Mitt Romney’s alleged prep school bullying may hurt his campaign. Sheriff Joe Arpaio responds to being sued by DOJ. The world’s most powerful and secretive company. Larry is joined by KPCC film critics Tim Cogshell and Henry Sheehan to discuss this week’s new films, including Dark Shadows, God Bless America, Girl in Progress, The Road and more. TGI-FilmWeek! The force behind film prices.
Mitt Romney’s alleged prep school bullying may hurt his campaign
Mitt Romney is the presumed Republican presidential nominee. He’s considered to be a hard working, determined businessman and a tireless politician whose people skills are slightly on the stiff and aloof side. But no one has accused him of being a bully -– until now.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that when Romney was at an all-boys prep school in the mid 1960s he led a “posse” of students in an attack on a soft-spoken student who was perpetually teased for his “nonconformity and presumed homosexuality.” According to Post reporter Jason Horowitz, the student, John Lauber, had “bleached-blond hair draped over one eye” and Romney and his friends grabbed him one day, held him down while young Mitt hacked off his hair.
Caller Frank from San Clemente, Calif. says he was at Cranbrook School the same time Romney was a student. He says the incident may not have had anything to do with Lauber's sexual orientation, instead it may have been because of the length of Lauber's hair.
"I don't think it had anything to do with Lauber being gay, that was right at the time when kids were starting wearing longer hair and the upper classmen didn't like it," said Frank during the show. "There were several cases where they cut younger kids, or other kids hair that were growing long so that's what it was all about. I don't think it was really a big issue at all."
In a statement to the Post, campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul said “anyone who knows Mitt Romney knows that he doesn’t have a mean-spirited bone in his body. The stories of fifty years ago seem exaggerated and off base and Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents.”
But even if these incidents seem “off base” now what were they inspired by then? Does it matter what politicians did 50 years ago? Can we extrapolate something important about someone’s character from an incident that happened during adolescence and should we judge the current Romney by these acts of teenage bullying?
Also, an anti-gay bullying story involving one presidential candidate comes out the day after his opponent comes out in support of gay marriage, meanwhile the Huffington Post reports the Washington Post held the Romney story back from their print edition. Is there anything to the timing?
ATTENTION: We are looking for the caller Frank from San Clemente who called into the show today. If you are Frank, please email Airtalk@scpr.org or call KPCC at (626) 583-5100 and ask to be transferred to an AirTalk producer
Sheriff Joe Arpaio responds to being sued by DOJ
The United States Department of Justice is suing controversial Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. According to the DOJ’s civil complaint filed yesterday, Arpaio’s department routinely violates the civil rights of citizens in Maricopa County and discriminates against Latinos within the community.
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, Thomas E. Perez, read the complaint at a press conference yesterday. "If you look Latino, the complaint alleges, you are all too frequently fair game," he read.
The complaint alleges that Spanish-speaking prisoners with limited English skills were forced to sign key legal documents only printed in English, forfeiting or potentially forfeiting key rights. It also accuses the sheriff of retaliating against anyone who speaks out against him, and says that his officers have used derogatory names to refer to Latinos.
Perez also detailed how the DOJ has attempted to work with Arpaio’s department to fix the alleged problems within it, only to be denied access by the sheriff. For his part, Sheriff Joe, as he’s known, says his department is just enforcing the laws of the land and he absolutely will not stand for independent monitors taking over his office. He added that they've been in negotiations for about three years now.
"Well, I'm a little dismayed that they did it now, it's been going on for three years under the Obama administration, and now they, once again, had their big press conference, like they did in December, trying to accuse me and my office of racial profiling," he said. "They want to take over my office with monitors. That's not going to happen. I'm going to fight this to the bitter end."
Arpaio said the Justice Department is overreaching because they want to monitor his organization.
"They want to put the Department of Justice people in my office, where I even have to clear investigations, and they're going to be running my office, regardless of what they say," he continued.
According to Arpaio, being targeted by the federal government is strictly a political move.
"I'm not concerned. We train our people all the time – in fact, the federal government trained 100 or 200 of my deputies, and gave them authority to enforce the immigration laws," he explained. "We have a great organization, but they don't like me enforcing the illegal immigration laws and they're trying to use me as the poster guy to send a message across the country that the president and the attorney general holder, who's under fire too, are doing something to defend the Latino community."
