Spintested: 08/05/12

Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Sunday, August 5, 2012

The number of soldiers will be and have been reduced. If you are using the fact that we will still be present there for some time to come in a training and ambassador relationship as war then we have been at war with just about every country of significance for ever.

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What's the objective in Afghanistan, how is the military going about achieving it, and where are our tax dollars going?

Democratic voters didn't put Obama into the White House to militarize and indemnify the CIA, or continue the neocon wars on behalf of transnational corporations, yet that's precisely what's going on.

We're not in Afghanistan for anything having to do with terrorism, although our foreign policy, using our military for corporate acquisition of the world's resources, is creating terrorists and putting American citizens in peril.

Not long ago, Rachel Maddow walked the dusty, garbage-strewn streets of Afghanistan with RIchard Engel to see what exporting US-style democracy means, and what US nation-building actually builds. Watch this to see where are our tax dollars going, and learn how we are not "nation-building", not making us safer, and not helping the Afghans or building their nation at all (or a democracy). Learn how this has all been just a huge rip-off of the American people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5BHnN__5M
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

The number of soldiers will be and have been reduced. If you are using the fact that we will still be present there for some time to come in a training and ambassador relationship as war then we have been at war with just about every country of significance for ever.

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The official objective in Afghanistan has been kept from the American people:

"The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanistan), the best security for that was an occupation."

"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims."

-Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

The number of soldiers will be and have been reduced. If you are using the fact that we will still be present there for some time to come in a training and ambassador relationship as war then we have been at war with just about every country of significance for ever.

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Not when the wars are ongoing.

We're not out of Iraq. The troops aren't withdrawn from Iraq, nor will they all be. In addition to the thousands of mercenaries remaining there, there are thousands more being left to "protect" an 'embassy' (a CIA fortress) the size of Vatican City in the center of Baghdad. That cutback in troops by the Pentagon doesn't apply to State.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html

In addition to some 5,000 private security contractors now protecting the embassy’s 11,000-person staff, Iraq is rife with American-paid contractors, mercenaries, and is a war zone, with the dead piling up day in and day out.

Whenever there's been a cutback in the number of troops, there's been an increase in the number of mercenaries hired and paid for with US taxpayer dollars.

Running wars "off the books", with public relations' firms designing press releases for Pentagon and State Department to spin the American people around.

We're not leaving Afghanistan. The mission in Afghanistan wasn't to wipe out the Taliban. Congress didn't authorize either Bush or Obama to do that. You seem to be using 'Taliban' interchangeably with Al Qaeda -- Huge mistake. Only a neocon or a neolib would boast of Obama's "escalating" the war in Afghanistan. The truth of our failure in "exporting democracy" to Afghanistan is here.

The 10-year strategic partnership agreement that Obama and Karzai signed commits the US-- its troops and billions more dollars -- to Afghanistan for the indefinite future.

How many more enemies are being made for American citizens through Obama's drone killings of civilians across the globe?
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

If for no other reason than to prove what you're implying (that a solid Democratic Trifecta would have Democratic politicians behaving as populist liberals) is wrong, and wake ObamaZombies up, sure.

But it's a straw dog, because a Democratic Trifecta (White House, House of Representatives, a super-majority Senate all going Democratic) won't happen. It can't happen. The way that districting has been gamed, it's mathematically impossible. And with each election after CU (and the longer there is nothing done to address climate change), it becomes even more impossible.

And with that being said, that is why the solution, the only solution, relies on a third party getting its foot in the door (enough votes to get a seat at the table next election) or, second best, should Romney win and your worst fears become realized (that he's Cheney on steroids), that the People become galvanized and real populist leadership comes forward within the Democratic Party to take the reins away from the DLC-neoliberals or coalesce and coalition a successful third party movement.

We've been doing it your way, putting the lesser of two eviIs into office, for 20 years now, and the government and the DemocraticParty keeps moving farther to the right. That's because your way is to lie to the American people and put Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing into office. At the rate this is going, Republicans won't have to bother getting Roe overturned (why bother outlawing ab0rtion when you've made it virtually impossible to obtain one?). Regulating banks and Wall Street won't be necessary because the top 1 percent will have ALL of the money. The disabled and elderly will be dead, so privatizing Social Security won't be much of an issue. Schools will be all privatized under Democrats and only those employed and making a great salary will be able to send their children to good charter schools. PBS has had its funding slashed under Democrats so children will have no commercial-free children's programming and will be rank-and-file corporate slaves. And the wars, expanded under Obama and Democrats (beyond what BushCheney did) will still be going on when your children have children.

If you are a liberal, if you and I are on the same side and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies, NOT Democratic policies, when do you realize that maybe you don't know what you're talking about?

When do you realize that you've become that classic definition for 'insan!ty' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?

Do you ever realize it?
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateMasters of the universe. He'll hand the baton off to Republicans for the fleecing to continue and go on to reap the benefits from his treacherous betrayal of the People, i.e., the same sort of corporate payoffs that presidents since Gerald Ford have enjoyed.

