“Voter ID” Supporters: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.
September 26, 2012
In August of 1965, President Johnson signed “The Voting Rights Act” into law. It was considered a continuation of his landmark “Civil Rights Act” signed the year before because it was obvious that simply “declaring” that minorities as “equal” to whites was meaningless so long as they could be discriminated against at the ballot box. Among the things made “illegal” by the Act were “poll taxes”, which were intended specifically to discourage poor… disproportionately black… people from voting. And now, 47 years later, Republicans claiming a need to “protect the integrity of the voting process”, have placed a series of obstacles and ID Requirements in the way that for all intents & purposes amount to an illegal “poll tax”… just what the 1965 law sought to end.
I actually read a Tweet from one angry Conservative months ago that exclaimed:
“If someone is too lazy to get to the DMV [for a free photo-ID], they don’t deserve to vote!”
I felt it necessary to point out that it is MUCH easier to “get to the DMV” IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A DRIVERS LICENSE and a car. If you’re working for Minimum Wage, take public transportation to get to work, and can’t afford to take a day off to get to your “local” DMV and wait in line all day for a “free” Voter-ID just to do what you’ve already done for years without incident, suddenly it’s not quite so effortless (of course, with a 140-character Twitter limit, my actual response was closer to: “Dumbass!”)
One Pennsylvania blogger conducted a little experiment to see just how much it would cost the 18% of Philadelphia’s registered black voters that currently do not posses an “acceptable” Photo-ID to obtain one:
- First off, you’ll need your Social Security Card. If you don’t have one, you can order one for $8.00.
- Grab your birth certificate with raised stamp, or certificate of citizenship or naturalization. Don’t have yours? That’s another $19.00
- Two proofs of residency like lease agreements, utility bills, W-2 forms, etc. Unemployed & Homeless? Tough luck.
- Head to the DMV! Of course, if you had a drivers license, you wouldn’t need a “Voter ID”. Since you can’t drive, you’ll probably be taking public transportation: Roughly $4 roundtrip (and let’s hope the bus drops you off nearby if you’re disabled or have trouble walking).
- DMV’s are not open weekends. Taking time off from work? Go on your lunch-hour to minimize time lost, but the lines will be longer. Plan on Two & 1/2 hours lost (including travel time) at a minimum wage job: $18.12.
(And may I point out, you don’t need “a birth certificate” or prove citizenship to purchase a drivers license that allows you to vote, yet you need one to get a “free” Voter ID. You don’t even have to be a citizen to get a “drivers license”, so why do you need to prove “citizenship” for an equivalent government-issued photo ID?)
Minimum cost to obtain an ID if you are unemployed, have all necessary documentation and take public transportation: $4.00.
Cost if you need to obtain paperwork (in PA), take time off from work, and take public transportation: $49.12.
Cost for an unemployed/homeless person to vote: Priceless… literally. No bills? No W2? No ID. Number of homeless vets in this country: Approximately 75,000.
Of course, that upper-end cost could be MUCH higher if it takes you more than two hours away from work, make more than minimum wage, and/or need to take a cab because there is no bus stop near your home or the DMV (and double all that if you’re told you’re missing documentation and must make a second trip another day). But for some people, “time off from work” is not an option. I’ve worked temporary jobs where if you missed a day, you needent bother coming in tomorrow.
The solution to this nonsense is really quite simple: If the “Secure the Vote” crowd REALLY believes we need “Voter ID” and REALLY believe it’s not a burden to expect voters to jump through dozens of hoops just to get a “free” ID, then how about we pass a law promising “110% reimbursement” for any costs incurred obtaining a Voter ID? Cab/bus fare, time off from work, documentation, etc. They don’t want to pay people to go door-to-door distributing ID’s or send ID’s through the mail to people who apply by phone or online… which would be the ONLY ways to provide voters with an ID in a way that isn’t a burden (and not every person has a door to knock on, a mailbox to fill, or a phone to call from.) If they balk, it can ONLY be because they don’t want to reimburse anyone… an implicit acknowledgement that obtaining an ID isn’t “free” and may cost many people a lot of money… which makes it an illegal poll tax.
And just for fun…
[flv:http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/Batman-Penguin_campaign_song_w_subs.flv http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/Batman-Penguin_campaign_song_w_subs.jpg 512 348]
…continuing from the earlier video found at this post: “Am I Supposed to be Impressed Both Ryan and Romney Paid Less Than 20% in Taxes?”
(As you may have noticed, M.R.S. is stepping up it’s reporting as we near election day, so be sure to check back often… or better yet, Register for instant email notification of updates! – Mugsy)
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September 26, 2012
· 
Admin Mugsy · 
3 Comments - Add
Posted in: Crime, Election, Politics, Racism, Right-wing Facism, Taxes, voting
Things Learned During Governor Romney’s 60 Minutes interview
September 24, 2012
For (literally) years now, the primary case against Mitt Romney’s candidacy is that he’s “out of touch”, “has no core” and “will say anything” to get elected, even if what he’s saying doesn’t make a lick of sense. Last night (9/23), both Governor Romney and President Obama gave brief interviews to CBS’s “Scott Pelly” on “60 Minutes”. Governor Romney sought to “set the record straight” on a number of issues that Pelly said were on the minds of voters. I came away wondering, “What planet does this guy live on?” See if you agree.
Things we’ve learned during Governor Romney’s “60 Minutes” interview:
- Ann could have just gone to the ER for treatment of her MS. – Governor Romney informed us that, We already have “universal health care” in this country. It’s called “the Emergency Room”… the most expensive care there is. (ER’s also do not provide treatment for “chronic” illness like chemo nor “preventive” care. And thanks to Radio’s “Randi Rhodes” for pointing out that Ann Romney could likewise not go to the ER for treatment of her M.S.)
- It’s fair for Millionaires to pay substantially lower tax rates than everyone else because “Capital Gains were already taxed once at the corporate level”. – ALL money is previously taxed at some point before it makes it’s way into the hands of consumers. You’re taxed when you earn it, and taxed when you spend it. Should we then deduct those taxes from the guy that gets it next? It’s worth noting that if you sell land for a profit, that profit is taxed as “capital gains” despite never being taxed “at the corporate level.”
- If we cut the tax rate, but close loopholes so no one pays less then they are now, the economy will grow like wildfire. – By closing “tax loopholes” for the rich, we can cut their tax rates without reducing the amount we collect in taxes. So the wealthy will continue to pay the same amount in taxes they are ALREADY paying, yet somehow, this non-cut “cut” will spur economic growth and create jobs, reviving the economy (if people end up paying the same amount, then what’s the point?)
- Shifting Federal programs to the states will save money… for the Federal government. The states (and your state taxes, not so much.)
- Repealing health care reforms for current seniors will have no effect on current seniors. – There will be no cuts in Medicare benefits to “current” seniors (ibid), but he would repeal ObamaCare “on day one”, which includes reopening the prescription drug “donut-hole” and ending free “preventative care” services for Medicare patients.
- Voucherizing Medicare by capping payments to seniors would “extend the life of Medicare”, but “restoring” the $716-Billion that ObamaCare “cuts” (ibid) in overpayments, waste, fraud & abuse are needed to keep the program from going bankrupt.
- Overpaying Medicare Advantage programs is more important than reducing the Deficit. – Romney’s running-mate’s plan to use that same $716-Billion in Medicare savings to “reduce the deficit” is less important than ensuring we continue those overpayments to “Medicare Advantage” providers. (ibid)
- The Romney/Ryan Medicare Reform is neither a “voucher” nor a “coupon”, but “a check from the government.” – The Romney Team has insisted their Medicare reforms are neither a “voucher” system, nor is it a “coupon” but should in-fact be called “premium support”, but when Pelly describes it as “the federal government would write that senior a check”, Romney agree’s that is “essentially it.”
- President Obama was not obstructed from keeping his promises, he simply changed his mind. – “For his first two years”, President Obama had “a super majority in the Democrat Congress. And he had a whole series of things he said he was going to do, he didn’t do.” (yes, that contradiction was all one sentence.) Actually, the president only had a “super-majority” for just 24 working days and endured a record-setting number of filibusters in the Senate.
