Detroit Tigers outfielder Delmon Young was arrested in front of a hotel on Sixth Avenue in New York City this morning for allegedly assaulting a man while shouting anti-Semitic slurs and has been charged with an aggravated harassment hate crime, a misdemeanor. Young, 26, was apparently intoxicated at the time of the incident. The Tigers are in New York to play a three game series against the Yankees starting tonight. As of this writing, the Tigers nor MLB have taken any disciplinary action against Young. However, I would be shocked if Young were in the lineup tonight especially in front of a crowd with more than its share of Jewish fans. This isn’t the first time Young’s temper has got the better of him. In April 2006 (in fact, it was six years ago yesterday), when Young was playing with the Durham Bulls (the Triple A team for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as they were then known), he was suspended for 50 games for throwing his bat at a the home plate umpire after being ejected for arguing balls and strikes after he was called on out strikes during a game against the Pawtucket Red Sox. Young was brought up to the bigs later that season and had his first full season with the Devil Rays in 2007. Despite finishing runner up in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting behind Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox, the rechristened Rays dealt Young along with infielder Brendan Harris and outfielder Jason Pridie to the Minnesota Twins for pitcher Matt Garza and infielder Jason Bartlett. Garza and Bartlett, of course, were key members of the Rays’ 2008 AL championship team. After adequate seasons in 2008 and 2009, Young had a breakout season with the Twins in 2010 hitting .298 with 21 homeruns and 112 RBI finishing 10th in the AL MVP balloting . However, Young (along with almost every other Twin) took a step back in 2011. Last August, the Twins dealt Young to the Detroit Tigers for minor league pitcher Cole Nelson. Young helped the Tigers win the AL Central and played well in the post-season. However, Phil Mackey, an ESPN reporter based in the Twin Cities, was relieved the Twins had dealt him because he and his fellow reporters never knew what they were going to get with Young. Mackey summed up Young this way, “Sometimes surly. Sometimes charming and engaging.” Well, it would appear that
Three days before federal income taxes were due, President Barack Obama declared that tax increases can grow the economy. “Now, this is not just about fairness. This is also about growth,” Obama said in his weekly radio address . “It’s about being able to make the investments we need to strengthen our economy and create jobs.” In other words, if taxpayers — and potential job creators — pay more taxes we can afford more Solyndras. Such boondoggles will create jobs, at least until they go belly up and lay everyone off. There is a word for an economic strategy of taxing some millionaires to give government loans to other millionaires. It can be found in the title of a new book by Grover Norquist and John Lott: Debacle . Naturally, the president vowed to raise only a small number of very wealthy people’s taxes. His current gimmick is the “Buffett Rule,” which assumes that super-rich Warren Buffett pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary and that this is normal under the current tax code. It might be more accurately described as the “Buffet Rule,” as it advertises all the entitlements the middle class can eat at low tax rates. Think of the Golden Corral commerical where a family seeks steak, endless fried shrimp, and a vast salad bar and then stipulates a low $10 price. Only one restaraunt remains a viable choice as its higher-priced competitors are pushed offscreen. Obama wants voters to believe he can offer universal health insurance coverage, fully funded Medicare and Social Security, and an all-you-can-eat salad bar of green jobs at a 10 percent middle-class tax rate. Mitt Romney can’t offer that bargain. The difference is that Golden Corral isn’t keeping its prices low by adding a surcharge to bills of families dining at Morton’s. More importantly, buffets can actually offer cheap salad and fried shrimp. Obama’s tax increase won’t pay for all the government he promises. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Buffett Rule would raise only $47 billion in ten years. The tax hike could fund about seven days of federal spending. Smarter liberal wonks have pointed out that this baseline assumes the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Keep the current tax rates and the Buffett minimum tax will raise somewhat more money. Return to the Clinton-era tax rates, Brian Beutler writes, and the “$47 billion would come on top of a flood of new revenue that would swiftly fill the country’s budget hole.” That flood is a $4 trillion tax increase that also soaks the middle class. Turn off the middle-class spigots by letting only the tax cuts for the wealthy expire and the Buffett flood starts to slow to a trickle. Now it may be that once safely reelected, Obama will let all of the Bush tax cuts lapse and then blame congressional Republicans for not sending him a bill that preserved them only for the middle class out of their slavish loyalty to the rich. Some observers think he’ll do just that . Taken at face value, the president’s fiscal policy makes little sense. The president wants the country to believe he can protect middle-class entitlements, along with other domestic spending priorities, without raising middle-class taxes. However much the wealthy exploit tax loopholes, the numbers suggest otherwise. In his book about the Reagan economic recovery, The Seven Fat Years , the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley tells a story of how the country came to adopt the alternative minimum tax. In early 1969, Treasury Secretary Joseph Barr (an LBJ appointee) told Congress that 21 millionaires had paid no federal income taxes two years before as did 115 other tax filers reporting income in excess of $200,000. To pursue those Bartley called “Joe Barr’s millionaires,” Congress concocted various minimum tax schemes. Eventually, the alternative minimum tax ensnared millions of taxpayers, not just 21 rich scofflaws. According to one estimate, 27 percent of those who paid the AMT in 2008 earned less than $200,000 a year. It takes direct congressional intervention to prevent the tax from hitting 20 million more taxpayers, mostly residing in blue state suburbs. Think the Buffett Rule will turn out differently? As you wave goodbye to your 2011 tax dollars, consider: Obama is campaigning on the idea that only Paul Ryan’s budget plan requires middle-class sacrifice. If the voters knew the benefits he pledges to protect will be paid for by their own tax dollars going to Washington, some of them would surely opt to cut out the middle man.
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The Buffet Rule
What a delight to have the manifold pleasures of the Grand Old Game back again. And in its regular-season, now-the-games-count variety. It only seems like a year and a half since that great Cardinal/Rangers World Series last October. Spring training exhibition games are welcome after months of games that aren’t baseball. But they aren’t the real deal. Pitchers are just getting their work in and trying new pitches. Managers are getting a look at minor leaguers, many of whom will start the season in A-ball and end it at their father-in-law’s hardware store in Keokuk. When the guy playing first base is wearing uniform number 106 ½, you know he isn’t going to make the big club. No one cares who wins the spring games. I sometimes wonder why they keep score. Thanks to an accumulation of years and a dickey back, I’ve reached the point in my athletic career that I call Couch-22. With apologies to King Lear, I now confer all athletic exertions on younger strengths. Considering my athletic skills even in my youth, I probably should have traded my cleats in for a couch decades ago. Quoting from memory the self-evaluation of Chicago writer Joe Epstein (a very savvy baseball guy as well as an engaging writer): “I was a pretty good athlete — for a writer.” This First Weekend featured the things that keep baseball fans coming back to their game year after year. Great defensive plays. Clutch hits. And some dominating pitching performances. Justin Verlander of the Tigers is a force of nature, and one of the reasons September seems to be continuing in Red Sox Nation. Kyle Lohse of the Cardinals, using finesse rather than Verlander power, spoiled the opening of the Miami Marlins’ new Tax-Payer Stadium. While we’re on the Marlins, am I the only one who thinks their new home uniforms look like a bad trip in Margaritaville? But the biggest magic last weekend, featuring some of the electrifying moments baseball fans live for, took place at the Trop in St. Petersburg. And not just because the Tampa Bay Rays swept the Evil Empire, though I’ll take this anytime I can get it. It’s appropriate that Carlos Pena plays for the Tampa Bay Rays. He’s a ray of sunshine. Always smiling, always positive, humble. Miss Congeniality with power. He’s the most popular player in Rays history. Even the Grinch who stole Christmas likes this guy. Of course it’s not just Carlos’s Welcome Wagon personality that makes him so popular in the Trop and across the Tampa Bay Area. He holds a host of Rays offensive records: Career home runs at 146, single season home runs at 46 (2007). He not only drives in runs but he prevents opposing ones as well. He’s one of the slickest fielding first basemen in the bigs. There was no joy around Tampa Bay in 2011 when in a salary dump the Rays did not re-sign Pena, who spent a year with the Cubs. But the numbers worked out for him to return, and he got a huge welcome from his many admirers when he was introduced before the Rays’ Opening Day game. Just minutes later, after the Yankees had failed to score in their half of the first and the Rays had loaded the bases in theirs, Pena parked a 3-1, CC Sabathia fastball in the right field stands for a grand slam while a full house in the Trop alternately whooped and swooned. This was a triumph of Rays fans’ hope and Pena’s grit over expectation. Before this at bat Pena was 4 for 35 against Sabathia. This Frank Capra moment would have been enough for a day’s work. But Pena wasn’t through. With the score tied 6-6 in the bottom of the ninth, Pena drove home the winner with a shot over Yankee center fielder Curtis Granderson’s head. This blast came against a very mortal looking Mariano Rivera, off of whom Pena had never before had a base hit. Who says you can’t come home again? Pena’s Opening Day performance was so dramatic it took attention away from the fact that Rays slugger Evan Longoria reached base five times, including a solo homerun. The Rays took the next two, with Pena contributing a home run and a double Sunday, supporting a remarkable pitching performance by Jeremy Hellickson. Joy is unconfined in Mudville. Of course there were many more important things to contemplate on Holy Weekend. But for many of us baseball is a blessing. And we can forgive those in the Tampa Bay Area, pious or heathen, who believe, after this weekend’s festivities, that Carlos Pena is too. Welcome back Carlos. Welcome back baseball. Almost 160 games left, then the playoffs. Life is good.
