Whites for Romney

[CosmicCowboy]

See the ad here

VManxPOaKrw

[cantthinkofanything]

nice tan

[Blake]

Shouldn't it be Mexican Americans for Romney

[CosmicCowboy]

You guys don't seem to get subtle.

If Romney ran a polarizing ad like "whites for Romney" you guys would be shitting all over yourselves and raising hell about Romney being a racist.

[MannyIsGod]

Probably - but there's a reason for that. Lets not take anything like this out of context of the 300 years.

[MannyIsGod]

Also, its not like whites are the underrepresented minority in government in any way.

[CosmicCowboy]

Probably - but there's a reason for that. Lets not take anything like this out of context of the 300 years.


Also, its not like whites are the underrepresented minority in government in any way.

Seems like some pretty convoluted rationalization to me.

[MannyIsGod]

I'm not rationalizing it. Ideally, no group should get special preference. We're a long way from that, however. Minorities are underepresented in government by a long shot, CC. White males, on the other hand, are just the opposite. So why play the victim card over something like this?

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm not rationalizing it. Ideally, no group should get special preference. We're a long way from that, however. Minorities are underepresented in government by a long shot, CC. White males, on the other hand, are just the opposite. So why play the victim card over something like this?

It's not a victim card. It is a legitimate question. Why can Obama run a racist, racially divisive television ad and not get called out for it?...Because he went to Harvard? Because he is a multi-millionaire?...or because his skin is is black? It's not like the guy has slave shackle scars on his wrists.

And what does the color of his skin have to do with getting a pass on being racially divisive?

[MannyIsGod]

It's not a victim card. It is a legitimate question. Why can Obama run a racist, racially divisive television ad and not get called out for it?...Because he went to Harvard? Because he is a multi-millionaire?...or because his skin is is black? It's not like the guy has slave shackle scars on his wrists.

And what does the color of his skin have to do with getting a pass on being racially divisive?

Because African Americans are underrepresented in every way shape or form. You know better than to ask this question. I get that you think its unfair but I think its unfair when I look at census figures and virtually every socioeconomic indicator drops when looking at minorities in this country. The system does not treat us all equally.

If an ethnic group's biggest gripe is that they don't get to run the same type of political ads as another who's socioeconomic status is 2nd class by every indicator then perhaps some perspective is needed.

[CosmicCowboy]

Because African Americans are underrepresented in every way shape or form. You know better than to ask this question. I get that you think its unfair but I think its unfair when I look at census figures and virtually every socioeconomic indicator drops when looking at minorities in this country. The system does not treat us all equally.

If an ethnic group's biggest gripe is that they don't get to run the same type of political ads as another who's socioeconomic status is 2nd class by every indicator then perhaps some perspective is needed.

I simply don't get the rationalization that it's ok to be a racist if you are black.

[Blake]

I simply don't get the rationalization that it's ok to be a racist if you are black.

How exactly is that ad racist?

[CosmicCowboy]

How exactly is that ad racist?

Being racially divisive is an act of racism.

I guarantee if Romney ran a "whites for Obama" ad you would call him a racist.

[lefty]

racism sucks !


Yeah I really went out on a limb

[MannyIsGod]

I simply don't get the rationalization that it's ok to be a racist if you are black.

Why do you think these ads happen, CC?

[MannyIsGod]

Why do you think these ads happen, CC?

More specifically, why do you think they happen without being called racist?

[ChumpDumper]

Being racially divisive is an act of racism.If Obama were rejecting white votes and support, that would be divisive.

[ChumpDumper]

So this is obviously racist because blacks are not included.

https://www.facebook.com/HispanicsForMittRomney

[CosmicCowboy]

If Obama were rejecting white votes and support, that would be divisive.

Yeah, but crackers like you aren't welcome at African Americans for Barack Obama.

[MannyIsGod]

I don't think the groups themselves are racist because they are special interest groups pursuing an agenda. IE Hispanics for Obama want to elect Obama to pass laws they consider favorable to Hispanics.

I do think its racist that white people don't get the same groups, but I don't really think its a problem. It would be a problem if white people were actually falling behind. Right now the special interest group that looks out for white interests is the US government.

In short, there's no NEED for a Whites for Romney

[MannyIsGod]

Yeah, but crackers like you aren't welcome at African Americans for Barack Obama.

You sure about that? Pretty sure they'd be willing to accept anyone who was there to pursue their agenda.

[ChumpDumper]

Yeah, but crackers like you aren't welcome at African Americans for Barack Obama.You'll have to prove that.

[CosmicCowboy]

So this is obviously racist because blacks are not included.

https://www.facebook.com/HispanicsForMittRomney

Personally I'm not real crazy about that either if Romney put the page up.

[CosmicCowboy]

You'll have to prove that.

meh. You can always claim an ancestor in the woodpile.

[ChumpDumper]

Personally I'm not real crazy about that either if Romney put the page up.But you'll stop short of calling it racist because why?

[CosmicCowboy]

But you'll stop short of calling it racist because why?

I don't like to see racially divisive stuff from either side, I consider that racist as well. Not as explicitly racist as Obamas pitch since as it wasn't a personal video appeal (and if there is one I am not aware of it) but still racist.

[CosmicCowboy]

LOL

Puttin on his cracker hat.

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/AabfkZEUagQBXHv_tRtnzg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zNDE7cT04NTt3PTUxMg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/dc8706a6ba5f6f12140f6a706700ed29.jpg

[ChumpDumper]

I don't like to see racially divisive stuff from either side, I consider that racist as well. Not as explicitly racist as Obamas pitch since as it wasn't a personal video appeal (and if there is one I am not aware of it) but still racist.So it's racist when a company runs an ad with only one race of people in it?

Your selective political correctness is entertaining.

[ChumpDumper]

LOL

Puttin on his cracker hat.

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/AabfkZEUagQBXHv_tRtnzg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zNDE7cT04NTt3PTUxMg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/dc8706a6ba5f6f12140f6a706700ed29.jpgNo Asians in the picture.

Racism!

[CosmicCowboy]

So it's racist when a company runs an ad with only one race of people in it?

Your selective political correctness is entertaining.

Glad you are entertained.

[ChumpDumper]

I am. You mistake simple marketing for racial exclusivity.

[Trill Clinton]

Romney doesn't care about black people so he won't be getting my vote.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm not rationalizing it. Ideally, no group should get special preference. We're a long way from that, however. Minorities are underepresented in government by a long shot, CC. White males, on the other hand, are just the opposite. So why play the victim card over something like this?

Pretty close to overall national demographics in congress, tbh.

Whites = 78% of 2011 Census
Whites = 82% of congress.
Not all that far off.
Senate is another matter tho.

[CosmicCowboy]

I am. You mistake simple marketing for racial exclusivity.

I think marketing on political campaigns should be a little classier than marketing for hamburgers or beer. I can see why you don't see a difference.

Actually, I think it's funny he has to run black specific ads even though he knows at least 95% of them support him.

Deep in his racist heart he is afraid that blacks will be too lazy to get out and vote for him again...:lol

[CosmicCowboy]

Romney doesn't care about black people so he won't be getting my vote.

:lmao

poor, poor, baby. :lol

[Trill Clinton]

:lmao

poor, poor, baby. :lol

what benefit do I have voting for him?

[ChumpDumper]

I think marketing on political campaigns should be a little classier than marketing for hamburgers or beer. I can see why you don't see a difference.I think you are full of shit in making that statement. I can see why you would be disingenuous about it.


Deep in his racist heartWhat do you feel deep in your racist heart?

[CosmicCowboy]

what benefit do I have voting for him?

What benefit do you get for voting for Obama? Black pride?

Or is this what you had in mind?

P36x8rTb3jI

[CosmicCowboy]

I think you are full of shit in making that statement. I can see why you would be disingenuous about it.

What do you feel deep in your racist heart?

:lmao

4MPsjem1ZzY

[Trill Clinton]

What benefit do you get for voting for Obama? Black pride?

really don't care for Obama either. he's just a black version of dubya.

now, what is Romney going to do for the American people? why should I vote for him?

[ChumpDumper]

:lmaoYep, it's hilarious. You didn't even know you were politically correct until it was politically expedient.

[CosmicCowboy]

really don't care for Obama either. he's just a black version of dubya.

now, what is Romney going to do for the American people? why should I vote for him?

I'm not sure how good or bad Romney will be since he is the challenger to the incumbent but I have 3 1/2 years of seeing how bad Obama is and it's pretty much a no brainer for me to cross my fingers that Romney will be better and vote AGAINST Obama.

[Trill Clinton]

I'm not sure how good or bad Romney will be since he is the challenger to the incumbent but I have 3 1/2 years of seeing how bad Obama is and it's pretty much a no brainer for me to cross my fingers that Romney will be better and vote AGAINST Obama.

aight. for the record I did vote for rick perry in the past but I was young and just excited to vote. I don't really get into politics because I think its all bullshit at the end of the day.

I do think obama put America in a better position than what Bush left it in. I find it odd that many people complain about obama when he's damn near identical to bush.

[Blake]

There is a white guy here!:

http://www.barackobama.com/african-americans/

Holy shit!

[CosmicCowboy]

There is a white guy here!:

http://www.barackobama.com/african-americans/

Holy shit!

LOL

he's just the token (black)(white)(gay) friend.

[ChumpDumper]

There is a white guy here!:

http://www.barackobama.com/african-americans/

Holy shit!Keep reading, you'll find where blacks can sign up to yell at white folk at gas stations.

[ChumpDumper]

LOL

he's just the token (black)(white)(gay) friend.lol CC wants a quota of white people to be met.

[Clipper Nation]

What benefit do you get for voting for Obama? Black pride?
Same benefit he'd get for voting for Mittens... shit nothing, tbh...

[DarrinS]

He needs some people of color on his campaign staff

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Pretty close to overall national demographics in congress, tbh.

Whites = 78% of 2011 Census
Whites = 82% of congress.
Not all that far off.
Senate is another matter tho.

Women are also another matter. They only have 17% of the legislature and 51% of the population.

[TeyshaBlue]

Women are also another matter. They only have 17% of the legislature and 51% of the population.

troof:toast

[MannyIsGod]

I'd be willing to bet that whites are that high because of Hispanics being included with them. That being said, the numbers should be closer considering the way house districts are drawn up.

Look, I'm basically just not going to have much sympathy for the white male not being able to have a white male political support group in an ad. I might be willing to rethink that when socio economic indicators are a bit different (by a bit I mean a lot) than they are today but I suspect that it won't be an issue (not that it really is now) when thats the case.

[MannyIsGod]

I can't vouch for this graphic since I didn't look up the numbers myself, but it makes sense to me and explains why the white demographic make look different when you factor in Hispanics with them.

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1104/congress/transparency.png

[TeyshaBlue]

I'd be willing to bet that whites are that high because of Hispanics being included with them. That being said, the numbers should be closer considering the way house districts are drawn up.

Look, I'm basically just not going to have much sympathy for the white male not being able to have a white male political support group in an ad. I might be willing to rethink that when socio economic indicators are a bit different (by a bit I mean a lot) than they are today but I suspect that it won't be an issue (not that it really is now) when thats the case.

I'm not advocating a white club. :lol

But, Hispanics were not included in the white figures I pulled.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol manny. Speak softly and post a big ass chart.:lol

[Creepn]

Yeah, but crackers like you aren't welcome at African Americans for Barack Obama.

