Read the title of the article!
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Read my comment!
I've been talking about Romney's pre-2010 tax returns.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Friday, September 21, 2012
Mitt Romney Tax Returns For 2011 Released
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Read my comment!
I've been talking about Romney's pre-2010 tax returns.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
AT&T Presents: Your Congressional Representative™ Brought to You by Goldman Sachs
Nader bashing again?
Nader didn't do anything to Gore that HarryBrowne, PatBuchanan, HowardPhillips, et al (other party candidates) didn't also do, yet you don't hear them being blamed. Gore and Bush weren't owed other party's voters, and studies have shown that Nader pulled more votes from Bush than from Gore.
You presume that Nader voters would've voted for Gore (or voted at all) when studies and exit polling have indicated that's not the case.
Nader voters get blamed when, had Nader not even run Bush still would've won. Because Republicans had gamed that election more ways than we're ever going to know about. You might as well blame Pat Buchanan with the same vigor and vitriole.
AlGore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.
Whatever the means necessary to get BushCheney into the WhiteHouse would've happened. Had Nader been in the race, had he not in the race, whatever. Had Nader not run, the outcome would've been the same. The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerable ways.
If the means for getting BushCheney into the WhiteHouse required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would've been used.
For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida. That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-election days in Florida -- 'CharlesKane' testified to altering absentee ballots in the MartinCounty's Registrar's office in the two week period prior to election day (it's against the law and should render the ballots null and void). When Kane was sworn in, he had to identify himself and give his occupation and employer. Retired CIA. The judge asked him why he was altering the absentee ballots, and he answered "I go where I'm told." Verbatim quote. The judge didn't follow up. There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.
Have you forgotten JebBush's vote purging scheme?
Have people really forgotten all the different ways that that election was gamed by the GOP? And that's just in Florida. And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceedings in the post-election days.
There was a coup d'etat in America in 2000. A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.
And Democrats suppressed investigations, and then screwed over the CongressionalBlackCaucus's attempts to expose that stolen election.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Nancy Pelosi: Staying On As Minority Leader 'Up To My Caucus ... And My Family'
I don't really care what your opinion is of how she has represented me.
Nor (as an old old liberal Democrat who has worked in government, in politics, and in the Democratic Party) do I care how you, a Republican, label her.
Just felt like sharing that.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Mitt Romney Tax Returns For 2011 Released
So what you're saying is Harry Reid is a liar right?
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If Romney participated in the IRS Tax Amnesty Program in 2009, both Reid and Romney can be telling the truth.
And if Romney did participate in the IRS Tax Amnesty Program, it means that he had broken the law.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Nancy Pelosi: Staying On As Minority Leader 'Up To My Caucus ... And My Family'
Pelosi needs to go; she's been no friend to Democratic voters. See here. And here.
Obama has been able to cut deals with Boehner that have been bad for the 99% because Pelosi has delivered the votes he needed, over the objections of her own caucus. The war supplemental that included the $108 billion in IMF funding, the healthcare bill with the anti-choice language and no public option, the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts and the Libya war defunding vote are just a few prominent examples.
The latest union- and job-killing free trade bills, SKoreaAFTA and CAFTA - Pelosi voted yea.
And H.R.347: Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal, outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it, anywhere in the country.- Pelosi voted yea.
And look who voted for NDAA - Pelosi!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner: GOP Won't Agree To Raise Taxes On Wealthy, Even If Obama Wins Reelection
When the Big Debate Is Over Taxes, The 99% Have Lost
Ever since Romney’s comment about the 47% who don’t pay federal income tax became public, news stories and opinion pieces have been dominated by discussions of who does and doesn't pay taxes. This is great news for the 1%.
The obsession with taxes means that the 1% are playing a game that they can only win. The vast majority of the upward redistribution of income over the last three decades has been in before tax income. This has been brought about through a variety of changes in laws and institutions that had the effect of restructuring markets in ways that redistribute income upward.
For example, we have a trade policy that's designed to put downward pressure on the wages of manufacturing workers by putting them in direct competition with low-wage workers in the developing world. (Highly paid professionals like doctors and lawyers are still largely protected from such competition.) This downward pressure is amplified by the over-valued dollar, a policy that had its origins in the ClintonAdministration.