Corporations have managed to game our political system so effectively that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporations) is good for America (the People)".

Democrats, controlled by the DLC, and Republicans are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributions) of a parent, Republicans and DLC-controlled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituent, BigCorporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of thePeople.

If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions but got a bad deal (I don't share that opinion anymore), then think of all this as a business plan where the CorporateMasters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governments do them, too) and select the politician/personality best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments. If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profiteering, then GeorgeWBush is your man to front it (with DickCheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizing of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows).

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObama.

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-controlled Democratic Party as we'd hoped when we put them in power in 2008; it's not even on their 'To Do' list.
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

Of course there aren't any better ideas coming out of the Republican Party. Democratic and Republican poIiticians are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be. Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their CorporateMasters.

Think of Democratic and Republican politicians as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. Or like at the annual company picnic, the manufacturing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, and continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what We, the People thought they were.

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, and start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude, like that's somehow "a good thing".

Obama's 'job', as he sees it, is to deliver to the top 1percent. No protesting, rallying, marching, begging, imploring, wishing, pleading with Obama is going to move him off of that. If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateMasters of the universe, and he'll be handsomely rewarded with paid seats on corporate boards for the rest of his life. He'll just hand the baton off to a Republican for the fleecing to continue.
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

The House passed a healthcare bill, a real women-hating boondoggle with the Stupak amendment, and it was then that Obama really showed his true colors and skills as a treacherist: How to reconcile the House bill with what was going to be the Senate's healthcare bill (what came out of the Senate Finance Committee).

Finesse-ing ability doesn't begin to cover what was going to be necessary, to get one bill from the House version that threw women under the bus (the Stupak amendment) and the Senate version (no public option, no cost controls -- Just a great big corporate giveaway bill that throws all of the American people under the bus), and spin it as Democrats delivering on their promise to get affordable quality medical treatment for everyone when it doesn't do any of that.

Obama took care of the Stupak amendment first (with an executive order and the White House spin machine making assurances that weren't accurate ).

Then, the White House went after the Progressive Caucus, and got all but two of the 79 (out of 82) members that had pledged not to vote for legislation that didn't contain a public option to back down. The last two (Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa) folded after some unique pressure was brought to bear on them.

If Obama really wanted Joe Lieberman's vote, he would have done to Lieberman and the Blue Dogs what he did to Dennis Kucinich.

What did Obama do when Kucinich (the last hold-out on the Progressive Caucus, all of whom had pledged to vote for a healthcare bill only if it had a public option, and who all caved) was opposing him to the left. Obama flew to Cleveland and held a big rally. Obama rallied Kucinich's constituents against him and he got Kucinich's vote.

Where was that mentality with Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, the other Blue Dogs and even Olympia Snowe? If the president of the United States had used the bully pulpit against them, a lot of progressives would have respected that and said, "You tried your best".

But Obama didn't try. He cut a deal. Months earlier, cutting the will of the People off at the knees. The public was powerless in the backroom deal. Read Sam Graham-Felsen's oped in WaPo: Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

Americans put Obama and Democrats into power to get affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone. Instead Obama, as salesman and customer, sold insurance policies on behalf of the insurance industry to the American people and purchased insurance policies on behalf of the American people. Overpriced junk insurance, with no guarantee of treatment and not at affordable prices. Obama was never playing 12th dimensional chess; he's playing Monopoly, by himself, with him as the Bank.

He didn't use the bully pulpit, didn't twist arms, he refused to use his considerable oratorical skills and political capital to deliver the real healthcare reform that voters put him and Democrats into power to achieve. No, instead Obama knee-capped his base, undercut left-leaning Democrats working on delivering to Democratic voters what had been promised to them in the 2008 campaign by cutting secret deals with Big Business (all the while telling the public that it was Congress that writes legislation, not the president, so he's "staying out of it"), and rallied the last supporter of a public option's constituents against him.

KEEP READING
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

Lynn Woolsey, head of the Progressive Caucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq. She, and congressional Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplemental emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significant here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it. They didn't need Republicans to do it.

As the head of the Progressive Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislation that didn't include a public option.

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Unbeknownst to Lynn Woolsey's constitutents (it was never reported in her district's newspapers): Progressive Congresswoman Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressive Marcy Winograd

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Cheney's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Cheney even better, by letting Obama assert, unchallenged, that presidents have the right to k!ll Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret.

Democrats have abdicated their Constitutionally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the Bush-Cheney administration, and still don't with one of their own in the White House.
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

The only "first step" about ACA is that it's the beginning of the end for all public healthcare programs (Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, veterans care, TRICOR, etc.).

Professional Democrats, all Democratic politicians in office, whether they are calling themselves progressives, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnational corporations over the best interests of the People. If they are a professional political and member of the Democratic Party, in Washington or back in the states, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnational corporations as their real constituents.

Their only problem with this is that corporations don't vote, and politicians need votes to get into office. So they, Democratic politicians, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-words, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true. Obama can say, "I got health insurance for the People", but having health insurance isn't what Americans wanted and isn't what Democratic voters put Obama and Democrats into power to get for them. Having health insurance isn't the same thing as everyone being able to get affordable, quality medical treatment.

