Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts

  • See this man? This is your President. Some of you might not think he's "your" president because he doesn't look like you. Rest assured, he is. Since January 2009, he's done a lot of work keeping this country from hurling itself off the fiscal and socioeconomic cliff and dashing itself onto the rocky shores of austerity and insanity. This is in spite of an entire political opposition that apparently wants the country to do just that.

    Here's all of the things this man has done since 2009, courtesy of The PCTC Blog. The man works hard. He's grayed tremendously since starting this job. That's a sign of stress a hard worker. Vote for this man.


    See this man? This is not your President, although he really, really wants to be your president. That would be a bad idea. He's supported by a political opposition that's dedicated the past four years to pissing on the president's head. They don't like him. They really, really don't like him. But they like this guy. Sorta. At least they like him enough that they're using ballots for playing cards, making them disappear like magic. They reappear in garbage cans. No one knows how or why. Do not vote for this man.

    This man is a consummate liar. He likes lying a lot. In fact, he's lied so much about so many things that people are now wondering whether his ethereal form actually occupies a bizzaro-world where every single one of the man's lies are actually truth. Perhaps he's a very honest man in that world. If you asked this man if he took a poo last night, he'd probably lie about that, too. Do not vote for this man.

    This man isn't all that concerned about the poor, those living from paycheck to paycheck or those barely in the ranks of the middle class. Those are not "people." Corporations are people. This man isn't all that comfortable campaigning around poor people, especially poor people who hate the president for some odd reason. He needs their votes, even if they reek of Natural Ice, Tyson's pre-cooked hot wings and strong flatulence. Do not vote for this man.

    He doesn't like being questioned. Or people looking up his tax information. Or people wondering why he has to keep his money in the Cayman Islands, away from America and all the poor people. When asked why did he give thousands of jobs to poor people in Mexico when poor people in America could have had those jobs, he shrugged, smiled and muttered something about "free markets." He calls himself a "job creator." Most of those jobs involve a 2,000-mile commute across ocean. Do not vote for this man.

    He doesn't like women. Actually, the political opposition that supports him doesn't like women. I'm pretty sure he's ambivalent about them, although he once claimed to have blenders binders full of women. That sounds pretty uncomfortable, but I'm sure it's more comfortable than taking a transvaginal probe to the vagina, or so I've been told. He doesn't like minorities, either. Minorities don't like him, so it evens out. Do not vote for this man.

    If you are a woman, a poor person, minority or any other ordinary American, do not vote for this man. This man is bad and the political opposition supporting him are worse. They are not good people. They will throw the country off the fiscal and socioeconomic cliff and clink wine glasses as the country splatters into bloody chunks on the rocks below.


    This is a ballot box. This is where your vote goes. Yours may not look exactly like this, but that's okay. A nice group of people are supposed to count these and tally up the scores, so another group of nice people can be elected and vote for one of these men. Some people would rather use them for magic card tricks. Others want to keep you away from the box, period. Don't let those people keep you away. Even old ladies are determined to get to the ballot box. Don't get outdone by an old lady.

    Don't stay at home, either. The nice mailman won't pick up your ballots anymore and watching the nice people count votes on TV without your vote being there sucks. Go to the ballot box and vote.

    The above is a public service announcement from Mack Lyons, sole proprietor of Different Day, Same Shit, formerly a Fortune 500 company until someone at Fortune realized it was not an actual company. These things happen a lot.
  • The GOP has a knack for utilizing fear as a prime motivator for their constituents' support. As such, there shouldn't be any surprise over the following story:

    Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told a rally in northern Ohio on Thursday night that Chrysler was considering moving production of its Jeep vehicles to China, apparently reacting to incorrect reports circulating online.

    "I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state Jeep — now owned by the Italians — is thinking of moving all production to China," Romney said at a rally in Defiance, Ohio, home to a General Motors powertrain plant. "I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it's fair America will win."

    Kinda ironic for a man who once specialized in moving companies overseas to tap into the average worker's fear of seeing their job hop on a slow boat to China just to get their vote come Nov. 6.

    Romney was apparently responding to reports Thursday on right-leaning blogs that misinterpreted a recent Bloomberg News story earlier this week that said Chrysler, owned by Italian automaker Fiat SpA, is thinking of building Jeeps in China for sale in the Chinese market.

    The Bloomberg story, though accurate, "has given birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore idle assembly lines and U.S. work force. It is a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats," Chrysler spokesman Gualberto Ranieri said.

    "Let's set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It's simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world's largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation."

    So the Romney campaign takes a story about Chrysler considering building Jeeps in China for the Chinese market and spins it into a yarn about Chrysler moving all Jeep production out of the U.S. to China. That's one way to get a few votes from the low-information set.

    Personally, I want to know how moving all Jeep production out of the U.S. and into China would work. Unlike cheap electronics, toys and plastic lawn furniture, shipping a fully assembled car overseas is pretty intensive work. Having a $2.50 plastic toy manufactured on a Chinese assembly line and shipped via boat into the U.S. is one thing. Having a $25,000 American car built on a Chinese assembly line and shipped via boat back into the U.S. raises plenty of questions (i.e. "What the hell where you thinking?")

    The Japanese, Korean and German auto manufacturers eventually moved production of their U.S.-bound products to the U.S. -- when it comes to cars, it's usually much easier to build your products where you sell them instead of undergoing the expensive and time-consuming task of shipping them to overseas markets. Economies of scale and all that.

