Aloha Politics

• A Lie Too Far: NBCNews Telling Some Truth About Romney’s Lies

  by TomP

• A shocking Obamacare fact no one realizes

  by sreeizzle2012

• BREAKING: Reporters Shoot Straight, Destroy Romney’s Fake “Storm Relief” Event

  by The Troubadour

• Bachmann update MN-06: totally burned at first debate

  by Bill Prendergast

• Bill Clinton shreds Romney’s asinine “Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans”remark

  by Lefty Coaster

• “Romney is going to win. He’s WAY ahead in the polls and early voting”

  by lighttheway

• Obama Campaign Asks Wis DOJ For Action on GOP Voter Suppression Plans (Update)

  by Puddytat

• President Obama is going to Win Again, by BEING the President

  by Vyan

• “Governor, You’ve Been Asked 14 Times…Why Are You Refusing To Answer The Question?” UPDX2

  by therehastobeaway

• Swung an Undecided voter in Ohio

  by themis

• That’s Gotta Sting: Christie to survey NJ damage w/Obama after dissing Romney

  by Brainwrap

• Raped 14-year old Denied Abortion

In a blog post Thursday, Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said that there was some disagreement among lawyers, but that he believed: “If challenged in court, Bain would lose. The Bain partners, in my opinion, misreported their income if they reported these converted fees as capital gain instead of ordinary income.”

A typical private equity or hedge fund pays its managers in part with a management fee based on the size of the fund, and in part with a share of the profits earned by the fund. Those profits are considered “carried interest” and taxed at capital gains rates, which in recent years have been 15 percent, assuming that the underlying investment profits qualified for that treatment.

The tax strategy Bain appears to have used is intended to convert the remaining management fee — the part not based on investment profits — into capital gains. Mr. Romney appears to benefit from the carried interest structure in these funds, but it is not clear from the documents made public whether he also benefits from the fee waiver. The Romney campaign declined to comment.

In an article that appeared in the journal Tax Notes in 2009, Gregg D. Polsky, a tax law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, called the tax strategy “extremely aggressive” and said it was “subject to serious challenge by the I.R.S.”

Go here to the NYT for the full story. Documents Show Details on Romney Family Trusts

And remember – Romney and hedge fund operators do NOT contribute to the economic well-being. They do NOT create well=paying jobs. They take money for their benefit, at low and/or subsidized tax rates, without truly benefiting either most Americans or American society as a whole. They are predators, they are vulture capitalists as Rick Perry rightly noted. They are selfish bastards.

Go here for the full story: Romney’s tax situation is a telling exemplar+

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Boston Globe story that confirms Romney left Bain in 2002–not 1999 as he so often lies.  This is important because it confirms that he:

1. Bankrupted even more companies
2. Sent jobs to China
3. Harvested fetuses for profit

Politico however has taken a very serious fourth approach that is quiet shocking.  FactCheck.org: Romney ‘would be guilty of a federal felony’ by claiming 1999 departure

Where the Money Lives

For all Mitt Romney’s touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney’s fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.

A person who worked for Mitt Romney at the consulting firm Bain and Co. in 1977 remembers him with mixed feelings. “Mitt was … a really wonderful boss,” the former employee says. “He was nice, he was fair, he was logical, he said what he wanted … he was really encouraging.” But Bain and Co., the person recalls, pushed employees to find out secret revenue and sales data on its clients’ competitors. Romney, the person says, suggested “falsifying” who they were to get such information, by pretending to be a graduate student working on a proj­ect at Harvard. (The person, in fact, was a Harvard student, at Bain for the summer, but not working on any such proj­ects.) “Mitt said to me something like ‘We won’t ask you to lie. I am not going to tell you to do this, but [it is] a really good way to get the information.’ … I would not have had anything in my analysis if I had not pretended.

“It was a strange atmosphere. It did leave a bad taste in your mouth,” the former employee recalls.

Why don’t you know the facts of the EU social safety net? Why won’t the plutocrat owned American media cover this?