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time. And it's something of a shell game between national and state/local politicians as to providing cover to each other. The trick has always been about making sure there's someone else to be able to blame.

Democratic politicians in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislation (like a public option or access to ab0rtion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag team us:

KEEP READING

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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

Obama's Trade Agreements Offshore Outsources Jobs so Congress Passes More of Them

Obama's career as a community activist was more a personal training ground for him on what he didn't want to do with his life (be a community activist).

When people really want to help others in the community, they physically do it themselves. They work at food banks, they deliver meals on wheels, they work pro bono in their professional capacity for those without means, they run in charitable marathons, they organize and volunteer at all kinds of drives for the poor/sick/children/etc.

When people run for office, and especially those who aspire to high public office, it's about helping themselves.

You might want to read some of the biographies of Obama written by journalists who interviewed people who were close to Obama through the years.

Obama is not a progressive and the last 4 years haven't be him playing 12th dimensional chess game where, if he wins reelection, he'll then rip off his suit and reveal a SuperLiberal hero suit underneath. He's a Blue Dog, by his own admission, which means he might as well reregister as a Republican. Or, if what he's done suits you, you might want to re-register as a Republican.
About Health Care Law
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Obama Embraces Health Care Law After Supreme Court Ruling

As a physician, you offer your opinion most decidedly on an area that isn't within your expertise (outsourcing) and absolutely nothing to support your opinion on the area that you claim is within your expertise (health care).

Obama's Latest Trade Agreements Are Terrible For American Workers and Outsource Americans' Jobs

Both candidates are tools of transnational corporations and suck on the issue of outsourcing.

ACA is essentially Romney's legislation, and originated out of the rightwing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. It's a huge giveaway of Americans' money to corporations for their profit, and doe nothing to control costs or guarantee quality medical care to everyone.
About Health Care Law
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

In 2010, when Obama and Democrats had refused to use the political capital given by them when 10 million more voters voted for them, voters used their votes to dump incumbents -- On both sides of the aisle. Democratic voters dumped BlueDog incumbents big time; liberals only lost 3 seats.

The real problem is that Big Money/Big Business controls the political process, which includes high-priced propaganda campaigns that spin policy and candidates as things they're not. Corporations have been able to control politicians, candidates, the primary process, so that populist candidates can't get a seat at the table.

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the WhiteHouse, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind BlueDogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:

BlueDog BlancheLincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor BillHalter.

Republican-turned-Independent ArlenSpecter over progressive Democrat JoeSestak.

Republican-turned-Independent LincolnChaffee over Democrat FrankCaprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican JohnLoughlin over Democrat DavidCicilline for the congressional seat Democrat PatrickKennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in RhodeIsland).

Republican-turned-Independent CharlieCrist over liberal Democrat KendrickMeek.

Obama supports voting third parties, even when it risks Democratic turnout.

Republicans, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who've had the greatest majority in decades. You would think that with Republicans controlling the House, Democrats would've turned the tables and thwarted Republicans' continuing legislation like Bush's tax cuts for the rich? Are Democrats just stupld?

Obama never pressured BenNelson (or BlancheLincoln, or any BlueDog). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (BlancheLincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibustered a PublicOption for healthcare. They didn't.

The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They didn't.

Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (and doesn't).

The ProgressiveCaucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust PublicOption. They didn't.

Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after HowardDean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the ProgressiveCaucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended.
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Given how voting districts are drawn, the outcome of the 2008 election made government as Democratic as it's ever going to get in the foreseeable future. People are, generally, satisfied with the job that their representatives are doing. What people want is the other guy'selected representative to get the boot, but not their own. That's not likely to change as redistricting has basically just affirmed or extended the status quo. Some on the left and the right have been redistricted out of their seats. Dennis Kucinich is one.

2008 was as good as it's going to get for Democrats. This is as good as it's going to get for Obama. He's not going to get more Democrats on his coattails in 2012 than he got in 2008 (and we know what he did with that Democratic majority in the House and filibuster-proof Democratic Senate - He blew it). What would change if Obama was returned to the White House for a 2nd term?
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Invested in clean energy.

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Like fracking.

And 'clean' coal (there is no such thing as 'clean coal', but Obama has embraced it).

And nuclear power plants.

And deepwater oil drilling, without any changes by the way to clean-up plans in light of BP and the killing of the Gulf of Mexico.
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) in our military

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Obama didn't repeal DADT - Congress did. Obama could've ended DADT for the duration of his term in office with an executive order. And while DADT was suspended through executive order, Congress could continue to "work on" repealing its legislation, and the various court cases challenging DADT could also work their way through the judicial branch of our government.