The implicit government insurance provided to too big to fail banks transfers around $60 billion a year to the shareholders and top executives at the big banks. Patent and copyright monopolies redistribute hundreds of billions a year from consumers to drug companies and the tech and entertainment industry.
Anti-union laws weaken the power of workers trying to organize for collective action, thereby reducing their ability to secure wage increases. (ChicagoMayorRahmEmanuel was going to court to have union leaders thrown in jail the teachers continued their strike.) And a FederalReserveBoard that throws workers out of work to meet inflation targets protects the wealth of creditors at the cost of undermining workers' bargaining power.
These and other areas of public policy are the key factors determining the relative well-being of the rich and the rest of us. As long as we're obsessed with a discussion of whether the Bush tax cuts will continue, the policies responsible for the bulk of the upward redistribution over the last three decades will never be discussed. The current debate may be good news for Obama’s reelection prospects, but it's not a positive development for those who don’t like to see the perpetuation of government policies that redistribute money upward. (Yes, this is all a plug for my free book, The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive.)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Mitt Romney Tax Returns For 2011 Released
"The Romney campaign clarified to pool reporters later in the day that he was, indeed, "referring to federal income taxes" when he said he paid a rate above 13 percent over the past 10 years."If Romney participated in the IRS Tax Amnesty Program in 2009, both Reid and Romney can be telling the truth.
It's been speculated that, among many reasons, it's the IRS's Tax Amnesty Program in 2009 that Romney is probably trying to hide.
In 2008, a whistleblower at Swiss bank UBS informed the IRS that American clients held thousands of Swiss accounts at the bank to avoid paying US taxes. UBS initially refused to give up the names of those with accounts citing Swiss law, but eventually caved, gave up the names, and paid a substantial $780 million fine.
But the IRS didn’t prosecute those tax evaders. Instead, it decided to establish (in 2009) the so-called “special tax amnesty program,” which gave legal immunity and limited penalities to those who voluntarily turned themselves in (read: free ride). It also kept these names anonymous.
So then: Did Romney, who disclosed that he had a Swiss bank account at least in 2010, take advantage of this program? Why won’t he come clean with American voters?
And why the cut-off at 2010 for Paul Ryan's returns? Did he also participate in the 2009 amnesty program? Given the wealth his wife brought into the marriage, it's conceivable.
And why aren’t more people asking these questions? If we want the media to get to the bottom of this, cut and paste this under your own name and send it to them all. Flood their email.
Now before Obama's 'most ardent fans' get too excited, remember that it was Obama's IRS that instituted this tax amnesty program, with its secrecy. I anticipate Obama's supporters will now defend him and the program, but what they can't get around is that when it comes to getting justice for the American people, the 99%, Obama can't be bothered. He's weak tea, like how his DoJ just ended investigations of Goldman Sachs, "declining not to bring any prosecutions".
Both parties, corrupt to the core.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Mitt Romney Tax Returns For 2011 Released
The returns Romney has made public (for 2010 and 2011) raise more questions than they answer.
His 2010 return indicates he paid a rate of 13.9 percent, and suggests he paid far lower than that in 2009. The 2010 return reveals he carried over $4.9 million in capital losses from the previous year. That means he paid no taxes on any capital gains in 2009, including no taxes on his carried interest. So how much did he pay in 2009? Zero? How close to zero?
Or how about 2008, the year when the investment market first crashed?
Romney's 2010 return also lists a Swiss bank account. Romney's trust adviser said the account existed "for diversification purposes only". His return indicates he paid US taxes on the interest in that Swiss account, and that he closed the Swiss account in 2010. That’s all fine, but how long did he have the Swiss account to begin with? Was he betting against US currency?
We would know the answers to those questions if Romney released his earlier returns.
When Romney last ran for president four years ago, he said he was in the process of divesting or removing all of his holdings in Iran and all investments related to stem cell research. However, his charitable trust indicates he continued to buy and sell these holdings. Did Romney break his word about his divestment promises? Only his 2007 return can answer that.
How much did Romney make and what tax rate did he pay from 1984 to 2009? In this period, he was a corporate buyout specialist at Bain, and he then continued to receive a share of the Bain profits as part of a non-compete agreement. Only his returns from this period will show how much he made and what his rate was.
