Josh Marshall: Rick Newman notes that when Romney released his preliminary 2011 tax return estimates in January he was reporting $20,901,075 in adjusted gross income. The final returns released today show $13,696,961 in adjusted gross income.
Tag Archives: 2011
Romney’s 2011 tax return: what ELSE is he hiding?
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Mitt Romney finally released a second year of tax returns. And with it, some troubling new information:
- -From his 2010 release: Romney has a Swiss bank account and owns a corporation in Bermuda
- -This year’s tax returns are 813 pages. More than 65% of them deal with his overseas investments.
- -His overseas investments include huge investments in a Chinese oil company.
- -Dozens of foreign accounts.
- -Millions of dollars of Romney’s money are stashed away in notorious tax havens.
- -Stocks in the Russian oil giant Gazprom.
- -And he’s betting against the dollar by investing in the Norwegian krone, the Australian dollar, the Swedish krona, and the Canadian dollar.
This is only the tip of the iceberg—Romney has only released two years of tax returns, both from after he started running for President.
He’s still failing to match the precedent set by other Presidential candidates. Why won’t Mitt Romney match other Presidential candidates, including his father? Why won’t he come clean with the American people?
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Also, he had his accountants give him a 14.1% effective tax rate for 2011 when it should have been 9% — for the optics, for the campaign. And BTW, he will be able to recoup that difference in future returns, so he loses nothing.
If he’d manipulate that for the American public, what else would he manipulate in this one return, hoping to win the election?
Everyone needs to be armed, though
Just as Margaret Anderson’s death represents the first LEO down for 2012, this incident may reflect the sad statistic of being the last LEO down for 2011 — federal agent killed by “friendly fire”:
SEAFORD, N.Y. (AP) – An off-duty federal agent who died after intervening in a pharmacy robbery on New York’s Long Island was likely shot by a retired police officer who responded, a law enforcement official said Tuesday
ATF agent John Capano, 51, was shot Saturday in Seaford while struggling with a suspect during a robbery for prescription painkillers and cash at a small family pharmacy. Capano was a customer and followed the suspect, who was later shot and killed, as he tried to flee.
A retired Nassau County police lieutenant who runs a nearby deli and an off-duty New York City police officer in the deli ran to the scene and saw the skirmish between Capano and the suspect, later identified as James McGoey, 43, of Hampton Bays.
The law enforcement official said it is believed the retired Nassau officer shot Capano during the skirmish. The NYPD officer shot the suspect.
The official is familiar with the investigation but not authorized to release information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. A Nassau County police spokesman declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
The shooting appears to be the second so-called friendly fire in Nassau County in 2011. In March, an officer with the MTA Police shot and killed a Nassau police officer in plainclothes in Massapequa Park.
Everyone needs to carry. We’d all be safer!
Whitehouse 2011: the year in photos
Happy New Year’s Eve and GOODBYE, 2011!
image: sameoldshitblog
Exactly!
American opportunity 2011
someecards via: laughingsquid
Obama Administration to drop Iraq troop levels to 3,000
Report: Obama Administration Dropping Troop Levels In Iraq To 3,000
Fox News is reporting that the Obama administration plans to withdraw all but about 3,000 of the more than 40,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, a move that is consistent with President Barack Obama’s repeated promises to end the war in Iraq. Sources told Fox that the number of troops begrudgingly approved by the military — 10,000 troops — would be cut even further, likely allowing the U.S. to carry out mostly training missions.
The reported decision comes after months of fruitless back-and-forth with the Iraqi government on an agreement to allow American troops to stay. A Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiated by the outgoing Bush administration in 2008 pledged to the Iraqis that the U.S. would withdraw all of its troops by the end of 2011. Without a new SOFA, all U.S. troops might still have to exit Iraq, potentially rendering the U.S. decision moot.
via: akagoldfish
A ray of good news in all the gloom. Best news in my opinion? If all troops have to exit. Next up: exit Afghanistan.