    This is just one of many stories our friend Mitt might be glad to develop "Romnesia" over.

  • I know, I know. I haven't even offered an analysis of the last presidential debate. So many people have done a better job of that, that it seemed like it wasn't worth doing.

    In short, President Obama followed Crazy Joe Biden's lead and dragged Mittens around the stage by the ears on a great many issues, especially on Benghazi. I'd like to see more of that in this debate. After all, it deals largely with foreign policy.

    And because yours truly is dealing with a monumental work load outside of the blogosphere, I most likely won't be attempting anything resembling a live tweet of the debates. Instead, I simply leave you with this live broadcast of the final 2012 presidential debate (which will soon be replaced with an archived version after the live broadcast ends).

    We can only hope that the verbal blunders keep rolling in on Mitt's side. I wouldn't mind seeing "binders full of women" being turned into an autotuned rap song at some point.


  • Mitt Romney's desperate pivot to the center was highlighted by the president earlier today during a Virginia rally. First, we had the "Etch-A-Sketch." Now, we have "Romnesia:"

    “Now that we’re 18 days out from the election, ‘Mr. Severely Conservative’ wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year,’’ Obama said in a speech devoted almost entirely to attacking Romney, and during which he gave little indication of what he would do in a second term if reelected.

    Building in intensity, Obama continued: “He’s forgetting what his own positions are, and he’s betting that you will, too. I mean, he’s changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping. We’ve got to — we’ve got to — we’ve got to name this condition that he’s going through. I think — I think it’s called ‘Romnesia.’ ”

    At first, the Romney campaign thought the president had discovered Mitt Romney's long-lost mixed-race daughter from an illicit fling back in 1982 or thereabouts. After the initial confusion wore off, the RMoney team wasn't all that pleased with the president's zinger.

    “America doesn’t need a comedy routine; it needs a serious plan to fix the economy,’’ Romney senior adviser Danny Diaz wrote on Twitter.

    You can't really call $5 trillion in tax cuts over ten years a "serious plan" to right the economy. Personally, I don't think Romney has a plan anymore. He certainly doesn't have a clue...


  • A certain group of liberals complained about Joe Biden's drubbing of Paul Ryan during the VP debates. Not because he won the debate, but because of the way he won it. By derisively mocking the living daylights out of the Republican congressman and VP candidate, he crossed a line that these folks can't bear to see crossed.

    "The smile, the laugh, I think a lot of people maybe view that and think that he was a little too hot, too aggressive, maybe condescending," said NBC's David Gregory of Joe Biden's debate performance.

    A little too hot. Too aggressive. Perhaps condescending. These are traits that are perfectly acceptable in GOP candidates but anathema to Democrats. If the situation was reversed, everyone would be wondering why Biden couldn't have been a bit more aggressive. As I said before, you just can't win.

    President Obama couldn't afford to be anywhere above lukewarm, anywhere near aggressive or even the least bit condescending, lest he be deemed an "Angry Black Man" or worse, an "uppity negro/ni*CLANG*."  Crazy Joe had to harness that "Angry Black Man" on his behalf, essentially.

    Hopefully, the president won't let his past performance dictate what happens during this debate. President Obama has to bring his A-game this time, otherwise the results could have disastrous consequences.

  • On Friday, a man was photographed by Getty Images at a rally for the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket in Lancaster, Ohio, wearing a T-shirt that read "Put The White Back In the White House." Conservatives now say the man may have been a liberal plant designed to make Romney look bad, and the GOP nominee has disavowed the racist T-shirt. On Saturday, a Romney spokesperson told Buzzfeed the shirt is "reprehensible and has no place in this election."

    A "liberal plant" is probably one of the lamest excuses offered so far. Besides, Mitt Romney doesn't need some guy in a T-shirt to make him look bad, since he's spent his entire campaign making himself look like extruded crap.

    What's more telling is how certain segments of this nation's population would rather choose a capricious, tone-deaf and arrogant man who cares nothing about the ordinary population save for their ability to generate greater wealth for him and his peers over a man who's made some serious strides towards helping Americans of all walks of life, for the sole reason of his ethnic makeup. You give these people a knife and tell them a black man was living inside of their stomachs and they'll stab away with sheer, uninhibited gusto.
  • Poor President Obama was not a trial lawyer; he was a law professor, and it showed last night. When Mitt was telling lie after lie in the thin air of Denver, (28 and counting) all he could do was stare at him like a deer caught in the middle of the night on a country road. And, to his credit, the more Mitt got away with it, is the more he lied. The shady narcotics cop had the law professor on the run.
    In so many words, the Field Negro lays down how President Obama wound up looking outgunned during the Denver debate. Personally, I don't think the president was prepared for the never-ending stream of bullshit that came his way during the debate, nor was he quite ready for the jaw-dropping speed and tenacity of Romney polka dancing his way towards dead center.

    As for winners and losers, there weren't any. Romney's forceful performance, much of which consisted of the well-heeled Massachusetts governor running roughshod over debate moderator Jim Lehrer, might have convinced the media, Teabaggers and low-information voters that he was the winner, but the metric fuckton of lies and half-truths dispensed during the debate will be his undoing down the road. At best, Romney's performance earned him a Pyrrhic victory.