Furthermore, they will also show how much he profited from deals that led to bankruptcies. Specifically, KB Toys and Dade Behring. His firm got millions of dollars in dividends when he acquired those companies, then Bain sent KB and Dade Behring into bankruptcy, prompting thousands of US workers to lose their jobs. How much did he profit in those deals?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama To Romney: 'There Are A Whole Bunch Of Millionaires Who Aren't Paying Taxes At All Either'
And as I said, payroll taxes are just one of many taxes (such as state and local or excise fees like gas taxes) that the 47% pay, and which tend to have a regressive impact that hits poorer Americans harder.
Do you think that poor people have too much money? Meet the people you're talking about.
The reason people don't pay federal income taxes in this country is mostly because of deductions and exemptions in the tax code. Mainly that's been a preferred Republican way of legislating social policy, to reward work and reward childbearing and education (Democrats have done it, too, but it was championed by Republicans over time).
Republicans have had an anti-tax brand. They like to be seen for cutting taxes and against raising taxes, but they really only believe that for upper income people. Republican budgets like Romney's and like the Republican budgets in the states don't ignore the poor: They target the poor for higher taxes. The Republican approach to poverty is to say the poor have too much money and the government has to fix that by taking some money away from them.
It's a Republican policy more broadly for the whole country that people who have less money are not paying enough in taxes, and Republicans (and apparently you, too) would like to raise those people's taxes.
It's what Republicans have pursued in the states since they took over the governorships in so many states in the 2010 elections. The Republican tax plan in S. Carolina this year proposed raising taxes on the poorest families in the state and cutting taxes for people who are wealthy.
When Republicans took over in Wisconsin, the budget introduced would have cut taxes for everybody in the state except for the poor. It would raise taxes on the poorest people in Wisconsin.
In Kansas, the Republican governor signed a new bill into law that takes poor people's taxes and raises them.
What we're seeing is an ideological shift by Republicans around taxation. Their basic ideas about the legitimacy of taxing people at all. It's what's allowing them, essentially, to criticize the results of all of their own policymaking, policymaking that created deductions for people in the military, education, that made possible this 47%.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner Says Mitt Romney Campaign Not Dead Yet, Jokes 'I Just Hope I Survive'
If you don't think Nader is left of Gore,
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Where did you come up with that? Of course Nader is left of Gore. WTF?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner Says Mitt Romney Campaign Not Dead Yet, Jokes 'I Just Hope I Survive'
Nader again?
Nader didn't do anything to Gore that HarryBrowne, PatBuchanan, HowardPhillips, et al (other party candidates) didn't also do, yet you don't hear them being blamed. Gore and Bush weren't owed other party's voters, and studies have shown that Nader pulled more votes from Bush than from Gore.
You presume that Nader voters would've voted for Gore (or voted at all) when studies and exit polling have indicated that's not the case.
You blame Nader voters when, had Nader not even run, had he not be in the race, Bush still would've won. Because Republicans had gamed that election more ways than we're ever going to know about. You might as well blame Pat Buchanan with the same vigor and vitriole.
AlGore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.
Whatever the means necessary to get BushCheney into the WhiteHouse would've happened. Had Nader been in the race, had he not in the race, whatever. Had Nader not run, the outcome would've been the same. The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerable ways.
If the means for getting BushCheney into the WhiteHouse required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would've been used.
For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida. That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-election days in Florida -- 'CharlesKane' testified to altering absentee ballots in the MartinCounty's Registrar's office in the two week period prior to election day (it's against the law and should render the ballots null and void). When Kane was sworn in, he had to identify himself and give his occupation and employer. Retired CIA. The judge asked him why he was altering the absentee ballots, and he answered "I go where I'm told." Verbatim quote. The judge didn't follow up. There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.
Have you forgotten JebBush's vote purging scheme?
Have people really forgotten all the different ways that that election was gamed by the GOP? And that's just in Florida. And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceedings in the post-election days.
There was a coup d'etat in America in 2000. A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.
And Democrats suppressed investigations, and then screwed over the CongressionalBlackCaucus's attempts to expose that stolen election.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Disabled Veteran 47 Percenter: 'I Guess I'm One Of The Leeches On The System'
From the article:
But Hoskins rejects Romney's contention that he will vote for President Barack Obama "no matter what" to keep his benefits flowing. He is sour on politicians of both parties.