In the European Union everyone to include low wage workers who aren’t even unionized are able to receive 4 weeks paid vacation a year. They are able to receive as a human right complete medical and dental to include a prescription plan with little or no co-pays or deductibles. They are never exposed to exclusion of medical services based on pre-existing conditions, which seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon. Everyone to include low wage workers gets paid sick leave. Everyone gets job protected paid maternity leave by right of law. Now why don’t these things exist in America? Is it by accident or by design and if it is by design, who designed it? Who profits from it? To whose benefit and whose detriment. Moreover why isn’t this on every news channel. Why is it you have to read about this on a Kos diary. Why isn’t this news headlines all across the country everyday? Who owns those media outlets? Who influences editorial policy. Is the American media complicit in aiding and abetting Wall Street in screwing the American worker and screwing the American taxpayer. Why aren’t we mad as hell about this everyday! When is it enough??

Here are some simple facts, simply put did you know that students in Continental Europe basically don’t have student loan debt? Why don’t you know that?

Isn’t it enough that they’re drowning your kids in student loan debt. You want to know something even crazier which I’m sure you don’t know, did you know the lifetime limit of the Federal Stafford Student Loan hasn’t been increased in over 20 years! Now why the hell is that? Who are they trying to keep out of higher education, could it be that if too many working class stiffs get too educated, that they will try to dismantle this system which is rotten to the core from the inside, because that’s it isn’t it. They want to limit educational opportunity to just their people on the one hand, on the other hand they want to drown you and your kids in student loan debt. Did you know this doesn’t happen in any country in Continental Europe, I’m sure you don’t know that. I want to know why you don’t know that? Who has kept that information from you? And why? Did you know and this is serious, that education in Continental Europe is almost free. Let me just say that again, so that nobody thinks this is a typo, education in Continental Europe is almost free of charge that is to say, that American students probably spend as much or more on books, just books for the school year, than students in Continental Europe spend in an entire year’s tuition. You may ask how is that possible? Let me ask you how is it possible that you didn’t know that? Could it be so they can continue to drown you and your kids in student loan debt, because this has become a source of neo-indentured servitude, therein creating a really compliant workforce, because now you really need that job. You have got to pay off a lot of student debt, imagine that. Well you don’t have to imagine that, you live it everyday, and you swallow it and you take it and you take it until you can’t take it anymore, and then it’s enough! Oh by the way those same students in Europe get virtually free health insurance and if they have a family they are covered as well. Again tiny or no co-pays or deductibles, no pre-existing conditions to exclude one from health care coverage.

Go here for the full story: Why doesn’t the plutocrat owned American media report on the European social safety net?+

Public officials in B.C. are very upset about the lack of input and consultation with the National Energy Board in its decision that will allow increased tanker traffic and allow Kinder Morgan to make long term contracts that will lead to increased tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet which includes Vancouver’s harbor. These long term contracts will also make the financing doubling the capacity of the Trans mountain Pipeline to move more oil from the Canadian Tar Sands to ports on the Pacific.

Go here for the full story: Trans mountain Tar Sands Pipeline project gets infrastructure, more tankers, long term contracts

Go here for the full well documented and sad sad sad story!Krugman: “It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression.”

As I’ve noted in numerous, heavily-annotated posts, the truth of the matter is, today, Wall Street is receiving an EASY $200 billion per year in stealthy/obfuscated taxpayer subsidies.

As Morgenson notes in her closing comments from Sunday, Wall Street fatcats “…are being paid for taking risks that generate lush bonuses when things go well but that require taxpayer bailouts when the tide turns. Main Street understands that this is wrong and that allowing it to continue is dangerous. It’s past time that Washington did something about it.”

As Krugman reminds us, today, our near-term and future well-being relies upon responsible government action, both here and abroad, coming to pass—not just in words but in actions–NOW.

I cannot help but get a sense that we are witnessing a massive historical failure of government, not just nationally, but globally. At then end of the day, compared to the suffering it will bring, it won’t matter who’s to blame.

We are all in this together. It may be the greatest bipartisan sentiment of all. Dare I say it…even a lot of Republicans, and perhaps a few bankers, will understand that.