Romneys tax plan "He wont say."

The Obama campaign has come out with a great new ad hitting Romney about his tax returns, as well as his lack of transparency regarding his tax plan.

This Obama ad, called "He wont say" is actually the kind of ammunition the Obama campaign should be using to defeat Romney's presidential bid. Obama has been running the kind of campaign that has pulling no punches, which is great.

Liberals have had a long history of trying to be the better man, but no where does it say that being the better man doesn't involve swinging the sledgehammer of truth. I don't think anyone can deny that Romney has been waging a really dirty campaign. With ads that blatantly lie, such as the famous Welfare ad which is a huge distortion of a law president Obama had signed granting waivers that allow states to come up with new ways to increase employment, but only if they have a 20% increase in employment.

But facts never get in the way of a good lie.

Even more brazen is the way in which the Romney campaign doubles down on lies. Even so far as to say that "We will not be dictated by fact-checkers"

So let's contrast a bit here. Obama releases ads that are honest, if not a little unfair sometimes.

But Romney, not only releases completely false attacks, but when fact checkers point out his hypocrisy, he yells Liberal media bias and then doubles down.

And then there's the issue of Romney's tax returns, which he still refuses to release. Just the fact that we know more about the Higgs Boson particle then Mitts taxes is a little bit disturbing. There's a reason that he is hiding his returns, or more than one.

I think that if you're running to be President, we should have transparency, we should know what he does with his money. If he really believes a businessman should be a president, then why not follow the same standards as a business does when hiring someone new. Releasing tax returns is like the presidential version of a credit check, or even a criminal background check. It's also a measure of patriotism, someone who doesn't even believe in America enough to store his money here is not a patriot in my opinion.

Which leads me to say that Mitt doesn't care about helping Americans, he only cares about himself. His tax plan, which doesn't even add up unless you completely decimate the poor and middle classes, is all about using his position to enrich himself further.

We can only speculate on his plans because just like his Tax returns he is simply not giving any details about which deductions he'll eliminate to give those massive tax cuts for himself.

Just like a vulture he plans to let the Paul Ryan budget kill the middle class and then feast on the corpse with tax cuts that shift the burden to everyone but the super rich.

The man makes me sick.

Ryan Lied, Boehner nearly cried, and Eastwood loses it: The 2012 RNC my take

The RNC is mercifully over with Mitt Romney accepting his hard fought nomination over tough contenders like Herman Cain and Rick Perry and...who the fuck am I kidding Mitt was the least worst of all the candidates, and that's saying something.

The Convention itself was filled with numerous WTF moments, like the ironic "We built it." theme that took place in a stadium built with 62% of public funds. To Ann Romney talking about love in an odd attempt to humanize her husband, as well as screaming out much the Romney's loved women. To Chris Christies's disappointing  speech that changed the theme of love to respect and the fact that he really wanted to set himself up for 2016. Of course there was also the fact that Mitt Romney himself, was hardly even mentioned during the entire thing, oh and we can't forget about Clint Eastwood yelling at a chair.

That's not all.

The Santorum speech was extremely odd, with a strange, and slightly disturbing emphasis on hands; but probably the strangest thing that I can think that happened was that Fox news, actually called out Paul Ryan for his lies during his speech. Sally Kohn called the Ryan speech an "Attempt to the set the world record for blatant lies." 

What kind of bizzaro world did I wake up in this week?

One thing I kinda figured would happen, was the near absolute lack of mention for our last Republican president and the Dark Lord of the Sith Dick Cheney. The only mention of former President G.W.Bush was from his brother Jeb, who in a not so shocking but equally wtf moment stood up for his brother by telling the crowd about how his brother kept us safe. Didn't he get the memo about the whole 9/11 thing?

One surprise I did have was the fact that Romney didn't even mention the war in Afghanistan.


I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised, this fits in with the Republican strategy of "Lets not talk about our candidate (or our records)  but instead trash yours." narrative that the Romney campaign and the party as a whole have taken. I think in that respect they've certainly achieved their objective. Especially since Clint Eastwood is being talked about more than Romney is.

Then again who isn't entertained by the Eastwooding hashtag?

The 2012 RNC: Whitest Convention Ever

The Republican National Convention is now in full swing in Tampa, despite hurricane Isaac that threatened to drench the area.

Upon watching the coverage of the convention I was struck by quite a site. An elaborate stage fully equipped with a debt clock and adorned with a sign that says "We built that." A dig of course at our President and his statement that was taken out of context, spun by the right wing media, and thrown back in his face.

Charming.

Another thing that I noticed was in the crowd, it was a sea of white. There were also no black speakers, no black staff, just white...everywhere. Except a for a  poor camerawoman that was attacked.

There's a good explanation for that of course, the purpose of the convention being to formally nominate Mitt Romney who currently enjoys 0% of the black vote. That's right, zero percent. Nada, None.

So why attend a convention for a guy you obviously do not like?

