What could Mitt not want us to see?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today requested a six-month extension to file his 2011 federal income taxes, said Andrea Saul, his campaign spokeswoman. Saul said he would file his taxes and release the return before the Nov. 6 general election.

Financial Crisis Relief programs to break even & saved the Automakers!!!

U.S. government programs designed to stem the financial crisis starting in 2008 will break even in the long term.

Republicans in Congress have criticized the bailouts, which started under Bush in 2008 and continued under President Barack Obama starting in 2009. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney supported aid for banks while opposing help for automakers.

Mitt Romney the doomsday presidential scenario

Mitt Romney has a different, and frighteningly familiar, view.

He thinks you grow our economy from the top down.

He'd take us back to an economy based on outsourcing, risky financial schemes, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy. He'd return to the policy of allowing Wall Street, Big Oil, and other special interests to write their own rules.

But that's not all. Below are five other things that should give Americans pause.

Forward this email -- and if you're ready for this fight, become the newest member of the Truth Team today and help get the facts out from now till Election Day.

1. Romney's positions are the most radically anti-women of any candidate in a generation: He supports banning all abortions, backed a so-called "personhood" amendment that could make certain forms of birth control illegal, and says he would "get rid of" federal funding for Planned Parenthood that provides preventive services like cancer screenings for millions of women.

2. Romney would repeal Obamacare. Insurance companies would once again be allowed to run up premiums, unjustifiably deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, drop patients when they get sick, discriminate against women by charging them more for coverage than men, and spend more of your premium dollars on CEO profits and bonuses instead of your actual health care.

3. Romney is a risk when it comes to foreign policy and national security. On many of these questions, he has shifted his position for political reasons, even within the same campaign. His only clear commitment is to endless wars: He has no plan to end the war in Afghanistan and would leave our troops there indefinitely. He called the President's decision to bring our troops home from Iraq by last Christmas "tragic."

4. Despite the lessons of recent history, Romney would double down on the disastrous tax policies that handed windfalls to the wealthy, but stacked the deck against the middle class. Under Romney, millionaires and billionaires would get a $250,000 tax cut, while families with kids making less than $40,000 a year would, on average, actually see their taxes go up. To the surprise of no one, Romney also opposes the Buffett Rule. He would allow millionaires to continue to take advantage of loopholes and special deals that often allow them to pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. And he supports tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

5. Romney would end Medicare as we know it -- replacing it with a voucher scheme that would drive profits for insurance companies by forcing seniors to purchase private insurance, paying whatever costs a voucher wouldn't cover out of their own limited budgets.

Romney and his special-interest allies are going to spend the next seven months trying to deny, downplay, or hide these facts from voters. It's on us to speak the truth.

Mitt Romney: A presidential candidate for the very few. Cut TAXES for the RICH and PISS on the POOR!!!

A Cruel Budget

In February, after embarrassing himself by saying he was “not concerned about the very poor,” Mitt Romney explained that the government’s safety net would take care of them, and he promised to repair any holes in the net. That promise didn’t last very long. On Thursday, House Republicans approved, on a party-line vote, a disastrous new budget that would leave millions of struggling families desperate for food, shelter and health care — and Mr. Romney has embraced it. 

The budget, developed by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over 10 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, even more than the $2.9 trillion in Mr. Ryan’s first disastrous budget last year. 

 

“It’s an excellent piece of work,” Mr. Romney said. (Rick Santorum said it didn’t cut enough.) 

The biggest of the cuts would be to Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that is already gasping for money in many states that put a low priority on health care for low-income people. Mr. Romney often talks casually about turning the program over to the states entirely and simply writing a check to dispose of a half-century federal commitment. The Ryan budget exposes just how paltry that check would be: a cut of $810 billion through 2022, one-fifth of current spending, which would lead states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million people. 

By eliminating the expansion of Medicaid in the health care law, cutting $1.6 trillion, it would leave another 17 million low- and moderate-income people uninsured. 

Just as revealing is the acceptance by Mr. Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates of the Ryan plan to cut food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The budget would cut 17 percent of the SNAP budget, or $133.5 billion over a decade. As the center points out, there are only two ways to achieve that savings: Mr. Romney could simply take the benefits away from 8 million of the 47 million who now receive them, or he could cut everyone’s benefits. For a struggling family of four, that would mean a loss of $90 worth of food a month. 

Already, most people who get SNAP benefits use them up in the first two weeks of a month, and many turn to food banks by month’s end. Cutting benefits so sharply would lead to a significant increase in hunger, particularly among children, which would quickly create dangerous ripples through the health and education systems. 

