Tag Archives: 2010

We have exactly 155 days: Obama or Romney

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Romney’s PR HQ (Buzzfeed politics) has a roundup of every emo firebagger they could find, who’s had a ‘sad’ since the 2010 elections (which they didn’t bother to vote in). They want us all to know that their shattered hopes and dreams are the reason they’re not contributing to Obama’s campaign this time around:

Most Obama Donors Not Giving Again

“In 2008, more than 550,000 gave more than $200 to Barack Obama, entering their names in the longest list of individual donors ever seen in American politics,” Ben Smith reports.

“But now, as Obama struggles to keep pace with his 2008 fundraising clip, that list offers a cross-section of Democratic disappointment and alienation. According to a BuzzFeed analysis of campaign finance data, 88% of the people who gave $200 or more in 2008 — 537,806 people — have not yet given that sum this year. And this drop-off isn’t simply an artifact of timing. A full 87% of the people who gave $200 — the sum that triggers an itemized report to the Federal Elections Commission — through April of 2008, 182,078 people, had not contributed by the end of last month.”

I don’t know if these people are actually ‘real’ or more like urban legends — like the woman quoted in the article who says she wanted a more expansive health care bill: “We were a little upset about healthcare. I really, really wanted that public option,” Mrs. Leitzinger said (Really?! Still? I guess Obama should’ve just put that law through himself–who needs Congress?) — but what I do know is that there will be only two choices on November 6: Obama or Romney. And, sorry kids, as much as you hate hearing it — not choosing IS choosing.

In the next five months because of Citizens United, corporate interests and the one percent are going to try to buy themselves a president by injecting $1 BILLION into super PACs for national advertising to sway independents and moderates over to Romney. And as sure as the sun will rise in the morning, every fundamentalist, teabagger, and rightwinger — all the social conservatives — will be in line to vote for the Republican. Serious question: just how far do you think your progressive ideals and beliefs will go with “President Romney”? Remember George W — multiply him by Tea Party.

We only have five months. I haven’t gotten everything I wanted from Obama — but who’s ever gotten everything they want from one person in the entire history of the world?  I am able to realize that I’ve been happier with what he’s done, with what he represents, and especially with his potential than I ever would have been with McCain/Palin (that still makes me shudder!). Four more years of Obama extends his potential — and ours. The fact of the matter is that Mitt Romney doesn’t care about the things I care about — he doesn’t even pretend to care. No, I don’t want to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest, paid for by cutting programs and services to the neediest, with austerity for the rest of us — the not-wealthy. There’s no way Romney would ever consider issues or policies that I think are important. And there’s the deciding factor for me.

Because of this article, I contributed today and will continue through November 5. Maybe you should think about it too.

Do you really want to take a chance of waking up on November 7 with Romney as the winner?

Mitt Romney, guilty of voter fraud?

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Mitt Romney faces up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine if he did not live in his son’s unfinished basement in 2010

In January 2010 the former Massachusetts governor proudly cast a ballot for Republican Scott Brown in the special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He didn’t own property in the state at the time, and had registered to vote listing his son’s unfinished basement as his residence. Massachusetts law defines a residence for voter registration purposes as “where a person dwells and which is the center of his domestic, social, and civil life.” Anyone found guilty of committing voter fraud faces up to five years behind bars and a fine of $10,000.

Is this exactly like that ‘voter fraud‘ thing that the Republicans are always trying to pretend the Democrats participate in? Except that the Democrats don’t?

Mitt Romney’s motto: vote early and vote often!

Romney’s tax return release: too little, too late?

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Josh Marshall thinks the reality of Mitt’s tax rate and income, combined with being forced into releasing his returns, are very bad news for his campaign:

“My quick take on this is that there’s a lot here that’s fairly damaging for Romney in political terms, largely for the reasons I set forth earlier in this post. Beyond that there’s a lesson about the consequences of losing control of events. For a man running for president in 2012 it’s damaging stuff. But now everything in these documents comes with a preface that reads “We really wanted to keep this secret. But that didn’t work out.”