Get ready for 9/11 24/7 from now through Sunday
Labor Day: The Labor Movement
Via nevver:
The difference between Sep/2001 and Sep/2011
New study that will make Teaparty members even angrier then they are now
FIVE YEARS AGO, IN 2006, DAVID E. CAMPBELL AND ROBERT D. PUTNAM INTERVIEWED 3,000 AMERICANS and re-interviewed many of the same people again this summer. Their findings indicate what most of us already knew: that Teapartyers were far-right, social conservative Republicans (and still are). Or, as Jon Stewart said: “They’re just moral majorities in a tri-cornered hat.”
[W]e can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later…
Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.
What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.
As so many have been arguing for the past 3 years, priority #1 is not small government with these people! So what do (rank and file) Tea Partiers have in common (from 2006 through today):
- They’re white and
- have a low regard for immigrants and blacks (*ahem* racist?!)
- are disproportionately social conservatives
- have a desire to see religion play a prominent role in politics
- seek deeply religious elected officials
- approve of religious leaders engaging in politics
- want religion brought into political debates
Absolutely no surprise. They’re the same weird, eccentric group of religious RWNJs with a brand new Koch-funded name: Tea Party Patriots. What rubbish. They have always wanted a form of government for the USA that’s a straight-up Christian Theocracy, and nothing has changed.
Sometimes it seems that teahadists needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was not one of the founding fathers. And, newsflash! Their idea of Christianity is so far removed from mainstream belief that it borders on freakish: Jesus as a gun-toting, white-power, women-belong-in-the-kitchen, immigrant-hating, ‘get your own wine and fish’ conservative Deity, who gladly puts the world on hold to personally speak with politicians like GWB, Perry, Bachmann and Palin.
But here’s what’s funny — people have already figured out the teaparty:
Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.
[...] the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.
With the growing disapproval of the teaparty in general, it’s nice to know that most of us ARE actually using the brains God gave us.
Related:
- NEW: Companies are hoarding massive amounts of cash and are not creating jobs in U.S.
- Why do poor and working-class conservatives support tax cuts for the wealthy?
- Explaining the TeaParty Base
- Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving: The Teaparty Republican base
- This Modern World: TeaParty Tim and Plutocrat Pete
- Useful idiots: Republican / Teapublican base voters
- S&P Downgrade: Juan Cole — What comes out of coddling the super-rich
- Home page
Protip on corporate welfare: it costs money to buy a filibuster.
Think Progress reports on the terrific success that oil companies had last night with their purchased GOP senators:
[Last night the Senate majority tried] to repeal $21 billion in subsidies for the big five oil companies — the same companies that made over $30 billion in profits in just the first three months of 2011.
[...] An analysis of campaign contribution records shows the gusher of dirty cash that fueled the filibuster:
A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis finds that the 48 senators who sided with Big Oil received over $21 million in career oil contributions, while 52 senators who sided with the American people received only $5.4 million in contributions. Each senator who voted for Big Oil received on average more than four times as much oil cash as those who voted to end the subsidies.
While eight Republican senators voted for a bill that included a repeal of tax breaks for big oil in 2007, only Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine voted with the Democrats in supporting ending taxpayer handouts to big oil tonight. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) joined the Republicans to protect the oil companies’ corporate welfare.
Osama bin Laden no longer walks the earth
President Obama is announcing that the U.S. has killed Osama bin Laden. Congratulations to our intelligence and military for locating bin Laden and taking action against this mass murderer.
And congratulations to our President who gave the order.
On May 1, 2003, a “Mission Accomplished” speech was given on board an aircraft carrier. Today, eight years later, the Mission was actually Accomplished.
Obama envisions the ‘change’ Donald Trump could bring to the White House
Click image for video:
Video: President Obama roasts Trump at 2011 WH Correspondents’ Dinner
“I want to make clear to the Fox News table: that was a joke. That was not my real birth video. That was a children’s cartoon. Call Disney if you don’t believe me. They have the original long-form version.” — President Obama on the film clip he ran of his “birth.”
Interestingly, Trump and his table smiled and laughed when the President mentioned Celebrity Apprentice and made jokes about it. If you’re a teaparty Republican, that should give you pause…
Because some are wondering if Trump is punking the GOP.
Related: Video: Seth Meyers remarks at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner (starts at his remarks on Trump)