Even after Congress passed DADT, its implementation was delayed and hinged upon the judgment of the Pentagon. During that time, gay soldiers were still being separated from military service and afterwards, Gay Military Members Have Tough Time Returning To Service

In May 2010, the House and a Senate panel passed a plan to repeal DADT, but with the usual slick out-clause or backdoor -- The plan was always to kick the can down the road as long as possible, keeping Gay Americans disenfranchised and politically active as long as possible.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-05-28/politics/gays.in.the.military_1_larger-defense-authorization-bill-repeal-white-house?_s=PM:POLITICS>

Barack Obama, Gay Rights Groups Struggle Over Democratic Platform

White House dances around President’s failure to ‘evolve’ on marriage equality

Obama's Closest Adviser on LGBT Issues (WH Aide Valerie Jarrett): 15-Year Old Justin Aarberg “Made a Lifestyle Choice”
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Stopped defending DOMA in court.

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Like that line, "So when did you stop beating your wife?"

Obama still doesn't support gays marrying, nor does he support repeating DOMA.

Let's talk about Obama's pledges relating to medical marijuana. Could there be a greater or crueler hoax perpetrated on a vulnerable and loyal faction of the Democratic voter base?
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

And if you read Nate Silver's blog today about the way the electoral race is shaping up, it won't matter anyway. Mitt Romney does not have a way to become president without the most unbelievable set of circumstances. He simply cannot reach 270 electoral college votes.

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All the more reason then to vote third party in order to get the percentage of votes needed to get a seat at the table and have our issues represented.
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Unfortunately the Mitt Romney who governed Massachusetts is long gone. He had to move so far to the Right to get the nomination

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That didn't stop Obama (nor Clinton for that matter) from going to their 'comfort zones' (DLC corporatists, neoliberals) once they got into office.

It doesn't matter what any of them say to get the job - Once in, they all dance to their corporate masters' tune.
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

While Dodd-Frank bill was weak in many respects, it was still an extremely worthwhile start at re-regulating the financial sector.

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What Obama's done with that finance reform - Meet Obama's regulator of that legislation, GaryGensler.

One Year After DoddFrank, More Rules Get Delayed Or Weakened

If you can't openly stop the move for reform, then put up as many roadblocks as possible, stall as long as possible to keep the status of no regulations going. Until your replacement, either through a new administration or the usual 2nd term shuffling of players, can "study it all again before implementing", i.e., never. Ever try to put mittens on a kid who doesn't want to wear them? Think OJ and the glove.

GaryGensler spent 18 years at GoldmanSachs, making partner when he was 30. Gensler was UndersecretaryOfTheTreasury (1999-2001) and AssistantSecretaryOfTheTreasury (1997-1999) in the UnitedStates. BarackObama selected him to lead the CommodityFuturesTradingCommission, which has jurisdiction over $5 trillion in trades. Gensler was sworn in on May 26, 2009. Gensler was also a senior adviser to the HillaryClinton campaign and, after the DemocraticPrimary, the ObamaCampaign.

Questions as to whether there are ConflictsOfInterests relating to Gensler's former employment have been raised, as has been the case in any number of former Goldman employees that go on to hold pivotal positions in the USTreasury, FederalReserve, or as regulators. Gensler has the reputation in the market though as a politically ambitious man who is more likely to squash than accommodate speculation.

As the TreasuryDepartment’s undersecretary for domestic finance in the last two years of the ClintonAdministration, Gensler found himself in the position of overseeing policies in the areas of US financial markets, debt management, financial services, and community development. Gensler advocated the passage of the CommodityFuturesModernizationAct of 2000, which exempted CreditDefaultSwaps and other derivatives from regulation. The Senate was expected to examine his views on derivatives regulation during the Senate confirmation hearings.

In March 2009, SenatorBernieSanders attempted to block his nomination to head the CommodityFuturesTradingCommission. A statement from Sanders’ office said that Gensler “had worked with SenPhilGramm and AlanGreenspan to exempt CreditDefaultSwaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in US history.” He also accused Gensler of working to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron, and supporting the GrammLeachBlileyAct, which allowed American banks to become “too big to fail.”

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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Eliminated several other Al-Qaeda leaders

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While creating many more recruits.
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Expanded access to medical care and provided subsidies for people who can't afford it.
Expanded the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
Fixed the preexisting conditions travesty [and rescissions] in health insurance.

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Dr. Marcia Angell, a proponent of single payer universal health care, testifying before Congress as to the reason our health care system is in such a shambles:

"It's set up to generate profits NOT to provide care. To pay for care, we rely on hundreds of investor-owned insurance companies that profit by refusing coverage to the sickest patients and limiting services to the others. And they cream roughly 20% off the top of the premium dollar for profits and overhead. Our method of delivering care is no better than our method of paying for it. We provide much of the care in investor-owned health facilities that profit by providing too many services for the well-insured and too few for those who cannot pay. Most doctors are paid fee-for-sservice which gives them a similar incentive to focus on profitable services, particularly specialists, who receive very high fees for expensive tests and procedures. In sum, health care is for maximizing income and not maximizing health..."

And ACA does nothing to change that.
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Obama Turns To Local Media To Promote Reelection Message

Expanded access to medical care and provided subsidies for people who can't afford it.
Expanded the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
Fixed the preexisting conditions travesty [and rescissions] in health insurance.