- There is a “fighting season” that begins sometime before September but is over by November.
- Romney himself and “the Romney Campaign” are separate entities, and what Romney tells a crowd of rich donors does not represent “the campaign”. (In response to the “47-percent” video, the governor said, “[t]hat’s not…that’s not the campaign. That was me, right? I– that’s not a campaign.”)
One can’t help but wonder if he gives a moments thought to his answers before he speaks? (I’ve added this full list to my “Reasons to NOT vote for Romney” page.
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September 24, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Healthcare, Politics, Right-Wing Insanity, Taxes, War
August Unemployment Up in 26 States. But BLS shows Rope-a-Dope AGAIN (updated)
September 21, 2012
Last May, I reported that the “States most likely to REJECT austerity to lower unemployment are Republican”, which surprised me, because I started my investigation expecting to find that Republican governors were laying off a massive number of public sector workers out of a Zealot-like belief in “Austerity”. What I found instead was shocking (well, not really. GOP-hypocrisy doesn’t shock me anymore): While publicly condemning growth in the size of Government, Republican governors in Red states were the MOST likely to EXPAND the public sector workforce by hiring tens-of-thousands of new government employees to bring down their own state’s unemployment. Most conspicuous was Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose state’s low unemployment was dubbed “The Texas Miracle”. So when I learned Friday that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced a preliminary report showing that Unemployment rose in 26 States in August, I thought my original suspicion would finally be confirmed: that Red State governors were laying off public-sector workers en masse to hurt President Obama in November, but instead, I found further confirmation of my initial report last May showing that Republican governors are actually the ones doing the most government-hiring (I’ll leave it to you to reason why).
So I went to the BLS looking for that list of “26 states”, and while they linked to their report on their homepage, it doesn’t actually list the “26 states” specifically, but instead lists states with the “greatest change in employment” over the past month vs one year ago.
“Table C” of the BLS Report (ibid) lists just 14 states with the largest change in net “employment” (combined private/public):
Statistically significant employment changes from July'12 to August'12,
seasonally adjusted (Emphasis mine).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| July | August | Over-the-month
State | 2012 | 2012(p) | change(p)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connecticut...................| 1,631,600 | 1,624,800 | -6,800
Delaware......................| 417,100 | 415,100 | -2,000
District of Columbia..........| 738,600 | 727,400 | -11,200
Florida.......................| 7,325,100 | 7,348,300 | 23,200
Hawaii........................| 598,500 | 602,600 | 4,100
Idaho.........................| 612,700 | 616,600 | 3,900
Missouri......................| 2,639,800 | 2,657,700 | 17,900
New Mexico....................| 798,200 | 792,300 | -5,900
Oklahoma......................| 1,588,000 | 1,598,400 | 10,400
Oregon........................| 1,634,400 | 1,643,200 | 8,800
| | |
Texas.........................| 10,807,600 | 10,845,600 | 38,000
Vermont.......................| 305,600 | 303,200 | -2,400
Virginia......................| 3,723,800 | 3,711,400 | -12,400
Washington....................| 2,880,200 | 2,871,400 | -8,800
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
p = preliminary.
Four states jump out right away: Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, all showing job growth GROWTH in the double digits while most other states show job losses in the thousands. My curiosity piqued, I decided to see just where that “job growth” took place:
Private sector employment by state in thousands
(color denotes Governor's party):
July 2012 Aug 2012 net loss/gain
Florida.............. 9,271.2 9,261.2 -10.0
Missouri............. 2,998.1 2,987.2 -10.9
Oklahoma............. 1,795.7 1,798.9 +3.2
Texas................ 12,642.2 12,628.9 -13.3
The only one of those four states to actually show growth in private sector employment was Oklahoma, which saw just over 3,000 jobs created in August. Yet look at “Table C” again. Each state showed positive job growth well over ten-thousand (even in the tens of thousands). Those jobs could ONLY have come from hiring in the public sector:
Change in PUBLIC sector hiring (in thousands):
#chg in #net jobs #gov jobs UE rate: UE rate:
private jobs added added July August
Florida........... -10.0 23.2 +33.2 8.8 8.8
Missouri.......... -10.9 17.9 +7.9 7.2 7.2
Oklahoma.......... +3.2 10.4 +7.2 4.9 5.1
Texas............. -13.3 38.0 +51.0 7.1 7.1
THIRTY-THREE THOUSAND public-sector jobs added in Florida. FIFTY-ONE THOUSAND public-sector jobs added in Texas. And in all four states, this massive hiring was necessary just to maintain the status quo (Oklahoma, whose UE rate ticked up, also hired the fewest public sector workers in our group).
Meanwhile, nationally, the unemployment rate is stuck stubbornly above 8-percent because if the Federal government did what the deep-red states of Texas & Florida are doing to keep their unemployment rates low, The Right in this country would howl like a coyote bays at the moon over President Obama’s “fiscal irresponsibility”.
I’m just sayin’.
(UPDATE: It bears noting that of the remaining 24 states, 12 saw their unemployment rate go down and 12 saw their rate stay the same. The rate fell in 42 states (plus DC) vs one year ago (rates rose in 7 states, and stayed the same in 1). The National Unemployment Rate fell a full point vs 1 year ago.)
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September 21, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · 2 Comments - Add
Posted in: Economy, Election, Jobs
Romney Rehab Week 2: The Full Quayle
September 17, 2012
Twenty years ago this past May, while campaigning in California, the Sarah Palin of the 1980’s… Vice President Dan Quayle… publicly humiliated himself once again by criticizing TV’s “Murphy Brown” for “having a child out of wedlock.” The man was already a laughing-stock for his endless list of gaffes (most notably “correcting” a Spelling-Bee champion for “misspelling” the word “potato” by insisting he return to the blackboard and tack on the missing “e” to the end), and now, here he was in a battle of wits with a fictional TV character… and losing. But then something interesting happened. Rather than be humiliated over this latest Quayle blooper in a campaign year, the GOP proudly inserted Quayle’s defense of “Family Values” into the Party Platform at their convention that year and made “traditional marriage” integral to their campaign. That was probably the first example I can think of of the GOP turning a major weakness into an “advantage”. And in fact, twenty years on, Republicans are still defending Quayle’s inability to separate fact from fiction as nothing short of visionary. And now it is Mitt Romney’s turn to receive (what I have proudly dubbed) “The Full Quayle”.
Last week, DURING the siege on the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, Romney rushed to the microphones to criticize President Obama for a statement released by that same American embassy (not Obama) PRIOR to the attack, disavowing the anti-Muslim video released by an anti-Muslim hate group in the U.S.. Romney accused the president of “sympathizing with the people who attacked [the embassy]” and murdered an American Ambassador. Of course, President Obama never “sympathized” with the people that murdered American citizens, nor did he not fail to “defend American principles”. (I’m assuming “freedom of speech”? Does Romney think the president should have defended the video?) Romney himself expressed the same “sympathies” as Obama in his own response to the riots.
Of course, once the facts came out, Governor Romney was roundly criticized by both the Left AND the Right for “jumping the gun” and for failing the “politics stop at the waters’ edge” test. Add this to his gaffe-a-thon world tour during the Olympics where Romney couldn’t help but insult the nations he visited, and is it any wonder President Obama now leads Gov. Romney by double-digits on “Foreign Policy”?
So what do you do when you make a huge gaffe just seven weeks before an election you’ve never led by more than two-points and now trail by almost four? You go to the Rove playbook and try to turn your opponents’ greatest strength into their greatest weakness (ala “War Hero John Kerry” vs. “Draft dodger George Bush”).
