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isabella R

Mitt Romney Reaped Huge Tax Benefits Based On 'Active' Role At Bain Capital - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...mney-bain-taxes_n_1828816.html

election taxes Bain_Capital tax capital money news corruption lies Mitt Romney politics

shared by isabella R on 26 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 26 Aug 12
     
    The distinction is valuable, for the IRS treats passive and active income and losses differently. If a passive investment loses money, the taxpayer can only write off that loss if passive gains have also been made and only at a 15 percent rate. But active losses can be written off at a 35 percent rate and deducted from the taxpayer's ordinary income. In other words, a taxpayer wants active losses, not passive losses. So by describing many of his investments as active, Romney saves himself millions of dollars in taxes. With those active investments, he is also securing a tax break few Americans enjoy: When he wins, he's paying a 15 percent rate on the gain. When he loses, he's writing it off at 35 percent, meaning that tax policy is subsidizing Romney's risk in his Bain investments.
isabella R

9 Things That Show Mitt Romney Is Morally Bankrupt | Alternet - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...w-mitt-romney-morally-bankrupt

politics money corruption lies Mitt Romney taxes

shared by isabella R on 11 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • 1. The smug non-smoker took big bucks to push smoking on Russians
  • Slams government economic investment despite having taken government contracts.
  • Opposes abortion, but invested in company that disposes of aborted fetuses
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • ecries corruption in other countries but facilitated it in his own
  • Insults low-income Americans for not paying federal income tax, while not paying federal income tax on almost all of his income.
  • Calls for more transparency from his opponent while hiding his own tax returns, squirreling millions offshore and using accounting tricks to lower his tax rate
  • Painted his opponent as a fibbing child while building an entire campaign on lies.
  • Republican presidential candidate compared the African-American president to his "boys," who, when they were little, he said, would pile fib upon fib thinking they could fool their dad.
  • Claims to have the "best interests of the African American community" in his heart while running a race-baiting campaign
  • Wears the mantle of protectionist, China-battling job creator after having put thousands of U.S. workers out of jobs and bought into a giant Chinese sweatshop.
  • isabella R on 11 Oct 12
     
    s
isabella R

Paul Ryan: A follower of St. Thomas Aquinas or Ayn Rand? | National Catholic Reporter - 0 views

ncronline.org/...-st-thomas-aquinas-or-ayn-rand

politics money Mitt Romney Paul Ryan lies taxes catholic religion

shared by isabella R on 21 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • In fact, many of Ryan's ideas and policies appear to be directly at odds with Catholic teaching.
  • The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center calls this "an effort to have low- and middle-class households bear the entire burden of closing the fiscal gap and bear the costs of financing an additional tax cut for high income households.
  • Ryan says he would mitigate this effect by scrapping various tax exemptions, but he hasn't specified them. How does this square with Pope John XXIII's statement that tax burdens should "be proportioned to the capacity of the people contributing"?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Experts reckon that inequalities in America have widened to levels not seen since the early 1900s, but Ryan seems to want them wider still. Back in 1931, Pope Pius XI denounced "the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless." American poverty may be less extreme now than then, but a study by the Economic Policy Institute shows that in 2004 the poorest 20 percent of Americans had "negative wealth" (more debts than assets). That was before the subprime disaster.
  • Ryan's willingness to see the superrich still richer can only be justified on the anarcho-capitalist principle that "taxation is theft," which reflects the libertarian belief that one has absolute, unlimited rights to whatever assets one lawfully acquires. But the church explicitly teaches that property rights are not absolute. Hear Pope John Paul II: "The right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone." Or St. Thomas: "Man ought to own external things not as his own, but as common, so that ... he is ready to communicate them to others in their need."
isabella R

Mitt Romney is a Rich Man Who Can Buy Everything But a Clue - 0 views

www.politicususa.com/-romney-rich-man-buy-clue.html

politics money corruption lies Mitt Romney taxes religion Paul Ryan

shared by isabella R on 02 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • It is also becoming apparent that Willard Romney is having issues related to his arrogance and inability to tell the truth that prompted Mrs. Willard to say “I think my biggest worry would be for his mental well-being.” Romney’s well-being is predicated on never being questioned or challenged, and as some in the media are finally asking questions he cannot or will not answer, he looks clueless. It must be trying for a man used to being the smartest guy in the board room to have to dodge simple questions about his alleged economic prowess, or how his tax plan does not favor the wealthy or punish the poor and middle class
  • isabella R on 02 Oct 12
     