Lol that's bullshit. I'd even invite Chump to our family BBQs if I knew him personally. I guarantee he'd feel part of the family.

[MannyIsGod]

I'm not advocating a white club. :lol

But, Hispanics were not included in the white figures I pulled.

No I know you weren't. The situation is getting better, in any event. Its a long process.

[Creepn]

meh. You can always claim an ancestor in the woodpile.

Do you honestly believe that if a white man shows up at the event, blacks will be outraged and run him out? Wow.

[scott]

Geez, white people said sorry like... 50 years ago. What else could minorities possibly want?

[Creepn]

Geez, white people said sorry like... 50 years ago. What else could minorities possibly want?

Apology not accepted. Don't you dare show your white ass at our Obama events. Don't you dare.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Alabama Pastor Holds Whites Only Conference


(LAMAR COUNTY, ALa.) A pastor in Winfield is making headlines for holding an annual conference for "white" Christians only.

Pastor William Collier and his Church of God's Chosen are holding the conference. The mayor of the city says Collier does not represent the general public. The three day conference ends Friday with a cross burning, which organizers call a "Sacred Christian cross lighting ceremony".

http://www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Alabama-Pastor-Holds-Whites-Only-Conference/6tePHSFtg0yEKS4ezBhHeg.cspx

I think one important distinction between these two types are that if I went to the Africans For Obama or whatever the hell its called they would not turn me away. Then you have these guys.

And acting like white people do not have their own social and political groups that are predominantly white with white interest at heart then you are a moron.

Take a look at the board of directors of the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, the GOP leadership and to a lesser extent Democratic leadership for the past 150 years. We are well represented.

[z0sa]

It's quite simple - Non-Hispanic white people constitute approximately 64% of the US population. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnici ty)

When minorities quit being, well, minorities, or whites become closer in population percentage relative minorities I should say, then one who is white can argue about not being represented enough.

That's beside the fact that Capitol Hill has always been overwhelmingly white, forcing minorities (once again due to their lack of representation) to become special interest groups out of necessity.

[Blake]

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1108354.1341504547!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_485/image.jpg

lol I didn't realize the KKK was an LLC.

[Spurminator]

/white people problems

[Wild Cobra]

That video in the OP is so racist.

[Wild Cobra]

Romney doesn't care about black people so he won't be getting my vote.
Do you expect for him to care about one race more than another?

[Wild Cobra]

what benefit do I have voting for him?
That makes you a whore, if you want him to do something for you to get your vote.

[Wild Cobra]

CDlJMtjMMvw

[ChumpDumper]

There are plenty of whites against Obama simply because he's black.

[Wild Cobra]

There are plenty of whites against Obama simply because he's black.
What...

Maybe 1%?

[ChumpDumper]

What...

Maybe 1%?Prove you didn't make that number up.

[Wild Cobra]

Prove you didn't make that number up.
Why should I prove I didn't make it up?

I did!

I think your remark is so idiotic, I low balled the number. It's probably more like 5%.

What number would you use?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

He's not the one making up make believe numbers. He doesn't need to. That's your schtick: make shit up and suppose it's true so you can believe what you want.

[Wild Cobra]

He's not the one making up make believe numbers. He doesn't need to. That's your schtick: make shit up and suppose it's true so you can believe what you want.
Jumping in as an ankle biter I see. At least that's a step up from being a glob fly.

I admit to making up the number, suggest another as an opinion, ask his opinion, and you are going to attack me over that?

You really are pathetic, aren't you.

[ChumpDumper]

Why should I prove I didn't make it up?

I did!

I think your remark is so idiotic, I low balled the number. It's probably more like 5%.

What number would you use?I wouldn't use a number I made up.

That's the difference between you and me.

[Wild Cobra]

I wouldn't use a number I made up.

That's the difference between you and me.

Care to suggest an opinion, or not?

What number range to you assign to "plenty?"

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Jumping in as an ankle biter I see. At least that's a step up from being a glob fly.

I admit to making up the number, suggest another as an opinion, ask his opinion, and you are going to attack me over that?

You really are pathetic, aren't you.

Umm it's accurate. You constantly suppose things how you want them to be and just go with it rather than find out how things really are so you can believe what you want to believe. This is just another example amongst several everyday that you doing that.

Pointing out actual behaviors is not an attack.

[Wild Cobra]

Umm it's accurate. You constantly suppose things how you want them to be and just go with it rather than find out how things really are so you can believe what you want to believe. This is just another example amongst several everyday that you doing that.

Pointing out actual behaviors is not an attack.
Wrong again. Will you ever get things right?

-delete-

I started to explain, but why waste my time on you. It's pointless.

[IGNORE]

[ChumpDumper]

Care to suggest an opinion, or not?

What number range to you assign to "plenty?"I don't make up numbers like you do. What part of that do you not understand?

[Wild Cobra]

I don't make up numbers like you do. What part of that do you not understand?
Thanks for admitting that "plenty" has no merit.

[ChumpDumper]

Thanks for admitting that "plenty" has no merit.adjective

4. existing in ample quantity or number


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plenty

Merit established.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Wrong again. Will you ever get things right?

-delete-

I started to explain, but why waste my time on you. It's pointless.

[IGNORE]

:lol

[jack sommerset]

My brothers, God bless this great country. We have a black man as its president. Now let's vote him out because he didn't do the job he was elected to do. Brothers, this ad is full of hypocrisy and race baiting. We're past denial. It's accepted in our country, in the case of blacks, blacks can have clubs, school, organizations etc.. to support one another even when putting down another race in doing so. Hopefully in time we can unite as one. All we can do in the meantime is to point it out and move on. God bless.

[George Gervin's Afro]

My brothers, God bless this great country. We have a black man as its president. Now let's vote him out because he didn't do the job he was elected to do. Brothers, this ad is full of hypocrisy and race baiting. We're past denial. It's accepted in our country, in the case of blacks, blacks can have clubs, school, organizations etc.. to support one another even when putting down another race in doing so. Hopefully in time we can unite as one. All we can do in the meantime is to point it out and move on. God bless.

john tesh

[jack sommerset]

john tesh

Bless your heart. God bless

[boutons_deux]

Here's why the 1% TAX EVADERS FOR ROMNEY love Gecko with $100Ms in campaign donations: he's one of their own


Where the Money Lives

For all Mitt Romney’s touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney’s fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.


Particularly jarring were the Romneys’ many offshore accounts. As Newt Gingrich put it during the primary season, “I don’t know of any American president who has had a Swiss bank account.” But Romney has, as well as other interests in such tax havens as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based entity called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” It could be that Sankaty is an old vehicle with little importance, but Romney appears to have treated it rather carefully. He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003, the day before he was inaugurated as Massachusetts’s governor. The director and president of this entity is R. Bradford Malt, the trustee of the blind trust and Romney’s personal lawyer. Romney failed to list this entity on several financial disclosures, even though such a closely held entity would not qualify as an “excepted investment fund” that would not need to be on his disclosure forms. He finally included it on his 2010 tax return. Even after examining that return, we have no idea what is in this company, but it could be valuable, meaning that it is possible Romney’s wealth is even greater than previous estimates. While the Romneys’ spokespeople insist that the couple has paid all the taxes required by law, investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.

That’s not the only money Romney has in tax havens. Because of his retirement deal with Bain Capital, his finances are still deeply entangled with the private-equity firm that he founded and spun off from Bain and Co. in 1984. Though he left the firm in 1999, Romney has continued to receive large payments from it—in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts

[jack sommerset]

Here's why the 1% TAX EVADERS FOR ROMNEY love Gecko with $100Ms in campaign donations: he's one of their own


Where the Money Lives

For all Mitt Romney’s touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney’s fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.


Particularly jarring were the Romneys’ many offshore accounts. As Newt Gingrich put it during the primary season, “I don’t know of any American president who has had a Swiss bank account.” But Romney has, as well as other interests in such tax havens as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based entity called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” It could be that Sankaty is an old vehicle with little importance, but Romney appears to have treated it rather carefully. He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003, the day before he was inaugurated as Massachusetts’s governor. The director and president of this entity is R. Bradford Malt, the trustee of the blind trust and Romney’s personal lawyer. Romney failed to list this entity on several financial disclosures, even though such a closely held entity would not qualify as an “excepted investment fund” that would not need to be on his disclosure forms. He finally included it on his 2010 tax return. Even after examining that return, we have no idea what is in this company, but it could be valuable, meaning that it is possible Romney’s wealth is even greater than previous estimates. While the Romneys’ spokespeople insist that the couple has paid all the taxes required by law, investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.

That’s not the only money Romney has in tax havens. Because of his retirement deal with Bain Capital, his finances are still deeply entangled with the private-equity firm that he founded and spun off from Bain and Co. in 1984. Though he left the firm in 1999, Romney has continued to receive large payments from it—in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts

My brother, I owe you an apology. Instead of embracing you for all the gifts god gave you I tried to stifle your wonderful opinions and great personality. Please forgive me.

Romney is a millionaire and may very well be apart of some in your face conspiracy to keep the poor, poor.. Thanks for pointing that out. God bless.

[CosmicCowboy]

If he is legally minimizing his taxes I consider that to be smart, not suspicious.

[CosmicCowboy]

I assume you understand why companies incorporate there, right? Lets say that you are an investment fund that invests all over the world. They pay no taxes in the Caymans, but pay taxes on earnings in every country they invest in. If 5% of their investments are in the US, they only pay US taxes on the profit they made on that 5% investment. if they invest 20% in China they pay the taxes on the 20% profits of the Chinese investments to the Chinese. By doing it this way instead of incorporation in the US, they avoid double taxation where they may have paid taxes on profits to China and then the US wants to tax those profits again. It's just smart business for international companies or investment firms in a global economy.

[boutons_deux]

And then there's the HUGE ELECTORAL question of Gecko's garmies he's got to wear as dictated by his freakish cult:

Are Mormon Underwear Magic Between the Sheets?

In Mormon folk religion, Garments have special powers. Stories are told of wearers being saved from bullets or fiery death in a car crash. One story tells of a Mormon soldier during WWII who was killed by a Japanese flame thrower – but his Garment survived intact. The stories go back to Joseph Smith himself, who died in a hail of bullets without his Garment on. His companion, Willard Richards, who was wearing his, emerged unscathed. Mormon historian Hubert Bancroft described the incident in his 1890 History of Utah, “This garment protects from disease, and even death, for the bullet of an enemy will not penetrate it. The Prophet Joseph carelessly left off this garment on the day of his death, and had he not done so, he would have escaped unharmed.”

Interestingly, the Garment may owe its existence to Joseph Smith wrestling with his own high libido. As recent research on homosexuality suggests, people who are struggling to contain or suppress their own sexuality may be particularly interested in controlling the sexuality of others. Historians are unclear on the number of women Smith actually married and the number with which he simply had sexual relationships. The list of his wives, first published in the late 19th century, and still debated, includes 27 names. Despite this, Smith preached against polygamy till his death. Was the design of the Garment (then a full body long-sleeved button-up affair) the product of a divine revelation, Smith’s sexual tastes, or his effort to suppress desire? You decide.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156161

[cheguevara]

if you don't have at least 1 billion dollars you are a nobody in this country. To the owners of the country you are equivalent to a sewer rat and neither Romney nor Obama give a shit about you. truth hurts.