Romney surrogates have spent the last few days trying to claim, “Governor Romney was right” about the Obama Administration’s response to the attacks, even though the “response” Romney criticized was not actually released by the White House, nor was it a “response” at all, but a prophylactic message to discourage violence. Fox “news” hit a new low when they posted the following wildly misleading headline on their website:
The back story: Libyan President Mohamed Magarief publicly condemned the attacks and led a police sweep that has to-date led to the arrest of 50 men connected to the deadly assault on the American Embassy, for which President Obama’s called to express thanks. But if you’re the typical low-information Obama-hating Fox viewer that only reads headlines and doesn’t bother clicking the link to read further because the headline “confirms” everything you already believe about our “Kenyan-Muslim-Terrorists-sympathizing president”, that headline already served its purpose.
Back in college, on a lark, I purchased a copy of the “Weekly World News” (ala “batboy” fame) because a story on the cover claimed “Pit bull Eats Mobile Home” (pitbull attacks were everywhere in the news at the time), only to learn inside that the dog simply chewed through the wall to get to a chihuahua in heat. I note this only because I can no longer tell the difference between Fox “news” and a supermarket tabloid… except maybe that tabloids have higher standards when it comes to the truth. (And is it just me, or does Paul Ryan resemble “Batboy”?)
As NBC’s ubiquitous warzone reporter Richard Engle pointed out several times last week, the violent protests in these cities across the Middle East are surprisingly confined to the area right around the embassies… and not just AMERICAN embassies. Violent mobs have also attacked the British and German embassies as well… who had NOTHING to do with the video and released no such “sympathetic statements” to protesters. They’re just seen as “pro-Western” and therefore “anti-Muslim”. Meanwhile, just a few blocks away from these protests, life continues as normal, with many people in the region just wishing the whole mess would just go away. Believe it our not, ABC’s George Will got this one right yesterday when he said that “the video is being used as a pretext for violence, and if it hadn’t of been the video, it would of been something else.” I think he actually got one right there. And evidence that the deadly embassy attack may of had nothing to with the video continues to grow (it bears pointing out that these anti-video riots are NOT taking place in Afghanistan.)
(Note: Yes, the fourth guy is indeed holding the EXACT same piece of paper as the first guy. They are sharing the message.)
But Team Romney and his supporters are starting to see the writing on the wall, and have clearly decided this is Mitt’s “Murphy Brown” moment. To hear them tell it, the Middle East is awash in violence, and President Obama has become “Jimmy Carter redux”. But that’s nothing new. Back during the 2008 campaign, Fox-regular Bill Kristol was ALREADY comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter in a video I uploaded to our YouTube archive years ago.
The reality is (of course) devastating to Republicans. If nothing else, President Bush’s move to “democratize the Middle East” (2005 pdf) and paint Iraq as “the first domino” in what they believed would lead to surrounding Muslim nations copying the success of a democratic Iraq, in fact “uncorked the bottle” of anti-U.S. rage over prolonged war & military occupation by the U.S. in the Middle East. America’s standing in the Middle East had never been lower.
The global economic collapse President Bush unleashed on the planet hit the Middle East especially hard. In Tunisia, a man protesting economic hardship and violence against him by his government doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire in protest. This led to the protests that toppled the Tunisian government, which spread to Egypt protesting similar mistreatment by their own government. As the protests spread, they were dubbed “The Arab Spring”, and neocons quickly tried to give President Bush credit for the “spread of democracy” he predicted would take place as they witnessed the flowering of Iraq (the fact that people were protesting in Iraq (pdf) as well was ignored).
While the Neocons were quick to take credit for “The Arab Spring”, now that those same people are protesting the U.S., suddenly it has become “Obama’s Arab Autumn” (cited during Fox “news” Sunday yesterday). Bush “uncorked the bottle”, but all they found inside were bitter grapes.
They so desperately want this to be Carter/Reagan again. But Obama is not Jimmy Carter, this election is not 1980, and Mitt Romney is definitely not Ronald Reagan. Word to the wise though: All it would take is for Republican governors to go on a Public Sector firing binge in September & October to negate any Private Sector employment gains, and a “hostage situation” in an American embassy, to put the outcome of this election back in the “toss-up” column.
The REAL trick will be stopping the governor from pulling another Quaylism before the election.
(Note: Issues with the videos on our new “Must See Videos” page has been corrected, so if you were experiencing problems before, please try again now. Sorry for any confusion. – Mugsy)
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September 17, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · 9 Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Middle East, Politics, Religion, Terrorism, War
Special guest comment: Our Changing Relationship with Gaza
September 12, 2012
Special Guest blogger “Grant from Texas” recalls his time working in Israel in the mid-1970’s and how much our relationship with the people in that region has changed since then. Minor edits, a few corrections and some supporting links were added for clarity.
Romney is on TV this morning accusing President Obama of “sympathizing” with the protesters in Libya and Egypt that killed four Americans. How offensive! Now it looks like Lebanon may be next!!!
I lived in Israel in 1975 working as a supervisor on a $23 million U.S. funded project to build military bases from Port Said along the east side of the Suez all the way down to Sharm el-Sheikh. I went to work there 100% behind Israel mostly based upon the propaganda I grew up with in the U.S.A.. I even had to fill out a 10 page extensive questionnaire to be reviewed by the MOSSAD (that took weeks) and ended up with a higher security classification than many in the Israeli Defense Forces. However, I broke some rules like never talking to an Arab, but it was hard not to have contact. The ones I befriended I liked. We Texans on the job called Arabs the “Mexicans” of Israel as they did most of the service work at the time in hotels, restaurants, taxis.
I also drove through Gaza weekly on the way to and from our job in the Sinai as it was the shortest route. The detour through Israel was longer. We 33 American supervisors (had an Israeli work force) lived at the Ramada Intercontinental (now the Renaissance on the beach) four days every other weekend. I was warned that with yellow Jewish license plates on my truck, I would take rocks or worse bullets. However, stopping for gasoline, food and drinks in El Arish, I was always treated with respect, even admiration for being an American (however, this was 1975). I was appalled at the time seeing Israel building a high fence topped with razor wire and gun towers on the Gaza border. Since then, Gaza has become most similar to the Warsaw Ghetto, a cramped prison for Gazans. Gazans used to commute daily to jobs in Israel, but now banned those jobs are now mostly filled by low wage Eastern Europeans.
I would like to go back to visit Israel but maybe with some of the comments I’ve made online now, that might keep me from getting a visa. One never knows the extent of MOSSAD review. I left Israel in the autumn of 1975 with my viewpoints changed nearly 180 degrees. I saw much mistreatment of Arabs, and sadly, some of the Israelis were visiting the same injustices done to them by fascists, now visiting similar upon the Arabs. However, there is a peace-seeking liberal minority in Israel who don’t go along with Likud, and The Jerusalem Post (where Wolf Blitzer once worked) is most right-wing, but there is a liberal voice in Ha-aretz.
Also of note, I am seriously worried about the election this fall. I see that our Texas Republican Secretary of State sent a list of 80,000 supposedly deceased voters to counties saying these voters need to be purged from the voter roles (fortunately, the list was challenged and rejected, but it’s not the first attempt nor is not likely to be the last – Mugsy). The state says they got their list from the Social Security Administration but people who received letters from the state checking to see if they are dead are saying if they are dead, then “why are our Social Security checks coming every month?” So far the undead have one thing in common… most of them voted in the Democratic Primary! You’d think maybe the GOP here is afraid that Obama might take our electoral votes? How absurd with all of the gerrymandering and voter suppression tricks they are trying to pull.
September 12, 2012
· Grant in Texas · 6 Comments - Add
Posted in: General, Guest Blogger, Middle East, Politics, Rants, Religion, Terrorism, War
“How Mitt Romney Made My Life Better.”
September 10, 2012
What do all these people have in common:
Ryan Case
Firefighter Doug Stern of Cincinnati, Ohio
Maria Ciano
Nate Davis
Stacey Lihn
Lilly Ledbetter
Elaine Brye
Johanny Adames
Elizabeth Ann “Libby” Bruce
Ed Meagher
Bill Butcher
Benita Veliz
Sandra Fluke
Austin Ligon, Co-founder and retired CEO of CarMax
Karen Eusanio
Jim Sinegal, Costco founder and former CEO
Carol Berman
Jason Crow
Zach Wahls
Angie Flores
They are all non-celebrity, non-public official, private citizens that told their stories at the DNC of how President Obama has made (or is making) their lives better.