"I'm not in the bag for anyone," he said. "I'm not voting for either of those guys."
He said he wasn't going to vote "for either of those guys", but he didn't say he wasn't voting.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Disabled Veteran 47 Percenter: 'I Guess I'm One Of The Leeches On The System'
Please vote. Even if not for president, than to get 60 in the Senate.
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Obama has had both Houses of Congress. He had a filibuster-proof Senate twice (remember when Arlen Specter switched parties?).
Since 2006, Democrats have had the tools to achieve on the people's behalf and refused to use them, took them off the table.
Had Obama used his considerable gifts, we would have had what he and Democrats were put into office to achieve: Affordable quality medical treatment for all, not ACA, which is a massive giveaway to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries without containing costs or guaranteeing treatment for all.
Had Reid used Senate rule 22, had Pelosi not taken impeachment off the table, had Obama and Congress investigated and prosecuted BushCo, we'd be done with Republicans having any kind of power. We'd have regulated finance/banking system and a robust stimulus program that would have put millions of Americans back to work and not teetering on the edge of foreclosure. Oh to have a home worth more than what it's cost again.
There could be 100 "progressives" in the Senate and 435 in the House, and they and Obama and Democrats would still find a way to deliver to corporations instead of the People. Because they're DLC, aka Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing.
About We Are The 47 Percent
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Disabled Veteran 47 Percenter: 'I Guess I'm One Of The Leeches On The System'
Hoskins didn't say he wasn't going to vote.
There are alternatives to voting for Democrats and Republicans.
Not voting for Obama doesn't mean voting for Romney, or vice versa. Or not voting at all.
The lock that the two parties have on certain kinds of voters' minds is impressive, and it's what makes the saying "you get the government you deserve" true.
Wake The Heck Up!
About We Are The 47 Percent
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama To Romney: 'There Are A Whole Bunch Of Millionaires Who Aren't Paying Taxes At All Either'
Who is it that you believe doesn't pay taxes?
Meet the 47% - They pay taxes.
Example: From The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
At a hearing last month, SenatorCharlesGrassley said, "According to the JointCommitteeOnTaxation, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of taxes coming in to the federal government." At the same hearing, CatoInstituteSeniorFellow AlanReynolds asserted, "Poor people don't pay taxes in this country." Last April, referring to a TaxPolicyCenter estimate of households with no federal income tax liability in 2009, FoxBusiness host StuartVarney said on Fox and Friends, "Yes, 47 percent of households pay not a single dime in taxes."The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith provide the definitive takedown of this myth.
In 2009, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation found that 51 percent of households owed no federal income tax. According to Marr and Highsmith, that figure was inflated by special recession-related factors -- In a more typical year, "35 to 40 percent of households pay no federal income tax."
But that does not mean that these households pay no federal taxes at all. Far from it: Nearly all working Americans pay payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security. In 2007, the poorest Americans -- taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income -- paid 8.8 percent of their income as payroll taxes. The next fifth paid almost ten percent. The top 20 percent of earners paid only 5.7 percent. And while the government has that money, they use it and make money off of it.
And of course, these numbers don't include state and local taxes or excise fees like gas taxes, which tend to have a regressive impact that hits poorer Americans harder. Bottom line: only 14 percent of Americans don't pay either federal income taxes or payroll taxes -- and that group is made up primarily of "low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students."
The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then have taken those profits to buy politicians who've gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes. The rich also 'closed the door' on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their 'seed money' for creating their businesses.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner Says Mitt Romney Campaign Not Dead Yet, Jokes 'I Just Hope I Survive'
I think the Simpson Bowles thing is an election ploy to shore up the more conservative elements of his base.=============================
I'll bet that you told yourself the same thing in 2008 when he flip-flopped on FISA.
It's amazing to me the lengths that Obama's 'most ardent supporters' go in order to justify their continued support.