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health insurance ≠ medical treatment

Obama's healthcare legislation doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it). Insurance companies are not required to cover anyone's preexisting condition gratis. And between increased premium costs, deductibles and co-pays, ACA Unlikely to Stem Medical Bankruptcies

People who voted for Obama/Democrats voted to get affordable, quality medical treatment. That was NOT a vote to protect and further enrich the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Voters didn't send Obama and Democrats into power to entrench the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to being able to get medical treatment. Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats to Washington to continue tying insurance benefits to their employment.

Yet that is precisely what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats did.

Meet The New 1%: - Healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid:

Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay. One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.

Obama's healthcare legislation is nothing more than a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry. It is one of the most corrupt pieces of legislation ever enacted by our government.

The health insurance industry provides no real service. All it does is take money out of the system. It's nothing more than a blood-sucking middleman.
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Ended the War in Iraq
Begun the drawdown of forces from Afghanistan

==============================

These wars aren't ended nor are they being drawn down; they're in transition and are being expanded. [continued]
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Appointed two pro-choice women to the Supreme Court.

========================================

This is like saying, "Appointed two justices with chronic illness that can be alleviated with marijuana to the Supreme Court."

Being pro-choice matters not when actually obtaining an abortion in the US is almost virtually impossible. It's still legal, always will be, but you just can't obtain one.
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He's killed Osama Bin Laden

=======================

Anyone who says "Obama killed OBL", I ask, "How do you know?" The greatest terrorist attack on the US and the alleged perpetrator, ill with kidney disease, a towering figure of 6'4" living and traveling among 5 and-a-half-foot people, eludes apprehension for a decade, and when we ultimately get him we quickly dispose of the body where it can never be exhumed, refuse to release photographs or anything confirming the death ("Take our word for it") and hide the SEAL time and let conflicting accounts of what happened remain.

It's as likely to be true as the official account of 9/11, where the US sent all of the steel from the WTC to China, untested, to be recycled.

We don't do that. We salvage downed air planes from the bottom of the ocean and reconstruct them in hangars to find out what happened.

Do you know that the Pentagon has no photos of the dead OBL, and no DNA analysis was done on OBL.

If you want to talk about OBL, then let's throw the windows open and get a real investigation. Starting with what actually happened on 9/11 (the 911 Commission was a cruel joke), the policies that led to 9/11, our response to it, the post-9/11 policies which have us in a perpetual state of war with Americans being no safer.
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More on Lily Ledbetter -

There was another bill out there that would not only have made the technical fix of Ledbetter, but updated the Equal Pay Act of 1963, closed loopholes and made a much bigger difference in closing the pay gap. There was no reason why the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act could not have been combined with the Paycheck Fairness Act back at the beginning of the first term, in 2009. But while the bill passed the House quickly, Democrats in the Senate didn’t get around to taking up the Paycheck Fairness Act until the lame duck session of 2010, and it predictably failed 58-41, with all Republicans opposing. There’s obviously no guarantee that the Paycheck Fairness Act could have passed earlier in the term. But it’s plausible to argue that leveraging Lilly Ledbetter, which was a campaign issue, into a real advance on equal pay could have paid off. As it is, the Senate quickly got filibustered with little fanfare in the lame duck.

The point is there were other options. But the legislation that could have made a difference was left behind. And it severely damages the credibility of the Administration and its allies to keep waving the bloody shirt of Lilly Ledbetter when it actually did pretty much nothing for the larger cause of equal pay and equal work.
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Advanced women's rights in the workplace

=========================

Lily Ledbetter, at the top of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' lists of his "accomplishments", wasn't a women's rights case. And the claim as an accomplishment has gone unchallenged because to explain the ridiculousness of it as an "Obama accomplishment" can't be done in a 10-word sound byte.

To begin with, claiming LilyLedbetter as Obama's achievement is like the driver of the winning car in last year's LeMans race (MikeRockenfeller) picking up a hitch-hiking Obama right before he crossed the finish line and saying Obama won the LeMans. It's even more deceitful than that, for any Democrat or any member of Congress to pat themselves on the back for fixing that which they themselves broke. But even that doesn't quite explain it.

Obama and Democrats got into power on a pledge to change the way Washington works. Little is ever said or explained about what that really means. I'm going to attempt it:

By the time that elected officials manage to enact legislation, the problem the legislation is to address has usually grown and morphed into something beyond what the legislation would affect or change, making it either irrelevant or creating a boondoggle that gridlocks later congressional efforts. Or, something else.

With Lily Ledbetter, it took 45 years to have the legislature address a problem (statute of limitations for filing equal pay discrimination lawsuits in the Civil Rights Act of 1964) in what never should've been agreed to by Democrats in the first place in 1964. Lily Ledbetter really had nothing to do with "landmark sex discrimination". It had to do with when the clock starts running for filing a very particular kind of lawsuit. It doesn't affect statutes of limitation for any other kind of lawsuit. It doesn't apply to the filing of all lawsuits. It's just for a particular class of lawsuits - For the filing of an equal-pay lawsuit.