And THIS is the list of non-celebrity, non-public official, private citizens that told their stories at the RNC of how Mitt Romney has made (or is making) their lives better:
Grant Bennett on Romney’s leadership in the Mormon church.
Tom Stemberg, long-time friend, founder & CEO of “Staples”.
Olympians Michael Eruzione, Derek Parra and Kim Rhode on their experience at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.
Head of Bain Capital from 1983 to 1999[*], three years as President of the 2002 Winter Olympics, and four years as Governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), and how many people vouch for Romney and/or his policies over the three days of his Convention? FIVE… two of whom are personal friends, and NONE from his time as GOVERNOR. (Ironically, Romney probably could have produced several more people to brag about how “RomneyCare” had improved their lives, but that’s one accomplishment he’s trying to flush down the memory-hole.)
Make what you will of those two lists, but over the course of his three day Convention two weeks ago, the sentence NO ONE came close to uttering EVEN ONCE:
“Let me tell you how Mitt Romney made my life better”.
Think about that.
POSTSCRIPT: Regular readers know I have remarked repeatedly on how Public Sector job loses have been crippling our recovery. At a time where getting people back to work is crucial to our recovery, the last thing we should be doing is unnecessarily adding to the number of unemployed which end up having to compete with the existing labor market for the few jobs already available. Yet every month, the “net” job creation numbers are always lower than they would have been had the government (both State & Federal) not laid off thousands of employees each month. (Friday’s jobs report for August: 103,000 Private Sector jobs created, offset by 7,000 Public Sector job losses for a “net” gain of only 96,000.)
So it therefore should probably have come as no surprise to hear Sen. Rand Paul (R-TN) on ABC’s ThisWeek yesterday claim government employment had gone “UP” under President Obama, and be completely dumb-founded when economist Paul Krugman attempted to set the record straight.
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September 10, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics
“Creating Jobs” is Counter to Everything the GOP Believes
September 3, 2012
You already know that Republicans have been “rooting for failure” since the day President Obama took office. Rush Limbaugh took heat for declaring on his radio show just days after Obama’s inauguration that he “hopes Obama fails” to fix the economy, and rather than apologize, he defended his comment and repeated it a second time, making sure there was absolutely no question that he was rooting for the failure of the president… and by extension the United States of America. You also know that also in 2009, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the GOP’s “single most important goal”… wasn’t to create jobs or improve the economy, but “hold Barack Obama to a single term”. When outraged critics lambasted him for it, he made no apology but instead altered his claim to say it was the GOP’s single most important “political priority” to deny Obama a second term. Not much different in my book (Will Ann Coulter be writing “Treason II”, after accusing Democrats of rooting for harm to come to the country just to prove themselves right? Don’t hold your breath.) Republicans have been anything but shy about “rooting for failure” these past few years. (UPDATE: Almost on cue: Newt Gingrich on “Meet the Press” said he’s hoping for a bad Jobs Report to overshadow Obama’s DNC speech.) But I’m not talking about “just since Obama” was elected. No, on this Labor Day, I thought it necessary to state the obvious: It is absolutely 100% not in the GOP’s interest to create jobs or increase wages. Period. Not even when a Republican is in the White House. So voting Republican because you’re out of work, thinking they can fix the economy is like (as they say) “a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders”. Let me explain:
As you are probably aware since you are reading this, the #1 concern of Republicans are the “job creators”. “The Wealthy”. Corporations and businesses that hire people (they don’t “create jobs”, only DEMAND does that) hire as few people as possible to meet their needs, and pay them as little as possible to maximize their profits. It’s not in a company’s interest to hire more people than necessary or pay them more than they need to. When unemployment is LOW, employers must fight for talented/skilled workers, and they’ll pay more to get them. They’ll even pay bonuses and offer perks like Benefits.
But when unemployment is HIGH, there’s a glut of skilled workers willing to work long hours for little pay and no benefits, saving corporations millions. And it’s the GOP’s role to ensure unemployment remains high enough to keep wages depressed so employers pay as little as possible for skilled labor, yet low enough to keep the economy moving.
You may remember (and I find I must frequently remind people) that the last election wasn’t 2008, but 2010, when the GOP retook the House and made gains in the Senate by promising “Jobs, jobs, jobs”. So where are they? Romney and the GOP are campaigning on President Obama’s failure to create jobs, yet they are to be held totally blameless? You heard Paul Ryan blame the President last week for the drop in our National Credit Rating, for which the GOP was to blame, so Yes, the GOP… which never tires of blaming the President for blaming Bush… believes they are blameless for not creating “jobs, jobs, jobs” since taking charge 21 months ago. (And please ask Bill Clinton what he thinks about people blaming the previous president YEARS after leaving office.)
Still don’t believe me? You might remember that one of the first bills President Obama signed into law upon taking office was the “Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act”. NOT ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN voted for the Act. Not even Republican women. Because it’s not in the corporate interests to ensure women are paid as much as men.
Republicans would also like to do away with the minimum wage because it’s the only thing preventing employers from paying as little as they can possibly get away with. Republicans will actually argue that companies might hire MORE people if they didn’t have to pay so much. But WHY WOULD THEY? Seriously. Why would any company hire one more employee than needed? Low wages don’t create more jobs. In fact, just the opposite is true.
Heck, forget the “Minimum Wage”, some Republicans even think “Child Labor Laws” are “Unconstitutional” and should be abolished, glutting the Market even further by forcing people to compete with children for jobs.
Even “Global Warming”… which any enterprising entrepreneur can see the incredible profit-making potential, from making/selling high-mileage cars, building Wind Turbines and Solar Panels, constructing more energy efficient buildings, updating our power-grid so it wastes less electricity, is vilified by Republicans. Because it would mean corporations might have to spend money modernizing, while Big Oil might see its enormous profits fall as people use less oil (Republicans think nothing of the money it would save consumers, which then gets pumped back into the economy in FAR more diverse ways). They ridicule and fight against Climate Change legislation (even if you don’t believe in it, the money to be made is undeniable.)
They attack Unions because Unions mean higher pay. And they aren’t afraid to admit it. Just listen to any speech by some rabid Republican attacking Unions. They always couch their hatred for Unions in terms of “greedy workers” (former Obama adviser Van Jones put it best yesterday, stating, “We never heard the term ‘Public Sector Workers’ when I was growing up. It was always ‘Teachers’, ‘Firefighters’, ‘Cops’… all people we called ‘Heros’.”)
You may remember that Mitt Romney made a lot of money at Bain Capital buying up companies, cannibalizing them for their assets, then putting a lot of people out of work. Because it’s just not in the Republican mindset that hurting The Many to profit a few is something undesirable. Yes, Romney was incredibly successful… for himself. Not so much for the workers.
The “Party of Lincoln” wants to bring back slavery… “wage slavery”. What made the Old South Cotton Plantations so wealthy was all the free labor. Once Lincoln freed the slaves and ordered plantation owners to pay them a decent wage, many went out of business within a few years. Low wages may be inhumane for workers, but just dandy for the people they work for. You don’t have to be black to be a “wage-slave” (which is why there was nothing racist about Biden’s recent “back in chains” remark to a mixed crowd of supporters.)
The lowest day of unemployment during the Bush Administration was the day he took office (4.2%). George Bush campaigned in 2000 on the idea that the great economy under Bill Clinton was all the doing of the Republican Congress his last six years. From this, Bush surmised that the economy would have done “even better” if we had just had a Republican president over that same period. Then we got a Republican president with the SAME Republican congress that supposedly deserved all the credit under Clinton, and disaster ensued. The Stock Market plunged, the Bush Tax Cut caused the National Debt to explode (after nearly grinding to a halt), and unemployment was up more than a full point by the time of the 2004 election (by comparison, unemployment was 8.3% the day president Obama took office (not “7.2%” or “7.8%” as some have claimed), and despite unprecedented GOP obstruction and a record number of filibusters, is back to 8.3% today. The DOW was 8,279.63 the day President Obama took office, continued its slide to just 6,547.05 barely a month later as we shook off the last vestiges of Bush, and is now up over 13,000… an increase of ALMOST 200 PERCENT. By comparison, when George Bush-43 entered office, the DOW was 10587.59 (and as I noted above, was “8,279.63” the day he left, a decline of 22-percent.)