    Meanwhile, Obama's performance seemed factual, but feeble. As many others mentioned, President Obama isn't much of a tenacious debater and his performance trended more towards the Field Negro's quoted description. Perhaps he was trying as hard as he could to keep his inner Angry Black Man's black ass from booking an instantaneous flight from D.C. to Denver. Some people don't like it when that guy shows up.

    This is just one debate out of many. Next up: Joe Biden takes on Paul Ryan. Without any Angry Black Men around to gum up the works, that debate might have more of the satisfying knock-down drag-out scrapping many people were expecting.

    If you want more commentary on the Presidential Debate, look no further:

  • Remember Sheldon Adelson? It seems like he has a lot to benefit from a Romney administration. If Mitt gets his way and enacts his planned tax cuts, Adelson stands to gain approximately $2.3 billion in tax cuts. As it turns out, $2.3 billion goes a long way in some places.
  • Not shown: the termination notice Mitt Romney gave him during the morning meeting.
    Like most Americans and possibly others around the world, I grew up with Sesame Street. Big Bird, Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and that weird Snuffleupagus thing. As a young kid, Sesame Street was just one of the many programs I watched on a regular basis on PBS. My mother figured planting me in front of a TV tuned to PBS was a slightly better alternative to just planting me in front of a TV, period. Given her druthers, she would have rather had my nose buried in a book.

    So seeing Mitt Romney, a man who's already expressed a willingness to dispose of employees as easily as one tosses a used tissue, proclaim a love for the big yellow tuft of feathers in one breath and crap in the bird's nest in the next irked me a bit. I like Big Big and I sure wouldn't say the following to a guy who hosts one of the premier news and debate shows on PBS:

    I’m sorry, Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I’m not going to -- I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it. That’s number one.

    Mitt's little golden moment shouldn't surprise anyone. No, I haven't wrapped my head around how PBS became a line item that requires a Chinese title loan to keep afloat, either.

    If Fred McFeely Rogers was still alive, he'd probably have some choice words for our friend Mitt. Then again, perhaps Mitt would try to bully Mr. Rogers around before the shame subroutine on his neuronet processor kicked in. Fortunately, we have Neil deGrasse Tyson around to send a few of those choice words his way:


    For the record, 60 percent of PBS funding comes from private donors and grants, which explains the yearly PBS donation drives. In 2010, federal funding accounted for a mere 12 percent of revenue. For 2015, Congress plans to set aside approximately $445 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that handles the funding for PBS and NPR. In the grand scheme of Congressional budgets that include ludicrous things like corn subsidies and multi-billion dollar military equipment, the money allotted for CPB is the literal equivalent of the grocery store coupon you clipped out of the newspaper. It's not even worth the penny you just vacuumed up by accident that time.

    And yet, it wound up being an expenditure that has to be stopped.

    I doubt Mitt would do something as stupid as "kill Big Bird." His words, like so many others, are red meat for an audience who gets off on the thrill of ideological gore. They already see PBS as an indoctrination tool wielded by liberals to teach kids subversive social skills like sharing, empathy and tolerance. The arts, public programming, most forms of education and programs that benefit the poor are looked at with an evil eye by conservatives. I'm sure corporate execs don't have much love for PBS or Big Bird, either. After all, it would be a major coup for corporations if they could somehow can the "no commercials during the show" format in favor of...what you already see on decidedly non-public television.

    Make no mistake, this isn't about cutting waste. It's all about indulging in a unique type of "tough love" fantasy that involves conservative father figures whipping America's soft behind with a wire hanger. It's a fantasy continuously cultivated by Republicans who don't mind coasting on a wave of bootstraps-induced cheerleading from their die-hard constituents, many who believe they shouldn't be indulging in "any of that faggot hippie shit." These are the very people who will not only kneecap the futures of their own children just to run a "liberal pussy," "red diaper doper baby" or a "Muslim Socialist Kenyan Marxist nig*CLANG*" out of office, they also believe that the guy they vote into office genuinely gives a fuck about them, even as their state whittles down their Medicaid coverage to a bottle of aspirin, a semi-sterile lance and a few bandages.

    To think that Mitt Romney genuinely cares about your situation is like a drug addict believing his dealer genuinely has his best interests at heart.

    This is the approach we have to take to get America to a balanced budget. The president said he’d cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it. Trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years. The president’s put it in place as much public debt -- almost as much debt held by by the public as all prior presidents combined.

    The above conveniently forgets the continuing debt created by engaging in two major military operations overseas, tax breaks largely benefiting a sub-section of Americans and foreign nationals whose wealth remains out of national circulation and a devastating economic downturn that's resulted in high unemployment rates and dim prospects for today's job-seeker, the very same people who are being told to pull up their bootstraps, suck down those cheap tins of cat food and get back to finding a job during a jobless recovery.

    $15 trillon dollars seems like a big amount to someone who's looking at, say, $15,000 of credit card debt. The difference between the U.S. debt and your debt is that 1)the U.S. has the ability to print as much of its own scrip as it wants to pay down that debt and 2)you don't. And if you did, you'd be up for federal charges right about now. Unlike Greece, the U.S. has the ability to momentarily print its way out of debt if it wanted. For obvious reasons, it's not a very good idea, but the option is there. So is taxation and the elimination of loopholes, wasteful subsidies and pork spending, but we all know how popular those options are with most folks.