And it wasn't 45 years of Congresses trying to fix it. It was a year and a half. It was in response to the Supreme Court's decision in 2007 in one woman's lawsuit. It's not going to affect millions, or thousands or even hundreds of others - Ironically, if it were to affect more women, it never would have passed, no matter what party held the Congress (because it would have meant more money paid out from corporations to women, and Democrats work for corporations just as Republicans do).

If you want to tout passage of Lily Ledbetter then you're going to have to take the blame for not following it up immediately with legislation for transparency in pay. Being able to find out what everyone else is getting paid. It's a joke without it. It's like taking you to a Michelin star restaurant, blowing the aromas from the kitchen in your face, but not letting you eat anything at all.

KEEP READING
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If you're voting for Obama out of fear over what Romney would do if elected, Romney's record as governor isn't all that dissimilar from Obama's in the White House. There were even moments of liberalism to Romney's record (gun control, state co-pays for abortion, etc.) - Certainly more progressive than Obama. Even the Boston Globe admitted Romney's judicial picks "have generally not been is overtly partisan".

The Boston Globe on Romney’s judicial appointments:

Governor Mitt Romney, who touts his conservative credentials to out-of-state Republicans, has passed over GOP lawyers for three-quarters (75%) of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced, instead tapping registered Democrats or independents – including two gay lawyers who have supported expanded same-sex rights.

Of the 36 people Romney named to be judges or clerk magistrates, 23 are either registered Democrats or unenrolled voters who have made multiple contributions to Democratic politicians or who voted in Democratic primaries, state and local records show. In all, he has nominated nine registered Republicans, 13 unenrolled voters, and 14 registered Democrats.

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ElenaKagan is the GoldmanSacks seat, not to mention that she was the 5th vote in rolling back Miranda a few weeks ago, and she joined the conservatives on the Medicare portion of ACA (that states may opt out) a couple of weeks ago.

Obama's spin when trying to get both Kagan and Sotomayor (a lackluster intellect if ever there was one) confirmed was that they'd be effective at countering the conservatives arguments when it came to trying to pull Kennedy over. It hasn't happened; Roberts, Alito, and Scalia wield far greater political warfare skills. And it was Kennedy who worked on Roberts for weeks, to bring Roberts over to the conservative side on ACA??

In claims against big business, Sotomayor (herself a former corporate lawyer) wrote the dissent in a 2-1 decision that ultimately favored victims' families. This was concerning the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800 off of LongIsland. Sotomayor wrote, "The crash hadn't occurred in US territorial waters, therefore victims' families shouldn't have had the right to sue for extra damages." She wrote that the judges who disagreed with her were ignoring legislative history and earlier case law," saying "their decision was a legislative policy choice which shouldn't be made by the courts".

That's conservative talk.

In 2002, on the issue of abortion, Sotomayor upheld Bush's 'Global Gag Rule' (the policy of withholding funds for international groups that offer family planning information and services, including abortion).

On the issue of discrimination, she frequently rules against plaintiffs. For example, in 2004, she ruled against African-American corrections' officers who said they were retaliated against for filing discrimination complaints.

Sotomayor certainly doesn't look at the law through the prism of how it serves the interests of the People.

And Sotomayor was with the Scalia-Thomas-Alito faction that boycotted the SOTU - Sotomayor was in Guam, addressing a group of students and swearing in new members of the Guam Bar Association, a first for a US Supreme Court Justice (are you kidding, Sonia, missing the most public showing of US democracy and the 3 branches of government by leaving the US for a 5 day trip to Guam?).

We need more Earl Warrens. What we don't need are politicians looking to avoid a fight, and want to work "in a bipartisan manner". Republicans declared war on Democrats years and years ago, while Democrats keep trying to "make nice". Democratic politicians have gotten fat and lazy, feathering their own nests while Republicans have made long inroads into furthering corporate interests.

Whether Democrats are inept or corrupt, the result is the same: They have failed to protect the interests of the 99%. And all that they're putting out this campaign season is warmed-over Republican-like policies when drastic populist steps need to be taken.
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I don't want to see more Sam Alito and Antonin Scalias on the Supreme Court.

============================

Alito, Roberts, and Thomas made it through a Democratically-controlled Judiciary Committee and Senate. And Democrats voted to confirm Thomas (52-48), Alito (58-42) and Roberts (78-22) and Scalia (98-0).

And Obama's appointments are really nothing to defend. Both Sotomayor and Kagan are to the right of the justices that they replaced (Souter and Stevens).

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/09-0

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4074

http://www.theroot.com/views/sotomayor-liberal-enough?page=0,1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/18/AR2009071801787.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2009/07/17/abcs-greenburg-sotomayor-not-liberal-activist-almost-conservative

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2011/06/28/nprs-totenberg-kagan-sotomayor-not-nearly-liberal-predecessors

http://hispanic9.com/true_to_hispanic_beliefs,_sotomayor_is_not_a_liberal.htm

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Obama's "accomplishments"??