[boutons_deux]

I assume you understand why companies incorporate there, right?

yes, to evade taxes, aka legal "tax avoidance" after the 1% has gamed the tax system in way the 99% can't touch.

[boutons_deux]

Romney's Offshore Wealth Deeply Hidden

Much of White House hopeful Mitt Romney's fortune lies well-hidden in a network of opaque offshore investments including some $30 million in the Cayman Islands, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.

Romney has amassed vast wealth -- estimated to be as high as $250 million -- since founding private equity firm Bain Capital in 1984, and he consistently says his successful business experience is what puts him in better position than President Barack Obama for turning around the sluggish US economy.

But while his campaign insists Romney has not exploited the offshore havens to avoid paying necessary US taxes, the difficulty in tracking the overseas transactions and holdings raises questions about the candidate's finances in the heat of a campaign.

The report detailed how Romney continues to have personal interests in at least 12 of the 138 funds organized by Bain in the Caymans, where such investments are hidden behind confidentiality disclaimers, making an assessment of Romney's true wealth virtually impossible.

He also holds a Swiss bank account -- with $3 million in it, according to 2010 tax returns -- and other interests in tax havens such as Bermuda, according to the report in the August issue of the magazine.

Romney's tax rate has been a particular point of contention. In 2010 he reported income of $21.7 million, mostly from investments, and paid just over $3 million in taxes, a paltry rate of just 13.9 percent, far lower than the rate for most middle-income Americans.

Most of Romney's money is earned in investments, which are taxed at just 15 percent, compared to the 35 percent he would pay on wages.

Many of those investments are offshore, with 55 pages of Romney's 2010 tax return devoted to his transactions with foreign entities, according to Vanity Fair.

"What Romney does not get," veteran Washington lawyer and offshore expert Jack Blum told the magazine, "is that this stuff is weird."

The White House jumped on the report, describing it as further evidence of Romney's "bets against America" and suggesting the story about mystery corporations and offshore counts leads to serious questions.

"The question is, why? Was he avoiding paying his fair share of US taxes?" Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt wrote in an email.

"Was he hedging against the dollar? Until he releases his tax returns from that period, Americans will never know."

Romney has refused to release pre-2010 tax returns.

"Mitt Romney's economic philosophy has always put maximizing his profits above anything else," LaBolt added.

The Romney campaign released a statement on the article, but it was a reaction to the Obama campaign's treatment of the story and did not address its specifics.

"As job growth slows, manufacturing activity stalls, and our economy continues to sputter, President Obama knows he can't make a legitimate argument for another term in office, so instead he is trying to tear down his opponent," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1019427/romney%27s_offshore_wealth_deeply_hidden%3A_report/#paragraph4

[CosmicCowboy]

yes, to evade taxes, aka legal "tax avoidance" after the 1% has gamed the tax system in way the 99% can't touch.

So when Boushit pays taxes, do you figure out what you legally owe and then think...'I should pay more!...Lets not take that personal deduction so we aren't evading taxes!"

[boutons_deux]

"A prime example is the section of the tax code that deals with “foreign” profits. Under it, profits are not taxed until they are repatriated to the United States. At the same time, however, foreign expenses can be written off immediately against domestic profits. And, because we use the transfer pricing method – which allows multinational corporations to allocate profits essentially wherever they say they earned them – these companies shift profits and jobs to low or no tax countries. Marty Sullivan and Lee Sheppard in Tax Notes have detailed numerous examples of this shifting, but rather than try to stop it, the Republicans, at the behest of the multinationals, want to accelerate this shifting of profits by adopting a “territorial” tax system which would essentially exempt all foreign profits from U.S. taxation to help “American” multinationals compete with “foreign” multinationals. "

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=639&stoplayout=true&print=true&stoplayout=true&print=true

[CosmicCowboy]

"A prime example is the section of the tax code that deals with “foreign” profits. Under it, profits are not taxed until they are repatriated to the United States. At the same time, however, foreign expenses can be written off immediately against domestic profits. And, because we use the transfer pricing method – which allows multinational corporations to allocate profits essentially wherever they say they earned them – these companies shift profits and jobs to low or no tax countries. Marty Sullivan and Lee Sheppard in Tax Notes have detailed numerous examples of this shifting, but rather than try to stop it, the Republicans, at the behest of the multinationals, want to accelerate this shifting of profits by adopting a “territorial” tax system which would essentially exempt all foreign profits from U.S. taxation to help “American” multinationals compete with “foreign” multinationals. "

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=639&stoplayout=true&print=true&stoplayout=true&print=true

In other words, in a global economy high US corporate taxes drive jobs and business offshore to lower taxed countries.

Got it.

[boutons_deux]

" lower taxed countries"

figgers you'd call Cayman Islands, etc a "country".

Corporate taxes as %age of national tax income are at an all-time low. High taxes? YOU LIE

[boutons_deux]

Mitt’s Gray Areas

Once upon a time a rich man named Romney ran for president. He could claim, with considerable justice, that his wealth was well-earned, that he had in fact done a lot to create good jobs for American workers. Nonetheless, the public understandably wanted to know both how he had grown so rich and what he had done with his wealth; he obliged by releasing extensive information about his financial history.

But that was 44 years ago. And the contrast between George Romney and his son Mitt — a contrast both in their business careers and in their willingness to come clean about their financial affairs — dramatically illustrates how America has changed.

Right now there’s a lot of buzz about an investigative report in the magazine Vanity Fair highlighting the “gray areas” in the younger Romney’s finances. More about that in a minute. First, however, let’s talk about what it meant to get rich in George Romney’s America, and how it compares with the situation today.

What did George Romney do for a living? The answer was straightforward: he ran an auto company, American Motors. And he ran it very well indeed: at a time when the Big Three were still fixated on big cars and ignoring the rising tide of imports, Romney shifted to a highly successful focus on compacts that restored the company’s fortunes, not to mention that it saved the jobs of many American workers.

It also made him personally rich. We know this because during his run for president, he released not one, not two, but 12 years’ worth of tax returns, explaining that any one year might just be a fluke. From those returns we learn that in his best year, 1960, he made more than $660,000 — the equivalent, adjusted for inflation, of around $5 million today.

Those returns also reveal that he paid a lot of taxes — 36 percent of his income in 1960, 37 percent over the whole period. This was in part because, as one report at the time put it, he “seldom took advantage of loopholes to escape his tax obligations.” But it was also because taxes on the rich were much higher in the ’50s and ’60s than they are now. In fact, once you include the indirect effects of taxes on corporate profits, taxes on the very rich were about twice current levels.

Now fast-forward to Romney the Younger, who made even more money during his business career at Bain Capital. Unlike his father, however, Mr. Romney didn’t get rich by producing things people wanted to buy; he made his fortune through financial engineering that seems in many cases to have left workers worse off, and in some cases driven companies into bankruptcy.

And there’s another contrast: George Romney was open and forthcoming about what he did with his wealth, but Mitt Romney has largely kept his finances secret. He did, grudgingly, release one year’s tax return plus an estimate for the next year, showing that he paid a startlingly low tax rate. But as the Vanity Fair report points out, we’re still very much in the dark about his investments, some of which seem very mysterious.

Put it this way: Has there ever before been a major presidential candidate who had a multimillion-dollar Swiss bank account, plus tens of millions invested in the Cayman Islands, famed as a tax haven?

And then there’s his Individual Retirement Account. I.R.A.’s are supposed to be a tax-advantaged vehicle for middle-class savers, with annual contributions limited to a few thousand dollars a year. Yet somehow Mr. Romney ended up with an account worth between $20 million and $101 million.

There are legitimate ways that could have happened, just as there are potentially legitimate reasons for parking large sums of money in overseas tax havens. But we don’t know which if any of those legitimate reasons apply in Mr. Romney’s case — because he has refused to release any details about his finances. This refusal to come clean suggests that he and his advisers believe that voters would be less likely to support him if they knew the truth about his investments.

And that is precisely why voters have a right to know that truth. Elections are, after all, in part about the perceived character of the candidates — and what a man does with his money is surely a major clue to his character.

One more thing: To the extent that Mr. Romney has a coherent policy agenda, it involves cutting tax rates on the very rich — which are already, as I said, down by about half since his father’s time. Surely a man advocating such policies has a special obligation to level with voters about the extent to which he would personally benefit from the policies he advocates.

Yet obviously that’s something Mr. Romney doesn’t want to do. And unless he does reveal the truth about his investments, we can only assume that he’s hiding something seriously damaging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opinion/krugman-mitts-gray-areas.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[rascal]

Because African Americans are underrepresented in every way shape or form. You know better than to ask this question. I get that you think its unfair but I think its unfair when I look at census figures and virtually every socioeconomic indicator drops when looking at minorities in this country. The system does not treat us all equally.

If an ethnic group's biggest gripe is that they don't get to run the same type of political ads as another who's socioeconomic status is 2nd class by every indicator then perhaps some perspective is needed.

Blacks are over represented in TV commercials now. We don't live in a black nation, they are a small % of the population.

[boutons_deux]

"Blacks are over represented in TV commercials now."

yep, noticed that. UCA trying to sucker blacks into buying their craps, esp junk food and drugs.

[boutons_deux]

But even though nobody is accusing Mitt Romney of anything more than being secretive, Romneyland is responding to the calls for transparency by acting as though they are under siege.

“The Obama campaign’s latest unfounded character assault on Mitt Romney is unseemly and disgusting. Mitt Romney had a successful career in the private sector, pays every dime of taxes he owes, has given generously to charitable organizations, and served numerous causes greater than himself,” said spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “Barack Obama has become what he once ran against — a typical politician willing to use false and dishonest attacks to save his job after failing to do his job. The American people expected more from this president, and he continues to let them down.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/09/1107750/-Romneyland-says-it-s-unseemly-and-disgusting-to-ask-Mitt-to-disclose-his-tax-and-financial-records?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[boutons_deux]

Romney Dodges Question On Why He Supports Personal Liberty For The Rich, But Not For LGBT People Or Women

it’s kind of personal and may be straying from the economic discussion here but I mean, just as I guess as an example, considering your religious affiliation and it being a minority [AUDIENCE BOOS] and I guess so my question is in terms of social equality and in terms of women’s rights or gay rights and liberty in that area, what is so wrong about exploring liberty and giving liberty to everyone in every field, not just in the economy?

Romney went on to mostly dodge the young man’s question, speaking only specifically about the issue of abortion, and not speaking to LGBT issues at all. He did say that “everyone in this country should have an opportunity to pursue their course in life as they choose.” However, he must mean only as long as you do not choose to marry a person of the same sex.


http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/07/10/514012/romney-dodges-question-on-why-he-supports-personal-liberty-for-the-rich-but-not-for-lgbt-people-or-women/

oops, sounds like Gecko's mafia didn't vet the audience for like-minded rich, hetero whities

[boutons_deux]

My Finances

An Explanation from Mitt Romney

http://www.borowitzreport.com/wp-content/uploads/mitt4.jpg

Dear American Person:

As many of you know, in recent days my opponent has spread the rumors that 1.) I have refused to make my tax returns public and 2.) I have hidden my money in bank accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans. These two rumors, while true, have made me look very bad. So I thought I would take this opportunity to explain my finances in terms even a poor person could understand.

Let’s say you met the love of your life, and you wrote her a series of passionate love letters. In these letters, you told her how you intended to protect her, cherish her, and always keep her safe. And then let’s say somebody went and told you that you had to make those love letters available for the world to see. If you’re even half the man I am, you’d say, “Heck no.”