    It is also becoming apparent that Willard Romney is having issues related to his arrogance and inability to tell the truth that prompted Mrs. Willard to say "I think my biggest worry would be for his mental well-being." Romney's well-being is predicated on never being questioned or challenged, and as some in the media are finally asking questions he cannot or will not answer, he looks clueless. It must be trying for a man used to being the smartest guy in the board room to have to dodge simple questions about his alleged economic prowess, or how his tax plan does not favor the wealthy or punish the poor and middle class
isabella R

Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video | Mother Jones - 0 views

www.motherjones.com/...cript-mitt-romney-secret-video

shared by isabella R on 28 Sep 12 - No Cached
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 28 Sep 12
       
      You are right, which is a nuclear Iran is an unthinkable outcome, not just for our friends in Israel and our friends in Europe, but also for us. Because Iran is the state sponsor of terror in the world, has Hezbollah now throughout Latin America, Hezbollah with fissile material.  FACT CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • f I were Iran, and a crazed fanatic,
  • This is where we head, where American can be held up and blackmailed by Iran, by the mullahs, by crazy people
  • ...62 more annotations...
  • So we really don't have any option but to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
  • I'll step back on foreign policy: The president's foreign policy, in my opinion, is formed in part by a perception that he has that his magnetism and his charm and his persuasiveness is so compelling
  • It's speaking softly but carrying a very, very, very big stick. And this president instead speaks loudly and carries a tiny stick.
  • I saw Dr. Kissinger in New York—you're not eating!
  • He's bored to tears. [Audience laughs.] I saw Dr. Kissinger; I said to him, "How are we perceived around the world?" And he said, "One word: VEAK!" [Audience laughs.]
  • If you get the call as president, and you had hostages…Ronald Reagan was able to make a statement, even before he became, was actually sworn in— Romney: Yeah— Audience member: the hostages were released— Romney: on the day of his inauguration, yeah. Audience member: So my question is, really, how can you sort of duplicate that scenario? Romney: Ohhhh. [A few chuckles in audience.] I'm gonna ask you, how do I duplicate that scenario.
  • I think that had to do with the fact that the Iranians perceived Reagan would do something to really get them out. In other words [unintelligible]…and that's why I'm suggesting that something that you say over the next few months gets the Iranians to understand that their pursuit of the bomb is something that you would predict and I think that's something that could possibly resonate very well with American Republican voters.
  • when I do three or four events like this,
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 28 Sep 12
       
      Romney: I appreciate the idea. I can't-one of the other things that's frustrating to me is that at a typical day like this, when I do three or four events like this, Romney: I appreciate the idea. I can't-one of the other things that's frustrating to me is that at a typical day like this, when I do three or four events like this,...!!!!!!!
  • Individuals in this room obviously are your supporters. I am very concerned
  • that the average American,
  • who doesn't know you, there's a terrible misconception. And I spend numerous hours trying to [unintelligible]. Years and years ago, I called George Bush Sr., and he had helped me in my campaign in Massachusetts when I ran for Senate. I told him that there's a guy named Clinton who's running for the following reasons.
  • Right now, I'm very concerned…Women would not want to be involved for you.
  • Hispanics, majority of them do not want to vote for you.
  • College students don't. After talking to them, and explaining and rationalizing on a one-on-one basis, we are able to change their opinions
  • But on a mass level, what do you want us to do, this group here,
  • as your emissaries,
  • going out to convert these individuals to someone who's obviously going to be such an incredible asset to this country
  • But what do we do? Just tell us what we can help…
  • I have—I have some good news for you. It's not impossible.
  • they don't know what they were doing
  • women are open to supporting me. They like the president [unintelligible], but they're disappointed. They're disappointed with the jobs they're seeing for their kids, they're disappointed with their own economic standing right now.
  • So we can capture women's votes,
  • what I need you to do is to raise millions of dollars,
  • Because, well, because you don't have the capacity to speak to hundreds of thousands of people. I will be in those debates. It will be, I don't know, 150 million Americans watching. If I do well, it'll help. If I don't, it won't help…
  • Audience member: You will do so well. Your debates are incredible. [Audience laughs, claps.]
  • But you know, I'm not terribly well known by the general American public, because… Audience member: You're known as a rich boy. I mean, they say, "He's a rich man."
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 28 Sep 12
       