Under Obama -

NSA Whistleblower: They're assembling information on every US citizen.
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What you claim are Obama's "accomplishments" are a public relations' firm's spin. For example, We haven't left Iraq. We're not out of Iraq. The troops aren't withdrawn from Iraq, nor will they all be. In addition to the thousands of mercenaries remaining there, there are thousands more being left to "protect" an 'embassy' (a CIA fortress) the size of Vatican City in the center of Baghdad. That cutback in troops by the Pentagon doesn't apply to State.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html

In addition to some 5,000 private security contractors now protecting the embassy’s 11,000-person staff, Iraq is rife with American-paid contractors, mercenaries, and is a war zone, with the dead piling up day in and day out.

Whenever there's been a cutback in the number of troops, there's been an increase in the number of mercenaries hired and paid for with US taxpayer dollars.

What's the objective, how is the military going about achieving it, and where are our tax dollars going?

And we're not leaving Afghanistan. The mission in Afghanistan wasn't to wipe out the Taliban. Congress didn't authorize either Bush or Obama to do that. You seem to be using 'Taliban' interchangeably with Al Qaeda -- Huge mistake. Only a neocon or a neolib would boast of Obama's "escalating" the war in Afghanistan. The truth of our failure in "exporting democracy" to Afghanistan is here.

The 10-year strategic partnership agreement that Obama and Karzai signed commits the US-- its troops and billions more dollars -- to Afghanistan for the indefinite future.

How many more enemies are being made for American citizens through Obama's drone killings of civilians across the globe?

Democratic voters didn't put Obama into the White House to militarize and indemnify the CIA, or continue the neocon wars on behalf of transnational corporations, yet that's precisely what's going on.
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Those who tout Obama's 'accomplishments' are hapless saps, the victims of propaganda campaigns who aren't seeing that while the house is burning to the ground, instead of calling the fire department, instead of picking up a fire extinguisher or a hose and spraying water on it, instead of running inside to rescue trapped people and pets, Obama has been selling the ground under the house, traveling around the country fundraising from those who want to purchase the mineral and gas rights on that land.

I don't know what it's going to take to get through to Obama's 'most ardent supporters' - Obama and Democrats are as corrupt as Romney and Republicans. And I say that as an old liberal Democrat who has never voted for a Republican, never will, but can't see voting for a Democrat again.
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How many will stay home?

How many will vote for Anderson?

How many will vote for any number of alternatives to the status quo politics that has the 99%, the nation and civilization on the planet circling the drain?

Nobody knows better than Democracy Now! viewers what a fraud Obama is.
About NBC
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What leads you to believe that Democracy Now!'s viewers are going to vote for Obama?
About NBC
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Obama's "accomplishments"??

Obama's accomplishments:

Guantanamo is now a permanent facility from which detainees convicted of nothing will never leave.

You or I could be next, as Obama has declared that a president can imprison, even kiII anyone, even an American citizen, with no due process. For having done NOTHING. Because Obama thinks that person might.

Torture statutes of limitation have been allowed to run, and passed, while investigations into torture and torture lawyers have been stifled, scripted, and microfocused to deliberately prevent focus on easily proven lapses. Torture has become openly and thoroughly bipartisan; there is no party of opposition to Executive branch power.

As a consequence to Obama’s election, evidence of presidential wrongdoing and war crimes are forever buried.

As a consequence of Obama’s election and other Democrats' elections, unconstitutional surveillance of citizens has been enshrined as bipartisan.

The Democrats have pushed the envelope on Executive power and have now openly endorsed Executive branch assassination.

More are impoverished.

The last best chance of reinstituting Glass-Stegall protections failed.

The public option has been killed more thoroughly than any Republicans could have pulled off. The same goes for drug reimportation. All so that Obama and the Democrats could hand over a public mandate that doesn't provide affordable, quality medical treatment for everybody.

The Department of Justice, an executive branch agency which is supposed to be above the fray of politics and independent of the White House has become an arm and the muscle for Obama. Whistleblowers and the truth have been attacked with a viciousness not possessed by the Bushies, as have journalists.

Those are just a few of Obama's "accomplishments".
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Obama will go on Fox News Sunday but he won't go on Democracy Now!.
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Forget "local" media; I'd like to see Obama and other Democrats in office have to face quality questions from journalists like Chris Hedges, Robert Scheer, Russ Baker, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Matt Taibbi, Jeremy Scahill, John Nichols, Russell Mokhiber, Glenn Greenwald, and others.

Fox (with its far rightwing, conservatives, Tea Partiers, paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, moderate Republicans, Blue Dogs, Yellow Dogs, etc.) gets a bite at the apple (candidates from both parties).

Corporate media (mainstream media, with its moderate Republicans, corporate Democrats, neoliberals, Blue Dogs, Independents, etc.), gets a bite.