High unemployment means less money in the economy, so businesses lose money. You’d think Republicans would see that. But they don’t. Republicans have a demonstrated complete and total inability to see beyond immediate gain. That’s how we ended up in Iraq with no exit strategy, why Republicans think privatizing Social Security and Medicare won’t hurt the system even after a disastrous Stock Market crash, and why high unemployment means companies can save Billions paying lower wages despite the fact employees with less money buy less.
And now they’ve told us they want to return to the failed policies of the Bush presidency. Why on Earth would anyone want to do that???
BTW: In his big speech last week, Romney criticized President Obama’s “lack of business experience” and suggested THAT is why the economy hadn’t fully rebounded. He followed that up with: “We weren’t always successful at Bain. But no one ever is in the real world of business.” The United States of America is NOT “a business“. It’s not run “for profit” and “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.”
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September 3, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Economy, Election, General, Jobs, myth busting, Politics, Rants
Two Quick Videos from Conventions Past
August 29, 2012
Like me, you probably watched at least part of the unofficial first day of the Republican Convention in Tampa Bay last night. You may have heard Rick Santorum… who once claimed Romney was “THE WORST candidate to put up against Obama”… deliver a five minute speech about HIMSELF, hyping his favorite subject: “traditional marriage”, and not even mentioning the name “Romney” until the very end of his hateful diatribe when he tells everyone to vote for him.
The GOP’s new darling from Texas, Hispanic Teanut candidate for Senate “Ted Cruz”, then gave a speech all about himself, mentioning Obama four times (even calling him “a decent man”) while (like Santorum) not mentioning “Romney/Ryan” until the very end, where he told everyone they need to vote for them.
Next up was Mitt’s wife Ann, who announced she was going to “talk about Love”, then following Santorum’s lead, declared she & Mitt had “a REAL marriage”. I guess that’s her way of confirming she’s not really a Dude???
Ann was followed by the big (and I do mean “Big”) headliner of the night, Chris Christie, who told told us that this race is “NOT about Love” (take THAT, Ann!) but about “Respect”. Then went on to talk about himself for 20 minutes. And am I the only person to notice Christie ACTUALLY COMPARE the Obama Administration to “Nazi tyranny”?
Our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. We all must share in the sacrifice. Any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth. I think tonight of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ We look back and marvel at their courage – overcoming the Great Depression, fighting Nazi tyranny, standing up for freedom around the world. Now it’s our time to answer history’s call.
Defenders of Christie might claim he was talking about “terrorism”, but re-read that first sentence. He’s not talking about war, he’s talking about the economy. The words “war”, “terrorism” or “Afghanistan” are never mentioned in his speech.
But anyway, after watching the first night of the Convention, here are two video reminders from Conventions past from our YouTube archive:
The reaction immediately following Obama’s 2004 Convention speech. You didn’t hear anything like this following any Republican speeches last night:
And also of note, George W. Bush’s 2000 Convention Hypocrisy:
PS: Looking at my list of “10 Things You Won’t Hear at the Convention” from Monday, I was 10-for-10. 🙂
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August 29, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, General, Jobs, Money, Politics
10 Things You WON’T Hear Mentioned at the Republican Convention This Week
August 27, 2012
As you know, the GOP will be holding its Presidential Convention & Cross Burning Clambake all this week in Tampa Bay. Well, not ALL week, because for the second convention in a row, the first day of the RNC Convention will be canceled due to a hurricane lashing the pavilion. In 2008, religious morons “prayed for rain” to disrupt the DNC Convention in Denver. Instead, they saw temps in the low 80’s, and the clouds parting on the night of Obama’s big acceptance speech. God is clearly a Democrat. Meanwhile, the GOP brazenly chose to host their convention at the site of Bush’s SECOND greatest failure (or, if you prefer, “Greatest failure of his SECOND term”), New Orleans during the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2005). In response, God sent “Hurricane Gustav”, forcing the GOP to cancel Day-1 of their convention. Clearly, the GOP didn’t get the hint, because God decided in His infinite wisdom to disrupt the 2012 Convention as well with YET ANOTHER hurricane (“Isaac”) on the seventh anniversary of Katrina, once again headed for New Orleans. The Lord Almighty announced he’s “going to keep lobbing hurricanes at GOP Presidential Conventions until [they] admit Global Warming is real.” It’s true, I swear! God told me so himself (or maybe it was just Marcus Bachmann?)
And that’s Item #1 of things you WON’T hear being discussed at the Republican National Committee Convention this week: “Global Warming”. No, if history is any teacher, rather than ponder what effect turning our planet into a giant Easy-Bake Oven has on hurricanes, Asshats-in-cowboy-hats will be chanting, “Drill Baby, drill!” (or “Build the damn pipeline!”) despite the fact that oil production is higher now under President Obama than it EVER was under President Bush. (I have also pointed out that the KXL pipeline would result in HIGHER gas prices because giving up Refinery capacity to refine KXL oil for export means less gas for us, creating an artificial shortage that pushes prices UP.) But don’t confuse a Republican with “facts”. While Oil Billionaires in Tampa will be toasting the fact that hurricane in the Gulf means shutting down dozens of Refineries and Drilling Platforms across the Gulf Coast, pushing gas prices… and by extension… profits much higher (and the economy much lower), it will never occur to a single monsoon-soaked conventioneer that maybe what we should be looking for are ways to get OFF oil as a way to reduce prices, not suck the planet dry like the last Grape Nehi on Planet Diablo.
Number #2 on the list: While Governor Romney and several Convention Speakers will vow to “Repeal ObamaCare”, you will NOT hear ANYONE explain WHAT exactly they plan to replace ObamaCare with. On yesterday’s “Fox news Sunday”, host Chris Wallace interviewing Romney, asked him about “the consequences of repealing ObamaCare”. Romney ACTUALLY said that he would replace “ObamaCare” with “things”. You think I’m kidding?
[flv:http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/romney-replace_aca_w_things-120826.flv http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/romney-replace_aca_w_things-120826.jpg 352 198]
Number #3: “Personhood”, or more specifically: “The Personhood Amendment“. Oh, you’ll hear tons of lofty talk about the GOP being “The Party of Life” from a bunch of rabid pro-war, pro-gun, pro-death penalty zealots, and how the vile Liberal Left wants every woman to rely on Planned Parenthood for their health care so they can be talked into getting an abortion (especially if they’re black), but in the toxic fog of Rep. Todd Akin, any mention of the ultimate goal of that “pro-life” agenda will be harder to hear than a mouse-fart in church. If the camera catches glimpse of a single “Ban The Pill” or “Pass the Personhood Amendment” sign, you can bet that person will be yanked faster than a 6-inch nose hair.
No one during the entire event will connect the dots between “Personhood” and how it could ban most forms of hormonal contraception. In fact, you might even hear some Speaker claim that “No one is talking about banning contraception!” What a ridiculous thought!
Which of course leads to Number #4: Todd Akin. Last Monday, people were aghast by the Right-Wing nuttery of Republican Congressman Todd Akin for saying that victims of “legitimate rape” (RW code for suggesting there are a number of women who falsely claim rape simply to obtain an abortion) “secrete a substance” that prevents them from becoming pregnant (ergo, if you got pregnant, you must have wanted it.) But lets keep in mind that this is a Party where one of it’s leading presidential candidates… Ron Paul… said almost the exact same thing last February, and no one on the Right said “Boo”.