 

Mitt’s tax returns and the politics of envy (we’re all envious about his effective tax rate)

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Pages and pages are devoted to foreign entities in which Romney is invested. Many are located in places like Luxembourg, Ireland and the Cayman Islands, all famous tax havens. None shows much income. “These entities are not evading one dime of taxes.” — Brad Malt, Romney’s trustee

“I will not apologize for success.” The Huffington Post

Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011.

Wow, his taxes will GO UP from 13.9 percent to 15.4 percent? No wonder Mitt wants even more tax cuts for the wealthy / himself. If he paid 13.9 percent in 2010, I wonder what effective tax rate he paid in prior years…

Romney’s tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments.

Under the U.S. tax code, capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, compared with a top tax rate of 35 percent for wage earners.

Wage earners are disposable plebeians. That’s why we pay a higher effective tax rate on our incomes.

[...] Romney’s campaign officials stressed that his tax rate is based mostly on income from investments that are held in a blind trust. Romney’s holdings include an undisclosed amount in funds based in the Grand Cayman Islands and other overseas entities.

Romney advisers stressed that the holdings in the Caymans – along with those in a Swiss bank account that was closed in 2010 after an investment adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney – were reported on tax returns and were not vehicles to avoid taxes.

Sure. Of course that has to be SAID. We’ll never know, one way or the other. Can you imagine how many “Romneybot, Inc.” accountants, campaign managers, and public relations personnel worked 24/7 to give us the return that was released today?

They also stressed that Romney, whose holdings are in three blind trusts, makes no decisions as to how his money is invested.

Hahaha, you see? Mitt doesn’t know how his $250 million is managed or in which foreign accounts in the Caymans and Switzerland it’s hidden! He just spends it! Trust him.

What’s a Blind trust? It’s a trust in which the fiduciaries, namely the trustees or those who have been given power of attorney, have full discretion over the assets, and the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust and no right to intervene in their handling. Blind trusts are generally used when a settlor (sometimes called a trustor or donor) wishes to keep the beneficiary unaware of the specific assets in the trust, such as to avoid conflict of interest between the beneficiary and the investments. Politicians or others in sensitive positions often place their personal assets (including investment income) into blind trusts, to avoid public scrutiny and accusations of conflicts of interest when they direct government funds to the private sector. — Wikipedia

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who is calling for raising taxes on high-income Americans, said he blames Congress, not Romney, for the governor’s tax rate. “It’s the wrong policy to have,” Buffett told Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu in an interview yesterday. “He’s not going to pay more than the law requires, and I don’t fault him for that in the least. But I do fault a law that allows him and me earning enormous sums to pay overall federal taxes at a rate that’s about half what the average person in my office pays.” —  Warren Buffett speaking about capital gains tax rates vs. earned income tax rates

Related: 

Remember that “Teaparty mandate” election in 2010?

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The thrill is long gone:

…a new Gallup poll out this week shows more Americans today are dissatisfied with Congress than ever before.

The governing body is now set to end 2011 with the lowest one-time approval rating in its history: 11 percent. Their annual average for 2011 came to a whopping 17 percent, which is also the lowest ever recorded.

[..] Fifty-five percent also agreed that “the political system can work fine, it’s the members that are the problem…”


image: cognitivedissonance

Instead of trying to ‘make a statement’ or ‘teach someone a lesson’ by not voting, like some of us did in 2010, let’s try occupying a voting booth and cleaning up this mess in 2012 — unless you actually condone policies like more tax cuts for the wealthy paid for with more austerity measures for the rest of us. Then by all means, do nothing. Your vote really doesn’t matter.

(Cartoon) What the Teaparty GOP and Non-Voters want for America

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Source: Jonik Cartoons via azspot

Viva the United States of Koch! Viva the Corporatist Plutocracy!

And today people may actually realize that elections have consequences

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… especially that last election in 2010.  You stayed home during the mid-terms because Obama disappointed you for X, Y or Z — or because Ed Schultz told you to? Whoops! Not only is the Teaparty grateful, but so are the rich and powerful. Did the results of that last election (losing control of the House, losing some Senate seats) move Obama a little bit to the right? Probably. And why wouldn’t it?