Arpaio denied any alleged stories and complaints that have surfaced about Latino mistreatment.
"Well why don't they give us the facts? Give us the proof. All they do is talk and take the word of a few people," he said. "Even if it happened, that doesn't mean my whole organization is racist and we racial profile, because there's some isolated incidents. That's ridiculous. They won't give us information."
He said he can only think of two or three deputies who have been disciplined for racial bias. "We arrest anybody. It doesn't matter if you're Latino or anyone else."
Arpaio remains confident about the integrity of his deputy force, and said he is willing to continue negotiations to get the problem resolved.
"My deputies are well-trained, they're professional," he said. "I'm defending my office against those vicious, vicious allegations by the justice department, who's connected with all the activists here, working in conjunction with them and the ACLU, trying to get this sheriff to resign. That's not going to happen. ... I always said that we're willing to negotiate and work together. I'm a former federal, top law enforcement official with the Justice Department, and I would like to get this resolved," he concluded.
What will the outcome of the suit be? Does this spell the end for a powerful, popular but extremely controversial sheriff?
GUEST
Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Sheriff
The world’s most powerful and secretive company
In “Private Empire,” Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Steve Coll spells out how ExxonMobil uses its money and influence to wield power in Washington, D.C. and especially how this was done during the Bush administration.
ExxonMobile is a global entity that exercises influence over every part of the world where it pumps oil and gas or sells it. Coll interviewed over 450 current and former ExxonMobile executives, lobbyists, diplomats, scientists, intelligence officers and analysts to paint a comprehensive portrait of one of the most powerful businesses American capitalism has ever produced.
For instance, Coll goes to great lengths to point out that the “clichéd idea that Exxon-Mobil was just an instrument of the Bush administration’s foreign policy—a kind of extension of the American government during the Bush years----is just wrong.” In fact, Coll posits that that company is anything but subservient to any national entity, as ExxonMobil brass “see themselves—ExxonMobil—as an independent sovereign nation with their own foreign policy.”
Sometimes these two policies are in sync, but ExxonMobil has been at odds with the U.S. government as well. The company funded outsider campaigns to challenge global warming studies which showed an existing trend. They did this not only to combat legislation, but to muddle the public’s perception of global warming as well.
How was one company able to grow so large? How much power does ExxonMobil exert? In what other countries has ExxonMobil acted like a sovereign nation? Does this power need to be curbed? Can it?
Guest:
Steve Coll, author of Private Empire: ExxonMobile and American Power (The Penguin Press). Coll is the president of the New America Foundation. Steven Coll’s previous books include “The Bin Ladens” and “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001”
FilmWeek: Dark Shadows, God Bless America, Girl in Progress, The Road and more
Larry is joined by KPCC film critics Tim Cogshell and Claudia Puig to discuss this week’s new films, including:
Dark Shadows,
God Bless America (explicit language),
Girl in Progress,
The Road,
and more. TGI-FilmWeek!
GUESTS
Tim Cogshell, film critic for KPCC and Box Office Magazine
Claudia Puig, film critic for KPCC and USA Today
The forces behind film prices
You wouldn't pay the same price to fly in mediocre economy class as you would for the privilege of flying executive class. So why pay the same lousy twelve bucks to watch rotten-tomato “The Raven” as you would for big-screen blockbuster "The Avengers"? Economists call this confusing phenomenon: "uniform prices for differentiated goods," in other words, the same price tag on apples and oranges.
And it's not just the quality of a movie that should impact its worth. Just as plane tickets cost more during the summer, the demand for movie night spikes on the 4th of July, Christmas and a smattering of other holidays throughout the year.
So why don't ticket prices go down during down times? Would you be more inclined to go to the theater in the off-season if there were off-season prices? What's the risk to studios and theaters if movies are priced according to quality? Is it possible they would make more money with variable pricing? If a Razzie nominee for Worst Picture cost just $4, would you go?
GUESTS
Barak Orbach, Professor at the University of Arizona's School of Law
Tim Cogshell, film critic for KPCC and Box Office Magazine