As ThinkProgress pointed out, Paul Ryan teamed up with Akin on a slew of “personhood”, “anti-abortion” and “anti-contraception” acts of legislation as recently as THIS YEAR, so naturally the GOP makes him their Vice-Presidential nominee. If anyone brings up Akin or Ryan’s connection to him, it will be reporters, not anyone from the dais.
Number #5 on the list of thing you’ll never hear mentioned at this convention: The rash of recent “gun violence”. From the “Batman” shooting in Colorado, the near-fatal shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the attack on an Indian Seik Temple, or even the “suicide-by-cop” incident in front of The Empire State Building just last week. The GOP might as well change its name to The NRA for all the difference it would make. I’m sorry, but for a group of peacock-strutting macho Rednecks that loves guns & war, they sure talk tough, but I’ve never met a bigger bunch of frightened p@ssies in all my life. They live in constant terror of “Muslims”, “Illegal Immigrants”, “Black people”, “Black helicopters”… heck, the government in general. I couldn’t fathom living in their world. What a dark scary place they live in. It must be horrible living in such constant fear like that. So, if the word “gun” is mentioned at all during this Convention, it will be in the context of “Fast & Furious”… the botched “gun walking” program that never actually allowed a single gun to “walk”.
(UPDATE: On the morning of opening day of the Convention, a student at Perry Hall High School in Maryland was shot & wounded by another student opening fire in the school cafeteria.)
Number #6 on the list of things you’ll never hear at this convention: Mitt Romney’s tax returns or his tax shelters. While I wouldn’t be surprised if some minor league GOP “rising star” or disgruntled “Bachmann-type” in a waaaay off-primetime speaking slot ridicules the idea that anyone needs to see more than the one-years’ worth of tax returns that Mitt has already released, the very subject of Romney’s taxes will be verboten.
Number #7: The words “filibuster” or “obstruction”. It is imperative to the governor’s election chances that everyone forget that the last election wasn’t 2008, it was 2010. On yesterdays’ “ThisWeek” on ABC, Right-Wing putz George Will pointed to how little things have improved over the past year, and how that’s evidence “President Obama’s policies have failed”. Just once, I’d like someone to ask him if he thinks the GOP controlled Congress (yes, that includes the Dem-led Senate that has been held hostage via the filibuster) deserves ANY of the blame for the lack of improvement over the past two years? I mean, they DID come in promising “Jobs, jobs, jobs”, no? Or was I just imagining that? I’d almost bet cash/money that someone will (falsely) claim, “President Obama had a filibuster proof majority” his first two years (in truth, it was a grand total of only 24 working days) to support the idea he accomplished nothing (except pass the most sweeping health care reform law in 50 years.)
Number #8 on our list is “Voter ID” and the millions that are likely to be disenfranchised in order to “safeguard our elections” from a crime that’s rarer than death by lightning strike. The GOP is very excited about the passage of “Voter ID” laws that will require millions of legal Registered voters to unnecessarily jump through all sorts of ridiculous hoops just to exercise their Constitutional Right (“The Constitution”… you remember that Right-Wingers? It’s that thing you wrap yourselves in when it suits your purposes, and you push to “Amend” when it doesn’t?) They’ll ACTUALLY tell you, “It’s about making sure that only Citizens actually vote in our elections”, yet they accept a “Drivers License” (among other things) that doesn’t actually require proof of citizenship to get. In fact, NON-citizens can get a Drivers License, and do so all the time. Tell me again how “Voter ID” has anything to do with “making sure only citizens vote”? No, it’s just about making it more difficult for minorities and The Poor… groups that typically vote Democratic… to vote. I actually had one Right-Winger say to me, “Hey, if you can’t do something as simple as get an ID from the DMV, you shouldn’t be voting anyway!” Yes, it’s SO EASY for people WITHOUT A DRIVERS LICENSE OR A CAR to get to the DMV. It’s SO EASY for someone on Minimum Wage to take time off from work and wait in line all day at the DMV to get an ID they never needed before just to do something they’ve been doing for decades without incident. That taxi cab you might have to take to get to the DMV, or that time off you must take from work, that costs money and is tantamount to an illegal Poll Tax. If by some disaster Romney should “win” this November, you can BET “Voter ID” played a BIG part in making it happen.
Number #9: “The Dream Act”. Republicans are already on the outs with Millions of Hispanic voters for their “shoot first” at anyone that comes near their “1,100 mile long electrified fence” position on Border Security. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed Arizona’s “Papers Please” law that gave local police the ability to stop anyone they deemed “suspicious” on any trumped-up charge they could think-up to give them legal justification to harass brown people, didn’t win them any friends in the Hispanic community. After alienating just about every sane black person in the country with their “Birther” nonsense, the GOP can’t afford to alienate any more minorities. But they’ve already labled President Obama’s “Dream Act”… something that was once a GOP idea… “Amnesty”. In an interview on “Meet the Press” yesterday, Jeb Bush (who will be speaking at the convention while his brother will not) criticized his own party for being so anti-immigration, stressing the need for legal immigration. Jeb also acknowledged that President Obama “inherited a very difficult situation”, and will be using his speech to promote the need for “education” to a bunch of Home-Schoolers that want to abolish the Department of Education. So you can relax folks, there’s now ZERO chance we’ll ever see another Bush in the White House.
And last but not least…
Number #10 on the list of Things no one will hear mentioned at the RNC Convention? Osama bin Laden or Kadaffy.
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August 27, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · 6 Comments - Add
Posted in: Economy, Election, Energy Independence, Environment, General, Global Warming, Guns & Violence, Healthcare, Middle East, Politics, Predictions, Religion, Right-wing Facism, Right-Wing Insanity, Taxes, voting, War
Am I Supposed to be Impressed Both Ryan and Romney Paid Less Than 20% in Taxes?
August 20, 2012
| The Penguin explains how political campaigns are won. (:41) [flv:http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/Batman-Penguin_explains_campaigning.flv http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/video/Batman-Penguin_explains_campaigning.jpg 368 256] |
The Right constantly whines how “our taxes are too high” and how our corporate rate is “among the highest in the world”. But who actually PAYS that top 36% tax rate? Not Paul Ryan and certainly not Mitt Romney. Romney… reportedly worth only a quarter Billion dollars (*cough* bulls#@t *cough*)… tells us the “13.9% tax rate” he reported on his 2010 return (actually, he misremembers it as “13.6%”) was a high water mark for him, but that in the ten years he checked, he “never paid less than 13%”. THIRTEEN freaking percent! Am I supposed to be impressed by that? I’m not quite sure what point Governor Romney is trying to convey when he says he “never paid less than 13 percent” and the MOST he’s paid in the last ten years was a paltry 13.9%. Congressman Ryan… despite a substantially lower total net worth of “about $4.5 Million”… actually paid a higher percentage in taxes than Romney, paying just 15.9% in 2010, and 20 percent in 2011. Tell me again how taxes are “too high”? Seriously, is he bragging? How am I supposed to respond to Romney telling me he “never paid less than THIRTEEN percent”? Am I supposed to be grateful he paid “so much”? Should I hear that and think, “Gee, that seems high!” Seriously, someone tell me how am I supposed to react to the news that two multimillionaires paid a combined 14.9% tax rate in 2010, because I haven’t the foggiest.
Now, I’ve spoken at length of how I believe Romney is worth FAR more than the “$264-Million” that’s been reported. This is a man that made $60-Million dollars on a single investment deal when Bain Capital purchased an Italian phone directory software company, only to turn around and dump it at the peak of the tech bubble two years later at 25x the price, hanging thousands of Italian investors out to dry. There’s the multiple overseas tax havens where he has squirreled away millions more in tax free savings, and (as mentioned last week) a tax-free SEP-IRA that could be worth another $101-Million dollars (an amount plenty of economists want to know how it was achieved.)
Now consider the possibility that the amount he paid in taxes in 2010 wasn’t on a person worth $268-Million but $1-$5 Billion. Suddenly, that 13.9% peak rate he paid on his best return (the only one he’s willing to show us) wasn’t even THAT horrible a hardship. And if Harry Reid is right (as I believe him to be), he didn’t even pay THAT much. Tell us again how “tax rates are too high on this nations’ job creators”? (Speaking of which, while Romney & Ryan are paying the “job creator” tax rate, remind us all again just how many JOBS they’ve created in exchange for those low rates?)
In 2001, I worked at (“at”, not “for”) Enron (I got the job the Friday before 9/11. First time in my life working in a skyscraper and suddenly, people were dive-bombing planes into them. But that’s another story.) I was working for IBM, auditing Enron for all the laptops that “grew feet” and walked out the door as they started laying people off left & right (Enron was trying to weasel out of paying for them by claiming they never got them. Again: another story.) Enron was doing everything in their power to avoid paying their debts.
Then it came out in the news that Enron had been paying mega-accounting firm Arthur Andersen “$350-Million dollars a year”… or nearly $1-Million dollars a day… to avoid paying ANY income taxes each year. This was one of the biggest, most powerful, multinational conglomerates on the face of the Earth (at its peak, worth upwards $70-Billion dollars), and yet they were able to manipulate the tax code so that it owed NO taxes. Their estimated tax bill would HAD to of been MUCH higher than the $350 Million they were paying their accountants each year to justify the expense.
As you may have noticed, the mega-accounting firm Arthur Andersen is no longer with us (at least, not as an accounting firm). When the government threatened an investigation into how they aided Enron in defrauding investors, they started shredding files like crazy. Not just documents, but entire metal filing cabinets were dumped into enormous industrial-sized shredders brought in just for the job. As you might of guessed, not all of AA’s accounting practices were entirely legal (yet they won their court case on a technicality) and the damage done to their reputation pretty much put them out of business.
So what’s my point? If Mitt Romney “never paid less than 13.0%” in taxes, there’s a VERY good chance the way he did it wasn’t entirely legal… especially if (as I suspect) he’s worth 5-12 times as much as he claims. Plenty of people are now wondering if the reason Romney refuses to release his 2009 Returns is because he took advantage of President Obama’s 2009 “tax amnesty” program for people that failed to pay the taxes on overseas accounts. Was Romney’s 2010 tax return… the year he paid a peak of 13.9%… the result of paying back taxes AND penalties as part of that deal? How would it look if the GOP nominee for president “is a crook” (to quote another Republican, Richard Nixon)? Is it any wonder Mitt absolutely refuses to just release his taxes and prove all his critics wrong? Virgina Governor Bob “if you can read this vaginal probe, your government is too close” McDonnell was on “Meet the Press” yesterday declaring that “the Democrats obsession with Governor Romney’s taxes is a distraction” because Democrats are afraid to talk about anything else. This just moments after he finished accusing VP Biden of “racism” for his “y’all in chains” remark.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out if I should be “impressed”, or perhaps “relieved”, when the multimillionaires on the GOP ticket tell me they both paid the tax rate of a family of four making less than $40,000/year?
Note: To any masochists out there, you can find Romney & Ryan’s tax returns here on the Romney campaign website.
PS: Another question: Why did Paul Ryan introduce his mother as “dependent on Medicare” when he’s worth almost $5 Million dollars? Do YOU believe Ryan’s mother is dependent on Medicare, and would be in trouble if the program were voucherized the way her son wants?
PPS: If you’re wondering why I didn’t discuss the “Medicare” debate this week, it’s because THAT is the REAL distraction. Notice how talk of Romney’s taxes seem to have fallen by the wayside since they adopted the Rovian tactic of attacking critics on your own greatest weakness? (see: Draft Dodger Bush “Swift-Boating” war hero Kerry.)
PPPS: We’ve added two new pages: “GOP Nonsense” and “Must See Videos”, to the toolbar above. And if you haven’t already done so, be sure to add MRS to your Twitter Feed.
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August 20, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · 2 Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Money, Politics, Taxes
How Is the Ryan Pick NOT Palin All Over Again?
August 13, 2012
Okay, before you jump all over me, I KNOW Paul Ryan isn’t as mind-numbingly dumb, inexperienced or incompetent as Sarah Palin. This is not a comparison of the two candidates. But the thinking that went into both picks is strikingly familiar.
In 2008, John McCain made Senator Obama’s “lack of experience” the defining focus of his campaign strategy. “The choice is clear”, oft repeated McCain supporters. McCain’s decades of political experience wasn’t a negative making him a “Washington Insider”, it was an asset that qualified him to be president. But McCain, hugely unpopular within his own Party and winning his Party’s nomination almost by default as his GOP opponents crashed & burned one-by-one around him, had to make a desperate move. Still in need of winning-over his own Party, McCain decided he needed a Hail-Mary just to shore up his own base. So he picked a “game changer” (as the HBO film pointed out), Sarah Palin, a Tea Party favorite that the Extreme Right just adored but with minimal appeal to the Left & Center.
The choice of Palin, a relative political novice having served only 18 months as Governor of Alaska (and briefly mayor of a small town), to be his running mate, eviscerated McCain’s “experience” argument against Obama. Suddenly, both he and his Party were making fools of themselves on TV trying to claim Princess Dumbass of the North Woods (we’ll be forever grateful to “BlueGal” for that one), a former beauty queen turned TV sportscaster who claimed she had “foreign policy experience” due to her states’ proximity to “Russia”, was “more qualified” than the Illinois Senator that had been in public office since 1996.
Flash forward to 2012. Once again, the GOP presidential nominee, deeply disliked by Conservatives, needing a way to shore up his own base and win over the Tea Party wing of his own Party, chooses a Tea Party favorite beloved by the Extreme Right Wing of his own Party but with far less appeal among Democrats and Moderates. Romney, after running for months on his “Private Sector Experience”… even going so far as to suggest a moronic Constitutional Amendment that would require presidential nominees to have “at least three years of experience in the private sector” before they can hold that office… goes on to name a career politician lacking the very experience he argued was so important, as his running mate, eviscerating his own argument and leaving his supporters scrambling to make the case that their VP choice actually HAS the requisite experience their candidate spent months insisting his opponent lacked.
So obvious was this line of attack, that within minutes of naming Ryan as his VP pick, the Romney campaign already had at the ready a list of private sector jobs Ryan had held prior to his election to public office, including “waiter at a DC Tortilla restaurant” and (I kid you not) a brief three-month stint promoting Oscar Mayer Lunchables and “even drove the Wienermobile once” (no, I did not make that up.) Once again, the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee has even LESS experience of the type their presidential nominee claimed was crucial, and that Barack Obama supposedly lacked, and therefore “unqualified” to be president.
Similarities between Palin/Ryan picks:
- Both selected for their huge popularity within the Tea Party to generate enthusiasm for a GOP nominee greatly disliked by their own Party.
- Both are ideologues that lack broad appeal beyond the Tea Party.
- Both lack the key qualification the GOP nominee that picked them said Obama lacked: “Experience” (overall/”private sector”).
- Both suggested by Neocon leader Bill Kristol.
- Both are physically attractive enough to win over shallow voters based purely on looks alone.
And… we can only hope… the Ryan pick will end the same way for the GOP this time around as well.
A little tip for the GOP: You’re not running against Obama 2008, you’re running against a Commander-in-Chief with four years experience, who ended the War in Iraq, got Kadaffy & Osama bin Laden, and halted the economic slide that was costing us more than 700,000 jobs a month the day he took office.
Postscript: After a week of feigned outrage over an Internet-only Obama SuperPAC ad of a man blaming Bain Capitol’s deliberate bankruptcy of the company he worked for leaving him and his wife without health insurance, leading to her death from cancer, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus… in a transparent attempt to label Obama as “a murderer”… claimed “President Obama has blood on his hands” for shifting funding from one health care program (“Medicare”) to “ObamaCare” (despite not a single person losing coverage as a result.) Pathetic. Juvenile. Priebus must be the son of someone powerful. I can think of no other way he clinched the job as head of the RNC.
(Note: McCain on “Fox news Sunday” also compared the Ryan pick to his choice of Palin, calling them both “bold choices.”)
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August 13, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · 2 Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics, Right-Wing Insanity, Seems Obvious to Me
Why Mitt Romney’s Taxes Matter
August 9, 2012
A few weeks ago, I wrote: “Possible Reasons Romney Is Suppressing His Tax Returns”, listing a number of things we could possibly learn should he ever decide to release them. But I didn’t discuss if any of those reasons were important when it came to choosing a president. Consider this “Part-II” of that review. I had an interesting conversation the other day. An old friend with Right-Wing tendencies was wondering, “What’s the big deal over Mitt Romney’s taxes? I hate the IRS, and if I could cheat on my taxes, I would do it in a second!” Illegality aside, why does it matter how much/little the GOP nominee for president paid in taxes… if he paid anything at all? Isn’t that what we all aspire to? Paying as little in taxes as possible? Well, there are a number of very important reasons why Governor Romney’s taxes are important… more so in this election than any other. With an exploding National Debt and Trillion dollar deficit, crumbling American infrastructure, and a nation stuck in a costly decade-long war in Afghanistan, not to mention a growing concentration of wealth that hasn’t been seen since The Great Depression, the fact we DON’T know if the GOP’s nominee for President is “paying his fair share”, or worse… engaged in illegal activity to drop his tax rate…According to my tax attorney Romney’s tax returns matter a great deal at a time struggling Americans are being told the answer to their problems is to elect a man that would give even larger tax breaks to the extremely wealthy. FACT: America’s 10 Largest Corporations Paid 9 Percent Average Tax Rate Last Year (2011).
Bush in 2004 at campaign stops in Baltimore & Reno
[flv:http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/Bush-Tax_dodge_%28composite%29_%28040813%29.flv http://www.mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/Bush-Tax_dodge_%28composite%29_%28040813%29.jpg 300 200](Audio only. Composite. 26 seconds)
Republicans think the “solution” to cutting taxes is to Privatize most of these services. While that might reduce your tax burden, the cost of all those now privatized necessary services would skyrocket (not to get into a debate over “Privatization”, I’ll simply say, “If you think four years of college is expensive, try 12 years of private schooling.) I’ve had my share of debates with furious Right-Wingers complaining about how THEY are supporting all the “lazy freeloaders on Welfare”. It “chaps their hide” to think of all “those people” (ie: “poor blacks” & “illegal immigrants”) that refuse to work that “they’re supporting” (Note: “illegal” aliens are not eligible for Food Stamps or Public Assistance.) Actually, the biggest “Welfare” recipients in this nation are the Rich. Welfare for the Poor doesn’t come close to “Corporate Welfare”. For everything the poor receive, the Rich receive 100x more. “Food stamps”? “Farm subsidies”. “Home heating oil assistance”? “$2-Billion/year in Oil subsidies”. In addition, The Rich use FAR more government services than The Poor. Our schools educate their workforce. Our public roads bring customers/employees to their business (I often say, “I’ve never seen a Wal*Mart at the end of a dirt road.”), and U.S. Highways transport their goods. They use our courts like crazy fighting over “patent infringement”, “trade deals”, defending themselves from “product liability” lawsuits and prosecuting the people that rob their stores. You could prosecute 10,000 petty thieves for the cost of prosecuting Bernie Maddoff, Enron or Martha Stewart. It takes more cops to protect their huge homes filed with expensive furnishings/jewelry/art and expensive cars that lure thieves, and more firefighters when their homes catch fire. Police patrol their businesses at night to protect them from thieves, and if they pay little to nothing in taxes, they’re getting all those services for free (or nearly free). Meanwhile, millions of home-owners went bankrupt after a deregulated Wall Street gambled with their mortgages and lost Trillions when the economy tanked. Who got bailed out? Hint, it wasn’t you.
As I noted Monday, Republican strategist Ed Rollins bemoaned the fact that “20% of the country pays 94% of the taxes”:
Maybe this is why:
Governor Romney… with an unimpressive record as governor of Massachusetts… is running instead on his business record as the CEO of “Bain Capital”, but is quick to disassociate himself with some of the company’s worst practices of dissolving companies, selling off the assets, raiding pension funds and dumping the liability off on American taxpayers, then putting hundreds/thousands out of work. Romney’s tax returns could reveal not only that the governor was still running Bain at the time, but actually profited off many (all?) of those business activities he has claimed he had no connection to.
Another potential problem I noted in my earlier article, the Governor might have contributed to some charities that he might find difficult or “uncomfortable” to explain. We know that… while he now claims to be a committed “Pro-Lifer” that wants to “end Planned Parenthood” (97% of what the woman’s health clinic provides are publicly funded STD/Cancer screenings and other women’s health services vs privately funded abortions)… Romney was once “Pro-Choice” (a position fostered by his mother and the loss of a relative… his brother-in-law’s 21-year old sister… to a botched back-alley abortion) and a long-time supporter of “Planned Parenthood” (attending a PPA fundraiser with his wife in 1994.) As I noted last week, Romney has been avoiding releasing his taxes since he first ran for Senator in 1994. As recently as 2002, Romney was still defending “a woman’s right to choose [abortion].” Might he have still been contributing to PPA as recently as ten years ago (or less)?
To date, Governor Romney has released only ONE tax return (2010) and an estimate for 2011 (after filing an extension that extends past Election Day.) I’ve noted repeatedly that Romney released his taxes just for the year he KNEW he’d be running for president and was able to tweak it for maximum appearances. Yet, just from the one return he was willing to show us, we already learned he paid less than even the 15% minimum tax rate placed on “Capital Gains”, has tax shelters in a half-dozen foreign countries, and anywhere from $20.7 to $101.6 million dollars in a tax-free IRA. How? Contributions to your IRA are capped at $2,000 a year, and Romney is not 5,175 years old (assuming matching corporate contributions). The Romney Campaigns’ defense is that he has a “SEP-IRA” with larger maximum annual contribution of $30,000. Assuming matching corporate donations, it should have taken him 345 years to amass that minimum estimated $20.7-Million dollars. So how did he pump so much money into his IRA is such a brief period of time? The Romney campaign isn’t saying. And even if it was done completely legally, by law he must start withdrawing that money by age 70-1/2, at which point that becomes income, taxed at the full 35% (actually, this may depend on more details than I’m prepared to go into here). Governor Romney is currently 65 years old. Tax cuts he might pass as president could directly benefit him, possibly saving him tens of millions of dollars. Just how much, no one can say without seeing his returns.
(click to enlarge)
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- Conservatives, outraged last year by the news “nearly half the country paid nothing in [Federal Income] taxes”, and suggested The Rich are supporting The Poor, will have to find a new excuse should we learn their uber-wealthy presidential nominee is one of those “freeloaders” that paid nothing in Federal Income taxes.
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- Romney may have donated to a charity or organization that he would have trouble explaining to his supporters/Media/critics.
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- Romney has a tax-free IRA containing tens of millions of dollars. How he achieved this the campaign won’t say. Explaining how it was done legally (IF it were done “legally”) would invite a LOT of uncomfortable questions and a far deeper probe of his finances than the Governor might want.
- The intense secrecy around Romney’s tax records, in and of itself, raises great concern as to just what the GOP nominee is hiding. If he’s this secretive now, what are we to expect should he become president?
- ADDENDUM: With the selection of Paul Ryan as Romney’s VP pick, we find that under “The Ryan Budget”, Romney’s tax rate would plummet (or “rise” depending on whether or not you believe Harry Reid) to just 0.82% (that’s not a typo), so it is important to know how Gov. Romney’s tax policies would affect him personally.
- ADDENDUM 2: There is a new theory making the rounds that Romney might have taken advantage of President Obama’s Tax Amnesty program for people with overseas accounts in 2009, in order to avoid prosecution.
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August 9, 2012
· Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Economy, Election, Infrastructure, Jobs, Money, Politics, Taxes
![](http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/gop_death_cult.jpg")