    Balancing the budget on the backs of Big Bird and Elmo won't do shit except give die-hard FReeper-types a penile salute at half-mast and GOP candidates something to point out to their constituents as they make their reelection runs. Cutting and slashing puny programs like public broadcasting might satisfy those who just can't wait for the ideological coat hanger to thwack America's hind parts, but it won't do anything to solve the problems plaguing this country.

  • For anyone who missed the first presidential debate of the quickly-closing election year, here's the full debate courtesy of YouTube and the New York Times.
  • As the 2012 Presidential Election campaign enters the home stretch, the folks over at the Daily Caller dug up a 2007 video of President Obama addressing a mostly black audience at Hampton University. In the video, the president is shown empathizing with the audience while talking about how racism played a role in how Hurricane Katrina victims of a certain complexion were treated:



    In a video obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama tells an audience of black ministers, including the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that the U.S. government shortchanged Hurricane Katrina victims because of racism.

    The people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!” Obama shouts in the video, which was shot in June of 2007 at Hampton University in Virginia. By contrast, survivors of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Andrew received generous amounts of aid, Obama explains. The reason? Unlike residents of majority-black New Orleans, the federal government considers those victims “part of the American family.

    Bad Obama, bad! You're not supposed to hint the truth about the U.S. government's shabby treatment of hurricane victims in New Orleans. You're not even supposed to get too chummy with your fellow black folks either. You're not "their president" - you're America's President™, damnit! What if they get all uppity angry and start rioting like they did back in L.A. that one time? And who the hell told you you could start praising that awful, divisive Negro Jeremiah Wright again? How dare you...you....you (Marxist/Socialist/Ni*CLANG*/Kenyan)...

    Looks like the president kept it a bit too real for the comfort of certain Americans. Didn't this man know he had to remain as racially neutral as possible and essentially stay away from being that stereotypical "controversial, angry black man"? That means keeping well away from "radical" people with "inflammatory rhetoric." Come to think of it, any time prominent black Americans broach the subject of mistreatment by a majority-white American government, it's deemed too "radical," "inflammatory" or "divisive" for discourse and quickly hushed up under a torrent of gasps, guffaws and "How dare you"-type phrases.

    The fact that this video "surfaced" this late in the presidential campaign suggests the GOP is practically out of gas. Rigging the vote didn't work, demonizing the president on social, foreign policy and economic grounds didn't work either, and now, it looks like Romney's done wonders strangling his own campaign to death. The only thing left, preferably before poor Mitt finishes the job by bombing in today's debate, is to whip out the race card and hope the low-information, low-IQ voters become color-aroused enough to make a Hail Mary play in Romney's favor.

    It won't happen. With President Obama bagging up most of the swing states, maintaining a comfortable lead in Electoral College estimates, it appears to be lights out for Mitt. Instead of having a debate tonight, news outlets all over should broadcast a mock funeral for Romney's campaign, with a casket signifying his campaign hopes and dreams placed in a gilded wagon. Rafalca will have the honor of pulling the gilded wagon to the shores of Massachusetts, where the casket can be placed on a funeral pyre, set aflame and allowed to drift away with dignity.
  • Mitt Romney is America's gift that keeps on giving, day after day. First off, the following video footage unearthed by Mother Jones dating back to 1985, detailing Bain Capital's goal of identifying companies with "potential and hidden value," purchasing significant stakes in said companies only to "harvest them at a significant profit."


    The fruits of Mitt Romney's profit harvest:


    Unlike the former steelworker interviewed in the second video, at least Romney does not have to worry about being strapped for cash. From 2005 to 2010, he made a sizable $25,000,000 from his foreign investments and income. The idea of a businessman making a tremendous amount of money from strategic investments and well-placed financial bets isn't a bad thing in of itself, as long as it isn't done in a capricious manner that's directly hostile to American interests...


    Being out of touch and out of tune with the financial interests of ordinary Americans, what Mittens himself termed as the "47 percent," is a clear indicator of how unfit this man is for the position of the nation's chief administrator.

    Meanwhile, recent polls from the Huffington Post show President Obama comfortably in the lead for electoral votes, 332 to Romney's 191. The president is also on track to sewing up critical swing states including Florida, Ohio, Colorado and North Carolina. At this point, the election might turn into a cakewalk for Obama and an absolute blowout for Romney. That doesn't mean Democrat voters should be complacent and coast as they've done in 2010. There's still plenty of work to be done between now and November 5.

  • In lieu of anything resembling actual content, here's a PSA from Samuel L. Jackson encouraging everyone who's still passive about the upcoming presidential election to please, pretty please, wake the fuck up.


  • Please note the following video. It's a clip of Mitt Romney in an interview with Scott Pelley on CBS' 60 Minutes:


    To start, the Emergency Room was never meant to be a primary means of care, hence its name "Emergency Room." Nevertheless, millions of Americans who do not have access to health insurance due to financial status or preexisting conditions are forced to use the ER when crisis strikes, instead of heading off that crisis with preventative care.

    In short, people shouldn't have to ignore easily treatable ailments until said ailments land them in the ER because they can't afford preventative care. Also note how Romney manages to hand-wave his own universal healthcare solution. He won't burden Texas or other like-minded states with the burden of having to take care of their own citizens for a change. Reassuring, that.

