Early Returns in Special Election Primary (Updated)
April 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: With 76,733 ballots cast (only 23.68% turnout) here are the unofficial early returns: Democrat Ron Barber is the top vote getter with 33,034 votes counted so far. This is sad turnout, people. These are the kinds of numbers you see in a noncompetitive state legislative district race. Note: Pima County Totals UPDATE: Here … Read more
NRA pays The Nuge $50,000 to threaten Obama
April 17, 2012
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by David Safier What, you thought Ted Nugent threatens Obama at the NRA convention for free? (See the post below for what Nugent said to make the Secret Service take notice.) Hardly. He charges $50,000. This is from the NRA Report to the Annual Meeting of Members sent out April 14, 2012 (Download the whole … Read more
Romney surrogate Ted Nugent gets a visit from the Secret Service, Media Villagers (yawn)
April 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Has-been rocker Ted Nugent recently endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Two weeks ago, Romney's son Tagg had this to say about Nugent's endorsement.
After all the manufactured controversy media storm over TeaNN (formerly CNN) contributor Hillary Rosen's comment about Ann Romney last week, whom the Romney campaign and the RNC falsely tried to tie to the Obama campaign under a "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" guilt by association jiu jitsu, it is shocking that these very same media villagers failed entirely to report these comments from Romney surrogate Ted Nugent on Sunday at the NRA convention in St. Louis. Ted Nugent on Dems: Ride Into That Battlefield and Chop Off Their Heads–UPDATED:
As Josh Glasstetter at Right Wing Watch noted, "With surrogates like Nugent, Romney should have no trouble alienating moderates." They caught this clip (below) with Ted Nugent stumping for Mitt Romney at the NRA convention in St. Louis over the weekend.
Ted Nugent Stumps for Mitt Romney at NRA Convention: “Chop their heads off in November” (VIDEO):
Nugent called President Obama a criminal and denounced his “vile, evil America-hating administration” which is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” Taking it a step further, he said that “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” “If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done,” he continued. Supreme Court justices also came under assault by Nugent, who claims that the court’s more liberal members have signed a declaration against Americans’ right to self-defense:
“We’ve got four Supreme Court justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. Does everyone here know that four of the Supreme Court justices not only determined you don’t have the right to keep and bear arms, four Supreme Court justices signed their name to a declaration that Americans have no fundamental right to self-defense.”
Nugent concluded with a call to cut off the heads of Democrats in November: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?”
As you might imagine, The Secret Service doesn't appear amused:
Ted Nugent’s threatening remarks about President Obama at the annual National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis have earned him a follow-up conversation with the Secret Service. On Sunday, the singer remarked that “if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The Secret Service, which investigates all threats against the President, confirmed to New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog that they have in fact flagged Nugent’s comment. “We are aware of it, and we’ll conduct an appropriate follow up,” the agent told the magazine.
Tagg Romney — would you care to comment?
Video below the fold.
ALEC takes a step back from voter suppression and gun legislation
April 17, 2012
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by David Safier
This is the latest in a string of events showing that ALEC is losing some of its clout, from being dragged out of the shadows by a number of progressive organizations and blogs, to being connected with the Shoot First laws it has promoted around the country, to having a number of corporate donors drop their support.
Now, ALEC has announced it will end its task force that dealt with Non-Economic Issues. That, according to the ALEC press release, refers to "the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force."
This is huge. ALEC has bowed to pressure and decided to stop pushing its voter suppression and NRA-related legislation. I'm not so naive as to think these tasks won't be jobbed out to other conservative groups, but simply making ALEC blink is huge — and really, no one else is as good at disseminating right wing legislation across the country as ALEC.
You can read the press release about ALEC's decision from The Second Chance on Shoot First Campaign below the fold. The group "is a partnership of ColorofChange.org, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, the National Action Network, the NAACP, the National Urban League and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg."
David Cay Johnston: It’s good to be a Romney
April 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This post from tax expert David Cay Johnston is from January, but since today is Tax Day, it is timely. Let's take a look at one of Willard "Mittens" Romney's gift-tax avoidance strategies. Romney’s gift from Congress:
When the Romney campaign disclosed in December that the couple’s five sons had a $100 million trust fund, I suspected that, in setting up the fund, the Romneys used a tax strategy that allows some very rich people to avoid paying gift taxes. But it was impossible to know if this was the case without seeing their tax returns going back years.
So when Mitt Romney released the family’s 2010 tax return last week, I went looking. I found a hint on pages 132 and 134 of the return. It showed that the value of property placed that year into another family trust, the Ann D. Romney Blind Trust, was, for tax purposes, zero. The Ann Romney trust is not the same trust as the one that holds the Romney sons’ $100 million, but I wondered if the Romneys used the same approach in prior years when it came to valuing property placed into the sons’ trust.
Reuters emailed the Romney campaign spokeswoman to ask how much the Romneys paid in gift taxes on assets put into the sons’ trust over the last 17 years. The spokeswoman, citing Brad Malt, the Romney family tax lawyer, answered: none.
h/t Daily Kos
The idea that someone could pay zero gift taxes on contributions to a $100 million trust fund may surprise people who have heard arguments that the wealthy are overburdened by gift and estate taxes. But the Romneys’ gift-tax avoidance strategy is perfectly legal.
Romney kicks SB1070 architect Kris Kobach to the curb
April 17, 2012
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by David Safier Get ready for Mitt to go soft on Hispanics after drawing a very hard line in the sand, and on the border. He's distancing himself from Kris Kobach, the brains behind Russell Pearce's SB1070 (You knew there had to be someone with brains behind it, right?) It wasn't always so. In January, … Read more
WWJD? Not Jesse Kelly’s Tithe Flat Tax
April 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The other day i was reading the Arizona Daily Star's stenographical reporting on the last GOP debate for the CD 8 Special Election (why doesn't the Star just let the candidates write their own copy, that way they wouldn't have to pay anyone), when I was struck by something that Jesse Kelly said in debate, GOP congressional contenders lay out their views on tax reform:
Repeating what he's said many times before, he proposed a 10-percent flat tax.
"Every single American should pay the exact same tax rate," Kelly said. "If 10 percent is good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for the federal government. They can find a way to make that number work."
It won't happen overnight, he conceded, but that should be the goal…
If 10 percent is good enough for Jesus? Now I have to assume Kelly was speaking in theocratic dog whistle to the Christian Reconstructionist and Dominionist base of the GOP, because the man clearly does not know his New Testament.
Tithing is Old Testament Jewish law. And Jesus had very little to say about in the New Testament. I have looked through numerous Biblical phrases search engines, and here is a good to-the-point summary that is consistent with the other searches. What Does Jesus Say About Tithing? | eHow.com:
In the New Testament, Jesus mentions tithing three times, and each time it is a form of reprimand to the attitude of the Pharisees about tithing. He did not instruct his followers to tithe, and seems to have had nothing further to say about the matter.
Atrios’ Wanker of the Decade: Tom Friedman
April 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Oh! i should have known. Atrios at Eschaton blog has posted his "Wanker of the Decade," THE ONE TRUE WANKER OF THE DECADE, Tom Friedman, he of "Friedman Unit" fame ("give it another six months"): Friedman possesses all of the qualities that make a pundit truly wankerific. He fetishizes a false "centrism" … Read more