Well, in my case, the love of my life is my money. (If you don’t believe me, ask Ann.) And my tax returns are like my love letters to my money, detailing the lengths to which I’ll go to keep my precious money from being taken away from me. If you think I should make those love letters public, then I’m sorry, my friend, but you don’t believe in love.

Now, let’s say you asked the love of your life to marry you, and you’re fortunate enough that she said “yes.” Should someone be able to force you to spend your honeymoon in a ratty room at some Motel 6, where God knows what crackheads and whores slept before you? Or should you be allowed to take your bride to a five-star Swiss chateau, perhaps, or an exclusive beach on Grand Cayman? I think you can see where I’m going with this.

In conclusion: if refusing to release my tax returns and having foreign bank accounts is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I did it all for love. And as your President, I promise I will never, ever come between you and the thing you love. Unless you’re gay. (Laughing Out Loud.)

Vote for Me,

Mitt Romney

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

[boutons_deux]

Offshore Tax Havens Cost U.S. Government $100 Billion Per Year

On Tuesday, after Mitt Romney said he had "no idea where" his offshore investments were, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) came to his aid, saying "it's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally."

But by parking money in countries with tiny tax rates -- thus putting it beyond the reach of the American government -- wealthy businesses and individuals cost the federal government roughly $100 billion every year, according to a 2011 report from the California Public Interest Research Group. That's money that doesn't make it into the federal government's hands, even though it would probably come in useful -- again, given the trillion-dollar-plus national deficit.

As the CALPIRG report notes, many household-name corporations, including Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Exxon Mobil and Google, take advantage of offshore accounts, often saving billions in taxes in the process.

At the moment, of course, tax havens are more in the news because of people. (Although, remember: Corporations are people, my friend.) Barack Obama's campaign team has lately been giving Romney hell for the Republican candidate's use of offshore accounts in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and for his refusal to disclose more than a handful of details about his finances.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/11/romney-offshore-tax-havens_n_1664871.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[boutons_deux]

Mitt Romney's Financial Black Hole



Paying taxes forthrightly has long been a matter of civic pride for most American politicians, a demonstration of honesty and of a willingness to share in society's burdens. Since the Watergate era, presidential candidates have released several years of tax returns, allowing voters to peer at their financial choices and discern their entanglements.

Mitt Romney has upended that tradition this year. He has released only one complete tax return, for 2010, along with an unfinished estimate of his 2011 taxes. What information he did release provides a fuzzy glimpse at a concerted effort to park much of his wealth in overseas tax shelters, suggesting a widespread pattern of tax avoidance unlike that of any previous candidate.

Mr. Romney has resisted all demands for more disclosure, leading to growing criticism from Democrats that he is trying to hide his fortune and his tax schemes from the public. Given the troubling suspicions about his finances, he needs to release many more returns and quickly open his books to full scrutiny.

The 2010 tax return showed that the blind trust held by his wife, Ann, included a $3 million Swiss bank account that had not been properly reported on previous financial disclosure statements. (The account was closed by the trust manager in 2010 who feared it might become embarrassing for the campaign. He was right.) It also showed that Mr. Romney had used a complex offshore tax shelter, known as a blocker corporation, to shield the investments in his I.R.A. from paying an obscure business tax.

The use of that technique by wealthy taxpayers and institutions, long been blasted by Congressional tax experts as abusive, costs the treasury $1 billion a decade.

The return showed at least 20 investments not previously listed on disclosure reports, but it did not provide enough information to evaluate their size or holdings. Neither the tax return nor other disclosures have revealed the full amounts of the Romneys' other offshore holdings over the years, including investments in Germany, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, Australia and Ireland.

Recent articles by The Associated Press and Vanity Fair focused on a Bermuda account that Mr. Romney transferred to his wife's blind trust the day before he was inaugurated as governor of Massachusetts in 2003. The account, created in 1997, had not been properly disclosed to voters until January. Even though it had few assets in 2010, according to the return, it could have sheltered a significant amount of income last year or in previous years.

Mr. Romney also has not fully explained the nature of his separation agreement with Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, which he left in 1999. Last month, his trust reported receiving a $2 million payment from Bain as part of unpaid earnings from his work there. Of the 138 Bain funds organized in the Cayman Islands, Mr. Romney has interests in 12, worth up to $30 million, according to Vanity Fair.

Though the Romney campaign has often distanced itself from Bain's recent corporate takeover work, voters have no way of knowing how much the candidate has received from Bain since he left, or how much is coming.

Firms like Bain park money in the Caymans because the islands have no taxes on capital gains, profits or income for foreigners. But just because it's legal doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

The campaign says Mr. Romney has received no tax benefits from his offshore shelters, a dubious assertion but one impossible to check without more disclosure. Mr. Romney said this week that he had no idea where the blind trust had put his money, and he dismissed the issue of the offshore investments, saying they were no more consequential than investing in a foreign car company.

A foreign investment, however, is not the same as an offshore tax shelter. A more conscientious politician would have urged his blind trusts to have nothing to do with shelters not available to the general public. And Mr. Romney is tarnishing an important political tradition - one set by his father, George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns in 1967 - by continuing to keep the sources of his income in the shadows.


http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=946425&f=28&sub=Editorial

[boutons_deux]

...

[Th'Pusher]

Here's why the 1% TAX EVADERS FOR ROMNEY love Gecko with $100Ms in campaign donations: he's one of their own


Where the Money Lives

For all Mitt Romney’s touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney’s fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.


Particularly jarring were the Romneys’ many offshore accounts. As Newt Gingrich put it during the primary season, “I don’t know of any American president who has had a Swiss bank account.” But Romney has, as well as other interests in such tax havens as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based entity called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” It could be that Sankaty is an old vehicle with little importance, but Romney appears to have treated it rather carefully. He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003, the day before he was inaugurated as Massachusetts’s governor. The director and president of this entity is R. Bradford Malt, the trustee of the blind trust and Romney’s personal lawyer. Romney failed to list this entity on several financial disclosures, even though such a closely held entity would not qualify as an “excepted investment fund” that would not need to be on his disclosure forms. He finally included it on his 2010 tax return. Even after examining that return, we have no idea what is in this company, but it could be valuable, meaning that it is possible Romney’s wealth is even greater than previous estimates. While the Romneys’ spokespeople insist that the couple has paid all the taxes required by law, investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.

That’s not the only money Romney has in tax havens. Because of his retirement deal with Bain Capital, his finances are still deeply entangled with the private-equity firm that he founded and spun off from Bain and Co. in 1984. Though he left the firm in 1999, Romney has continued to receive large payments from it—in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts

How much of that money Romney has in tax shelters is going to create jobs and trickle down to the average American? Seems this reality kind of flies in the face of the whole trickle down theory. Isn't giving additional tax cuts to the 'job creators' supposed to expand the American economy by creating jobs? I don't see how that's happening when tied up in offshore tax havens.

The debate should not be about whether this is legal, but whether or not it is good for the American economy. Republicans have been jamming trickle down economics down our throats and I think this makes it very clear that a good portion of that money simply get's stashed off into off-shore tax havens.

[boutons_deux]

"whole trickle down theory"

the trickle down theory is and always has been a huge fucking lie.

the 1% don't, can't possibly in many case, actually spend their $100Ms so it would appear in into the Real Economy of the 99%. It stays mostly in investments, stocks, bonds, the Wall St casino, and hidden away in tax-evasion money bunkers.

[Th'Pusher]

"whole trickle down theory"

the trickle down theory is and always has been a huge fucking lie.

the 1% don't, can't possibly in many case, actually spend their $100Ms so it would appear in into the Real Economy of the 99%. It stays mostly in investments, stocks, bonds, the Wall St casino, and hidden away in tax-evasion money bunkers.

While most intelligent people understand this, I think the Obama campagin should jump on this as a talking point to drive home the fact that additional tax cuts on the rich (which is clearly what the Ryan budget proposes and which has been endorsed by Romney) are fucking ludicrous. Obama saying we've tried this before and it did not work is all well and good, but this is a specific example of how the bullshit theory is nothing but a scam to continue to enrich the people who need it the least.

[boutons_deux]

Can It Be We've Overlooked This?

I read from many sources that Mitt Romney, who wishes to become our next president, is all for what they call judicial extremism. We're all aware that the current Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, could be the most extremely conservative court ever. So clearly, in Chief Justice Roberts, the candidate had everything he could have wished for. Yet some days after Justice Roberts cast one vote he disapproved of -- the vote that saved the Affordable Care Act -- Mr. Romney declared that Justice Roberts is no longer conservative enough.

"No longer conservative enough" says Mitt about the man who led the court to strike down hard-won clean election laws; made it more difficult for women to sue for equal pay; squashed a number of class action suits, and consistently favored large corporations over the individual citizen.

Now, the polls show that the issue on which President Obama has the clearest lead --11 points -- is the makeup of the Supreme Court. That seems so clear it makes me wonder how smart is Mitt Romney coming out against the Chief Justice?

Then again, it could be said that taking this seemingly unpopular position is a measure of how committed Mitt is to his philosophic convictions. WHAT?? If there is anything we've learned about this man over the endless months of his candidacy it is that he changes his convictions as often as his shirt. Okay, so we've let him get away with that to this date. But, when he is already polling so low on the issue, to change his mind about the man who was for so long his idea of what a Chief Justice should be -- I mean, how un-savvy, how dumb is that?

Every day we seem to see growing evidence that the man isn't at all savvy. Could it be the man is dumb? That would be so sad in a president.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/romney-supreme-court_b_1670725.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[TeyshaBlue]

Cool story, bro.

[possessed]

Women are also another matter. They only have 17% of the legislature and 51% of the population.sFBOQzSk14c

[boutons_deux]

Romney Suggests Releasing Additional Tax Returns Could Be Politically Damaging

ROMNEY: The Obama people keep on wanting more and more and more. More things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try make a mountain out of and to distort and to be dishonest about. We’re going to put out two years of tax returns.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/16/519241/romney-suggests-releasing-additional-tax-returns-could-be-politically-damaging/

[boutons_deux]

Romney: Teresa Heinz Kerry Didn’t Release Tax Returns, Either!

“John Kerry ran for president,” Mitt Romney said Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.” “You know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. Somehow, this wasn’t an issue.”

Heinz Kerry, an heiress to the Heinz food fortune, was pressured during Kerry’s presidential run to release tax returns, which she files separately from her husband. She ultimately released a portion of her 2003 returns in October 2004, after an initial estimate in May of the same year.

The claim about Kerry was debunked three months ago. “Months ago, the Romney team began making this false and convoluted excuse — the media investigated it and promptly reminded them that as a presidential candidate John Kerry had released 20 years of tax returns,” Kerry spokesperson Jodi Seth told TPM in a statement. “Still, months later they’re falling back on this same disproven excuse. In fact, if the Romney standard was the same as the Kerry standard for disclosure, the media would have the chance to review 20 years of Romney tax returns. Ed Gillespie should know better.”

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/romney-tax-returns-teresa-heinz-kerry.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

goddam, this little rich boy wimp-ass mofo is a true bag of hammers, and so are his handlers.

[boutons_deux]

Top Romney Spokesperson Urged Kerry’s Presidential Campaign To Release More Tax Returns In 2004

Gillespie, who served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 presidential election, must know that “Kerry had put a total of 20 years of tax returns into the public domain by the time he ran for president.”

