From the British Telegraph, which pretty regularly publishes pro-rightie views:

As the Republican presidential challenger accused Barack Obama of appeasing America’s enemies in his first foreign policy speech of the US general election campaign, advisers told The Daily Telegraph that he would abandon Mr Obama’s “Left-wing” coolness towards London.

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”.

May prompt accusations of racial insensitivity? And as a Celtic-American, I would add that some of us don’t identify as “Anglo-Saxons.”

Elsewhere, Romney watchers are calling his foreign policy ideas brilliant — if it were still 1956. See Mitt Romney still fighting cold war and Mitt Romney’s Overseas Trip Smacks of Cold War Nostalgia.

Seriously.

Late last week Mittens blabbed that he had met privately in San Francisco with the Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr. And in this private meeting, Carr had told him the rest of the world sees America in decline. When I read this, I remember thinking this is the last time a foreign leader would tell Mittens anything in confidence. But it turns out Carr probably didn’t say anything of the sort. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

So imagine Senator Carr’s surprise when he gets off the plane tomorrow to find out that Governor Romney has been using the meeting as political ammunition against his presidential rival.

According to the Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Carr also touched on America’s economic vulnerabilities during their chat.

“I met today with the Foreign Minister of Australia. He said something, and I said ‘Can I quote you?’ and he said yes. He said, ‘America is just one budget deal away from ending all talk of America being in decline,”’ Governor Romney told attendees at a fundraiser today.

”And this idea of America in decline, it was interesting [Carr] said that, he led the talk of America being in decline. See that’s not talk we hear about here as much as they’re hearing there. And if they’re thinking about investing in America, entrepreneurs putting their future in America, if they think America’s in decline they’re not gonna do it.”

The repeated comments can be seen as a not-so veiled attack on US President Barack Obama and his handling of the economy.

Carr says he said no such thing. Of course, Carr’s denials could be disingenuous. Maybe he said what Romney says he said, but didn’t expect the remarks to become public and is now walking the comment back to smooth over relations with this U.S. But now people who know something about Australian politics and Mr. Carr are saying there is no way Carr said what Mittens says he said.

In Australia, there is no political party as extreme as the modern GOP and Carr is a member of the Labor Party, which is the more left wing of our two party system and well to the left of the Democratic Party. He could never say so, but Bob Carr will be hoping for an Obama victory in November. Third, Carr is a seasoned and wily politician, who rarely uses words loosely. He was the longest serving Premier of NSW, our most populous state. He would have been very careful about what he said to Romney.

Like most Australians, he probably does think that America is in decline (not irreversibly, but the evidence is pretty clear), but there is no way he would say that to a conservative politician on US soil. His account of what he said to Romney is likely to be accurate. Finally, Carr knows more about US politics than most American politicians. I’m serious. He is a charter member of the Charles A Arthur Society. Carr did not blithely stumble into US domestic politics in the way Romney suggested.

Romney picked the wrong guy to use as a political pawn.

Except that Romney will no doubt work the “America is in decline” story into his stump speech, and will repeat it ad nauseum until the convention, because that’s the kind of guy he is — a serial liar.

But I’m going to toss out one other possibility, which is that Mitt is correctly describing what he heard Bob Carr say. That’s not to say Bob Carr said what Mittens said he said; it’s that Mittens hears what he wants to hear. Incoming data are scrambled to fit Mitt’s views as soon as they enter his brain.

So it’s entirely possible that Mittens took Bob Carr’s words and imposed his own opinions onto them, his primary opinion being that he, the Glorious Mittens, is all-wise and uniquely qualified to lead America out of whatever darkness he sees it in.

This leads us into the metaphysical question of whether Mittens is actually lying if he believes what he says to be true. Whatever. Either way, the thought of Mittens in the White House ought to scare the stuffing out of all of us.

Ouch, Penn State. They’d already pulled down Joe Paterno’s statue, which surprised me. Now I see the NCAA has hit them with a real penalty.

The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.

The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.

Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period. …

…The Penn State athletic program will also be put on five-year probation and must work with an athletic-integrity monitor of NCAA’s chosing.

More from the power corrupts, etc., department — Business Week has an eye-opening article on How the Mormons Make Money. A snip:

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are and that so little is known about its financial interests. Although a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and despite a recent public-relations campaign aimed at combating the perception that it is “secretive,” the LDS Church remains tight-lipped about its holdings. It offers little financial transparency even to its members, who are required to tithe 10 percent of their income to gain access to Mormon temples. …

… Mormons make up only 1.4 percent of the U.S. population, but the church’s holdings are vast. First among its for-profit enterprises is DMC, which reaps estimated annual revenue of $1.2 billion from six subsidiaries, according to the business information and analysis firm Hoover’s Company Records (DNB). Those subsidiaries run a newspaper, 11 radio stations, a TV station, a publishing and distribution company, a digital media company, a hospitality business, and an insurance business with assets worth $3.3 billion.

Hmm, vast wealth, little transparency or accountability, mixed up with religion. Is there anyone here who doesn’t think this will blow up into a mega-scandal someday?

Awhile back I read a book about the Mormons called Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer. It is gripping, and disturbing. All manner of whackjob religions and spiritualisms emerged in the late 19th century, for some reason, and Mormonism is but one example. But it’s the most successful one, possibly because it has evolved to become more acceptable to mainstream culture.

I’m not saying the Mormons are a menace to society, but even for a religion it’s a tad out of whack. The faithful are taught to be obedient and to keep the church’s secrets from outsiders, even if they have to lie. Mormonism rather than chicanery may be at the root of Mittens’s reluctance to reveal his tax returns. And that’s a recipe for internal corruption.

Until we learn more, I don’t want to say anything about the shooting in Colorado, except that it makes me very sad.

So let’s go on to better news. Campaigning in Florida yeterday, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney for his support of Paul Ryan’s budget and his plan to cut taxes for the rich even more than they’ve been cut already. Greg Sargent writes,

Ed Kilgore and Jonathan Chait note that this is the start of a new and important phase in the campaign, i.e., the battle over the Paul Ryan budget, which has become the blueprint for the GOP economic agenda and the larger set of values and priorities Republicans would bring to tax reform, entitlements, and balancing the budget.

Keep in mind: A focus group convened by the pro-Obama Priorities U.S.A. found that voters simply refused to believe that Romney or Ryan would really transform Medicare into a quasi-voucher program while also cutting taxes for the rich. This is what the assault on Romney’s Bain years is really about. It’s an effort to establish an image of Romney that will make it easier for voters to accept that this is indeed the agenda Romney has embraced and would carry out as president.

President O is a man who can play a long game, which is why I’m calling this good news. He is capable of tying the Mittens crew into so many knots they won’t be recognizable by the time they get to the convention.

But be sure to read “Nobody Takes Conservative Wingnuttery at Face Value” by Kevin Drum. Mittens can pile one lie on top of another and be believed — and news media usually gives him a pass — but the truth is so outrageous many won’t believe it.

The part about cutting marginal tax rates to benefit the wealthy is right on Mitt’s official web site. The socialists at CNNMoney explain that Mitt’s plan would add $3.4 trillion to the deficit. Mittens says vaguely that the cuts would be paid for by “curbs on personal tax deductions, exemptions and credits,” but he refuses to say what those would be and who would be hurt by the “curbs.”

Mitt’s plan for replacing “Obamacare” on his website are the usual little ineffective tweaks righties have been promoting for years — high-risk pools, reinsurance, risk adjustment, tort reform, etc. Basically, this approach could result in lower health insurance premiums for healthy people — for a while, anyway — but make it financially ruinous to get sick.

As for Paul Ryan’s absurd Medicare plan — again, it’s right on Mitt’s website — this is a quote —

Medicare is reformed as a premium support system, meaning that existing spending is repackaged as a fixed-amount benefit to each senior that he or she can use to purchase an insurance plan.

A voucher, in other words.

Eat it, Mittens.