    If this (or any of the long strings of gaffes, shambles and other WTF moments) doesn't prove how out of touch the Mittster is with the rest of the U.S., perhaps this notable story will:
    Romney’s wife, Ann, was in attendance, and the candidate spoke of the concern he had for her when her plane had to make an emergency landing Friday en route to Santa Monica because of an electrical malfunction. “I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound.”

    Omit the highlighted portion of that and you get a guy who's just talking off-hand about how concerned he was about his wife's safety. Too bad he didn't. You have to wonder how many times he's been on a Gulfstream staring listlessly out a cabin window wondering why the darn things don't at least slide open like the ones on the tour bus. I can point and laugh at this stuff all day, but I don't have all day. There's plenty of work to be done between now and November 5. Now excuse me while I talk to Lupe Fiasco* about why sitting out this election would be, pardon the pun, a fiasco for him, his fans and this country.


    I feel you, but you're going about the wrong way doing it.

    *Do a Google search and you'll see dozens of stories on Lupe Fiasco's voting stance. What caught my eye was Twitchy's headline for their story: "Lupe Fiasco: I won’t vote until ‘I heal from the wounds of 400 years of institutionalized agony’". Notice that no other news outlet went with this headline. Subtle, real subtle, Twitchy - I see what you're trying to do and how. Come to think of it, this was the same type of shit Breitbart was a pro at doing before his untimely demise. Yet another reason to stay on your A-game when it comes to unadulterated bullshit.
  • There are two kinds of republicans...millionaires and suckers. -Redeye
    It never fails to amaze me how Republicans on the lower end of the economic scale can consistently vote against their own interests. These are the people who need things like universal healthcare, Social Security, favorable economic reform and other societal safety nets. However, they're always quick to vote for people dedicated solely to the cause of garroting these programs, with the intention of picking the resultant bodies clean of any valuables, just because.

    Whether it's the specter of "socialism," fear of federal government or the distaste/hatred of the eponymous "lazy" negro or Latino, conservatives are always willing to join forces with their moneyed, empowered representatives on Capitol Hill to help dismantle these and other programs that don't represent a hard-assed ideology that leaves countless Americans out in the cold, with no one to turn to. Republicans on the wrong side of the $250,000 income bracket are the literal suckers and soft touches of the GOP universe.

    Once again, I bring you this footage of Mitt Romney confiding in his well-moneyed supporters what he thinks about 47 percent of Americans:


    The takeaway from all of this is that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income taxes. Therefore, this percentage can be assumed to be freeloaders and welfare cases who want endless entitlements and represent a lockstep vote for President Obama as a result.

    Of the 47 percent who were spared federal income taxes, over two-thirds were still on the hook for payroll taxes, most of which go towards Social Security and Medicare. Only 18 percent of that 47 percent figure managed to avoid federal income taxes, according to data from the Tax Policy Center.

    Most of the people who avoid federal income taxes are hardworking heads of household relying on low-wage jobs to take care of one or more offspring. Being the head of household is one major deduction on tax returns and having dependents in the form of children or disabled adult relatives are also major deductions, and for good reason. Factor in various credits and adjustments, and you wind up getting the majority of your payroll taxes back in the form of a refund. For a struggling single mother with mouths to feed*, that income tax refund is the one thing they can look forward to between early February and May.

    Meanwhile, over 20,000 households earning over $200,000 per year avoided paying federal income taxes, according to data from the IRS. Of those 20,000, over 4,000 were millionaires:

    So how does someone in the top 3 percent of America’s income earners finagle their income tax burden down to zero? For the majority of them, it’s all about donating to charity, investing in local and state governments, earning money overseas and writing off doctor bills.

    In Hendricks’ Wisconsin case, ABC Supply switched from an ”S” corporation, which passes all of its profits and losses through its owner to be taxed under personal income, to a “C” corporation, which stands independently of its owner and whose income is subject to corporate taxes.

    Scott Bianchini, ABC tax director, told the Journal-Sentinel that the switch was a “substantial part” of why Hendricks had no state income tax liability. Bianchini noted that while Hendricks’ tax burden was minuscule this year, the billionaire has paid more than $10 million in taxes since 2005.

    The wealthy have a variety of methods at their disposal to avoid federal income taxes. Mitt Romney himself should know, with his Swiss bank accounts and investments in the Cayman Islands. Yet and still, its the people making under $50,000 without paying federal income taxes that conservatives claim to champion yet simultaneously castigate.

    Conservatives see no issues with wealthy entrepreneurs and major corporations using tax dodges to reduce or even eliminate their tax burden, as it would be exactly what less well off conservatives would do if they themselves were wealthy. Seeing struggling single mothers and other people near the poverty line go bereft of substantial tax burdens is something that pisses conservatives off - after all, poverty is considered a shameful defect and positive proof of general laziness among people who should quit with the entitlements, pull up bootstraps and get back to work like normal, regular hardworking Americans with incomes above $200,000.

    A near-fanatical hatred of those worse-off and a near sycophantic devotion to the wealthy is a linchpin of conservative ideology. If you're not doing well for yourself, then something is obviously wrong with you, never mind any other factors that could easily plunge someone into poverty. The wealthy love seeing middle and low-income conservatives do their dirty work for them - having these people blindly attack welfare and entitlement means future opportunities to satiate Republican bloodlust draconian regulation or outright cancellation of helpful assistance programs, save for the ones that directly help their base. It also means future opportunity for the wealthy to shove what was once Social Security or Medicare money into their own pockets via speculative market investments and other vehicles that are supposed to be "better" than Social Security.