The closest that leftist journalists can get to the source, to question candidates, is the friends of the candidates' surrogates. Mostly leftist journalists are left to talk with academia, bureaucrats, intelligentsia, and the ordinary citizen suffering the policies and legislation of the 1% -- It's great for laying foundation and context and identifying the problems, but never gets to hold candidates feet to fire and have to account to the citizens. So politicians never have to give straight answers.
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Reince Priebus: Harry Reid Is A 'Dirty Liar' (VIDEO)

I'm glad you asked. Answer is here.
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Reince Priebus: Harry Reid Is A 'Dirty Liar' (VIDEO)

Finally, though, there’s this. If one of the reasons Mitt is hiding his tax returns does have to do with under-tithing (as the returns Mitt released may suggest), and not just his business practices and tax shelters, remember that both CO (2.15%) and especially NV (over 5%) have larger Mormon populations than average. Nate Silver considers NV the state with the biggest return on investment per voter (CO is 6th). These are lean Democratic states that Mitt might need to win if Obama’s attacks on Bain outsourcing continue to turn the race in the manufacturing swing states (though if Mitt doesn’t win FL and VA, it may be moot anyway). Driving down the Mormon enthusiasm for Mitt might be one way to boost Obama’s chances.

This is obviously all speculation, as all discussions about Mitt’s taxes are. But this comment, stated by one Mormon about another, could have different connotations among Mormon listeners than non-Mormon ones.

A month or so ago, [Harry Reid] said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?

Was Mitt’s source talking taxes? Or tithes?
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Reince Priebus: Harry Reid Is A 'Dirty Liar'

"Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

Prolly, because of Carried Interest
David Cay Johnston:

4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
John Paulson, the most successful hedge-fund manager of all, bet against the mortgage market one year and then bet with Glenn Beck in the gold market the next. Paulson made himself $9 billion in fees in just two years. His current tax bill on that $9 billion? Zero.

Congress lets hedge-fund managers earn all they can now and pay their taxes years from now.

[...]

… hedge-fund managers don’t even pay 15 percent. At least, not currently. So long as they leave their money, known as “carried interest,” in the hedge fund, their taxes are deferred. They only pay taxes when they cash out, which could be decades from now for younger managers. …

Lots of other people live tax-free, too. I have Donald Trump’s tax records for four years early in his career. He paid no taxes for two of those years. Big real-estate investors enjoy tax-free living under a 1993 law President Clinton signed. It lets “professional” real-estate investors use paper losses like depreciation on their buildings against any cash income, even if they end up with negative incomes like Trump.

Frank and Jamie McCourt, who own the Los Angeles Dodgers, have not paid any income taxes since at least 2004, their divorce case revealed. Yet they spent $45 million one year alone. How? They just borrowed against Dodger ticket revenue and other assets. To the IRS, they look like paupers.

In Wisconsin, Terrence Wall, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, paid no income taxes on as much as $14 million of recent income, his disclosure forms showed. Asked about his living tax-free while working people pay taxes, he had a simple response: Everyone should pay less.

[...]

http://wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html
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Reince Priebus: Harry Reid Is A 'Dirty Liar'

When One Mormon Gossips About Another Mormon Not Paying His Taxes:

For the record, I think Mitt has multiple reasons to hide his tax returns. I think it’s largely about what his returns would say about his business practices, it’s partly about his tax shelters, and, one way or another, it’s about his relative loyalty to his church and his country.

But here’s a thought.

Harry Reid, Mormon, and Senator from Nevada, is the one leading the charge to return attention to Mitt’s tax returns.

He attributes his claim that Mitt paid no taxes for ten years to someone who invested with Bain. Now he may know his purported Bain-related source because he travels the halls of power. But Bain has very close cultural ties to the Mormon Church–according to some, improperly so. Moreover, because Mitt and other Bain execs have given so much to the Mormon Church in the form of Bain stocks, high ranking Mormon insiders may have a better idea of what Bain Capital actually does–and how Mitt valued his holdings before he gave them to the Church–than most others.

So Reid may be calling out Mitt as someone who shares a very wealth-based and close knit faith with Mitt.

Add in the practice of gossip about tithing, notably whether Mormon colleagues tithed pre- or post-tax. That’s another reason why Reid may have a better sense of what Mitt’s tax practices look like than DC pundits might guess on face value.

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F**k "local" media; I'd like to see Obama and other Democrats in office have to face quality questions from journalists like Chris Hedges, Robert Scheer, Russ Baker, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Matt Taibbi, Jeremy Scahill, John Nichols, Russell Mokhiber, Glenn Greenwald, and others.

Fox (with its far rightwing, conservatives, Tea Partiers, paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, moderate Republicans, Blue Dogs, Yellow Dogs, etc.) gets a bite at the apple (candidates from both parties).

Corporate media (mainstream media, with its moderate Republicans, corporate Democrats, neoliberals, Blue Dogs, Independents, etc.), gets a bite.

The closest that leftist journalists can get to the source, to question candidates, is the friends of the candidates' surrogates. Mostly leftist journalists are left to talk with academia, bureaucrats, intelligentsia, and the ordinary citizen suffering the policies and legislation of the 1% -- It's great for laying foundation and context and identifying the problems, but never gets to hold candidates feet to fire and have to account to the citizens. So politicians never have to give straight answers.
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