At the same time, though, those families would find themselves unable to pay for health care, and they would also face reductions in housing assistance, job training and Pell grants for college tuition, all of which Mr. Ryan wants to cut, with Mr. Romney’s approval. 

In all, 62 percent of the budget’s cuts come from low-income programs, and that’s on top of the substantial cut in spending already in place from last year. But the Ryan budget does contain a substantial tax cut for the rich, which is one of the reasons Mr. Romney said he was “very supportive” of the plan. 

“It’s a bold and exciting effort,” he said, “and it’s very much consistent with what I put out earlier.” It is also consistent with his stated lack of concern for the very poor.

Romney wants to relive the George W Bush legacy or folly?

In November 2010, supporters of George W. Bush gathered on a college campus in Dallas, Texas, to mark the groundbreaking of Bush's presidential library.

Among those in the invitation-only crowd - which included former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a former Colombian president and singer Wayne Newton - was Mitt Romney.

Romney's visit to Dallas to celebrate the former Republican president, one who left office historically unpopular, was a hint of how he would build his campaign to be the next Republican president: with the Bush crowd surrounding him.

From policy advisers to campaign strategists, more than two dozen veterans of the Bush administration have flocked to Romney's campaign.

Their key roles contrast with Romney's rhetoric on the stump. The former Massachusetts governor has tried to cast himself as a Washington "outsider," largely avoided mentioning Bush's tenure and made a point of criticizing several programs at the heart of Bush's legacy.  But then again Mitt likes to flip on pretty much every point.  Do I hear a little more moral relativism for the American People!!!!!

Religious Freedom is why Mormons, Jews, Christians, Pagans, Muslims, Hindus can all exist under one American Flag.

The question I have for Mitt Romney would be this:  "Given some of the positions Joseph Smith took on other religions, other races and women = does his (Mitt's) values represent the values of all Americans which by definition requires a liberal view of what is right v an absolute view of the world?

If Mitt answered "Sure I think Americans have a right to be different", then how does he reconcile that with being a Mormon which is quite intolerant of diversitry?

Not picking on Mormons but here are a few bits that worry me:

Joseph Smith   (Mormon Patriarch)

On Other Religions => Not Tolerant

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight: that those professors were all corrupt . . ." (Joseph Smith, "History of the Church, Vol. 1, page 5-6.)

On Other Colors => Not Tolerant

And [God] had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God; I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities." (2 Nephi 5:21)

On Polygamy => Loves it!  Joseph Smith had 33 wives!!!

Smith's well-documented wives, eleven (33 percent) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him.

Jacob 2: 24-30 = Bible
24 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none... For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

D&C 132: Verses 62-63: (Joseph Smith)

And if he [Joseph Smith] have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.... for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

-----------

There are liberal and conservative Mormons; some have moved far away from the literal interpretation and practices of Joseph Smith.  So like most religions, it had its dark days and hopefully is generally moving into the light of tolerance. But I would like to hear that from the lips of Mitt Romney...

Women want the CHOICE which makes their clear choice for President Barak Obama!!!

As baby showers go, the party Mary Russell attended to celebrate her niece’s first child was sweet, with about a dozen women offering congratulations over ice cream and cake. 

But somewhere between the baby name game and the gifts, what had been light conversation took a sharp turn toward the personal and political — specifically, the battle over access to birth control and other women’s health issues that have sprung to life on the Republican campaign trail in recent weeks. 

“We all agreed that this seemed like a throwback to 40 years ago,” said Ms. Russell, 57, a retired teacher from Iowa City who describes herself as an evangelical Christian and “old school” Republican of the moderate mold. 

Until the baby shower, just two weeks ago, she had favored Mitt Romney for president. 

Not anymore. She said she might vote for President Obama now. “I didn’t realize I had a strong viewpoint on this until these conversations,” Ms. Russell said. As for the Republican presidential candidates, she added: “If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them. Women’s reproduction is our own business.”

This is a make or break presidential election for democracy and the middle class

A vote for Republicans is a vote for Slavery.....

Would the white supremacists please go colonize the moon???

Fighting contraception. Stopping domestic violence protections. Extending tax cuts for the wealthy, while hiking taxes on the middle class. Welcoming white supremacists to a conference, but banning gay conservatives. The GOP (Republicans) has followed its extremist fringe off the deep end, leaving the rest of us back in the reality-based world befuddled. Their strategists warned them not to do this, but it appears that to the GOP, radical fringe issue positions are like catnip. In last night's Republican presidential debate in Arizona, the candidates even spent several minutes discussing which of them is least in favor of allowing rape victims to have access to emergency contraception.