“Throughout history, presidential candidates have disclosed income tax information prior to Election Day. We believe Americans value disclosure and transparency in campaigns.

During the 2003 filing year, Sen. Kerry made a $6 million loan to his campaign based on the value of a home jointly owned with his wife.

“Were it not for that infusion of cash John Kerry might not be on the campaign trail today. Because of her financial interest in the presidential campaign of her husband, Teresa Heinz Kerry pledged to disclose her tax information on October 15. Tomorrow is October 15 and Americans will find out if they plan to keep that promise.”

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/17/530951/top-romney-spokesperson-urged-kerrys-presidential-campaign-to-release-more-tax-returns-in-2004/

[boutons_deux]

The Secret Behind Romney’s Magical IRA

The most mysterious of the unexplained mysteries about Mitt Romney’s considerable wealth is how he was able to amass between $21 million and $102 million in his individual retirement account during the 15 years he was at Bain Capital LLC.

How did he do it, given the relatively small amounts that the law permits to be contributed to such a plan on an annual basis? Romney has not explained this conundrum, and seeing as he wants to become president, he would be wise to start talking -- if for no other reason than there might be many Americans who would like to emulate what he did.

During Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital -- from 1984 to 1999, although a recent Boston Globe article uncovered Romney having a role at Bain until 2002 -- the firm used a so-called SEP-IRA, which is like a 401(k) retirement plan but is funded entirely by the employer and has a much higher maximum contribution: about $30,000 annually during the period Romney was at Bain. Assuming Romney maxed out these tax-deferred contributions, he would have invested roughly $450,000 in his SEP-IRA during his years at Bain.

The only limit is the skill, or luck, of the IRA’s owner. If you are the Warren Buffett of IRA investors, it is conceivable that you could turn $450,000 into as much as $102 million -- an increase of 227 times -- but not very likely, especially as in the last decade or so, the stock market has been a roller coaster. Mere investing mortals would be lucky to still have $450,000 in the account.

(read the rest to see how Gecko's IRA grew to $100M+)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/the-secret-behind-romney-s-magical-ira.html

[boutons_deux]

But BROWNS for Barry:

Obama's lead over Romney among Latinos widening

support for Obama rising to 70% of registered Latino voters, compared with 22% for Romney.

http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=2432778&postId=2432778&postUserId=54&sessionToken=&catId=7570&curAbsIndex=0&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523 desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A54%26DFC%3Dcat1%252Ccat2% 252Ccat3%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%26DQ%3DsectionId%25 3A7570%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

And Gecko loses women (due to the Repug war on wimmen), gays, youth (if they aren't denied by Repugs from voting in their college states), etc, etc.

And Gecko's hiding his anti-American financial records is turning off tons of people who assume he's has something VERY DAMAGING TO HIDE.

[boutons_deux]

The Pain in Bain

Why Romney’s so afraid of talking about what he did at Bain.

Leveraged buyouts, which are what private equity firms do, load companies with debt, extract value for middlemen, and displace workers. Heads-I-win, tails-you-lose practices in the financial sector, regulatory loopholes, and tax advantages produce runaway winners like Romney while middle-class workers lose ground. As the gap between economic victims and executioners grows, the resulting society becomes more unequal and unfair.

You’d think that if private equity made businesses more efficient and valuable overall, there’d be clear evidence to support it, but there isn’t. Private equity firms earn most of their money through financial engineering. A big share of their returns comes from “tax arbitrage”—figuring out how to exploit loopholes to pay less to the government. Because interest is a deductible business expense, debt financing means they often pay little or no corporate tax. Private equity’s reliance on leverage can also magnify short-term earnings without leaving the companies they manage more valuable overall. One legal but dubious practice that private equity firms engage in is paying large “special dividends” out of borrowed money. As Jim Surowiecki of the New Yorker has written, “These dividends created no economic value—they just redistributed money from the company to the private-equity investors.” There’s some anecdotal evidence that the well-regarded Bain has been a better owner than most. But there’s no real way to evaluate that either.

3. Bain shows how Wall Street is rigged in favor of the rich. Private equity firms, like hedge funds, earn their money through a 2-and-20 structure, which means investors pay a 2 percent annual management fee, and give away one-fifth of their profits. According to one study, firms like Bain get two-thirds of of their earnings from fees charged to investors, rather than from the share of profits. According to another study, private equity firms managed to keep 70 percent of all investment profits for themselves, rather than paying them out. They’ve figured out how to be hugely profitable even if they aren’t successful, and even where firms they own go bankrupt. And because their gains come in the form of “carried interest,” private equity owners are taxed at 15 percent, rather than the top rate of 35 percent.

4. Romney’s Bain career is a story about rising inequality. It’s telling that George Romney, Mitt’s father, made around $200,000 through most of the years he ran American Motors Corporation. Doing work that clearly created jobs, the elder Romney paid an effective tax rate that averaged 37 percent. His son made vastly more running a corporate chop shop in an industry that does not appear to create jobs overall. In 2010, Mitt Romney paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent on $21.7 million in investment income—around 14 times as much as his father in inflation-adjusted terms. This difference encapsulates the change from corporate titans who lived in the same world as the people who worked for them, in an America with real social mobility, to a financial overclass that makes its own separate rules and has choked off social mobility. The elder Romney wasn’t embarrassed to explain what he’d done as a businessman or to release his tax returns.

5. Bain reminds everybody how rich Romney is, how different that makes him from ordinary people, and how this kind of advantage perpetuates itself. Five years ago, according to disclosure statements, he was already worth between $190 and $250 million, not counting another $70-100 million in trusts for his children and grandchildren, and not counting real estate worth tens of millions more. It’s not clear how he turned a maximum contribution of $450,000 over 15 years at Bain into an IRA worth between $21 and $102 million (where it grows tax free). Here’s some informed speculation. Once again, the details are mysterious even if his massive exploitation of a tax break meant to encourage middle class people to save more is not.


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2012/07/romney_and_bain_capital_why_he_s_so_afraid_of_talk ing_about_what_he_did_at_bain_.html

[boutons_deux]

Is Romney Camp In Unhinged Meltdown Mode Already?

there's one thing in particular sticking in their craws:

Romney's aides remain particularly livid about Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter's suggestion last week that Romney committed a crime by filing apparently conflicting documents to the FEC and SEC.

"[Obama's] policies have been such utter failures, the only thing he can do is to try to destroy a decent man and his wife," the adviser said. "So he gets some hack political adviser from Chicago who has nothing to point to in her own life, and tells her to call him a felon... When did our politics get to that point? I mean, it's Nixonian."

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1034151/is_romney_camp_in_unhinged_meltdown_mode_already/#paragraph3

=========

Nixonian? :lol :lol

Insulting Obama's side by calling them a ... Repug? :lol :lol :lol :lol

[cheguevara]

poor romney

and I thought Hermann Cain got a mauling

[Clipper Nation]

Willard is the most thin-skinned crybaby candidate I've ever seen tbh....

:cry They're destroying a decent person like me by exposing my lies, hypocrisy, and cagey behavior about the subject of my finances! :cry

:cry Team Red can demand Obama's "real" birth certificate but it's not fair for Team Blue to ask for my tax returns! :cry

:cry But... but... Kerry's wife! :cry

[boutons_deux]

Obama isn't running on his college transcripts.

Gecko is running EXCLUSIVELY on his BAIN experience, which is why he has so much wealth he thinks he has to avoid/evade the IRS.

Barry has released his tax returns.

Gecko is committing political suicide by not releasing his tax returns (because he knows he wil be committing political suicide if he does release them :lol )

[boutons_deux]

...

[boutons_deux]

“What is Mitt Romney hiding?” asked a new Obama ad.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/10403-obama-says-romney-is-hiding-something-in-tax-returns

Obama's Picadors plunging their lances in deeply.

Gecko will next fall on his own sword! :lol

[Wild Cobra]

Obsessions... obsessions...

Jealous of those who achieve....

[boutons_deux]

The weird GOP attacks on Obama

If I were conspiracy-minded, I'd suspect Barack Obama has deployed several moles to sabotage his opponent. Take John Sununu, who yesterday attacked the president for having used drugs, spent time abroad and lived in Chicago. Or Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who now claims to have proof Obama's birth certificate is a fraud. Mitt Romney's aides are vowing to expose Obama's past, insisting he wasn't "vetted" the last time around. If I were David Axelrod, I'd be smiling.

Why? Because we've heard it all before. It didn't keep Americans from electing Obama in 2008 and it won't stop them this time. These claims do resonate with some voters -- but only those who wouldn't vote for Obama if he were running against Vladimir Putin.

Most Americans just won't buy it. The president's personal approval ratings have consistently held up even amid our economic mess. A recent poll found that by a more than 2-to-1 margin, they find him more likable than Romney. Americans know Obama well by now, and they aren't going to change their minds about him as a person in the absence of powerful new information, which Republicans don't seem to have.

Smearing him doesn't raise doubts about the president. It raises doubts about the Republican party, which runs the risk of sounding like an arm of Fox News. If the GOP can explain how Obama's particular characteristics are responsible for the poor state of the economy, non-Republicans will listen. But if it focuses on trying to demonize him, they'll tune out.

The debate on the economy is one Republicans can win.

But right now, they're debating whether Obama is a sleazy pol, a drug-using punk or a Kenyan. And that's a debate Democrats will be more than happy to have.

http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=2434287&postId=2434287&postUserId=54&sessionToken=&catId=5579&curAbsIndex=0&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523 desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A54%26DFC%3Dcat1%252Ccat2% 252Ccat3%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%26DQ%3DsectionId%25 3A5579%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

[Wild Cobra]

Shazbot...

You can expect that about 40% of the populous will vote democrat, and about 40% will vote republican. Most of the remaining 20% that end up not voting third party will be swayed by things. Even with those who are loyal to one part or the other, such negative campaigning works on them when they decide it's not worth voting during a particular election. Much of a win depends on increasing your own party's voter turnout and reducing the opposition party's voter turnout.

Think about it. How many people do you know who decided not to vote for one reason or another?

[boutons_deux]

Much of a win depends on increasing your own party's voter turnout and reducing the opposition party's voter turnout.


which is why felony liar Gecko's main hope is:

GOP Voter Suppression ID Laws May Affect Millions of Legal Voters

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/156377

And I'm sure the extreme right-wing activist SCOTUS JINOs are drooling for a chance to elect another VRWC tool.

[boutons_deux]

tax avoider/evader Gecko started Bain with capital from other, foreign tax evaders

Bain Capital started with help of offshore investors

When Mitt Romney launched Bain Capital in 1984, he struggled at first to raise enough money for the untested venture. Old-money families like the Rothschilds turned down the young Boston consultant.

So he and his partners tapped an eclectic roster of investors, raising more than a third of their first $37-million investment fund from wealthy foreigners.

Most of the foreign investors' money came through corporations registered in Panama, then known for tax advantages and unusual banking secrecy.

Previously unreported details, documented in Massachusetts corporate filings and other public records, show that Bain Capital was enmeshed in the largely opaque world of international high finance from its very inception.

The documents don't indicate any wrongdoing, and experts say that such financial vehicles are common for wealthy foreign investors. But the new details come as President Obama has criticized Romney for profiting from Bain Capital's own offshore investment entities, which are unavailable to most Americans.