I’ve previously looked in detail at the breakdown of GOP primary votes here , here and here ; for purposes of this series, I’ve broken out the votes in three groups – the five conservative candidates (Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann and Cain), the two moderate candidates (Romney and Hunstman) and the libertarian (Paul) – for reasons explained in the first post . In my second post , I detailed the signs to look for to see whether and when Romney would start putting the race away with the voters rather than simply plodding through the accumulation of delegates. After the March 24 vote in Louisiana and Tuesday’s votes in Wisconsin, Maryland and DC, we can see the signs of that momentum shift, but only slightly, with stubborn resistance to Romney still continuing. Not-unrelatedly, we can see the collapse of Newt Gingrich’s campaign to levels even lower than he was getting in February, the last time he went a month without being on the ballot in any Southern state (recall that Newt was not on the Missouri ballot). Let’s start with the month-by-month running tally: Candidate JANUARY % FEBRUARY % MARCH % APRIL % Romney 1,071,678 40.5% 741,495 40.6% 2,181,105 37.6% 466,928 45.4% Santorum 378,995 14.3% 692,296 37.9% 1,748,498 30.1% 358,668 34.9% Gingrich 817,770 30.9% 160,360 8.8% 1,219,154 21.0% 72,509 7.0% Paul 278,729 10.5% 215,023 11.8% 578,435 10.0% 111,129 10.8% Huntsman 50,049 1.9% 2,817 0.2% 15,387 0.3% 6,851 0.7% Perry 23,592 0.9% 6,293 0.3% 23,581 0.4% 1,041 0.1% Bachmann 10,856 0.4% 3,480 0.2% 8,688 0.1% 6,054 0.6% Cain 10,046 0.4% 3,555 0.2% 39 0.0% – 0.0% Rest 4,742 0.2% 1,528 0.1% 29,142 0.5% 5,416 0.5% Conservatives 1,241,259 46.9% 865,984 47.4% 2,999,960 51.7% 438,272 42.6% Moderates 1,121,727 42.4% 744,312 40.7% 2,196,492 37.8% 473,779 46.1% Libertarians 278,729 10.5% 215,023 11.8% 578,435 10.0% 111,129 10.8% TOTAL 2,646,457 1,826,847 5,804,029 1,028,596 This looks like a significant shift to Romney after the deterioration of his numbers in March, but as with his rough showing in March, you have to bear in mind the calendar: all three primaries on Tuesday were in blue territory (deep blue in the case of Maryland and DC, plus Santorum wasn’t on the ballot in DC, whereas Wisconsin has been much more favorable lately to Republicans, with Tea Party-backed Republicans Ron Johnson and Scott Walker winning statewide in 2010). The real dynamic remains mostly the same, with Romney’s supporters and opponents just not evenly distributed geographically. Let’s update the red/blue/purple numbers, previously broken out here, again excluding Virginia because none of the conservatives were on the ballot : Candidate RED % PURPLE % BLUE % Romney 1,273,119 30.0% 1,399,566 41.8% 1,630,401 46.7% Santorum 1,270,691 30.0% 752,636 22.5% 1,155,130 33.1% Gingrich 1,260,389 29.7% 764,660 22.9% 244,744 7.0% Paul 357,218 8.4% 325,541 9.7% 392,965 11.3% Huntsman 7,706 0.2% 55,362 1.7% 12,036 0.3% Perry 15,892 0.4% 28,595 0.9% 10,020 0.3% Bachmann 9,959 0.2% 10,390 0.3% 8,729 0.3% Cain 8,677 0.2% 3,722 0.1% 1,241 0.0% Rest 34,938 0.8% 4,600 0.1% 33,427 1.0% Conservatives 2,565,608 60.5% 1,560,003 46.6% 1,419,864 40.7% Moderates 1,280,825 30.2% 1,454,928 43.5% 1,642,437 47.1% Libertarians 357,218 8.4% 325,541 9.7% 392,965 11.3% TOTAL 4,238,589 3,345,072 3,488,693 As you can see, the vote totals for April are actually slightly more favorable to the conservatives in general, and less favorable to Romney, than the overall blue-state numbers. That’s not to say that Romney underperformed, per se; Santorum had been leading him in Wisconsin until the campaign and its related advertising blitz started there in earnest after Louisiana, and while Romney had won narrow primary victories in Michigan and Ohio, Santorum had previously won caucuses in Minnesota and Iowa. So, Wisconsin was far from a natural gimme for Romney, and his win there – while hardly overwhelming, with