Perhaps Bruce Bartlett, who was an economic policy official under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said it best on last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Discussing the obstacles to getting smart policies agreed upon and passed in government, he said, "the problem is purely political ... frankly, one (Republican) of our political parties is insane, and we all know which one it is." (Hint: he was not talking about the Democrats.)

Standing Up for Women's Health -- We all heard about the War on Women's Health last year, when Tea Party-empowered state legislatures passed a record slew of anti-choice laws -- like Arizona's ban on "race-based abortions" and Virginia's attempt to shut down most abortion clinics in the state. These state legislatures were joined by an enthusiastic right-wing Congress that attempted to defund the entire $317 million federal family program, tried to redefine "rape" and eagerly promoted lies about their favorite bogeyman, Planned Parenthood. Well, the War on Women's Health is back, and it looks to be more an all-out War on Women. PFAW members spoke out when Susan G. Komen for the Cure threatened to cut off funds for Planned Parenthood because of internal influences from right-wing staff and board members. We're currently fighting an amendment in the U.S. Senate that would give employers the power to deny any health care to their employees that they take "moral" issue with personally. And we continue to track closely dangerous and extreme state legislation like the recent bill passed by Virginia’s right-wing Assembly that would force women considering abortions -- even rape victims -- to undergo invasive transvaginal ultrasounds.

Exposing the GOP Candidates' Extremism -- PFAW's Right Wing Watch last week uncovered the audio recording of a speech Rick Santorum gave to students at Ave Maria University in 2008 in which he said Satan, the "Father of Lies" was focusing all his attention on the United States of America. He said that academia had long ago fallen to this Satanic attack, derided mainline Protestant churches as no longer Christian and said that we are involved in a "spiritual war," as opposed to a political or cultural war -- a war in which we could only assume people with opposing views to Santorum's are on the side of Satan. The story took off like wildfire in both the blogosphere and the mainstream news media. It became the dominant storyline of the GOP debate for the two days leading up to the last debate and even had right-wing pundits like Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh, and politicians like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, asserting that Santorum's religious extremism is too much for a majority of Americans.

Fighting Judicial Obstruction -- A new PFAW fact sheet shows the extremity and unprecedented nature of Senate Republicans obstruction of judicial nominees, as well as its impact on Americans' access to justice. While a vacancy crisis persists on many of the nation's federal courts, our persistence is paying off and we're finally making headway in getting some of the president's qualified nominees confirmed. This month, the Senate confirmed Cathy Ann Bencivengo and Jesse Furman to U.S. District Courts in California and New York respectively, and Adalberto Jose Jordan to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, all of whom had been waiting months on the Senate calendar for a vote despite the fact that they came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee without any opposition. But dozens of other qualified nominees, most of whom had little or no opposition in Committee, still await confirmation. We'll continue to hold Republicans accountable for their obstruction and keep the pressure on to confirm these judges as swiftly as possible, and one at a time if necessary.

Youth Spotlight: Young Elected Officials take on Citizens United v. FEC -- In state, city and municipal governing bodies in at least seven states, members of our affiliate PFAW Foundation's Young Elected Officials (YEO) Network have put forward resolutions that call for the end of corporate personhood and unlimited special interest money in politics. One of the first big victories in this coordinated national effort was that of Missoula, Montana Councilwoman Cynthia Wolken. After attending a session on Citizens United at the 2011 YEO National Convening, Councilwoman Wolken took a sample resolution and introduced a city-wide referendum calling for Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that made it clear that corporations are not people. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, with over 75% of the vote, bringing an abundance of media attention to the issue and forcing leaders in Montana's state government to weigh-in as well.

PACs, Super PACs do not represent the PEOPLE they represent the 1%; a vote for Republicans is a vote for Dictatorship USA

The evolving nature of campaign funding was particularly evident in January with Mitt Romney's campaign and its ally, the aggressive Super PAC known as Restore Our Future.

Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Romney's campaign spent $19 million in January -- nearly three times as much as it raised -- as the former Massachusetts governor defeated Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire, lost to him in South Carolina and then topped him in Florida.
Restore Our Future, meanwhile, raised $6.6 million and spent $13.5 million, mostly on ads attacking Gingrich that helped Romney win the Florida primary. By the end of January, Romney's campaign had $7.7 million on hand and the pro-Romney PAC had $16.3 million.