    Mitt Romney thinks 47 percent of Americans are hopeless "welfare cases" who slavishly follow President Obama in hope of undeserved crumbs and trinkets here and there. That 47 percent should speak loud and clear what they think of Mittens come November 5. And despite all of the above evidence of Romney and Co. not really giving a flying toss about middle and low-income conservatives, they'll still vote for the man, if only to see the imaginary "welfare queen" get hoisted up by her bootstraps.

    *Along with Buy-Here-Pay-Here car lots, tax return preparers specializing in "advances" and pretty much any retailer who loves seeing the influx of taxpayers with wads of cash burning holes in their pockets.


  • If there was one way to describe Willard Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, this would be it. Ever since he wound up being the last man standing in a battle royale between between some of the most extreme and maligned candidates the GOP had to offer, the GOP establishment and Tea Party faithful ended up with this guy. I don't think they had a sociopath Mormon scion with a notable lack of empathy and warmth in mind.

    So far, things haven't gone well for the guy. He's been revealed as a repulsive bully during his youth and a predatory businessman during his time at Bain Capital. He's steadfastly refused to come clean about his finances, leaving many to wonder exactly what he has to hide. He's shown himself to be utterly incapable of interacting with ordinary Americans. Every time he tries his hand at international diplomacy, he fucks it up. His wife, the presumptive first lady, has shown herself to be more or less the spiritual kin of Marie Antoinette.

    To add insult to injury, polls have shown he's utterly incapable of drawing even a tenth of 1% of the black vote. When you can't even convince ordinary black Republicans to pull for you at the voting booth, you know you're in big trouble. Current polls show President Obama way ahead in electoral votes. At this point, this election is Obama's to lose and that worries the GOP establishment. Despite Romney having a 10-to-1 financial advantage over President Obama,* he can't seem to translate that huge war chest into huge votes.

    The 2012 electoral gameplan is more of the same for the GOP: use divisive, controversial issues with a noticeable, yet imperceptible racial tinge to rile up the captive low information voters within the GOP, while employing a variety of tactics to prevent the competition from getting out their vote in the first place. After all, there's nothing the GOP loves more than a low voter turnout. With a candidate like Willard around, that's pretty much all you have without exposing his more dire flaws, which explains the following ad:


    There's nothing wrong with personal responsibility. It's only when those words are used as code lingo for "let's get rid of the free lunch for these niggers and spics" does it become a big problem. Note the use of the already-ineffective technique of lauding former president Bill Clinton for his efforts at welfare reform, in order to drive a wedge between Obama voters and those who think fondly of the "first black president." Also note the systematic cover-up of comments showcasing Romney's failures during his time as both the CEO of Bain Capital and his term as governor of Massachusetts:

    Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government.
    Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:
    Jobs: 47th out of 50 states in job creation
    Taxes and fees: Increased by $750 million per year
    Long-term debt: Increased more? than $2.6 billion
    Now he wants to rape our country, pollute it and bleed it dry with his Keystone pipeline for the 1%. Romney wants us to go to war with Iran.? How much will that cost?

    1992 - Bain & Co. - Romney is CEO - Bain & Co. owes $30 Million to the FDIC, among other creditors, but the FDIC finally had to settle for $14 Million. At the same time, Bain & Co's large amount of cash on hand was used for bonuses to Bain executives who made over $200k/yr. Then, with a low cash balance, the rest of the creditors Bain & Co owed money to could not get back their money. This was only discovered AFTER a Freedom of Information Act request.
    Bain/Romney profits = creditor's losses.

    Mitt Romney's approval rating when he started Governing was 66%, after his Governorship it was 34%.
    That's lower than GW after the economy collapsed....
    Those who trusted Mitt and know Mitt's government work do not like Mitt.

    The fact that Republican viewers quickly spam-reported these comments into oblivion is telling.

    Juxtapose the above video with the following footage from a recent campaign fundraiser, which most likely wouldn't have been made public if it weren't for the efforts of one James Carter IV:


    This is what happens when Mitt Romney speaks freely in front of a crowd whose individual net worth is more than what the average American will make in their lifetime. Romney just called 47% of Americans "lazy welfare queens." Sadly, scores of Americans with their priorities mixed up will still vote for the guy, all for the prospect of seeing the imaginary black welfare queen run out of imaginary steaks and her imaginary Cadillac repossessed.

    To offset the above, Anne Romney had to run blocker to her husband's comments by explaining how he doesn't disparage the poor people:


    The Romney campaign showcased this video on their YouTube account, thought better of it and had it pulled.

    At this point, Mitt Romney would do better and actually win votes by taking a mallet to his scrotes on national television; it would be far less painful than continuing along this current trajectory towards political oblivion. No amount of campaign funding, overblown bombast from Republican Internet trolls or saccharine puff pieces about him being nice around the folks he sold his house to will balance out the rolling cavalcade of failure his campaign represents.