There's a bigger problem here than just that. Romney wasn't even going for the black vote, automatically assuming that they will vote for Obama just because he is black. That's one reason African Americans are turned off by the Romney campaign and the Republican party in general, but there are many others.

The big part is the makeup of the party leadership. There are very few African Americans in leading roles. Yes I know about Michael Steele, who was former head of the RNC, and Herman Cain. There are actually a fair but small number of black Republicans, just not in leadership positions.

A good bet is because of the rhetoric we have been hearing, coming from the likes of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and some of the dishonest racially charged ads from the Romney campaign and super-Pac ads.

Santorum's famed blah people gaffe, is a great example of Republican politicians being too honest about how they really feel. He says that he wasn't going to say black but what other word would he have been trying to say? When you really think it about there's really nothing within that context he could have been trying to say that caused him to get tripped up.

Newt Gingrich also attacks President Obama with a racially charged attack by dubbing him the "Food Stamp President." The motivation behind this attack fits into the narrative that food stamps go to mostly lazy black people, which simply isn't true. There are simply more white people on food stamps than blacks, and not because either of us are lazy mind you, but because of the whole recession that nearly destroyed our economy. According to a recent report  the need for food assistance has increased 76% since the start of the great recession. A byproduct of millions of people losing their jobs.

Then there's the welfare ad, an homage back to the Welfare queen attacks by Ronald Reagan back in the 80's. Which is of course has been proven a blatant lie by every fact checker out there. Nonetheless the red meat thrown out there by the Republican establishment this election is just a continuation of the southern strategy that has worked well for the last 40 years.

We also have to take into account Romney's religion of Mormonism. Mormons believe that being black is a curse from god for Cains defiance. That the "Lamanites" (Sons of Cain) are not equal to that of white people. So one has to wonder if Romney himself believes that or not.

Now after saying all these things I have to keep it real. I know that not all White Republicans (& Mormons) are racist, I know that there are African Americans that believe in small government conservatism. I'm just pointing out how the current Republican racial dynamic is slanted towards trying to secure the racist white vote. This strategy is not only detestable, but it excludes an ever growing part of the population that would otherwise vote Republican.

There's one last thing I want to point out. How the demographics of the nation are changing.Which means white people will begin to become a minority in this country. I for one welcome diversity. We're all human beings after all. But unless the Republican Party finally abandons its racist southern strategy and begins to bring more diversity into the party,  the Republican party will become a minority party.

Dirty Politics: The GOPs lowbrow attacks

There has always been an innate nastiness to political rhetoric. From the muckrakers of the 1800s, to the McCarthyism of the 1950's. But never has it been so nasty, so distasteful and so divisive as it is today. It's also never be so normal. Normal to question the integrity of an entire party, Normal to ensure the failure of a President through legislative blocking, normal to project an image of a traitor onto a sitting president. And yet here we are, in 2012, being pummeled ceaselessly by political ads and rhetoric that not only lie, & obfuscate, but make it seem that the president himself isn't even an American citizen.

In the center of this is a party that uses every dirty trick in the book to ensure a sitting president is not only defeated in November, but derided as a complete failure. Not only do they wish to tarnish the image of a sitting president, but they even went so far as to attempt to destroy his signature achievement, one that they came up with in the first place, one that would help millions of Americans, and one that they offer no replacement for.

I am of course referring to the GOP, a party struggling to find itself after the eight dismal years of George W. Bush. Who have found themselves being cascaded further right by its fringe elements. So far in fact that the moderate conservatives have been leaving the party altogether.

Over the weekend former Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, even went so far as endorse Barack Obama.

So as the fringe right continues to take control of the Republican party the attacks against the President, and the Democrats become even more nasty, and divisive. Now I do know that even Democrats can get nasty, I wont deny that, but I think in many instances the Democrats claims are usually backed up with facts, whereas   many Republican ads are completely made up.

Take the Romney Welfare ad that charges Obama with taking the work out of Welfare. Essentially saying that people on Welfare will no longer need to train for a job but instead; "They just send you your welfare check." This line of attack has been completely made up.

Even though the ad has been fact checked again and again being shown to be completely dishonest, Romney is doubling down by charging that the Obama welfare waivers are just an effort to shore up the base.

Which is funny because the wealthiest among us are receiving tons of corporate welfare in the case of subsidies, tax breaks, and oh yeah, bailouts.

That's not even close to being the nastiest attacks.

Rep. Allen West, from Florida in a nod to McCarthy accused most of the Democratic party of being Communists. Former Gov. John Sununu insinuated that the President doesn't understand America and is somehow foreign. Reince Preibus has said that the President looks toward Europe for his policies. All of them regularly call Obama and his policies "Socialist" and make charges that he wants to make America into Europe. The insanity just doesn't stop.

There is also the various Nazi references to President Obama, as well as comparing him to Stalin.

Nasty.