The campaigns of Gingrich and Rick Santorum stayed in the game by raising $5.6 million and $4.5 million, respectively. But in Gingrich's case, the PAC supporting him -- called Winning Our Future -- was at least as influential as his campaign.

The pro-Gingrich PAC attracted $10 million in donations from the family of Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and funded attack ads on Romney that helped Gingrich, a former U.S. House of Representatives speaker, win South Carolina's primary.

Almost half of all Americans lived in households that received government benefits in 2010! Why? Becasue the Middle-Class is being destroyed...

Almost half of all Americans lived in households that received government benefits in 2010, according to the Census Bureau. The share climbed from 37.7 percent in 1998 to 44.5 percent in 2006, before the recession, to 48.5 percent in 2010. 

The trend reflects the expansion of the safety net. When the earned-income credit was introduced in 1975, eligibility was limited to households making the current equivalent of up to $26,997. In 2010, it was available to families making up to $49,317. The maximum payout, meanwhile, quadrupled on an inflation-adjusted basis. 

It also reflects the deterioration of the middle class. Chisago boomed and prospered for decades as working families packed new subdivisions along Interstate 35, which runs up the western edge of the county like a flagpole with its base set firmly in Minneapolis. But recent years have been leaner. Per capita income in Chisago excluding government aid fell 6 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis between 2000 and 2007. Over the next two years, it fell an additional 7 percent. Nationally, per capita income excluding government benefits fell by 3 percent over the same 10 years. 

Rick Santorum, who won 57 percent of the vote in Chicago County in the Republican presidential caucuses last week, has warned of “the narcotic of government dependency.” Newt Gingrich has compared the safety net to a spider web. Mitt Romney has said the nation must choose between an “entitlement society” and an “opportunity society.” All the candidates, including Ron Paul, have promised to cut spending and further reduce taxes.

The Republicans will turn your sons into slaves and daughters into prostitutes.  Vote wisely, the 1% see you merely as a cost function. 

THINK for YOURSELF!!!

Romney told CNN on Feb. 1 that “I’m not concerned about the very poor”

Republican presidential candidateMitt Romney’s statement that the “very poor” don’t concern him comes at a time when the portion of Americans living in deep poverty is the highest in more than a generation while assistance varies widely and is inadequate.

“Virtually any food bank in any city in America would tell you that they have not been able to keep up with the demand,”said Bill Shore, founder and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength, a national charity that fights childhood hunger.“That means more rationing of food, not allowing families to take as much as they would have before and being open shorter hours.”

More than 20 million Americans live in a household with income of less than half the federal poverty rate, the level social scientists often use as a category for the very poor, according to census data for 2010. Last year that meant an annual income below $11,057 for a family of four.

The portion of the population in that category was the highest in at least 35 years and has almost doubled since 1975, from 3.7 percent then to 6.7 percent in 2010.

Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor

On Wednesday morning in an interview with CNN, Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” a comment that has ricocheted around the Web and cable news channels.

I guess the very poor are something less than American....

Obama is building an America for the 99% v Romney who is building it for the 1% = that's the choice

Drawing ever-clearer lines between himself and his leading Republican challenger, President Obama on Wednesday promoted a new proposal to help burdened homeowners, casting it as an alternative to those who contend that the nation’s housing market must bottom out before homeowners can expect relief.

The person who made that bottoming-out argument? Mitt Romney, whose strong victory in the Florida primary on Tuesday reinforced the belief of Mr. Obama’s advisors that he will be the Republican nominee.

“It is wrong for anybody to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom,” Mr. Obama said to applause at a community center here. “I refuse to accept that, and so do the American people.”

Housing values in this affluent suburb of Washington have plummeted by a quarter, the president said. More than half of all homeowners in Las Vegas, he added, were underwater on their mortgages, meaning that what they owe is more than their house is worth.

In October, Mr. Romney told the editorial board of the Las Vegas Journal-Review that he believed the housing market needed to bottom out. Nevada, which will hold its Republican presidential caucuses on Saturday, has been hit harder by foreclosures than any other state.

The housing market gave the president an opening to hammer his theme of economic fairness for the middle class, which he said had been victimized by unscrupulous banks and mortgage brokers.

“This housing crisis struck right at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America: our homes,” he said. “The places where we invest our nest eggs, places where we raise our family, places where we plant roots in our communities, the places where we build memories.”

“We need to do everything in our power to repair the damage and make responsible families whole again,” Mr. Obama told an enthusiastic crowd of about 400 in a gymnasium.