      But you know, I'm not terribly well known by the general American public, because… Audience member: You're known as a rich boy. I mean, they say, "He's a rich man."
  • young children coming out of college
  • Why don't you stick up for yourself?
  • To me, you should be so proud of your wealth. That's what we all aspire to be—we kill ourselves, we don't work a nine to five.
  • We're away from our families five days a week. I'm away from my four girls five days a week and my wife. Why not stick up for yourself and say, "Why is it bad to be, to aspire to be wealthy and successful?
  • And then I quote Marco Rubio, I tell in my speeches, I say, Marco Rubio—I think what I said would be [unintelligible]…I also think I said that at a fundraising event earlier today, but I did when I was in Empire…[unintelligible] [Audience laughs.]…I just said Sen. Rubio says that when he grew up here, poor, that they looked at people that had a lot of wealth, and his parents never once said, "We need some of what they have, they should give us some." Instead they said that you work hard and go to school, someday we might be able to have enough
  • For the last three years, all everybody's been told is, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you." How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections, to convince everybody you've got to take care of yourself?
  • Romney: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…
  • And we have responsibility for the whole world.
  • hey'll probably be looking at what the polls are saying. If it looks like I'm going to win, the markets will be happy
  • How are you going to win if 54 percent of the voters think China's economy is bigger than ours? Or if it costs 4 cents to make a penny and we keep making pennies?
  • Canada got it right a month ago. Why isn't someone saying, "Stop making pennies, round it to the nearest nickel?"
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 28 Sep 12
       
      How are you going to win if 54 percent of the voters think China's economy is bigger than ours? Or if it costs 4 cents to make a penny and we keep making pennies? Canada got it right a month ago. Why isn't someone saying, "Stop making pennies, round it to the nearest nickel?" Y
  • If you turned it into like, "Eat what you kill," it'd be a landslide. In my humble opinion.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 28 Sep 12
       
      If you turned it into like, "Eat what you kill," it'd be a landslide. In my humble opinion.
  • Being right early is not good in politics." And in a setting like this—a highly intellectual subject, a discussion of a whole series of important topics—typically doesn't win elections.
  • Keep the change. [Audience laughs.]
  • I didn't realize these guys in the US, the Karl Rove equivalents, they do races all over the world. In Armenia. In Africa. In Israel. I mean, they work for Bibi Netanyahu in his races. So they do his races and see which ads work and which processes work best and, uh, we have ideas about what we do over the course of the campaign. I'd tell them to you, but I'd have to, you know, shoot ya. [Audience laughs.] Hopefully it will be a successful place.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 28 Sep 12
       
      I didn't realize these guys in the US, the Karl Rove equivalents, they do races all over the world. In Armenia. In Africa. In Israel.  I mean, they work for Bibi Netanyahu in his races. So they do his races and see which ads work  and which processes work best and, uh, we have ideas about what we do over the course of the campaign. I'd tell them to you, but I'd have to, you know,  shoot ya. [Audience laughs.] Hopefully it will be a successful place.
  • And I think that's a campaign issue that can work well. I'm optimistic that you'll be elected president. And my recommendation would be clean house, immediately. The SEC, the CFEC are disaster areas.
  • I wish they weren't unionized, so we could go a lot deeper than you're actually allowed to go.
  • But we, you see, you and I,
  • I think a lot of people, especially you know, [unintelligible] I think people would see you in a different light. I think a lot of women especially do not watch debates.
  • Although The View is high risk because of the five women on it, only one is conservative. Four are sharp-tongued and not conservative, Whoopi Goldberg in particular. Although last time I was on the show, she said to me, "You know what? I think I could vote for you."
  • And I said, "I must have done something really wrong."
  • And I guess everybody here is a dignitary
  • "—so I'm happy to take advice and then we can all vote on it, whether it's a good piece of advice or bad advice. And so we'll get a chance to do that, but I'm looking to get your perspectives. J
  • When I was probably halfway through my career at Bain Consulting, I met with a lawyer to draft a will, and she said, "How do you want to divide what estate you might eventually have?"
  • I don't want to give anything to the grandchildren—I'll give it to the sons, and they in turn will give it to their children as needed."
  • "You'll change your mind." And I said, "No, I don't think so." So I saw her not long ago, and I said, "I don't want to give anything to my sons, I want to give it [to all to my grandchildren.] [Audience laughs.]
  • So that's why I wanna make sure
  • what little I'll have left after the campaigns
  • goes to you know, goes to my grandchildren
  • Elizabeth Warren—she's the woman who's running for US Senate in Massachusetts, who said that she's Cherokee,
  • Can you imagine working every day,
isabella R

The Most Damning Line in the Secret Romney Video | Mother Jones - 0 views

www.motherjones.com/...mning-line-secret-romney-video

politics money corruption lies taxes Mitt Romney Paul Ryan

shared by isabella R on 28 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 28 Sep 12
     
