy violation today involving one of our employees," Peoria Police spokesman Jay Davies said Thursday. The investigation stems around a picture posted on the Facebook account of Peoria Police Sergeant Patrick Shearer. It shows several young men in the desert carrying guns and holding up a T-shirt with President Obama's likeness on it that appears ridden with bullet holes.
"We were contacted by the Secret Service," Davies said. The Secret Service confirms they've launched an investigation surrounding the picture, which was posted last week but was taken down Thursday. Peoria police say Sergeant Shearer has been with the department at least 14 years and now is a patrol sergeant with the Northern Precinct.
"We have a social media policy that addresses employee conduct with respect of the use of social media," Davies said. While he added Shearer will remain on duty, Peoria Police are conducting their own investigation to determine if he violated their social media policy. The policy says, in part, "posting information regarding off-duty activity that may tend to bring an officer's reputation into question is strongly discouraged."
"We seek to maintain a positive image and ensure that we're always holding our employees to that standard," Davies said. We tried to contact Sergeant Shearer by calling him and visiting his home but we were not able to get ahold of him. His disciplinary history and list of commendations were not available for us Thursday night. If it is determined that an employee has violated the social media policy, discipline for that violation varies depending on the situation, Davies told us.
Romney's tax returns have dug up controversial issues lobbyists have worked on for years. AP Photo
By ANNA PALMER | 1/25/12 2:18 PM EST
K Street defenders of tax perks for the wealthy weren’t looking for a poster child, but they’re stuck with one: Mitt Romney.
The release of his tax returns [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71815.html ] Tuesday put a private equity baron’s face on some of the issues lobbyists have worked on behind closed doors for years: the 15 percent capital gains tax, taxes on carried interest, and write offs.
“The focus Romney has put on these issues and the awkward inarticulate way he’s managed this makes it much more difficult for those lobbyists to do their job,” Democratic consultant Paul Equale said. “Now all of that stuff is out of the shadows and might be much more difficult to make a coherent, policy based case for it, especially because it is now the central issue in the Republican primary campaign.”
The atmosphere for the champions of the one percent was already tough this year. And the emergence of a new anti-hero just makes matters worse ahead of looming battles on Capitol Hill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and a broader fight over tax reform expected in 2013.
One area that could take a hit in the tax debate is the family trust. Romney’s taxes [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71886.html ], which follow all the rules, are an unwelcome reminder that the wealthiest people in the country can set up trusts for their children for tens of millions of dollars, without having to pay taxes on them. Romney and his wife set up $100 million trust funds for their sons.
“I’m not sure people fully appreciate the huge differential between taxation of earned and unearned income and now they are going to understand it,” one Democratic tax lobbyist said. “I’m not sure people are going to think that’s fair.”
Tax lobbyists said the bright light is particularly rough for private equity firms, who are also expected to come under fire this year as Congress looks for new revenue raisers.
The GOP presidential candidate’s bumbling response to attacks on his former firm Bain Capital [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71344.html ] and more recent mishandling of releasing his tax returns—which show he paid the government less than 14 percent in taxes on $21.7 million in income last year because it came from investments rather than a salary— has been downright awful for the industry.
The increased scrutiny has caused concern among hedge funds and private equity execs as the issues continue to be front-and-center in the GOP primary.
And under attack, Romney hasn’t helped their cause.
In one debate, Romney complained [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71795.html ] that it was “strange, on a stage like this with Republicans, having to describe how private equity and venture capital work.”
His awkward responses haven’t been lost on the industry he once represented.
“I think there was obviously some hope that he would be a more effective messenger, provide a more coherent response. That has clearly not been the case at least over the last couple of weeks,” one private equity industry executive said.
Instead, the messaging has been left to the industry’s trade association, the Private Equity Growth Council. Titans of the industry have largely kept mum — in some cases probably to their benefit as another multi-millionaire is hardly a sympathetic face. The ramp up, which was already in the works, is starting earlier despite Bain Capital, the firm Romney started no longer being a member.