he and Huntsman still combining for less than 45% of the vote – can’t be ascribed solely to being on blue turf. Sean Trende went in more demographic detail the day before the vote to explain why Wisconsin could be a sign of momentum shift . On the other hand, Romney was unable to muster a majority in deep-blue Maryland, where John McCain won almost 55% of the vote against Mike Huckabee on February 12, 2008 ; McCain also won almost 55% a week later in Wisconsin . Thus, the break to Romney is happening at the margins, and is not yet the stampede that McCain was enjoying by mid-February in 2008, when a smaller bloc of social conservative voters were holding out for Mike Huckabee (McCain would go on to win majorities in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island on March 4 before Huckabee dropped out). The sense that Romney is winning over the objections of a majority of the party’s voters will not be dispelled any time soon; the best he can hope for is a determined resignation to put the primary slog out of its misery and move on to the general election. The collapse of the Newt campaign may also be overstated somewhat here (he’s been getting clobbered in the blue states all year), but there really seems to be no life left in Newt’s cash-strapped operation besides protest votes (full disclosure: I cast a vote yesterday for Newt by absentee for New York’s April 24 primary, purely as a protest; I might have voted for Perry if he’d been on the ballot). Amusing, neither-here-nor-there detail: with Perry and Cain not on the ballot, Michele Bachmann actually drew more votes in Wisconsin than she has in any other state, 8 more than she got in Iowa. Finally, let’s update the state-by-state tally – Virginia and DC are marked with asterisks because of the absence of major candidates from the ballot, Guam and American Samoa are excluded because I couldn’t find popular vote totals: STATE (Date) Category Type Conservatives Moderates Libertarians GA 3/6 RED Primary 67.1% 26.1% 6.6% KS 3/10 RED Caucus 65.9% 21.1% 12.6% LA 3/24 RED Primary 65.7% 26.8% 6.1% MS 3/13 RED Primary 65.0% 30.5% 4.4% AL 3/13 RED Primary 64.4% 29.2% 5.0% OK 3/6 RED Primary 62.1% 28.3% 9.6% TN 3/6 RED Primary 61.8% 28.3% 9.0% SC 1/21 RED Primary 58.9% 28.0% 13.0% MO 2/7 RED Primary* 57.7% 25.8% 12.2% MN 2/7 BLUE Caucus 55.7% 16.9% 27.2% IA 1/3 PURPLE Caucus 53.2% 25.1% 21.4% CO 2/7 PURPLE Caucus 53.2% 34.9% 11.8% OH 3/6 PURPLE Primary 52.3% 38.5% 9.2% ND 3/6 RED Caucus 48.2% 23.7% 28.1% FL 1/31 PURPLE Primary 46.1% 46.8% 7.0% MI 2/28 BLUE Primary 44.9% 41.3% 11.6% IL 3/20 BLUE Primary 43.6% 46.7% 9.3% WI 4/3 BLUE Primary 43.5% 44.8% 11.2% AK 3/6 RED Caucus 43.4% 32.5% 24.1% AZ 2/28 RED Primary 43.2% 47.3% 8.4% MD 4/3 BLUE Primary 40.2% 49.8% 9.5% WY 2/29 RED Caucus 39.9% 39.2% 20.9% HI 3/13 BLUE Caucus 36.3% 45.4% 18.3% WA 3/3 BLUE Caucus 34.1% 37.6% 24.8% VT 3/6 BLUE Primary 32.8% 41.7% 25.5% NV 2/4 PURPLE Caucus 31.1% 50.1% 18.8% ME 2/11 BLUE Caucus 24.7% 38.0% 36.1% ID 3/6 RED Caucus 20.3% 61.6% 18.1% NH 1/10 PURPLE Primary 19.8% 56.1% 22.9% MA 3/6 BLUE Primary 17.3% 73.1% 9.6% DC 4/3 BLUE Primary* 10.7% 77.2% 12.0% PR 3/18 Terr Primary 10.7% 88.0% 1.3% USVI 3/10 Terr Caucus 10.7% 26.3% 29.2% NMI 3/10 Terr Caucus 9.6% 87.3% 3.2% VA 3/6 PURPLE Primary* 0.0% 59.5% 40.5% It’s nearly three weeks until the next set of primaries on April 24, all in the deep-blue Northeast (New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware) except for blue Northeast/Midwest hybrid Pennsylvania, where Santorum – as the hometown favorite son – looks to make his last stand. Santorum trails badly in the polls in all of them besides Pennsylvania, where the polls are moving against him . The others should be be easy wins for Romney even without a momentum shift, but if Santorum loses Pennsylvania, it should convince Santorum – and Gingrich, who should have already – to throw in the towel and admit that, whether the voters like it or not, Mitt Romney is the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.