The Romney campaign declined to comment on the specifics of Bain's early investors. Romney has argued that his offshore investments are entirely proper, and that he has paid all the U.S. taxes that he owes. The offshore funds do provide tax advantages for foreign investors, allowing Bain to attract billions of dollars.

"The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe," Romney said in an interview this week with National Review Online.

The first outside investor in Bain was a leading London financier, Sir Jack Lyons, who made a $2.5-million investment through a Panama shell company set up by a Swiss money manager, further shielding his identity. Years later, Lyons was convicted in an unrelated stock fraud scandal.

About $9 million came from rich Latin Americans, including powerful Salvadoran families living in Miami during their country's brutal civil war.

That first investment fund — used to invest in start-up companies and leveraged buyouts — paid out a stunning 173% in average annual returns over a decade, according to a prospectus prepared by an outside bank. It was the start of the private equity powerhouse that ultimately fueled Romney's political career. He now cites his experience at Bain as a chief qualification for the White House.

Romney faced unusual complications when he launched Bain Capital, a spinoff of Bain & Co., the Boston consulting firm he joined when he graduated from Harvard Business School.

At the time, U.S. officials were publicly accusing some exiles in Miami of funding right-wing death squads in El Salvador. Some family members of the first Bain Capital investors were later linked to groups responsible for killings, though no evidence indicates those relatives invested in Bain or benefited from it.

Romney has said he checked the foreign investors' backgrounds. His campaign and Bain Capital declined to provide specifics.

Alex Stanton, a spokesman for Bain Capital, said confidentiality rules barred him from commenting on the investors.

"The hyperbole of political campaigns cannot change the fact that Bain Capital has operated with high standards of integrity and excellence, including compliance with all applicable laws and regulations regarding the vetting of our investors in consultation with experienced counsel and other advisors," he said. "Any suggestion to the contrary is baseless."

Matt McDonald, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, also declined to discuss details of the original fund. "There were many investors who saw the opportunity of a firm that could help fix broken companies and help them grow." (uh, NO! investors don't give a shit about takeover targets beyond suckiing $10Ms in fees and equity out of them)

But when Romney and his partners started the firm, Bain & Co. founder Bill Bain — worried the new venture could fail — barred them from soliciting current clients or corporations that would have to publicly disclose the investment, according to an early Bain Capital employee.

Bain partners put in $12 million of their own money, then sought the rest from wealthy individuals.

Records show the first investment in Bain Capital — $1.25 million in June 1984 — was in the name of Jean Overseas Ltd., registered in Panama by Marcel Elfen, a Swiss money manager. Later, the investment was doubled.

http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=2436630&postId=2436630&postUserId=7&sessionToken=&catId=5217&curAbsIndex=0&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523 desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A7%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%2 6DQ%3DsectionId%253A5217%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

Yoni, tell us again about you sliming Barry with Ayers, etc from decades ago. :lol

If you're sliming was acceptable, then exposing the seedy, hidden origins and business of Gecko's Bain is acceptable, esp since Gecko is claiming Bain as his primary qualification for the WH.

[boutons_deux]

Queen Anne speaks (down) to "You People"

Ann Romney on tax returns: ‘We’ve given all you people need to know’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Ann-Romney-via-screengrab-615x345.png

“You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially,” Ann Romney told ABC’s Robin Roberts. “He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person who is trying to hide things, or do things? No. He is so good about it. Then, when he was governor of Massachusetts, didn’t take a salary for four years.”

“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life,” the candidate’s wife added.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/19/ann-romney-on-tax-returns-weve-given-all-you-people-need-to-know/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Entitled Bitch? you betcha!

[boutons_deux]

http://truth-out.org/images/071812pitt2.jpg

When run through the Universal Republican Bullshit Translation Device I built in my basement, that plaintive cry becomes, "McCain vetted me for the VP slot in 2008, saw my financials, and went with Palin instead...my tax records would be lethal to my campaign, and I am terrified of releasing them...Obama is being mean to me...O God, I hope my ill-advised blurt about Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns doesn't inspire anyone to ask about my wife Ann's returns...c'mon, America, I'm the white guy in the race, this was supposed to be easier..."

Etc.

If this were a prize fight, the referee would have stepped in to stop the bludgeoning. This ain't boxing, however: this is politics, so wear a helmet, light a candle in whatever house of worship you attend in the hope that the beatings will cease once morale improves, and do the best you can.

That's what you say to buck someone up...but I don't have the faintest idea how anyone can recover from something like this.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10383-mitts-kampaign-klown-kar

[boutons_deux]

Solyndra and the Republican Outrage Machine

Reeling from the controversy over his “retroactive” Bain resignation, this week Mitt Romney is mounting a counter-attack. Rather than his own vulture capitalist credentials, Romney wants to talk about the supposed “crony capitalism” of the president, with Solyndra as Exhibit A. Yesterday, the campaign debuted a new ad warning that, “Obama is giving taxpayer dollars to big donors and then watching them lose it.” GOP Senator Ron Johnson went further, comparing green energy investment to Soviet communism, “the lessons of the Soviet Union.” In December, the conservative writer Conn Carroll posited that this election will be about “Bain vs Solyndra.” Wishful thinking? Too soon to tell.

But after a year of hearings, twenty-six witnesses and 187,000 documents from the White House, all Republicans have to show for it are some context-less quotes and a lot of baseless assertions.

By March, Congressman and Solyndra Grand Inquisitor Darrell Issa, was reduced to telling <, “Was there criminal activity? Perhaps not. Is there policial influence and connections? Perhaps not. Did they bend the rules for an agenda not covered within the statute? Absolutely.”

Despite the evidence, Romney wants to convince Americans that a bad bet on Solyndra is more significant than decades of outsourcing and downsizing. There’s a real risk that reporters—hungry for scandal and hypnotized by false equivalence—will let him get away with it. At stake is more than an electoral football. Like Reagan’s fabled Cadillac-driving “welfare queen” or much-hyped claims of voter fraud or food stamp abuse, this right-wing myth-making has dire policy consequences. As Solyndra becomes shorthand for scandal, the well gets poisoned for future progress.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168959/solyndra-and-republican-outrage-machine?rel=emailNation%27#

Gecko/Repug's counterpunch is Solyndra "scandal". :lol

[boutons_deux]

Pathos of the Plutocrat



"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." So wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald - and he didn't just mean that they have more money. What he meant instead, at least in part, was that many of the very rich expect a level of deference that the rest of us never experience and are deeply distressed when they don't get the special treatment they consider their birthright; their wealth "makes them soft where we are hard."

And because money talks, this softness - call it the pathos of the plutocrats - has become a major factor in America's political life.

It's no secret that, at this point, many of America's richest men - including some former Obama supporters - hate, just hate, President Obama. Why? Well, according to them, it's because he "demonizes" business - or as Mitt Romney put it earlier this week, he "attacks success." Listening to them, you'd think that the president was the second coming of Huey Long, preaching class hatred and the need to soak the rich.

Needless to say, this is crazy. In fact, Mr. Obama always bends over backward to declare his support for free enterprise and his belief that getting rich is perfectly fine. All that he has done is to suggest that sometimes businesses behave badly, and that this is one reason we need things like financial regulation. No matter: even this hint that sometimes the rich aren't completely praiseworthy has been enough to drive plutocrats wild. For two years or more, Wall Street in particular has been crying: "Ma! He's looking at me funny!"

Wait, there's more. Not only do many of the superrich feel deeply aggrieved at the notion that anyone in their class might face criticism, they also insist that their perception that Mr. Obama doesn't like them is at the root of our economic problems. Businesses aren't investing, they say, because business leaders don't feel valued. Mr. Romney repeated this line, too, arguing that because the president attacks success "we have less success."

This, too, is crazy (and it's disturbing that Mr. Romney appears to share this delusional view about what ails our economy). There's no mystery about the reasons the economic recovery has been so weak. Housing is still depressed in the aftermath of a huge bubble, and consumer demand is being held back by the high levels of household debt that are the legacy of that bubble. Business investment has actually held up fairly well given this weakness in demand. Why should businesses invest more when they don't have enough customers to make full use of the capacity they already have?

But never mind. Because the rich are different from you and me, many of them are incredibly self-centered. They don't even see how funny it is - how ridiculous they look - when they attribute the weakness of a $15 trillion economy to their own hurt feelings. After all, who's going to tell them? They're safely ensconced in a bubble of deference and flattery.

Unless, that is, they run for public office.

Like everyone else following the news, I've been awe-struck by the way questions about Mr. Romney's career at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, and his refusal to release tax returns have so obviously caught the Romney campaign off guard. Shouldn't a very wealthy man running for president - and running specifically on the premise that his business success makes him qualified for office - have expected the nature of that success to become an issue? Shouldn't it have been obvious that refusing to release tax returns from before 2010 would raise all kinds of suspicions?

By the way, while we don't know what Mr. Romney is hiding in earlier returns, the fact that he is still stonewalling despite calls by Republicans as well as Democrats to come clean suggests that it could be something seriously damaging.

Anyway, what's now apparent is that the campaign was completely unprepared for the obvious questions, and it has reacted to the Obama campaign's decision to ask those questions with a hysteria that surely must be coming from the top. Clearly, Mr. Romney believed that he could run for president while remaining safe inside the plutocratic bubble and is both shocked and angry at the discovery that the rules that apply to others also apply to people like him. Fitzgerald again, about the very rich: "They think, deep down, that they are better than we are."

O.K., let's take a deep breath. The truth is that many, and probably most, of the very rich don't fit Fitzgerald's description. There are plenty of very rich Americans who have a sense of perspective, who take pride in their achievements without believing that their success entitles them to live by different rules.

But Mitt Romney, it seems, isn't one of those people. And that discovery may be an even bigger issue than whatever is hidden in those tax returns he won't release.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=950077&f=28&sub=Columnist

[boutons_deux]

A CEO in the Oval Office?

If Mitt Romney’s association with Bain Capital ends up sinking his presidential campaign, he’s unlikely to appreciate the irony. But, if he needs consolation, he might consider seeking solace in American history. The fact is that no successful businessman has ever been a successful president, and only a few have even been serious contenders for the job.

This might seem odd, given Americans’ long romance with wealthy entrepreneurs and the enterprises they build. But a talent for developing private companies and making big profits seldom translates into wooing a majority of voters or governing a contentious republic. It may, in fact, blind one from recognizing critical differences between those equally difficult endeavors.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=799

[boutons_deux]

O’Donnell rips Romney’s promise to put porn filters on every computer

As late as 2007, Romney had vowed to implement a policy that would restrict the freedom to browse the Internet.

“I want to make sure that every new computer sold in this country after I’m president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography, and that parents can click that filter to make sure their kids don’t see that kind of stuff coming in on their computer,” Romney said at an event in Ottumwa, Iowa.

Earlier this week, Morality in Media president Patrick Trueman, who was an anti-pornography prosecutor in President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department, told The Daily Caller that Romney’s campaign had assured him that the candidate would “vigorously” crackdown on the porn industry.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/20/odonnell-rips-romneys-promise-to-put-porn-filters-on-every-computer/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[boutons_deux]

In a new effort to settle nagging questions about his finances, Republican Presidential pick Mitt Romney today told reporters that his dog ate his tax returns and also served as C.E.O. of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002.

Mr. Romney’s narrative about the Irish setter Seamus Romney, shared with reporters during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, was perhaps the most emotional invocation of a pet by a politician since Richard M. Nixon’s famed Checkers speech of 1952.