Imagine how outstanding it will be if you decide to not vote in 2012. The “statement” you’ll make is so much more important than continuing to work for a progressive agenda. It’s like the statement all those people who voted for Nader in 2000 made. That was a great idea too. Maybe the Teaparty Republicans will take control of the Senate in 2012 — more Rand Pauls!  And just look how great Wisconsin’s doing since 2010.

You worked so hard in 2008 — why should you have to keep working and pushing the people you helped get into Congress and the White House?  Why should you have to wait in a line on Election Day to vote — again? It’s not like this crap should have to be an ongoing thing. Disappointment is just too disappointing.

UPDATED: Chamber’s foreign funding of GOP campaign ads – what’s the expectation?

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Do you suppose the quid pro quo for all this foreign money flowing into the Chamber to fund attack ads against Dems will be that even more American jobs will be shipped overseas by congressional Republicans? Look at this list Think Progress put together below. So many from India! The rightwing / Fox News is trying to make this a ‘non-issue’ or a conspiracy theory. It’s anything but that.

Think Progress — Exclusive: Chamber Receives At Least $885,000 From Over 80 Foreign Companies In Disclosed Donations Alone

…The Chamber is being deceptive. In addition to multinational members of the Chamber headquartered abroad (like BP, Shell Oil, and Siemens), a new ThinkProgress investigation has identified at least 83 other foreign companies that actively donate to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6). Below is a chart detailing the annual dues foreign corporations have indicated that they give directly to the Chamber (using information that is publicly available from the Business Council applications and the Chamber’s own websites):

See TABLE of 83 foreign companies here

Again, all of these annual dues are collected in the same 501(c)(6) the Chamber is using to run partisan attack ads.

Keep reading…

UPDATED ***

GOP response?

  1. Quote of the Day: “It’s just not relevant to voters.” Mark Halperin on the Chamber of Commerce allegedly using secret foreign money to help finance its political advertising

    2. .

  2. Pundits and Republicans agree: Dem attack on Chamber is a flop

Here’s what Rachel Maddow discussed last night, regarding whether this is a big deal or not to the American people:

Rachel Maddow: Anonymous Republican big-money donors become political liability

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Saturday morning flotsam

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Sarah Palin: Mama Grizzly of the Year!

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  • From Andrew Sullivan: there are already at least 10 mosques in Manhattan, including Masjid Manhattan, which has been a mere four blocks from Ground Zero since 1970.  Palin is worried about Muslims taking over area near the Ground Zero site even though they’ve been there for decades.
  • Hey, Sarah! You know what else is really close to Ground Zero? A titty bar!
  • Palin will straight-up refudiate Bristol and Levi’s wedding!
  • Meanwhile in Alaska: Divorced Kate Gosselin will be joining Palin in Alaska to go “camping” on an episode of “Kate Plus Eight.”

This was also stolen from Team Sarah. See? She is just like an animal!S

Impeachment Fever – catch it!

  • If the GOP wins a congressional majority in 2010, Michelle Bachmann says, “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another…”
  • Tom Tancredo couldn’t agree more: “Members of Congress must defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Today, that means bringing impeachment charges against Mr. Obama.”
  • On a side note, Megyn Kelly doesn’t appear to be familiar with her base audience at Fox News.

Misc:

  • Think Progress: Karl Rove‘s new “grassroots”, “shadow RNC” group American Crossroads raised 97 percent of its funding from just four billionaires!
  • Your librul media: Ed Schultz in his opening speech at Netroots Nation — FAIL
  • Fox News is reporting that “Big Mexican Women” (BMW) are helping Afghan soldiers go AWOL in the U.S.

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Maddow: That Was Then, This Is Then

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“The more spills change, the more they stay the same.”

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Rachel Maddow reports on an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico back in 1979 — 31 years ago — in the exact same spot. Every technique that is being employed today to attempt to contain the blow out from the Deepwater Horizon was done in 1979 when the Ixtoc rig erupted. Everything. There’s been NO ADVANCEMENT in technology in 31 years.

And Maddow reports that, coincidentally, the company which owned the Ixtoc rig was called Sedco… Sedco later became known as Transocean.

[MSNBC]
[Daily Wh.at]
[Ixtoc Wiki]
[Sedco--Transocean Wiki]