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Romney Unplugged: Romney holds ‘47%’ of Americans in utter contempt
September 18, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This is pretty rich for a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run because he made a lot of money in vulture capitalism using his daddy's rolodex.
First, some background.
In October of 2011, red-meat conservative blogger Erick Erickson published a post at Red State declaring, "I am the 53 percent." The point of his post was to divide Americans between those who have enough taxable income after deductions and credits to owe federal income taxes, and the "47%" who do not. (They actually pay the tax, the government has the use of their money until they get a tax refund).
This quickly devolved into "makers" (the so-called "job creators") and "takers" (those receiving "government entitlements"). Conservatives called it the "politics of envy," and the "entitlement society." But in reality it is their old playbook of the "politics of resentment" towards the poor. A "We are the 53% Movement" sprung up as a response to the Occupy Movement's "We are the 99%."
It is the purest form of class warfare by the haves against the have-nots. As Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett famously described, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
When conservatives malign the "47%," this of course does not include the two-thirds of corporations that pay no federal income taxes, Most Companies Pay No Federal Income Tax – CBS News, nor the millionaires and billionaires of the investor class (aka The Predator Class) who pay no federal income taxes, IRS: Nearly 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009 – latimes.com, which very well may include Willard "Mittens" Romney who steadfastly refuses to release his tax returns to the American public. Some of these tax avoiders may even have been present at this Romney fundraiser.
With this background, let's turn to David Corn's explosive reporting at Mother Jones that has the Romney campaign reeling. SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters | Mother Jones:
During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:
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 the 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…These are people who pay no income tax.
Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
The CAP assault on the independence of the judiciary
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Tucson Citizen editor Mark Evans redeems himself today with the opinion published in the Arizona Daily Star on Monday in opposition to proposition 115, after his wrong-headed opinion on the "top two primary" last week. Vote no on Prop. 115 – judicial selection reform:
Should strict adherence to the Christian faith and adamant opposition to abortion be the deciding factors as to whether a lawyer is appointed as a Superior Court Judge in Pima or Maricopa counties, or to any of the state’s appellate courts?
How you answer that question may determine how you vote on Proposition 115, which seeks to reform the selection and retention rules for state appellate judges and Superior Court judges in those counties.
Most voters will receive their voter guide pamphlet in the mail in the next few weeks and there are many arguments for and against Prop. 115, most asserting that it either removes politics from the selection process or injects more politics into it.
But this is only partly about the politics of judicial selection and mostly about so-called Christian values. It’s a solution seeking a problem put forth by the Center for Arizona Policy, a Phoenix-based evangelical Christian organization that wields enormous influence over the Arizona Republican Party and whose leaders fervently believe that a “Biblical worldview” in public policy is essential for Arizona’s prosperity.
Arizona’s conservatives the past few years have been trying to remake state government to conform to their political vision and the Center for Arizona Policy is in the vanguard of that effort. Prop. 115 is its idea, it not only championed the proposition, but was directly involved in the negotiations over the ballot’s language.
GOP ‘trickle down’ economics disproved and discredited, once again
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: According to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, cutting taxes for the wealthiest does not result in economic growth, despite constant conservative claims to the contrary. But you already knew that. New Study Finds Tax Cuts For The Rich Cause Income Inequality, Not Economic Growth: Instead, tax cuts for the … Read more
Tea Party ‘True the Vote’ voter suppression efforts
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The New York Times finally caught up to the Tea Party voter suppression efforts by "True the Vote" in a lengthy report on Sunday. Looking, Very Closely, for Voter Fraud:
It might as well be Harry Potter’s invisible Knight Bus, because no one can prove it exists.
The bus has been repeatedly cited by True the Vote, a national group focused on voter fraud. Catherine Engelbrecht, the group’s leader, told a gathering in July about buses carrying dozens of voters showing up at polling places during the recent Wisconsin recall election.
“Magically, all of them needed to register and vote at the same time,” Ms. Engelbrecht said. “Do you think maybe they registered falsely under false pretenses? Probably so.”
Weeks later, another True the Vote representative told a meeting of conservative women about a bus seen at a San Diego polling place in 2010 offloading people “who did not appear to be from this country.”
Officials in both San Diego and Wisconsin said they had no evidence that the buses were real. “It’s so stealthy that no one is ever able to get a picture and no one is able to get a license plate,” said Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Wisconsin agency that oversees elections. In some versions the bus is from an Indian reservation; in others it is full of voters from Chicago or Detroit. “Pick your minority group,” he said.