    * Romney may have been ahead out of the gate in terms of Super PAC money (over $300 million to Obama's $9 million), but Obama's not just catching up with Romney's fundraising tally - he's cruising past it. Meanwhile, Wall Street's having second thoughts about backing Mitt. Can't say I blame them; Wall Street always goes where the winners are.
  • Obama can’t run a lemonade stand.
    - Average Republican
    This is the refrain many Republicans currently use to criticize the president's business skills or supposed lack thereof. Which is odd, since we hired this guy to be a President, not the CEO of a major corporation. Besides, there are plenty of incompetent CEOs who've had to be cashed out like a poker chip before they did any more damage to the companies they were running.

    Personally, I blame Kelly Ayotte and Ranch Prius Reince Priebus:

    "In both the private sector and as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney always asked, 'How can I help small businesses grow, innovate and compete?' It is the right question and it's a question that this administration never thinks to ask.

    "But why should we be surprised? President Obama has never even run a lemonade stand. And you know what? It shows."

    Mitt Romney's idea of helping small businesses grow, innovate and compete is to ship them off to China and other low-wage countries...wait, that's not growth. Or innovation. And the only competition is between China-based companies exporting yet another round of finished goods to eager, yet unemployed U.S. consumers.

    But then, I got to thinking: what would it be like if, as a prerequisite for consideration as president, each presidential candidate had to run his own lemonade stand on a small budget for about a week? Every candidate starts out with a small supply of lemonade mix, ice, cups and straws. The candidates must pull their customers from the local area - no TV, newspaper or internet promotions, so there are no pilgrimages from people who just want to see their guy win. Nope, this shit will be organic.

    Each candidate gets to create their own lemonade stand with their own design and business plan, plus they'll be responsible for making, promoting and selling the lemonade themselves. Independent bookkeepers and business analysts will tally up the profits and the guy with the best sales numbers and strongest profits wins.

    So how will it go?

    Well, you probably wouldn't have to worry about President Obama. He probably can't run a lemonade stand at first, but he'll probably figure it out using common sense. His years spent as a community organizer and his excellent people skills will win him customers based on excellent customer service alone. His reasonable prices will probably have them coming back again and again.

    Meanwhile, Mitt Romney will attempt to create a gourmet lemonade by cutting back on the powered mix, resulting in a product that tastes more like watered down sports drink than actual lemonade. It would still sell, but then Mitt gets the idea to jack up the price past Vitamin Water levels. His artificial customer interaction skills and his open contempt of those who can't afford to buy his product will result in few sales. As he gets bored and decides he's needed at some $500 per plate fundraising dinner, he'll attempt to outsource running the lemonade stand to some Chinese kid down the block, promising to pay him a penny for each cup sold. When the poor kid fails to reach sales quota thanks to shitty product and no customers, Mitt will fire him without pay.

    In short, there's more to being a president of these United States than just having business leadership skills. The best businessman in the world can be the world's worst president - there are just too many aspects of the job that require nuances that are far beyond anything found in the business world. For example, exactly how would a CEO who hasn't spent a day in the political arena smooth out the fallout from "Innocence of Muslims"?

    Perhaps we should just leave the lemonade stands to the kids. They could use the experience and pocket change, after all.



  • Mitt Romney's known for his gaffes and Freudian slips, but this is perhaps the biggest and most revealing by far. In short, here's a guy whose core support group could care less about aside from the vaunted (R) by his name picking a guy who's a bit more palatable to most of that core. Magic underwear meets soup kitchen and cat food sensibility. Anyone hoping he'd pad his campaign with a minority for vice-president were sorely mistaken. So no Sarah Palin and no Michelle Bachmann. I was personally hoping he'd really fall off the rocker and go with Allen West, as a sort of comedy option. It would have been hilarious.

    Instead, we get Paul Ryan. Of the Ryan Plan.

    This pick pretty much says everything Romney's "supporters" have been thinking to themselves ever since he won the nomination. "Did it really have to be you, Mitt?" If it wasn't for the other nominees undoing themselves spectacularly, Mittens probably would be working on a House or Senate seat right about now.

    You go with the nominee you have, not the nominee you wish you had. Unless the nominee you have picks the nominee you wish you had as his running mate, the consolation prize being he's second-in-line to the presidency if Mittens falls off one of his wife's dressage horses on the White House lawn and breaks his back or something equally tragic.

    I sincerely hope there isn't some sort of elaborate bait-and-switch plot brewing. Romney has yet to reveal the bulk of his tax information and if there's anything that could cripple his campaign. If things get too hot for him to handle on that front, he could always resign his nomination ahead of the 2012 Republican National Convention. I honestly don't know how that would work, but I can imagine the following happening:

    • Mittens finally releases his tax info ahead of 2012 RNC.
    • People discover serious improprieties in said tax info.
    • Tax info and any other related info quickly becomes a massive scandal.
    • Mittens "steps down" to "save" the GOP's electoral chances.
    • Paul Ryan is somehow gifted the nomination, barring calls for a impromptu second primary.
    • Tea Party-goers and GOP supporters finally get a presidential pick they actually like, causing the saga of the magic underwear-donning gaffe machine to fade into irrelevance.