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The Momentum Finally Shifts, Slightly, To Romney
The computer systems of a major credit card payment processing company called Global Payments have been hacked, reportedly compromising information on up to 1.5 million credit card account numbers. Two of my credit cards (one MasterCard and one American Express) are among the numbers stolen, as proven by Amex and Citibank calling me to verify charges on my cards (2 through Yahoo, 1 to Google AdWords, and 1 to EasyJet) which I did not make. Those cards have been canceled. I’m impressed by and grateful for how seriously and effectively the card companies and banks work to prevent fraudulent charges. Although 1.5 million represents less than one percent of the total number of debit and credit cards issued to United States cardholders, don’t assume that your data is safe. I encourage you to get online if you can to check activity on your credit cards and make sure the charges you see are valid, and keep checking for a few weeks. If you can’t or don’t check your activity online, make sure to check your statement very carefully when it arrives. Generally, you will not be liable for charges you didn’t make, though if you wait a long time to report the charge to your card company, your risk of being stuck with the charge may increase. One of the disturbing aspects of this story is that the public was only notified of this hack at the end of March (on Friday). The company became aware of the data breach in early March, and the breach itself apparently lasted for more than a month, from January 21, 2012 to February 25, 2012, according to the Krebson Security blog which has a good timeline of the release of information. However, the company claims that they discovered and reported the breach themselves; it was not found or reported first by customers or banks. They also say that they reported the breach to federal law enforcement immediately upon discovery in early March. Perhaps law enforcement asked the company not to disclose the breach to the public in order to try to make their initial investigations easier by not alerting the criminals to the fact that the data theft had been discovered. Visa has dropped Global Payments from their list of approved providers. Global Payments held a conference call on Monday morning to discuss the issue (as well as their earnings report.) The company has posted a webcast of the call. They claim that only “Track 2″ data (relating to the tracks on the magnetic stripes on the backs of credit cards) was taken, and that other key information, including Social Security numbers, names, and addresses were not stolen. According to the Chicago Tribune , “A person improperly using Track 2 information can transfer the account number and expiration date of a card to a magnetic stripe on a fraudulent card and then try to use it to make online purchases. The attempt could be blocked, however, if an online merchant asks for the CVV code, or the three or four digits usually located on the back of card.” If Track 1 data was also taken, which is possible, that would include the cardholder’s name. It was disappointing to hear the company say that they were unaware of any fraudulent transactions on any of the stolen accounts. Perhaps someone at the company will read this blog note and change their answer… The company is also launching a web site to update the public with information on the data breach. It should be operational later today at http://www.2012infosecurityupdate.com/ Global Payments stock (NYSE: GPN ) plunged from $52 to $47.50 per share on Friday, and is down about another $1.50 to just below $46 in early trading on Monday.
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1.5 Million Credit Card Numbers Stolen
