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Multiple-choice Mitt is at it again, this time flip flopping on whether he's in support of the Blunt amendment which is likely to be voted on in the Senate this Thursday -- Romney Comes Out In Support Of Controversial Birth Control Bill:

One day before a critical Senate vote that could loom large as a 2012 election issue, Mitt Romney came out for a congressional Republican measure designed to roll back the Obama administration’s requirement that employer health plans cover birth control.

“Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith,” Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM.

The Blunt amendment, which is scheduled for a Senate vote on Thursday, would permit employers to deny coverage of birth control or other services they deem morally objectionable.

Romney’s position had been brought into doubt after tweets from a local TV station reporter suggested the candidate had objected to the proposed bill. The candidate’s campaign released a statement saying, “Regarding the Blunt bill, the way the question was asked was confusing.”

To clear up any confusion, Romney himself weighed in, telling radio host Howie Carr, “I didn’t understand the question. Of course, I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception.”

But team Obama didn’t buy his explanation, accusing him of a “flip-flop” and fiercely denouncing his ultimate position.

“In one hour, Mitt Romney showed why women don’t trust him for one minute. It took little more than an hour for him to commit his latest flip-flop. Even worse, he ended up on the wrong side of an issue of critical importance to women,” said Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager of Obama For America.

Cutter said Romney is “in a race to the bottom with Rick Santorum to see who can pander most to the far right-wing.”

What's really pathetic as Melissa Harris-Perry noted in the clip above is that when Romney was probably telling the truth, as he did in the interview with the local reporter, he was on the right side of the issue, but he'd rather pander to the right to try to win the Republican nomination even though it's going to cost him in the general election.

Monkee Davy Jones died today of a heart attack at 66. Here's to the "little, short English one", as bandmate Mickey Dolenz described him. R.I.P.

The latest stories from the front lines of the labor fight across the country ...

Rolling Stone politics writer, Matt Taibbi, speaks during his teach-in on the problems with Bank of America and the other "Too Big To Fail" banks in Bryant Park, New York on February 29th, 2012. "The easiest way I can explain this," he said, "is it was banks selling Oregano as weed."

Rolling Stone covers Taibbi's speech, plus a photo gallery of the events. Tim Pool livestreamed it. To skip to Matt's speech, jump past the march coverage to about the 22 minute mark.

The good news comes from The Gothamist:

Occupy Wall Street begins two days of major demonstrations today as a group of wealthy backers announces their plan to pump $1.8 million into the movement. The Movement Resource Group, comprised of the two founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Nirvana's former manager Danny Goldberg, among others, is a not-for-profit 501c3 that has raised $300,000 and aims to distribute it to the protesters in a series of grants. "Many of us have been working for progressive social change," Ben Cohen told the Wall Street Journal. "There's been a critical ingredient missing."

Representatives from the group met with Occupy Wall Street members on Sunday, and announced the plan to approve national grants of up to $25,000 with the approval of MRG and five OWS members. $150,000 will pay for a national office in New York, another $100,000 will pay for individual, targeted projects, and a smaller, undisclosed sum will be set aside for stipends for "core activists."

I wonder if there will be free ice cream?

OWS1 from Gothamist on Vimeo.

After Tuesday's NYC march and "rally against police suppression of the movement," a group of around 30 Occupy Wall Street activists had gathered in Zuccotti Park when the NYPD moved in with about 40 police officers to shut down the park in a surprise show of force. The arrests began when a few protesters brought backpacks and/or sleeping bags into the park. Watch the video and see if you can figure out any rhyme or reason for the arrests.

Via:

Charley, a protester who refused to give his last name, said that the group arrived at Zuccotti Park after a march from Union Square earlier in the day. "A few people have sleeping bags, and we have a huge rug too. We're basically seeing what [the police] will tolerate. I don't know that we're all planning on sleeping here."