    Here was Romney sharing his view that Americans who don't make enough money to pay income taxes and his fellow citizens who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, or other government programs are lesser people than he and the millionaires before him. These people, Romney was saying, are not adults; they do not, and will not, fend for themselves or do what they must to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, and care for themselves and their family members. It was an arrogant insult spoken with true detachment. This was 100-percent 1-percent. Mitt Romney built that.
isabella R

Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America: Book III Chapter 1 - 0 views

xroads.virginia.edu/...ch3_01.htm

Tocqueville books politics government American History class

shared by isabella R on 12 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • In 1675 the lower classes in Brittany revolted at the imposition of a new tax. These disturbances were put down with unexampled severity. Observe the language in which Madame de Sevigne, a witness of these horrors, relates them to her daughter:
  • Your letter from Aix, my daughter, is droll enough. At least, read your letters over again before sending them, allow yourself to be surprised by the pretty things that you have put into them and console yourself by this pleasure for the trouble you have had in writing so many. Then you have kissed all of Provence, have you? There would be no satisfaction in kissing all Brittany, unless one liked to smell of wine. . . . Do you wish to hear the news from Rennes? A tax of a hundred thousand crowns has been imposed upon the citizens; and if this sum is not produced within four-and-twenty hours, it is to be doubled, and collected by the soldiers. They have cleared the houses and sent away the occupants of one of the great streets and forbidden anybody to receive them on pain of death; so that the poor wretches (old men, women near their confinement, and children included) may be seen wandering around and crying on their departure from this city, without knowing where to go, and without food or a place to lie in. Day before yesterday a fiddler was broken on the wheel for getting up a dance and stealing some stamped paper. He was quartered after death, and his limbs exposed at the four corners of the city. Sixty citizens have been thrown into prison, and the business of punishing them is to begin tomorrow. This province sets a fine example to the others teaching them above all that of respecting the governors and their wives, and of never throwing stones into their garden.1 Yesterday, a delightful day, Madame de Tarente visited these wilds; there is no question about preparing a chamber or a collation; she comes by the gate, and returns the same way. . . .
  • You talk very pleasantly about our miseries, but we are no longer so jaded with capital punishments; only one a week now, just to keep up appearances. It is true that hanging now seems to me quite a cooling entertainment. I have got a wholly new idea of justice since I have been in this region. Your galley-slaves seem to me a society of good people who have retired from the world in order to lead a quiet life.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • It would be a mistake to suppose that Madame de Sevigne, who wrote these lines, was a selfish or cruel person; she was passionately attached to her children and very ready to sympathize in the sorrows of her friends; nay, her letters show that she treated her vassals and servants with kindness and indulgence. But Madame de Sevigne had no clear notion of suffering in anyone who was not a person of quality.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 12 Sep 12
       
      OR, Mr. Alexis de Tocqueville, an example of the "Banality of Evil".  Top Nazis also loved their family and could be warm and congenial
  • In our time the harshest man, writing to the most insensible person of his acquaintance, would not venture to indulge in the cruel jocularity that I have quoted; and even if his own manners allowed him to do so, the manners of society at large would forbid it. Whence does this arise? Have we more sensibility than our fathers? I do not know that we have, but I am sure that our sensibility is extended to many more objects.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 12 Sep 12
       
      Well all I can say Mr. Alexis de Tocqueville: Welcome to America of 2012, where cruel jocularity passed for serious journalism and everyday small talk.
  • When all the ranks of a community are nearly equal, as all men think and feel in nearly the same manner, each of them may judge in a moment of the sensations of all the others; he casts a rapid glance upon himself, and that is enough. There is no wretchedness into which he cannot readily enter, and a secret instinct reveals to him its extent. It signifies not that strangers or foes are the sufferers; imagination puts him in their place; something like a personal feeling is mingled with his pity and makes himself suffer while the body of his fellow creature is in torture.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 12 Sep 12
       
      Mr. Alexis de Tocqueville, some of the worst practices of this pastime is practiced by those who claim to be "True"christians, rather than...I am not sure what our fellow christians really think of us who do not hold their politcal  views...because, if they know nothing else, they know their bibles and know they cannot judge our hearts, which only God can see.  However, everything else is up for open display and dissection
  • isabella R on 12 Sep 12
     