Of course a side effect of all this blind hateful rhetoric being thrown around all the time is that we've become accustomed to hearing the word Socialist, Communist, European being tossed around by the candidates and even the leaders of the Republican party. We've become desensitized to these labels that are frankly not even used correctly. Ask most people and they don't even understand the word Socialism, or even the word Liberal anymore. Fact is that Nazi-ism and Communism are complete opposites in theory. Nazi-ism is a very nationalist right wing idea, that espouses racial purity, anti-homosexual attitudes, anti-worker, anti-abortion, pro corporation, statist, and anti-civil rights themes.

Even worse are the charges of the president not even being a citizen, Trumped up by of course, birther king Donald Trump. He gets help from birther queen Orly Taites, and even Mitt Romney who claims to have made a poor joke to his base during a speech in my home state of Michigan. This rhetoric works quite well, in a 2011 poll 1 in 4 Americans think that Obama wasn't even born in the U.S.

But is it really the leaders who have lurched the party so far to the right, or is it the base?

That's a difficult question to ask, but no one can deny the base is responsible for electing these leaders. I remember during the debates, how the crowd was cheering about executions of possibly innocent people in Texas. How about during the video of the gay soldier serving his country being booed just for being gay and wanting to be open about who he is. Even worse is the subject of the man without health insurance, and how we should just "let him die" which drew massive applause. Then there's the Hank William Jr's, the bloggers, hell even a couple of my old friends from Facebook believe in this terrible stuff.

The question I have here, is what came first? The leaders spouting this crap, or the base influencing the leaders? Maybe it's both, or maybe its the coding, the language and the deluge of false information in the media.

The guns, god, and gays agenda of the right wing, wrapping all of those things up with patriotism and charge those who wish to regulate guns, keep god out of the legislature, and allow gays to marry as un-American, socialist, commu-nazis is an example of how the worst of American culture can be allowed to wield so much power in our government.

I don't however believe that the majority of  America is like this. In fact I can prove just how disgusted America is with all the nasty politics. The low approval numbers say it all. So maybe it's just a matter of time before the politicians start being civil again.

I think before that happens the Republican party may have to self-destruct. Maybe then it can regain its collective sanity and again become a party we can actually work with to solve the real problems facing our great nation.

The Bain Files: a look into Mitt Romney

Before I start, I want to give full credit to the guys at Gawker for digging up this story. It's an amazing piece that shows just how the wealthy shield their money from U.S. taxes so that they pay more, and we pay less.

For weeks the media has been asking to see Mitt Romney's tax returns, to see just where he stores his vast wealth from U.S. taxation and as a result of that, just how much he actually paid in taxes compared to those who would be voting for him.

Although the Romney's have consistently said no to "You people" when it comes to the state of their finances;  citing that whatever they release is so bad that it will just give the Obama campaign more ammunition to use against them, despite that fear, just the fact that they will not even provide transparency has led to many people into speculating about what Mitt is actually hiding; if anything.

Just so happens it seems to be worse for him than any of us realized.

There is so much information in those Bain files and I can admit that it is too much for me to sit down and read at one time, I am not a tax guy, but I know a fraud when I see it.

I also happen to know a little thing about hypocrisy.

But what really has struck me is the fact that his investments in the Caymans were strictly made to avoid U.S. taxes.

"The Partnership is a qualified intermediary and intends to conduct it operations so that it will not be engaged in a United States trade or business and, therefore, will not be subject to United States federal income or withholding tax on its income from United States sources.... Under the current laws of the Cayman Islands, there are no income, estate, transfer, sales, or other Cayman Islands taxes payable by the Partnership." 

How can Romney make the case that he wants to invest in America and help American business when his businesses are all based in shell corporations that go out of their way to avoid U.S. taxes?

Another way Mitt has avoided paying taxes is using something called an Equity Swap, essentially an agreement to transfer the losses and gains on a particular asset or set of assets without actually transferring ownership. These help offshore hedge funds avoid paying taxes by disguising who owns the stock in order to help clients avoid a withholding tax. 

Like I said, I don't quite get how it works, but it's already seems pretty sketchy. 

So how is all this stuff actually relevant? 

This shows the type of character that Mitt Romney is, a ruthless businessman that does everything in his power to make every last penny. He's calculating, cold and efficient. He's willing to invest in things that he publicly opposes, like cigarette companies and casinos, and even a company that disposes of aborted fetuses.

So much for Pro-life.

All of this shows that Mitt Romney is as moral as the corporations he owns, not intrinsically good, not completely bad, but amoral. As Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks always says. Corporations are amoral machines, their only purpose is to make as much money as possible. So to is Romney, only out to make the most money the best way he can, and the only thing left for him to do in order to maximize profit, is to become president and ensure taxes on himself and his businesses are the lowest possible. He is the embodiment of the corporation.

So when you think about the election and where Mitt Romney's real motives lie you have to realize two things. It's not about leadership, it's not about America. 

It's about money.

In case you missed it you can find the Gawker Article here.