The housing plan, parts of which require Congressional legislation, aims to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, by streamlining the financing process and clearing the way for people with underwater mortgages to obtain new mortgages.

Visiting the Washington Auto Show on Tuesday, Mr. Obama inspected new hybrid vehicles from Ford, Dodge and General Motors, and reminded spectators of his administration’s role in bailing out two of the Big Three carmakers.

“It’s good to remember the fact that there were some folks who were willing to let this industry die,” the president declared. “Because of folks coming together, we are now back in a place where we can compete with any car company in the world.”

And who was it who argued that the government ought to let the carmakers fail? Mitt Romney.

Wall Street for President; I mean Mitt Romney.....is that Government by, for and with the PEOPLE???

Mitt Romney’s investment background, criticized by some of his Republican presidential rivals, is helping him build a financial advantage over them.

In the fourth quarter of last year, eight of the 10 biggest donors to Romney, co-founder of Boston-based Bain Capital LLC, a private-equity firm, worked for banks and investment funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on U.S. Federal Election Commission information released yesterday. Citigroup Inc. (C) employees gave $196,600. Those at JPMorgan Chase & Co. donated $180,518, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) workers contributed $106,580.

For the whole campaign, Goldman Sachs employees and their families have been the largest source of campaign cash for Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks political money.

“Wall Street supports someone they consider one of their own and the candidate perceived to be the most committed to promoting policies they prefer,” said Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy atFordham University in New York.

Man not of the PEOPLE Mitt Romney earned $21.6 mln and paid 13.9% tax less than half the rate a USA middle class family has to pay!!!!

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney earned $21.6 million in 2010 and paid 13.9 percent of that amount in income taxes, using the preferential rate on investment income and charitable deductions to pay a smaller share of his earnings than top wage earners typically do.

The former private-equity executive and Massachusetts governor earned more than half of his income from capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, rather than the 35 percent top rate for ordinary income. His campaign publicly released the returns today.

Davos: Where your Economic Dictators go to PARTY!!!!! That means your PARTY leaders dear Republicans; you know the ones who send your kids to die in needless wars...

"At meetings the rest of society is excluded from, this powerful '1 percent' negotiates and decides about the fate of the other 99 percent of this world," says David Roth, "Camp Igloo" organiser and head of the Swiss centre-left's youth wing.

"The economic and financial concentration of power in a small, privileged minority leads to a dictatorship over the rest of us. The motto 'one person, one vote' is no longer valid, but 'one dollar, one vote'. We want to change that."

The USA, Europe, and indeed the World’s rich and famous cheered snow polo in Klosters, Switzerland, while at nearby Davos, host of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, young Swiss socialists protest against the power of political elites in igloos.

The real loser in Saturday’s Republican primary was the One Percent. Plutocrats fuelling up their Gulfstream 650s for the trip to Davos should take note: fellow club members Mitt Romney’s and Newt Gingrich’s path to the presidency may be obstructed by their vast riches. The perception of lopsided wealth creation bothered voters even more and was a bigger impediment than the more carnal sins of rival Newt Gingrich. Turns out the Occupy Wall Street movement is resonating in some unlikely places.

Romney’s trouncing in South Carolina’s primary (28 percent of the vote to Gingrich’s 40 percent) will encourage further attacks on his wealth as the candidates move on to the next battleground state, Florida. Romney is clearly girding for such a fight. In his concession speech on Saturday night, he lambasted former Gingrich. On Sunday, Romney vowed to release his tax returns later this week.

I'm sure most Republicans have a Tax Rate of 15% why otherwise would you support such a party; right Tea Party, etc??? I mean it would be stupid otherwise.

Warren Buffett, the billionaire calling for more taxes on the rich, said Mitt Romney’s U.S. rate of about 15 percent reflects poor laws.

And failings by the candidate for the Republican presidential nomination to see the problem.

Romney and Gingrich straw dogs who can only at best make a straw man to fight Obama

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.  

To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

Sybil for President; one of the many persons buried in Romney!!!

Romney publically endorsed Mississippi’s attempt to pass a personhood amendment. (Can't use Condoms!!!) It was soundly defeated by the voters, as were previous attempts in Colorado and other states. After going on TV saying he endorsed the amendment, Romney tried to soft peddle that after voters rejected the measure. Now he denies it ever happened. Thank goodness for video.



Romney underscored a previous flip flop on Roe V Wade. When running for office in liberal Massachusetts, Romney saying in many recorded interviews that he would defend Roe v Wade. At the debate, he made it clear that he would work to have it over turned. Which Romney would show up in the White House, or in general election debates?