“Seamus was more than a dog,” Mr. Romney said, his voice beginning to quaver. “As C.E.O. of Bain, he was a job creator.”

But Mr. Romney’s revelations about his dog’s career in private equity may have raised more questions than it answered, as a spokesperson for People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) questioned the G.O.P. candidate’s latest version of events.

“If we are to believe Mitt Romney, in 2002 while Seamus was supposedly running Bain Capital he would have been at least 140 years old [in dog years],” said PETA’s Carol Foyler. “This shaggy-dog story represents Mitt Romney’s latest act of animal cruelty.”

Minutes after PETA’s response, Mr. Romney released an amended statement, saying that Seamus Romney had served as C.E.O. of Bain “posthumously.”

It was a quieter day for Mr. Romney’s wife Ann, who, after her “you people” gaffe on ABC’s “Good Morning America” yesterday, was seen riding home on the roof of Mr. Romney’s car.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/romney-claims-dog-ate-tax-returns-and-ran-bain-capital-for-three-years.html#ixzz21H2qgE3N

[Clipper Nation]

O’Donnell rips Romney’s promise to put porn filters on every computer

As late as 2007, Romney had vowed to implement a policy that would restrict the freedom to browse the Internet.

“I want to make sure that every new computer sold in this country after I’m president has installed on it a filter to block all pornography, and that parents can click that filter to make sure their kids don’t see that kind of stuff coming in on their computer,” Romney said at an event in Ottumwa, Iowa.

Earlier this week, Morality in Media president Patrick Trueman, who was an anti-pornography prosecutor in President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department, told The Daily Caller that Romney’s campaign had assured him that the candidate would “vigorously” crackdown on the porn industry.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/20/odonnell-rips-romneys-promise-to-put-porn-filters-on-every-computer/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29&utm_content=Google+Reader

:lol Willard supposedly all about the jobs
:lol Handjobs and blowjobs apparently don't count

[boutons_deux]

Mitt Romney Made Over $25 Million In Foreign Income While Governing, Campaigning

Mitt Romney accumulated more than $25 million in foreign income between 2005 and 2010, while he was governor of Massachusetts and a presidential candidate, according to an analysis of his 2010 tax return.

The 2010 return lists foreign tax payments Romney made dating back to 2000. By Romney standards, the payments were modest through 2004, averaging $37,000 a year. In 2005, however, his foreign tax bill shot up to $333,149 and stayed high for the next three years, before dipping in 2009, as the financial crisis hit hard.

In 2010, Romney's foreign tax bill was down to $67,173 on declared foreign income of $1,525,982. That's a 4.4 percent rate. After expenses and various other deductions, Romney declared a net foreign income of $392,000, making his net tax rate 17 percent.

Because the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has so far declined to release his earlier tax returns, HuffPost made a rough calculation of his prior foreign earnings by assuming he paid similar tax rates in previous years.

Using that analysis, paying $333,000 in taxes would translate into gross foreign income of $7.5 million in 2005, or net income of $1.9 million. Even using the much-reduced net income figure, Romney would have earned $7 million in foreign income from 2005 to 2010.

Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and served a four-year term, during which time he took no paycheck from the state. He began running for president while still governor and continued until early 2008. On the campaign trail in 2011, he joked with a Florida voter that he was unemployed.

But unemployment for Romney looks a lot more lucrative than it does for most Americans.

"That may be one of the reasons they don't want to release the returns ... they don't want people to see that income," said Rebecca Wilkins, an attorney with Citizens for Tax Justice.

Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded, have profited by setting up offshore investment vehicles and shipping American jobs overseas. The money from those activities has continued to flow to Romney long after he claims to have retired in 1999 from Bain, as evidenced by his tax returns.

One Bain investment that has been profitable for Romney, for example, is Sensata Technologies. The company is planning to shutter its Freeport, Ill., factory by November and move production to China. The soon-to-be-unemployed workers have pleaded with Romney to use his influence over Bain to stave off the closure. Romney has so far declined to do so.

Instead, Romney has transferred $170,000 worth of Sensata stock he owns to a charity he controls, a move that gave him a sizable tax deduction.

The Obama campaign has made Bain's offshoring efforts a top campaign issue, releasing a brutal ad overlaying Romney's outsourcing record atop a rendition of "America the Beautiful."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/mitt-romney-foreign-income_n_1695806.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[boutons_deux]

Here's Gecko's team playing the "foreigner, racist, birther, unAmerican card. Expect this non-stop

Romney Adviser Says Obama Doesn’t ‘Fully Appreciate’ Our ‘Anglo-Saxon Heritage’

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

The comments were the latest attack by the Romney campaign on Obama’s multi-cultural heritage. Last week, Romney campaign co-chair John Sununu said Obama didn’t understand the “American system” because he “spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia.” Sununu also said Obama needed to “learn how to be an American.” (Sununu later apologized for that remark.) Later that day Romney called Obama’s policies “extraordinarily foreign.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/24/580541/romney-adviser-says-obama-doesnt-fully-appreciate-our-anglo-saxon-heritage/

Obviously, all these assholes are coordinated and "on message" to paint Obama as unAmerican/black/foreign, since they can't run on the REpug record 2001-2008, nor on Gecko's record, other than Gecko running away from his MA health plan.

[boutons_deux]

Hiding in Plain Sight

If I closed my eyes, and added a creepy monotone, I could have been listening to Dick Cheney.

The Republican speaker at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nev., was slashing the president with jingoistic jingles: Obama is ashamed of America, an apologist sapping the greatness of a country that is the greatest force for good the world has ever known, a weakling marring the American Century by gutting the military and the economy. And, on top of that, the Obama White House doesn’t know how to keep stuff secret.

Prodded by conservatives to attack the president more aggressively, the ever malleable Mitt Romney obliged Tuesday at the V.F.W., spouting chest-thumping clichés about putting “resolve in our might.” That resolve evidently doesn’t include Mitt, who passed on Vietnam, or his five strapping sons, none of whom have volunteered for the volunteer military.

It was at the V.F.W. convention in 2002 when Cheney, who got five deferments from Vietnam, set the gold standard for mindless belligerence, pushing pre-emptive action in Iraq. “Simply stated,” he said, “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” The Arab street, he knew, would erupt in joy when we invaded.

In his speech, Romney demanded that any Obama administration leakers of classified information be found and punished because “the time for stonewalling is over,” “Americans are entitled to know” and Americans deserve “a full and prompt accounting of the facts.”

After the speech, Eric Edelman, a Romney campaign adviser, chimed in on ferreting out Obama leakers in a press release; unfortunately, BuzzFeed soon pointed out that Edelman “was implicated in the country’s last major national security leak investigation — the outing of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame” when he served under former Cheney aide Scooter Libby in W.’s administration.

Romney is so secretive that he’s beginning to make the über-clandestine Cheney look like The Bachelorette.

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that although Romney promised “complete transparency” when he stepped in to save the Salt Lake City Olympics, he became a black hole: “Some who worked with Romney describe a close-to-the-vest chief executive unwilling to share so much as a budget with a state board responsible for spending oversight. Archivists now say most key records about the Games’ internal workings were destroyed under the supervision of a staffer shortly after the flame was extinguished at Olympic Cauldron Park, after Romney had returned to Massachusetts.” (Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just burn the records in the flame?)

The public still can’t see the records, stored at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott library, named for the same man as Willard Mitt Romney.

Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman, said that Mitt resigned from the Olympics job in early 2002 to run for governor of Massachusetts and “was not involved in the decision-making regarding the final disposition of records.”

Who was responsible for the final disposition? A former colleague at Bain Capital, Fraser Bullock, who succeeded Romney in the Olympic post. Ah, the old Bain handoff.

Romney spent $100,000 in state funds to replace office computers at the end of his term as governor and on the cusp of his 2008 presidential race, “as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret,” reported Mark Hosenball of Reuters. Eleven Romney aides “bought the hard drives of their state-issued computers to keep for themselves,” Hosenball wrote. “Also before he left office, the governor’s staff had e-mails and other electronic communications by Romney’s administration wiped from the state servers, state officials say. Those actions erased much of the internal documentation of Romney’s four-year tenure as governor.”

It seems antithetical to Mormonism, since the Mormon Church loves to save documents, keeping 35 billion images of genealogical information and records on church history in the Granite Mountain Records Vault near Salt Lake City.

Doesn’t Mitt have space in that split-level, four-car garage elevator in La Jolla for a little deep-storage?

As Maggie Haberman observed in Politico, Romney has made a calculated decision to hide three major elements of his background: his Mormonism, his record at Bain and his time as governor. This creates, she wrote, “a kind of self-imposed paralysis on biographical messaging that some observers, including Republicans, say may wound his campaign in an era in which voters want to achieve a kind of unprecedented intimacy with their candidates.”

Former rival Newt Gingrich told Politico Tuesday that Romney needs to relax and let people see who he is, noting that, except for family, “there’s a place where Mitt clearly doesn’t let people get.”

So far, Mitt’s casting a shadowy silhouette, hiding his fortune in foreign tax havens, hiding tax returns, destroying and hiding records as head of the Olympics and as governor, hiding a specific sense of where he would take the country.

Americans don’t want to play hide-and-seek with their presidential candidates. Romney should listen to himself: The time for stonewalling is over.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/opinion/dowd-hiding-in-plain-sight.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[boutons_deux]

Gecko is way out of his depth, gaffing badly in UK


Mitt in London: Brags About Secret Meeting, Insults Olympics

So Mitt Romney spends Tuesday pledging

[1] that as president he would never, ever leak intelligence information

and then today

[2]:

Eyebrows going up about Romney's claim to have met the Sir John Sawers, the chief of MI6. Asked about Syria by an American reporter whether he and Cameron spoke about Syria and he replies: "I appreciated the insights and perspectives of the leaders of the government here and the opposition here as well as the head of MI6"

As The Guardian explains [3]:

For our American readership, this isn't like bragging you just met David Petraeus. The British take on the national secret intelligence service comes with an extra-heavy dollop of the whole secret thing. The very existence of the MI6 was not officially acknowledged until 1994.

Good luck, Romney handlers: this is only stop No. 1 on a three-stop international tour. What will he say in Jerusalem?

Maybe if MI6 also handled Romney's tax returns then he could have kept his mouth shut?

Or perhaps he was simply distracted by trying to put out the fire caused by his other gaffe: saying [4] that he doubted Great Britain's ability to pull off the games.

"You know, it's hard to know just how well it will turn out," Romney said. "There are a few things that were disconcerting, the stories about the – private security firm not having enough people – the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging."

Prime Minister David Cameron reassured Romney that everything would turn out just fine, adding [4] a bit of a rebuke to Romney: "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world," Cameron said. "Of course it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere." (Like in fucking Mormon land? :lol I doubt Gecko understood Cameron's "nowhere" insult! :lol It's said that the Americans say more than they mean (overstatement), and the English mean more than they say (understatement) )

Romney, who has made "No Apology" the centerpiece of his foreign policy, subsequently apologized,walking back [5] his comments doubting London's readiness.

I guess the moral of the story is that Mitt Romney has all of Dick Cheney's diplomatic talent ... with none of his charm.

http://www.alternet.org/print/hot-news-views/mitt-london-brags-about-secret-meeting-insults-olympics

[boutons_deux]

Mitt Romney: The Gated Candidate

The wealthiest Americans often choose to live in gated communities, designed to shield them from the intrusion of those Ann Romney calls "you people."

