Posts tagged mitt romney
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…
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, the childlike and excitable protagonist Prince Myshkin is told by his sweetheart that the worst thing he could do at an upcoming party is to break an expensive Chinese vase. Myshkin becomes consumed by the thought that he must not break it, and makes a point of sitting as far away from the vase as possible. But “an ineradicable conviction had taken possession of his mind that, however he might try to avoid this vase, he must certainly break it.” And of course, he does—upsetting the vase near the end of the party with one of his wild gestures.
Andrew Sullivan is holding a Romney caption contest. This should be fun.
It’s Halloween in the Romney household, and Willard’s putting on his chauffeur schtick again.
Ho, ho. Hot air. Get it? (via copyranter)
Romney was a “job creator”? Not a chance. The Romney Record at Bain.
Mitt Romney is someone that I would hire in a second to manage a good, old-fashioned round of layoffs. If there were a cabinet position that advised the president on how, exactly, employers are going to go about eliminating jobs, I’d want him in it. I would totally vote Mitt Romney in 2012 if there were compelling reasons to destroy a lot of production.
Oh thank you sweet baby jeebus…
It’s over.
Summary:
- Rick Perry had a meltdown. His train of thought derailed multiple times and he was slurring his words slightly.
- Mitt Romney’s hair was jauntily tousled and he probably gets a boost from this.
- Herman Cain proved he’s not a misogynist by referring to Rep. Nancy Pelosi as “Princess Nancy” and gave Jim Cramer a stroke by referencing 9-9-9 when Cramer said specifically not to at all.
- Michele Bachmann insulted poor people by saying they could pay taxes by buying “two less Happy Meals.”
- Ron Paul suggested students pay for college like they pay for cell phones and that getting rid of student loans will make the price go down. He alternated between Grandpa Simpson and soothsayer.
- Rick Santorum was lost because he couldn’t talk about abortions and gay people killing America.
- Newt Gingrich got his ass handed to him by moderators for claiming “media is not reporting accurately how the economy works.” At a CNBC debate.
- Jon Huntsman was the grown-up in the room, reminding everyone Americans watching this debate are hurting. They’re losing their jobs, their houses, and there’s no simple solution. He had ideas versus talking points. So he’s going to sink further than 1% in the polls.
Accurate. Read that last bullet point and think about what it means for the GOP for a moment.
Yeah, so this is a pretty big deal.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who only a few days ago was being pushed to run for president himself, will endorse Mitt Romney before tonight’s debate.
From the cutting-room floor: For this week’s issue of Newsweek, I wrote a cover story about why Mitt Romney can’t connect with other human beings. At the last minute, we decided to scrap my original lede for a newsier opening; we thought the story should touch on last Thursday’s Republican debate.
It was the right decision. Still, I really liked the original lede. That’s why I’m going publish it here, on my very own Tumblr, in all its glorious, rejected originalness:
What is Mitt Romney? It is very hard to tell. Right now, the former Massachusetts governor is wending his way through the Iowa State Fair, past funnel cake and fried ice cream, walking tacos and cheese curds. He is flanked by men waving large American flags. He is wearing a navy-blue polo shirt and a pair of John Varvatos brushed-cotton jeans, in olive. They retail for $225. With his black hair and white temples, he looks as if he is slowly morphing into a bald eagle.
Surrounding Romney is the same amoebic clot of reporters and photographers and boom-mike operators that seems to materialize whenever a potential president comes within a few hundred feet of a corn dog. The collective goal, as always with these things, is to pluck from the day’s proceedings a few details—a word here, a gesture there—that provide a glimpse, however fleeting, of the person behind the politician. The problem is that Romney’s most telling moments tend to have the opposite effect. They tend to reveal how little he is able, or willing, to reveal.
As Romney arrives at the Varied Industries Building, an aide emerges from the crowd with lunch: a pork chop on a stick. The boss takes a bite, and then, still chewing, strikes up a conversation with the nearest retiree, if “conversation” is the right word for what Romney does with voters, which usually involves repeating whatever they say to him immediately after they say it.
“That’s the best thing at the fair,” the retiree says, pointing to the pork.
“Is that the best thing at the fair?” Romney replies. He pivots to the retiree’s granddaughter. “What are you, about 7?”
“Eight,” she says.
“Eight,” Romney confirms. He swivels back to the retiree. “You in the ag world?”
“The insurance business,” the retiree says.
“Insurance business,” Romney responds. The retiree goes on to mention that he “lived on Clear Lake,” up near the Minnesota border, “for years.”
“Beautiful area,” says Romney. “I love water.” He takes another bite of his pork chop.
“Well, we better let you go,” the retiree finally says, glancing at the cameras. “We’re getting more airtime than you are.”
The rest is pretty much the same. Read it here.
Homosexuals are people, my friend.
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A blog about progressive politics, domestic policy, global affairs, conservation, and the like, with other interests thrown in occasionally for good measure.
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