[In 2010, Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly's Claims That Mexicans Are Being Bused In To Vote Were Dismissed By AZ Secretary Of State – the claims “are without merit.” Matthew Benson, then communications director for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, called it an “urban legend” and pointed out that “in terms of specific instances, we haven’t seen it.”]
The buses are part of the election fraud gospel according to True the Vote, which is mobilizing a small army of volunteers to combat what it sees as a force out to subvert elections. Ms. Engelbrecht’s July speech in Montana was titled “Voter Fraud: The Plot to Undermine American Democracy.”
True the Vote’s plan is to scrutinize the validity of voter registration rolls and voters who appear at the polls. Among those in their cross hairs: noncitizens who are registered to vote, those without proper identification, others who may be registered twice, and dead people. In Ohio and Indiana, True the Vote recently filed lawsuits to force officials to clean up voter rolls.
* * *
In a report this month, the liberal-leaning organizations Common Cause and Demos cited True the Vote as the central player in this effort, which it called a threat to the fundamental right to vote.
* * *
While [Ms. Englebrecht] portrays True the Vote as nonpartisan, it grew out of a Tea Party group, King Street Patriots, that she founded in Texas. An examination shows that it has worked closely with a variety of well-financed organizations, many unabashed in their desire to defeat President Obama.
A polished and provocative video, circulating among Tea Party activists, seeks to raise a “cavalry” to march on swing states and identifies True the Vote as a participant in the effort, called Code Red USA.
In the past year, Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, and other Republican-leaning independent groups have sponsored meetings featuring Ms. Engelbrecht and other True the Vote speakers.
Latino Decisions Tracking Poll: Obama advantage grows
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: "Mr. Self-deport," Willard "Mittens" Romney, is giving a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles on Monday. Yeah, good luck with that. The latest numbers from the tracking poll by Latino Decisions this morning shows Obama's advantage is growing: With seven weeks until the election Republican candidate Mitt … Read more
Obama campaign ad: ‘The Question’
September 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The "Galt – Gekko 2012" campaign has trotted out Saint Ronnie Reagan's tired old trope "are you better off than you were foure years ago?"
We have been over this point: "We have witnessed the rise of a new brand of conservatism, an odd blend of Ayn Rand, who rejected all forms of faith and religion, and rejected Christian altruism for "moral nihilism" (morality does not inherently exist, and any established moral values are abstractly contrived) and "ethical egoism" (people should act in their own self interest); and Gordon Gekko: "Greed is good." In short, a philosophy of "I've got mine, f#@& you!"
The selfish interest framing of this question reflects this self-interest. But the proper framing of the question is whether we together, as a nation, are better off than we were four years ago?
Do you rememember where we were four years ago this September? I do. We were nine months into a recession; the housing bubble had long since burst and foreclosures were skyrocketing; Lehman Brothers was the latest financial institution in a series of institutions to collapse under the weight of casino capitalism on Wall Street and there was market panic that the rest of the financial system would collapse with it; the stock market was in free-fall; mass lay-offs of workers were under way. We were staring into the maw of another Great Depression.
Are we together, as a nation, better off than we were four years ago? To paraphrase Weeper of the House John Boehner, "Hell yes we are!"
The Obama campaign makes this critical thinking point in its latest ad, "The Question," which responds to the "Galt – Gekko 2012" campaign's selfish interest "are you better off than you were foure years ago?"
Video below the fold.
Blogging the DNC2012: The inside scoop from the Tucson Progressive
September 17, 2012
by Pamela Powers Hannley
Want the inside scoop on blogging the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte? The parties? The people? The protests? The politics?
Check out my interview on The Lou Show.
If you want to hear my pearls of wisdom in person, come to the Laughing Liberally Tucson Comedy Showcase on Tuesday, September 18 at Casa Vincente. The show starts at 7 p.m.
Here I am with Arianna Huffington, a very gracious lady, and Krzystzof Piotrowski, another Huffington Post Off the Bus blogger, at the Huffington Post Oasis at the DNC. You can hear my interview and see part of his video after the jump.
Great Hearts Charters: Our educational model costs more than we get from the state
September 17, 2012
by
by David Safier Great Hearts Academy charter schools ask its parents to give between $1,200 and $1,500 per student per year. From the Scottsdale Preparatory Academy website: The essential priorities of Scottsdale Prep’s educational model cost more per-student than what we receive from the state. Therefore, we ask our families to contribute to the annual … Read more
