Posts tagged 2012

Dykman Street subway station, Manhattan

There are 55 million single women in the United States. If they got motivated, they are a big enough block to swing the election.
Stephanie Mencimer, in Mother Jones

Mitt Romney declining to disclose names of campaign bundlers

Romney is not required by law to disclose the identities of his fundraisers with the exception of those who work as federal lobbyists. Releasing the names of bundlers, however, has been standard in presidential campaigns for more than a decade.

Republican George W. Bush established the pattern in the 2000 election, revealing the names of fundraisers who collected at least $100,000. He repeated the practice in 2004. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee four years ago, had disclosed his fundraisers by this point in the 2008 campaign, releasing a list of 106 bundlers on April 18 of that year. …

President Obama has released his fundraiser list every three months during this campaign. …

Romney campaign officials did not respond to several interview requests this week. Last year, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told USA TODAY that Romney discloses “the information about our donors as required by law.”

Poetry of the Subject Line

sallykohn:

This is pretty awesome, from PdF:  

Do you have a minute?
Marriage
What got me to apply
I am just so happy
My best friend
Romney economics
Romney’s qualifications
1,959,743 Americans and counting
“The defeat of Barack Hussein Obama”
GottaVote.org
My place, June 14th
I’m hosting
An evening with two presidents
Sarah Jessica is hosting
Anna Wintour, too
—B.H. Obama, May 2012

Going up
I need your vote today
Lucky you
Thank you, America
Almost over
Elections are about choices
It’s still the economy
We’re not stupid
Not fooling us
Meeting you
—W.M. Romney, May 2012

techpresident.com

Meet Wayne Powell, the retired Army colonel running to replace Eric Cantor in Virginia's 7th congressional district

Newt’s campaign over? Reports suggest Gingrich will drop out Tuesday

shortformblog:

  • cause Facing an array of issues that suggested he didn’t have a shot — tons of campaign debt, unorthodox fundraising and media coverage that focused almost entirely on Mitt, Newt banked his hopes in last night’s primaries on Delaware — and didn’t win anything at all.
  • effect Now, nearly a month after more realistic competitor Rick Santorum did the same thing, Newt is planning to drop out, according to multiple sources. The GOP candidate reportedly pans to drop out on Tuesday, and will likely endorse Mitt Romney. source

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Is it too flippant to say that Gingrich’s candidacy, for all intents and purposes, ended around mid-May of 2011, when he declared it?

shortformblog

The Romney camp has a statement about their candidate’s 2011 tax returns. I had a free 15 minutes, so I wrote them a better one: Mitt and Ann Romney have made available an estimate of their 2011 tax returns. If you’re reading this yourself, as opposed to having the help dictate it to you while you roll around in piles of money, it’s safe to assume they paid a lower tax rate than you did. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 percent. The Romneys (Romnii?) have paid taxes in the full amount that they owe. Additionally, they give money — lots of it! — to “charities.” If you speak IRS, this means they give money to organizations recognized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. If you speak human, this means they give money to organizations that may or may not be using it to do meaningful things that benefit the needy and less privileged. In any event — and we can’t stress this point enough — they don’t own the government anything under current law. If you have a problem with this, perhaps you should direct your anger towards Congress, which can change the laws that keep Mr. Romney’s tax rate so profoundly low relative to everyone else’s whenever they feel like it. Mitt Romney is running for president, a position of awesome power and responsibility. However, the president does not write tax policy. If he/she did… oh boy, think of how much easier this would all be. As for the notion that a President Romney would bully Congress into passing tax reform that disproportionately benefits the rich: Have you honestly seen our guy? He’s rigid as a totem pole and as intimidating as cat’s mew. As president, he’d sign anything — literally anything at all — you threw in front of him. His 2011 returns aren’t really newsworthy. Move along…

The Romney camp has a statement about their candidate’s 2011 tax returns. I had a free 15 minutes, so I wrote them a better one:

Mitt and Ann Romney have made available an estimate of their 2011 tax returns. If you’re reading this yourself, as opposed to having the help dictate it to you while you roll around in piles of money, it’s safe to assume they paid a lower tax rate than you did. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 percent.

The Romneys (Romnii?) have paid taxes in the full amount that they owe. Additionally, they give money — lots of it! — to “charities.” If you speak IRS, this means they give money to organizations recognized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. If you speak human, this means they give money to organizations that may or may not be using it to do meaningful things that benefit the needy and less privileged.

In any event — and we can’t stress this point enough — they don’t own the government anything under current law. If you have a problem with this, perhaps you should direct your anger towards Congress, which can change the laws that keep Mr. Romney’s tax rate so profoundly low relative to everyone else’s whenever they feel like it.

Mitt Romney is running for president, a position of awesome power and responsibility. However, the president does not write tax policy. If he/she did… oh boy, think of how much easier this would all be.

As for the notion that a President Romney would bully Congress into passing tax reform that disproportionately benefits the rich: Have you honestly seen our guy? He’s rigid as a totem pole and as intimidating as cat’s mew. As president, he’d sign anything — literally anything at all — you threw in front of him. His 2011 returns aren’t really newsworthy. Move along…

Somewhat topical.

Somewhat topical.

Politico:

“I think it should be Sarah Palin,” McCain said on CBS as he broke into laughter, when asked about Palin’s suggestion Tuesday night that the eventual presidential nominee should “go rogue” in their VP selection.

Asked by the laughing hosts of “This Morning” whether he had spoken to Palin about this, the Arizona senator said, “No, I haven’t.”

National Journal: “So far, according to exit polls posted on CNN.com, whites have cast at least 90 percent of the votes in every Republican primary except Florida (83 percent) and Arizona (89 percent). In every other state except Michigan (92 percent) and Nevada (90 percent) whites have comprised at least 94 percent of the GOP vote this year. That includes Georgia (94), Virginia (94), Ohio (96), Oklahoma (96), Tennessee (97), South Carolina (98), Massachusetts (98), Iowa (99), New Hampshire (99), and Vermont (99).”