    GOP supporters love Ryan. He's a clean-cut, inoffensive white guy of the proper Christian faith with proper conservative bonafides and no track record of being a walking, talking gaffe machine. The Tea Party loves him, thanks to his supposed fiscal hardassery thanks to the Ryan Plan. If you haven't noticed what the plan actually entails, here's a quick synopsis that'll probably save you time reading the aforementioned Wiki link:

    By selecting Ryan, Romney closely associates himself with the author of a controversial budget plan which would dramatically overhaul the federal government. Ryan, as head of the House Budget Committee, has called for big reductions in taxes for both wealthy individuals and corporations and turning Medicare into a program in which each senior citizen gets a voucher of several thousand dollars to purchase their own plan, instead of the current, government-operated program. He would make Medicaid a block grant program where each state could set its own rules.

    Under Ryan, corporate taxes would be 25 percent instead of 35 percent, and the highest tax bracket for individuals would also be 25 percent instead of 35 percent. He would also cut trillions in government spending, likely reducing funds for education, health care and transportation at a much faster rate than Democrats have proposed in order to balance the federal budget.

    And here's a walk-through of exactly how the Ryan plan will affect millions of Americans:


    1. The Ryan Plan shitcans Medicare as we currently know it in 2022 for everyone born after 1956. In other words, everyone under the age of 66 who hasn't already enrolled in Medicare at that point will receive vouchers. These vouchers will go towards purchasing a private health insurance plan of their choice. It's the illusion of choice that opponents of universal health care clamor for. After all, they don't want government "dictating" their health care - that's for the health insurance companies to do.

      The vouchers feature a fixed amount indexed to the projected net federal spending per capita for the average 65-year-old in the old Medicare, specified to be somewhere around $8,000 for 2022. If your private health insurance plan is more than that amount, then you'll just have to supplement it with your own money.
    2. Age eligibility for Medicare increases by two months per year starting in 2022, until it reaches 67 in 2033. God help you if you can't afford or qualify for insurance until then, because the Ryan Plan also shitcans the Affordable Care Act.
    3. Medicaid goes from a state/federal funded program to a block grant program, where the federal government simply hands over a set amount (which will be much less than the current federal government funding) and lets the states do as they wish regarding their Medicaid programs. States like Alabama are guaranteed to be parsimonious with this eligibility, which means millions of low-income people will be without some form of insurance coverage.
    4. Federal discretionary spending takes a dive to 6 percent of the nation's GDP by 2021 and 3.75 percent by 2050, or less than one-third of today's current spending. Meanwhile, Ryan and Romney are pushing for increases in defense spending. There's plenty wrong with that picture.
    5. The Alternative Minimum Tax and taxation on foreign profits goes away and the corporate tax rate drops from 35 percent to 25 percent. Meanwhile, the tax burden on the poor is set to increase.


    Personally, I don't understand why Republicans are falling over themselves over Paul Ryan. If anything, the GOP should be running away from him as fast as they can. The Ryan Plan is the GOP's very own Fukushima  Daiichi in the making and all it needs is a tsunami to make Romney/Ryan radioactive to voters. It's only a matter of time before the GOP's thrown into panic mode when the sheer toxicity of the dynamic duo reaches campaign-threatening levels.

    I'm sure it's easy for President Obama to dismiss these clowns, but even clowns like Ryan and Romney display cunning every once in a while.
  • Not pictured: Mitt Romney pulling one of his expensive wingtips out of his mouth.

    Checked out the coverage of 2012 London Summer Olympics on NBC? Yeah, neither did I. BBC does it better, anyways.

    What NBC could do is knock off the "special interests" angle, dispense with the long-winded interviews and focus on the actual sports action. Oh, and tell Bob Costas that bringing up Idi Amin when the Ugandans appear is in poor, poor taste.

    “Winston Churchill once described Uganda as the ‘pearl of Africa’; of course, Churchill never met Idi Amin.”

    Such poor taste, Bobby.

    Meanwhile, conservatives are dredging up Obama's "Polish Death Camps" remark as a counterweight against #RomneyShambles. Please refer to the rabid ramblings of this Telegraph article for more details. Be sure to wash your hands and rinse your eyes when you're done.

    In the wake of the Chik-Fil-A boycott, conservatives are flocking to the Georgia-based chain of addictively delicious fast-foodstuffs. The folks at Twitchy think conservatives have gained a moral victory of sorts, one waffle fry at a time. Even Sarah "You Betcha I'm Off Mah Rocker" Palin and hubby are getting in on the act.

    Me? I could care less. I haven't been to Chik-Fil-A in weeks. Plus, I've already found a nifty recipe for the chicken sandwiches and I'm sure I can find the same for those waffle fries. Still waiting on one that replicates their milkshakes.

    Meanwhile, a white Southern Baptist church in Mississippi behaves exactly as I'd expect it to when it comes to black folk. But hey, at least they got as far as becoming church members before those true colors came out.

    And to cap things off:



    Well, just like Mitt can't have commoners snooping around in his tax information, he can't have them nosing around how he gets his campaign bucks. Besides, guys like Sheldon Adelson prefer privacy when they attend to their political ladies of the night.

    I wonder what people would say if the president did the same thing...
  • Leave it to the First Lady to show Mittens how the whole "ambassador" game is done. And unlike Mitt, she won't have to make the following statements:
    '"What I see shows imagination and forethought and a lot of organization, and I expect the games to be highly successful,' Romney said....'My experience with Olympic organizing is that there's always a few very small things that end up going not quite right the first day or so,' Romney said. But the issues always get "ironed out,' he added."

    When you spend most of your time repeatedly shoving your own foot in your mouth, you get pretty good at smoothly pulling it out.
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