Protesters claimed the park's private security force told them they could bring in blankets. "We can't look the other way but by all means," one of the guards said. A female NYPD officer strolling through the park grabbed a protester's blanket. "This is a sleeping bag," the officer determined, before reconsidering. "Or, no, it's a blanket. It's, it's a sleeping bag." The protester rolled up the blanket and walked out of the park. Officer DiPace told us, "The chief wants us to lock everybody up."

Shortly before midnight, a group of officers began moving through the park, inspecting bags, and shooing away the handful of protesters, some of whom scattered immediately rather than have their bags inspected. When asked what law they were breaking, Officer DiPace replied, "There's a law against everything. That's America." At the entrance to the park, the arrests began with the individual seen in this video, who insists police arrested him after sat down on the sidewalk.

Another message from the Anonymous collective. This time, they want war.

To the Citizens of the United States and the United States Government.
We are Anonymous.

In the past few months, our collective has been organizing the operation known as Operation Blackout. Part of the operation's purpose was to alert the people of the coming bill that was to be called the Stop Online Piracy Act.

This Act would give Congress the power to censor any internet website they wish without consent from the Citizens of the United States. This act would've also had the power to jail any person who infringed on its new copyright law for an equivalence of five years. This copyright law would've had the power to destroy social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. Video gameplay and free movies would cease to exist.

However, Operation Blackout was a success. As a collective, we've managed to spread the word and alert the masses. Internet giants such as Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit became hand-in-hand with us as we all managed to make an impact on the decisions of our, "free government". But as we've seen with Megaupload, the government may not need a bill to be passed to get their way. Other operations we've conducted over this time period have awaken the people to the nightmare that is the United States Government. Sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act have been ratified. Yet we face new threats.

The United States Government is seeking to pass the Cyber Security Act of 2012. This act is as Orwellian as it sounds; it will endanger our collective and we will not stand by and watch while this government of lies prepares to take away our freedoms. The National Security Agency insists on labeling us as a leaderless, terrorist organization. The question is, "who do we terrorize?". Can it possibly be that the United States government is truly scared of us? Nevertheless, The time for action is now.

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In what was yet another lie-filled, robotic speech following his primary victories in Michigan and Arizona this Tuesday evening, Mitt Romney decided to dust off a right-wing attack on President Obama that Politico reported on in December of last year following his appearance on 60 Minutes -- that uppity black president of ours dared to claim that he is the "4th best president" of the United States.

Except of course that's not exactly what he said during a web exclusive interview with the crew of 60 Minutes that the right decided to go on the attack over. From the Politico article, here's what he actually said:

The issue here is not going be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do.

Touting legislative accomplishments and saying that you're the "4th best president" are not synonymous. While criticism of President Obama and taking issue with his policies are completely fair, and I've got a long list myself of areas where I'm in disagreement with this administration on everything from foreign policy, to not going after Wall Street and the banks for wrecking our economy, to not wanting to "look backward" and go after the Bush administration for their crimes along with a lot of other issues too long to list here, taking his words out of context and twisting them are not.

What you cannot fairly say as Romney did here, is that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress did not get a record amount of legislation passed despite the unprecedented obstruction from Republicans and having to deal with the likes of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson and their ilk mucking up the works whenever humanly possible. And it's just a shame that we had a record number of bills that passed through the House which would have helped our economy get back on track and helped to dig us out of the recession Bush left us that sat and died a slow death in the Senate.

Sadly Mitt Romney would rather resort to partisan attacks on President Obama and parrot the likes of Andrew Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit during his victory speech this week. The so-called "moderate" Mitt Romney has done nothing but prove himself to be every bit the right-wing flame thrower out there right in line with the likes of the Rush Limbaugh's and his ilk on the right and their rhetoric.

I keep hearing the Republican talking heads on cable pretending that Romney is somehow going to be able to walk all of this back should he win the nomination this year once we get into the general election where he's got to appeal to middle of the road and independent voters. I say good luck with that since they all seem to be ignoring that fact that we've got these things called recording devices these days and this stuff can be played back for the public.

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Monkee Davy Jones died today of a heart attack at 66. Here's to the "little, short English one", as bandmate Mickey Dolenz described him. R.I.P.