Private equity firms have long fought proposed hikes to the tax rates for firms that go public and proposals that would increase the taxes on carried interest, the percentage that private equity firms or other partnerships receive following profitable deals.
“The objective of the Council going forward is to aggressively educate key audiences about the important contribution private equity makes to our economy and defend the industry against mischaracterizations and attacks, “PEGC’s Ken Spain said. “As the 2012 campaign continues to ramp up so will our efforts.”
PEGC has been helped by the backlash among conservatives against Gingrich and then-presidential candidate Rick Perry when they tried to bash Romney as a so-called vulture capitalist.
Despite the heat, tax lobbyists aren’t predicting a major legislative push against the industry before the end of the year.
“The reality is this isn’t going to move the needle one way, or another,” Ken Kies of Federal Policy Group. “[Tax reform] is not going to get done earlier than the election.”
Still, Democrats aren’t planning to let the issue go. President Barack Obama is expected to make income inequality and differences in the tax code a central theme of his campaign. Case in point: Debbie Bosanek, secretary for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, sat with first lady Michelle Obama during the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Bosanek has been the go-to face for Obama’s push for tax reform that includes raising the taxes on people making more than $1 million a year to at least 30 percent.
“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes?” Obama said to Congress. “Most Americans would call that common sense.”
Romney tried to pivot in the NBC Florida debate Monday saying, “The real question is not so much my taxes, but the taxes of the American people. That’s why I put forward a plan to eliminate the tax on savings for middle-income Americans.”
He continued: “But I paid all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. … I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.”
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to Congress on January 24 in Washington. (Photo: Brendan Hoffman / The New York Times)
by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. Thursday 9 February 2012
The criterion, according to Politifact, seems to be that a fact isn’t a fact if it helps a Democratic narrative. In his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, President Obama said: “In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.”
Which is just true. Period. But Politifact initially rated it as only “half true” because he was “essentially taking credit for job growth.” He didn’t actually take credit — and even if he had, a fact is still a fact. I do not think that word means what Politifact thinks it means.
Finding the Truth
A commenter asks a good question: Where do you go to check whether a politician’s statement is actually true?
The answer, unfortunately, is that it depends on what the statement is about. Most economic numbers can be fact-checked by going to official data sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and quite a few of these official numbers are readily available at the excellent F.R.E.D. database from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. But the broader answer is that you have to know where to look.
Now, the point of Politifact and other fact-check sites is supposed to be that they do this work for readers, so that you don’t have to learn your way around labor-force or trade or crime or whatever statistics every time you have doubts about a political claim.
Unfortunately, Politifact has lost sight of what it is supposed to be doing. Instead of simply saying whether a claim is true, it’s trying to act as some kind of referee of what it imagines to be fair play: even if a politician says something completely true, it gets ruled only partly true if Politifact feels that the fact is being used to gain an unfair political advantage.
In the case of Mr. Obama’s job statement, Politifact first called it only half true, then later upgraded that to mostly true, not because Mr. Obama said anything factually incorrect, but because Politifact perceived Mr. Obama as trying to imply that he was responsible for the gains.
This is deeply wrong on two levels. First, fact-checking should be about checking facts — not about trying to impose some sort of Marquess of Queensbury rules on how you’re allowed to use facts.
Aside from undermining the mission, this makes the whole thing subjective — notice that Politifact wasn’t even analyzing what Mr. Obama said; they were analyzing their impression about what he might have been trying to imply. Leave that for the talking heads!
Second, in practice this turns into a partisan affair. The simple fact is that in today’s American political scene, Republicans make a lot more factual howlers than Democrats. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
Yet Politifact wants to be seen as nonpartisan. If it just stuck to the facts, it could say look, we’re just reporting the facts. But having defined its role as something that goes beyond checking facts to saying whether the facts are being used in some “proper” way, it then finds itself under pressure to be “evenhanded,” which ends up meaning making excuses for Republican falsehoods and finding ways to criticize Democrats’ true statements.
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