Here - This link's for you. ;-)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner Says Mitt Romney Campaign Not Dead Yet, Jokes 'I Just Hope I Survive'
Actually, I use to occasionally vote Republican before the tea party took over. Now, you are right. I am terrified of the Republican policies.======================
Two articles that speak that I think are must reads for Democratic voters are John Cusack's Interview of Law Professor Jonathan Turley About the Obama Administration's War on the Constitution and journalist Russell Mokhiber's Ten Reasons I'm Not With Barack Obama.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner Says Mitt Romney Campaign Not Dead Yet, Jokes 'I Just Hope I Survive'
At this point, I would argue that Obama and Democrats are worse than Republicans. Bush-Cheney-Republicans make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better. "Lesser of two evils"? No, Obama's the more effective of the two evils. More effective on behalf of the corporate elites.
Obama has done nothing to engender my or the People's trust. In secret budget talks, Obama left EVERYTHING on the table, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Just as Obama ran on SinglePayer, then backed down, then said he wouldn't sign any legislation that didn't include a public option, and then reneged, in the weeks after the election he's going to be cutting another secret budget deal with Republicans (he'll push SimpsonBowles, the 'CatfoodCommission's' report), just like the one he cut on the lousy health insurance legislation and Bush's (now Obama's) tax cuts for the rich, that ends Great Society programs. And then there's the KeystonePipeline - Obama already put the land-grab for the southern route on the fast track.
'In bed with corporations'-secret deals is Obama's mode. It's how he operates. HE'S A REPUBLICAN-IN-DEMOCRATS'-CLOTHING. Obama is not a man of the People; he's a tool of the Corporations.
Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for Obama's 'most ardent supporters' if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
John Boehner Says Mitt Romney Campaign Not Dead Yet, Jokes 'I Just Hope I Survive'
I'll assume you meant that facetiously.
We're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian (Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, et al), in just about every race. If you don't know which candidate best fits your views, you might want to take an online quiz.
If for no other reason than to get enough of a percentage of the vote necessary for getting a seat at the table, I think that may be enough for great numbers of Democratic voters this time around who are dissatisfied with Obama and the Democratic Party and are willing to vote third party to make that happen. The reason for doing that, voting third party, is a considered, longer term approach instead of just accepting the traditionally passive role of citizens to vote for whatever slate is offered by one of the two parties that is closer to your opinions on issues.
We saw this in the 2008 when first Obama and Democrats were swept into power on a platform of CHANGE, and in 2010 when disappointed and dissatisfied voters took out incumbents in both parties. We'll see if that trend continues in 2012, and how it will be spun by political operatives in the media. In 2010, the media spun it (and Obama framed it) as a mandate to move the government even farther to the right, despite the fact that while Blue Dogs were turned out of office big time, progressives/liberals only lost 3 seats.
I never advise people to sit out elections, because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's what p!sses me off about Obama, and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying them that brung 'im. Because by shutting out liberals, the base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government.
I say this as an old, OLD liberal Democrat (a 'New Deal' Democrat) who has never voted for a Republican, never will, but I can honestly say that I can't imagine ever voting for a Democrat again.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama: Immigration Reform Inaction Was 'Biggest Failure'
I live in Phoenix where the housing market has gone from abysmal to boom in the past year. Housing starts are up dramatically and the resale inventory is very low.
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Terrific. Another bubble. It's not a realistic market, nor is it a stable one; it was never repaired. It's the same old pyramid scheme ("Grow, grow, grow!"), the same old unregulated capitalism, that got us into this economic quagmire in the first place.
What's going on in Phoenix: 55% of homeowners with mortgages have high 'negative equity' (a charming term for owing more on the house than it's worth) and neither the banks nor the homeowners want to be left holding the bag. And because prices are so low (almost 43% below the historical average), banks are trying to lure buyers (primarily investors who are converting the properties into rentals) with low interest mortgages, which banks then are slicing and dicing a few thousand times (that's how we got into the last bubble and crash) to make big bucks.
There really is so much wrong with what you are defending, so much that is an affront to Democratic Party values, it really is hard to know where to start. On foreign policy, on environmental policy, on domestic/labor union/collective bargaining policy, on energy policy, there is nothing positive or progressive that comes from the kind of building, the kind of growth that you're talking about in Phoenix.
And the work force that you're talking about, the low pay they receive, not only puts American workers who need a living wage out of business, it's money that doesn't stay in the United States; that immigrant work force sends the money to family in Mexico.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost