Category Archives: Elections

Buffett On Why Romney Should Pay Higher Taxes: He’s Just ‘Shoving Around Money,’ Not ‘Straining His Back’

I’ll keep saying it over and over:  There is no reason to vote for a Republican unless you are a millionaire only interested in trying to protect your own interests.

Here, American’s favorite Billionaire, calls Romney out on that point:

From ThinkProgress.org:

Last week, Mitt Romney finally admitted that he pays a tax rate of 15 percent, lower than that of many middle-class families. Romney is taxed at such a low rate because, as he freely admits, all of his income comes from investments, and is thus subject to the top capital gains tax rate of 15 percent, rather than the top income tax rate of 35 percent.

However, Romney has refused to sign on to the Obama administration’s “Buffett rule,” which aims to ensure that millionaires can’t dodge taxes to the extent that they’re paying less than teachers. Today, billionaire investor Warren Buffett himself was asked about Romney’s tax rate, replying that letting millionaire investors like Romney pay such low taxes is “the wrong policy” because he makes his income by just “shoving around money”:

He makes his money the same way I make my money. He makes money by moving around big bucks, not by straining his back and going to work cleaning the toilets or whatever it may be. He makes it shoving around money. I make it shoving around money. If you look at the 400 highest incomes in the United States, they average $220 million. Something like 90 of them are effectively unemployed. They have no earned income, and that number has gone up over the years. […]

It’s the wrong policy to have. Nothing wrong about [Romney] doing that. He will not pay more than the law requires. I don’t fault him for that in the least, but I do fault the law that allows him and me, earning enormous sums to pay over all federal taxes at a rate that is about half what the average person in my office pays.

via Buffett On Why Romney Should Pay Higher Taxes: He’s Just ‘Shoving Around Money,’ Not ‘Straining His Back’ | ThinkProgress.

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Romney Will Release 2010 Tax Returns and What to Look For…..

More fun on the way….

He really doesn’t want to do this, but after South Carolina, he really doesn’t have much choice….

A few thoughts/lookouts here:

  1. He is only releasing last year and an estimate of this year.  It takes more than one year to really get a picture of his true financial life.
  2. Look for Cayman Islands bank accounts/investments funds.  If they they are there; who are his partners?  Follow the money…
  3. Look at how much he contributes to charities and what charities he supports.  This could cause some questions…
  4. Look at his overall wealth and tax rate.  This is probably going to be the first bomb to go off, but the others could be bigger….
  5. Who know what else?

The fun continues!

From The Huffington Post:

Bending, halfway, to political pressures, Mitt Romney pledged on Sunday to release his most recent year of tax returns this coming week as well as an estimate for his upcoming filings.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” the former Massachusetts governor said his campaign would be putting out tax information for 2010 and projections for 2011 on Tuesday.

More:   Romney Will Release 2010 Tax Returns And 2011 Estimates On Tuesday.

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Romney Campaign Busing in Mormons to Make Crowds

This is showing up on several websites today….

The Romney campaign is just collapsing in South Carolina and bussing in Mormon college students to make their crowds seem bigger and more excited….

This is really getting interesting….

From DailyKos:

Buzzfeed reports the latest signs of the complete collapse of the Romney campaign in South Carolina:

GREENVILLE, South Carolina–Outside Tommy’s Ham House here this morning–where Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich scheduled back-to-back visits–a boisterous crowd of young, fresh-faced supporters was waving Romney signs and chanting, “MITT! MITT! MITT!”

But this wasn’t a grassroots youth movement rooted at the University of South Carolina. No, many of the students cheering on the candidate told BuzzFeed they were actually BYU students and young Mormons from D.C. and Virginia who traveled to the Palmetto State to give their coreligionist’s presidential effort a much-needed jolt of energy.

Kat Wardle, a 23-year-old BYU student who is spending the semester in Washington, D.C., said she and several young Latter-Day Saints have been following Romney around the state, playing the role of cheerleaders at various campaign stops.

“I was all over the place at the Lexington rally!” said Wardle, referring to a rainy outdoor event that the campaign has been spinning as an example of growing momentum. Despite the weather, a crowd of several hundred remained for the event and, Romney surrogates like Nikki Haley have pointed out, they were loud and proud.

MORE:   Daily Kos: Romney campaign busing in Mormons from D.C. to make crowds. WOW..

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Greensboro Voter Guide for the November General Election (Revised)

For my friends and neighbors in Greensboro, NC, here is the Replacements PAC Voter’s Guide.

I strongly recommend this as a guide if you are looking not just for LGBT Friendly Candidates, but for Progressive Candidates in General.

Here are the recommended Candidates.  While all the Candidates below are good and recommended, there are two, in particular, I strongly support:  Robbie Perkins for Mayor and Nancy Hoffman in District 4.    They really need to replace the respective opponents and  both would be great additions to our local government and for moving Greensboro forward.

I also strongly support former Mayer Yvonne Johnson and Wayne Abraham for two of the three At-Large seats.  For the third, I lean toward Marikay Abuzuaiter instead of  Nancy Barakat Vaughn.  I think either would be very good.

My concern is that Ms Vaughn and Mayor Johnson will probably be the top vote getters.  I hope Mr. Abraham and Ms. Abuzaiter don’t split the vote and allow one of the conservative candidates to take the third slot.  I wish Ms Vaughn had stuck with her earlier decision not to run.  Believe me, any three of these four candidates would be better than what we have with current at-large Councilman Danny Thompson…

My gut tells me, best case scenario, former Mayor Johnson, Ms Vaughn and Ms. Abuzaiter will take the 3 At Large seats.  I’m afraid Mr Abraham, who I do support, will have to try again another year.  I could be wrong….

So much depends on turnout.  The current Conservative Council and Mayor are in place because the Tea Party turned out in the last election, while the Progressives stayed home.  I truly hope that does not happen again….

In any event, please, remember to vote on Tuesday, November 8th!  Too often bad candidates win simply because more Progressive voters stay home……

2011 LGBT General Election Voter Guide

Guilford County

Greensboro Mayor (R) Robbie Perkins

Greensboro City Council At-Large (U) Nancy Barakat Vaughan

Greensboro City Council At-Large (D) Yvonne J. Johnson

Greensboro City Council At-Large (D) Wayne Abraham

Greensboro City Council Dist 1 (D) Donnell (DJ) Hardy

Greensboro City Council Dist 2 (D) Jim Kee

Greensboro City Council Dist 3 (R) Zach Matheny

Greensboro City Council Dist 4 (D) Nancy Hoffmann

Greensboro City Council Dist 5 No Endorsement

Jamestown Town Council (R) Brock Thomas

Jamestown Town Council (U) Tommy Walls

Following are other Greensboro candidates who returned surveys and are supportive of LGBT issues in varying degrees.

Marikay Abuzuaiter City Council At-Large (D) Very Supportive

Chris Lawyer City Council At-Large (R) Very Supportive

T. Dianne Bellamy Small City Council Dist 1 (D) Somewhat Supportive

Jay Ovitorre City Council Dist 3 (D) Very Supportive

Alamance County

Ossippee Town Council (U) Billy Carter

Swepsonville Town Council (D) Virginia Miller

Graham Mayor (D) Thomas Bruton

Graham City Council (U) Lee Kimrey

Graham City Council (D) Jeanette Beaudry

Randolph County

Franklinville Town Council (D) Lowell Whatley

Rockingham County

Madison Alderman (R) J. Lee Mills

Mayodan Town Council (R) Gloria Powers

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Outside Groups Eclipsing G.O.P. As Hub of Campaigns – NYTimes.com

More fallout from the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited Corporate money to flow into Campaigns.

Now the Corporations and their billionaire leaders can simply buy candidates and campaigns outright instead of having to use the political parties as a middle man.

And they don’t have to deal with all those messy campaign finance regulations the Political Parties have to deal with…..

Karl Rove and this merry Band of Billionaires are already planning how to put their agenda into play next year.

This is going to be nasty.  It’s going to be a campaign season like we’ve never seen before with all this unlimited Corporate Cash spreading lies, disinformation and propaganda from the Presidential Campaign level (the Koch brothers and their Astroturf candidate Herman Cain) all the way down to the School Board races (See Art Pope in NC).

I’m really not sure our Democracy can survive this…..

I think it may be too late- the Corporate Coup d’etat may have already happened and we are just now realizing it….

From today’s New York Times:

At a time when the Republican National Committee remains weighed down by debt, outside conservative groups, freed from contribution limits by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year, are playing an ever larger role and operating in an increasingly coordinated fashion. In the coming months, the conservative groups will consult among themselves as they open pre-election advertising barrages against Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats.

They have begun conversations about how to divide up the swing states where each group is likely to focus its energies, with some like Americans for Prosperity expecting to shift chiefly to Senate races and the White House. Others, like the new Congressional Leadership Fund, will look to preserve the Republican hold on the House.

Groups that have made defeating Mr. Obama their top priority expect to invest heavily in some of the new swing states where Mr. Obama made inroads in 2008, like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Other groups, operating in concert, will target Democratic senators they believe are ripe for unseating, like Bill Nelson of Florida, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

At a time when the Republican presidential primary race has featured increasingly tough stances against illegal immigration, the independent groups have begun an aggressive program of outreach to Hispanics, hoping to offset Democratic gains among a critical voting bloc.

And they are planning to coordinate offensives in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where money and organizing could pay dividends simultaneously in the presidential, Congressional and local legislative races.

via Outside Groups Eclipsing G.O.P. As Hub of Campaigns – NYTimes.com.

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Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves: Part 2

Great comments from Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast during last night’s GOP Debate:

“Huntsman I can understand and appreciate. Perry is an empty bad suit. Romney lies with such facility it unnerves me. Bachmann is a fanatic, as, although I am extremely fond of him, is Ron Paul. Santorum just seems like a lost child from the 1950s, trying to have the campaign he dreamed about when he was ten. Cain is an egomaniac businessman with a talk show host patter and a mild wit. Gingrich is a giant, gaseous asshole.”

“Thank God for painkillers.”

via Vicodin Live-Blogging The Bloomberg Debate – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

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Sarah Palin Will Not Run for President – ABC News

Damn.

This would have been so much fun!  I was so looking forward to new Saturday Night Live sketches.

And she would have been the easiest Republican for President Obama to beat…

Oh, well….

I guess she decided she better stay out of the limelight so she can keep raking in the big bucks from gullible conservatives.

She must have learned a bright light shining on her is not a good thing for her credibility-as if she had any to begin with– or her marketability…..

ABC News’ Polson Kanneth reports:

Sarah Palin will not run for president.  She made the announcement in a letter to supporters Wednesday night.

Read Palin’s letter here:

October 5, 2011

Wasilla, Alaska

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.

My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.

From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.

I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.

Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.

In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.

Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country!

God bless America.

– Sarah Palin

via Sarah Palin Will Not Run for President – ABC News.

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96-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Denied Voter ID

This is truly despicable….

I keep telling people, there is no “voter fraud” in the sense the GOP is citing for these Voter ID Laws.  This is all an attempt to disenfranchise legitimate voters-who generally vote against the GOP.

The Republican Party is the one really perpetrating Voter Fraud as they are trying to defraud people of the right to vote.

From ThinkProgress.org:

Swept up in the craze of preventing widespread voter fraud that doesn’t actually exist, Tennessee Republicans passed a voter identification law this year that they claimed would put an end to fraud and ensure fair elections. Like similar laws in other states, Tennessee’s version has come under scrutiny from voting rights advocates, civil rights groups like the NAACP and ACLU, and even Democratic senators, who oppose the laws because they will disenfranchise poor, elderly, and minority voters who are less likely to have photo IDs.

The state now has evidence that that will be the case. Dorothy Cooper, a 96-year-old Chattanooga resident who says she has voted in every election but one since she became eligible to vote, wanted to ensure she’d have the necessary ID to vote in next year’s elections, when Tennessee’s law goes into effect. But when she went to apply for the ID, she was denied, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports:

That morning, Cooper slipped a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card and her birth certificate into a Manila envelope. Typewritten on the birth certificate was her maiden name, Dorothy Alexander.

“But I didn’t have my marriage certificate,” Cooper said Tuesday afternoon, and that was the reason the clerk said she was denied a free voter ID at the Cherokee Boulevard Driver Service Center.

“I don’t know what difference it makes,” Cooper said.

Cooper doesn’t have a driver’s license — she never learned to drive — and has never needed identification to vote, and her lack of a valid marriage license is likely due to the fact that she’s outlived two husbands. Under the Tennessee law, Cooper will still be able to vote via absentee ballot, which does not require photo ID. But standing outside her normal voting precinct, Cooper told the Times Free Press she will miss going there to vote. “We always come here to vote,” Cooper said. “The people who run the polls know everybody here.”

via 96-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Denied Voter ID Because She Didn’t Have Her Marriage License | ThinkProgress.

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White House on Occupy Wall Street: `We understand’ – The Washington Post

The fact that the mainstream media is finally paying attention and that the White House is having to address this is a really, really big change….

This movement is getting too big to ignore- which is a very good thing!

I knew there was an Anit-Tea Party alternative out there and it looks like the sleeping giant has awakened….

From Greg Sargent in the Washington Post:

The story here is not what the White House said but that it was asked to weigh in on the protests at all — another sign of the remarkable speed with which it has grown from a crowd chanting at police two weeks ago. As for the substance of the White House response, it would have been a mistake for it to go any further than it did here — registering an understanding of economic frustration. Because if there’s one thing that’s growing clearer by the hour, it’s that this is an entirely organic effort, one that’s about nobody but the protesors themselves. In this sense, we’re seeing a replay of the Wisconsin protests. Those ended up falling just short of what activists had hoped to achieve, but their months-long showing was still important — it demonstrated that left wing populism is still alive and well and sent an important message about the mood of the country. The key was that it grew organically with little to no involvement from Beltway Dems and the White House.

If anything, Occupy Wall Street’s lack of outside encouragement from bigfoot Dems has been a strength, rather than a weakness. As major progressive groups debate how they can contribute to strengthening the movement — and how to give it specific direction and a specific agenda — the need to preserve its grassroots nature will remain paramount. Who knows where this will end up, but for now, this is another reminder that the Tea Party isn’t the only voice of popular discontentment over the economy. We don’t necessarily live in Tea Party Nation, after all.

More: White House on Occupy Wall Street: `We understand’ – The Plum Line – The Washington Post.

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Restrictions Could Keep Five Million Traditionally Democratic Voters From The Polls In 2012

This is why the GOP is pushing all these new “voter” initiatives in so many states.

It’s a coordinated effort  to deny people the right to vote.

Republicans know they only win as long as turnout is low.  They also know the demographic trends are against them.  Therefore, their goal is to drive down turnout and find ways to disenfranchise groups of people who traditionally vote Democratic.

I’m afraid we’ll only see more of these efforts to steal elections.  The GOP is the real driver of voter fraud– defrauding people of the right to vote….

 

Restrictive voting laws in states across the country could affect up to five million voters from traditionally Democratic demographics in 2012, according to a new report by the Brennan Center. That’s a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.

The new restrictions, the study found, “fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election.”

The study found that:

These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.

The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 – 63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.

Of the 12 likely battleground states, as assessed by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions.

The total number, according to the Brennan Center, is the sum of the 3.2 million voters they estimate will be affected by new photo ID laws, “the 240,000 citizens and potential voters who could be affected by new proof of citizenship laws, 202,000 voters registered in 2008 through voter registration drives that have now been made extremely difficult or impossible under new laws, 60,000 voters registered in 2008 through Election Day voter registration where it has now been repealed, one to two million voters who voted in 2008 on days eliminated under new laws rolling back early voting and at least 100,000 disenfranchised citizens who might have regained voting rights by 2012.”

“These voting law changes are radical and completely unnecessary,” Wendy. R. Weiser, a co-author of the report, said in a statement. “They especially hurt those who have been historically locked out of our electoral system, like minorities, poor people, and students. Often they seem precisely targeted to exclude certain voters.”

via Restrictions Could Keep Five Million Traditionally Democratic Voters From The Polls In 2012 | TPMMuckraker.

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