Now, Mitt Romney is applying that same notion to his campaign for the presidency. He's offering Americans a gated candidate, with whole areas of his record walled off to keep "you people" from knowing about them.

The scope of information gated off is striking and unprecedented in modern presidential politics. Romney insured that records on his stint as Governor and as CEO of the Olympics were scrubbed. He walls off access to his history at Bain, the company he led. Romney refuses to reveal his tax returns. He walls off information about the bundlers who are raising the money for the campaign to whom he will be deeply indebted. Not surprisingly, he stayed mum as Republican Senators torpedoed the legislation to require disclosure of corporate and individual contributors who give more than $10,000 to non-profits now poisoning the airwaves with attack ads.

He is as Maureen Dowd concludes, "hiding in plain sight."

This isn't a partisan concern. Joining a growing roster of Republican leaders, even the reactionary Manchester Union Leader editorialists call on him to reveal his tax returns, saying "maintaining the secrecy creates the impression, justly or not, that there is something to hide." Surely, the editorial goes on to say, Romney "could not have arrogantly believed that he could withstand any storm that developed by bluffing his way through?"

But Romney has chosen to "bluff his way through" not only on his taxes, but on his record and his donors. He clearly has made a calculated cost-benefit analysis, as befits a man from Bain. He believes the benefits of letting Americans know his background are outweighed by the costs likely to be suffered by a wealthy Wall Street predator who pays a lower tax rate than the cops who patrol his streets, is running on a platform that denounces what he did as Governor, has a campaign funded largely by hedge fund operators and Wall Street bankers, and knows what scrutiny of his management of Bain or the Olympics will reveal.

Already, we know from the scrubbed tax returns that by using available tax dodges and off shore tax havens, he pays a lower tax rate than middle income Americans. Already we're learning that Romney's Olympics team outsourced supply of US Olympic uniforms to the brutal dictatorship of Burma (Myanmar).

No wonder Romney figures he loses fewer votes by walling off his record than by revealing it.

He is the perfect tribune of the 1%. The gated candidate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/mitt-romney-the-gated-can_b_1706229.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[boutons_deux]

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond had to withdraw as a co-chair of Romney’s London fundraiser festivities—after Diamond was forced out of his position and then dragged before a Parliamentary select committee for a round of “what did you know and when did you know it” questioning about the filing of false reports and the manipulation of global markets. Embarrassing? Not really. The no-shame-when-it-comes-to-money-grabbing Romney campaign just made another Barclays insider a co-chair, along with representatives of of Bank of Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Wells Fargo Securities—and, of course, Bain Capital Europe.

What was Romney thinking?

First and foremost, he wanted the estimated $2 million in campaign contributions that the global financiers ponied up Thursday night.

But the Republican presidential candidate came to London to offer the the scandal-plagued bankers something in return for the checks that were delivered in increments of as much as $75,000: reassurance that he really is one of them. And that a Romney presidency would serve their interests.

Referring to the signature Wall Street regulatory reform of the Obama presidency, Romney reassured the bankers that “I’d like to get rid of Dodd Frank and go back and look at regulation piece by piece.”

While he couldn’t quite get the hang of international diplomacy, Mitt Romney was entirely comfortable standing on foreign soil and promising international bankers that, as president, he would take care of them.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169137/romney-promises-libor-scandal-banksters-hell-score-them#

[boutons_deux]

White TN man jealous over Gecko

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17uj7fosg5a55jpg/original.jpg

Man Attacks Girlfriend Over Photo of Mitt Romney on Her Facebook Page


http://gawker.com/5930493/man-attacks-girlfriend-over-photo-of-mitt-romney-on-her-facebook-page

[boutons_deux]

hear say, but it has ring of truth.

We can say anything we want about Gecko's tax evasion/avoidance, until and if he ever publishes the last 10 years, like any sub-cabinet candidate must do before Senate confirmation.

Harry Reid: Bain Investor Told Me That Mitt Romney 'Didn't Pay Any Taxes For 10 Years'

Romney couldn't make it through a Senate confirmation process as a mere Cabinet nominee, the majority leader insisted, owing to the opaqueness of his personal finances.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[elbamba]

hear say, but it has ring of truth.

We can say anything we want about Gecko's tax evasion/avoidance, until and if he ever publishes the last 10 years, like any sub-cabinet candidate must do before Senate confirmation.

Harry Reid: Bain Investor Told Me That Mitt Romney 'Didn't Pay Any Taxes For 10 Years'

Romney couldn't make it through a Senate confirmation process as a mere Cabinet nominee, the majority leader insisted, owing to the opaqueness of his personal finances.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Of course, Reid goes on to say that he doesn't have any proof. Its telling that you support this kind of rhetoric.

[elbamba]

Mitt Romney Made Over $25 Million In Foreign Income While Governing, Campaigning

Mitt Romney accumulated more than $25 million in foreign income between 2005 and 2010, while he was governor of Massachusetts and a presidential candidate, according to an analysis of his 2010 tax return.

The 2010 return lists foreign tax payments Romney made dating back to 2000. By Romney standards, the payments were modest through 2004, averaging $37,000 a year. In 2005, however, his foreign tax bill shot up to $333,149 and stayed high for the next three years, before dipping in 2009, as the financial crisis hit hard.

In 2010, Romney's foreign tax bill was down to $67,173 on declared foreign income of $1,525,982. That's a 4.4 percent rate. After expenses and various other deductions, Romney declared a net foreign income of $392,000, making his net tax rate 17 percent.

Because the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has so far declined to release his earlier tax returns, HuffPost made a rough calculation of his prior foreign earnings by assuming he paid similar tax rates in previous years.

Using that analysis, paying $333,000 in taxes would translate into gross foreign income of $7.5 million in 2005, or net income of $1.9 million. Even using the much-reduced net income figure, Romney would have earned $7 million in foreign income from 2005 to 2010.

Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and served a four-year term, during which time he took no paycheck from the state. He began running for president while still governor and continued until early 2008. On the campaign trail in 2011, he joked with a Florida voter that he was unemployed.

But unemployment for Romney looks a lot more lucrative than it does for most Americans.

"That may be one of the reasons they don't want to release the returns ... they don't want people to see that income," said Rebecca Wilkins, an attorney with Citizens for Tax Justice.

Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded, have profited by setting up offshore investment vehicles and shipping American jobs overseas. The money from those activities has continued to flow to Romney long after he claims to have retired in 1999 from Bain, as evidenced by his tax returns.

One Bain investment that has been profitable for Romney, for example, is Sensata Technologies. The company is planning to shutter its Freeport, Ill., factory by November and move production to China. The soon-to-be-unemployed workers have pleaded with Romney to use his influence over Bain to stave off the closure. Romney has so far declined to do so.

Instead, Romney has transferred $170,000 worth of Sensata stock he owns to a charity he controls, a move that gave him a sizable tax deduction.

The Obama campaign has made Bain's offshoring efforts a top campaign issue, releasing a brutal ad overlaying Romney's outsourcing record atop a rendition of "America the Beautiful."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/mitt-romney-foreign-income_n_1695806.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

So is it bad that he was such a good investor that in his twenty years in business he set himself up for life? I am not understanding the narrative here? Is it wrong to invest private money overseas? Is okay for the government to send taxpayer dollars oversea? What is the point?

[boutons_deux]

Of course, Reid goes on to say that he doesn't have any proof. Its telling that you support this kind of rhetoric.

Gecko will be hounded and trashed by what his opposition say and what citizens think until he stops hiding his tax returns. We can only conclude that Gecko knows he has so much bad stuff hide that he simply cannot release them.

[elbamba]

Gecko will be hounded and trashed by what his opposition say and what citizens think until he stops hiding his tax returns. We can only conclude that Gecko knows he has so much bad stuff hide that he simply cannot release them.

"We" being people who are already not going to vote for him.

You are essentially endorsing the birther logic. You do realize this?

[CosmicCowboy]

"We" being people who are already not going to vote for him.

You are essentially endorsing the birther logic. You do realize this?

X2

Only the Obama aplogists give a shit about Romney's old tax returns. Accusing him of "potentially being a felon" is just so bat shit boutons crazy that the mainstream sees it for exactly what it is...smoke and mirrors and diversion from what a shitty president Obama has been.

[boutons_deux]

"Only the Obama aplogists give a shit about Romney's old tax returns."

3 years ago ain't old. He gave 10+ years to McLiar when he wanted to be VEEP candidate.

even ignorant, simple-minded bubbas can conclude that Gecko MUST BE HIDING SOMETHING that he KNOWS would be bad to disclose.

[TeyshaBlue]

Tee'd up and ready to swing. Anybody?

[elbamba]

"Only the Obama aplogists give a shit about Romney's old tax returns."

3 years ago ain't old. He gave 10+ years to McLiar when he wanted to be VEEP candidate.

even ignorant, simple-minded bubbas can conclude that Gecko MUST BE HIDING SOMETHING that he KNOWS would be bad to disclose.

So I am thinking Obama flunked out of law school, lied to the board of examiners in Illinois to take the bar exam, failed the exam and then unlawfully practiced law. He never released his school transcripts so he is obviously lying that he ever graduated. And while that would be bad, to make matter worse, I read on Facebook, by a source I am not going to name, that he was really behind the fast and the furious. My source, a government employee who considers Obama to be his boss, told me that Obama was involved from the very beginning and actually sold the gun that shot the boarder agent.

Prove it aint true Obama. Until then, I will never vote for you.

[Trainwreck2100]

whatever happened to crackers for cain?

[boutons_deux]

So I am thinking Obama flunked out of law school, lied to the board of examiners in Illinois to take the bar exam, failed the exam and then unlawfully practiced law. He never released his school transcripts so he is obviously lying that he ever graduated. And while that would be bad, to make matter worse, I read on Facebook, by a source I am not going to name, that he was really behind the fast and the furious. My source, a government employee who considers Obama to be his boss, told me that Obama was involved from the very beginning and actually sold the gun that shot the boarder agent.

Prove it aint true Obama. Until then, I will never vote for you.

he graduated from harvard law schol, was editor of harvard law review (chose by his classmates) and was a licensed lawyer in IL, was university-employed as professor. you have no reason other than slander to doubt those facts.

the rest of your bullshit is silly

[Blake]

the rest of your bullshit is silly

elbamba's tongue is clearly planted in his cheek

[wut]

Here's Gecko's team playing the "foreigner, racist, birther, unAmerican card. Expect this non-stop

Romney Adviser Says Obama Doesn’t ‘Fully Appreciate’ Our ‘Anglo-Saxon Heritage’

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

The comments were the latest attack by the Romney campaign on Obama’s multi-cultural heritage. Last week, Romney campaign co-chair John Sununu said Obama didn’t understand the “American system” because he “spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia.” Sununu also said Obama needed to “learn how to be an American.” (Sununu later apologized for that remark.) Later that day Romney called Obama’s policies “extraordinarily foreign.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/24/580541/romney-adviser-says-obama-doesnt-fully-appreciate-our-anglo-saxon-heritage/

Obviously, all these assholes are coordinated and "on message" to paint Obama as unAmerican/black/foreign, since they can't run on the REpug record 2001-2008, nor on Gecko's record, other than Gecko running away from his MA health plan.
We are a product of our environment, of this I have no doubt.