    HOW CUSTOMS ARE SOFTENED AS SOCIAL CONDITIONS BECOME MORE EQUAL We perceive that for several centuries social conditions have tended to equality, and we discover that at the same time the customs of society have been softened. Are these two things merely contemporaneous or does any secret link exist between them so that the one cannot advance without the other? Several causes may concur to render the customs of a people less rude but of all these causes the most powerful appears to me to be the equality of conditions. Equality of conditions and greater mildness in customs are, then, in my eyes, not only contemporaneous occurrences, but correlative facts.
isabella R

Enlightened Catholicism: In Germany: Catholics Must Pay To Pray - 0 views

enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/...atholics-must-pay-to-pray.html

catholicism Germany politics money corruption taxes religion Roman Catholic

shared by isabella R on 24 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 24 Sep 12
     
    It does illuminate at least one thing about the institutional church that is still applicable in the US. At any point when the church has half a chance to use to coercive power of government to enforce its own rules - it will in fact do so
isabella R

9 Things That Show Mitt Romney Is Morally Bankrupt | Alternet - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...w-mitt-romney-morally-bankrupt

politics money corruption lies Mitt Romney taxes Paul Ryan

shared by isabella R on 11 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • ere are but nine bits of evidence of the moral bankruptcy of Willard Mitt Romney. There exist many more, but life is short.
  • 1. The smug non-smoker took big bucks to push smoking on Russians
isabella R

Where Did Paul Ryan Find Inspiration for 'Reforming' Social Security? A Brutal Military... - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...y-brutal-military-dictatorship

Paul Ryan dictatorship facism facist chile military politics money corruption lies Mitt Romney taxes

shared by isabella R on 01 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 01 Nov 12
     
      ECONOMY   AlterNet / By Bruce Wilson  25 COMMENTS Where Did Paul Ryan Find Inspiration for 'Reforming' Social Security? A Brutal Military Dictatorship, Naturally The basis for Ryan's big plan was hatched under the radical right-wing Chilean torture regime of 1973 military coup leader Augusto Pinochet.
isabella R

Shocking Study: Suicide Overtakes Car Accidents As Leading Cause of Death -- Is the Eco... - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...ding-cause-death-economy-blame

suicide economy politics money corruption injustice lies taxes

shared by isabella R on 25 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 25 Sep 12
     
    An extremely disturbing new study published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that  suicides have replaced car accidents  as the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. This is partly because deaths from automobile accidents are down - that's the good news. But the truly catastrophic news is that the suicide rate has increased dramatically: between 2000 and 2009, according to data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, deaths by suicide went up by 15%, and deaths from poisoning increased by a whopping 128%. Moreover, researchers say that many of the poisoning deaths, which are labeled as "accidental," may actually be intentional. According to the study's author, Professor Ian Rockett, an epidemiologist at West Virginia University, "Suicides are terribly undercounted; I think the problem is much worse than official data would lead us to believe." He added "there may be 20 percent or more unrecognized suicides."
isabella R

Enlightened Catholicism: German Court Confirms The Bishops Pay To Pray Decree - 0 views

enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/...t-confirms-bishops-pay-to.html

catholicism Germany money taxes politics corruption lies religion Roman Catholic

shared by isabella R on 27 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • It's all pay or you don't pray.
  • isabella R on 27 Sep 12
     
    collusion between Church and State
isabella R

7 Highlights You Missed From the Romney Video | Mother Jones - 0 views

www.motherjones.com/...omney-secret-fundraising-video

mother jones politics money corruption lies taxes Mitt Romney Paul Ryan Bain Capital injustice

shared by isabella R on 28 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • …in the Jimmy Carter election, the fact that we have hostages in Iran, I mean, that was all we talked about. And we had the two helicopters crash in the desert, I mean that's—that was—that was the focus, and so [Reagan] solving that made all the difference in the world. I'm afraid today if you said, 'We got Iran to agree to stand down a nuclear weapon,' they'd go hold on. It's really a, but…by the way, if something of that nature presents itself, I will work to find a way to take advantage of the opportunity."
  • …if we win
  • November 6th there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back, and we'll see—without actually doing anything—we'll actually get a boost in the economy."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Joking about media strategy and his reputation as a "rich, rich guy": "You know that I'm as poor as a church mouse."
  • nd I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."
  • It was a veritable let-us-eat-cake moment: "One of the benefits I get is eating the world's best dessert, which I will. [Audience laughs.] Thank you. [Applause.]"
  • isabella R on 28 Sep 12
     
    It was a veritable let-us-eat-cake moment: "One of the benefits I get is eating the world's best dessert, which I will. [Audience laughs.] Thank you. [Applause.]"
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