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[Disposable Ninja]

... so I'm starting to get really sick of this 47% of Americans Don't Pay Income Tax thing. You know, like it's some sort of loophole or some bullshit.

The reason they don't pay that extra bit of taxes is because they don't make enough to warrant taxing them. You wealthy people want more Americans to pay a larger share of taxes? FUCKING PAY THEM MORE.

[McDohl]

But...but...THAT MEANS MY SLAVES, ER, EMPLOYEES, MIGHT BE ABLE TO BUY THE PRODUCTS THEY ARE MAKING!

[Royal☭]

It's not true anyway. Every poor person plays a disproportionate amount of their income in sales tax, And you have to be pretty thick to think property tax isn't included in the price of rent.

But what's more egregious about the statement is that Romney's social class, the Rich, often receive direct government handouts. In fact, many of them structure their businesses in such a way as to receive the maximum amount of government subsidies. I mean, hell, it was only a few weeks ago that Matt Taibbi published that "Mitt Romney bilked the government to give bonuses to Bain Capital story."

Talk like this isn't about being truthful or pointing to any flaws in the system or anything like that. This is a dog whistle, pure and simple, and coming from Romney it means expect a lot of conservative mouth-pieces to start talking about how easy the poor have it.

[Zaratustra]

Correction: 47% of Americans -and Mitt Romney- don't pay income tax.

[Mongrel]

WELL MITT, YOU KNOW WHO ELSE PAYS INCOME TAX?

COMMUNISTS!

[Thad]

Well THIS is fun:

Update 2: Holy moly. The fundraiser took place at a sex-partying hedge-funder's estate? Charles Johnson at LGF writes that "Leder has been in the news before, and Mitt Romney’s religious right sponsors may not be pleased to find out about the other kinds of activities that take place at Leder’s mansion: Marc Leder Ends His Weekly Bashes in the Hamptons With Naked Guests Cavorting in the Pool and Peforming Public Sex Acts." How would the Right react if Obama hosted fundraisers at mansions where orgies took place? MoJo's Marc Corn has more.

[Brentai]

The better question is "how would the orgiers react if they knew the mansion had hosted Mitt Romney"?

[Smiler]

The better question is "how would the orgiers react if they knew the mansion had hosted Mitt Romney"?

Ernest P. Worrell goes ewwwwww.. again

[Thad]

Romney's Israel/Palestine strategy: "We sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it."

Oh man this thing is going to be the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it.

Couple weeks early to qualify as an October Surprise, but yeah I think we're close enough that this slow drip is really going to have an influence on public opinion in the coming weeks.

Still baffled as to why.  Romney gets caught saying something that Republicans say all the goddamn time, people on both sides of the aisle act surprised because that's the script.

[Thad]

"I think people would like to be paying taxes," Romney continued.

[Mongrel]

The Romney Campaign is like a fellow who's been riddled with dozens of bullets, every one of which has somehow miraculously missed a vital organ, but who's still going to die of the collective blood loss.

[Brentai]

Well, you'd think.

I think the day we can nail that campaign's coffin shut is the day people stop asking "Has Obama failed?" and start asking "How much has Obama failed?"  Even though it sounds like a win (it presupposes that the main GOP talking point is accurate to some degree) it also brings to foreground the possibility that no, it might not actually be worth the damage that Romney is likely to do to the country just to register your disapproval with the sitting administration.

If elected, there is a good, a really good damn chance that he'll suffer a lower approval rating than George W. Bush.  At the very least, he's committed himself to no higher than 53%.  But at least three times in the past week alone, he's committed the cardinal sin of leadership: Not Caring.  The list of things that are known to be Things That Are Not Mitt Romney's Concern now includes respect for the recently dead, America's policy in the Middle East, and any and all concerns of both the American unemployed and the underpaid service class.  You can get away with this sort of myopic focusing when you're campaigning, but once you're in the Oval Office you lose all control over what people expect you to pay attention to.  Bush's lowest point was when the public perception was that he simply didn't care about New Orleans.  Did that situation actually affect most of the country?  Not directly, but that wasn't the point; the point was Our Leader Doesn't Care in the public's eye, and that's a nono in any type of point position.  And that's a real problem with a Mitt Romney presidency, because you can't answer the question "What exactly does Mitt Romney care about?" without either trying to fool yourself or being really nasty.

[Thad]

it also brings to foreground the possibility that no, it might not actually be worth the damage that Romney is likely to do to the country just to register your disapproval with the sitting administration.

I'm inclined to agree, I suppose, and ultimately I prefer an Obama victory to a Romney victory.

If I were in a state where my vote mattered, I might hold my nose and vote Obama again.  But I'm not (and neither are you, unless you're still registered in Nevada or Colorado), and I just can't see a compelling reason to cast a protest vote for Obama over a protest vote for anybody else.

Like I say, I don't hold it against anybody who votes for Obama, and I acknowledge him as the lesser of two evils.  But I don't think I can suffer his shit with a smile anymore.

Case in point: Al Jazeera notes that all the references to privacy and due process from the 2008 Democratic platform were excised from the 2012 version.

Fuck.  That.

I would very much like to send the message that when you pull that shit you lose votes.

I do not think that the Democrats are smart enough to take that message from any possible outcome of this race.  But they're still likelier to take it if they do in fact lose votes.

Hell, some candidate, somewhere might actually take that lesson to heart.  Won't matter a damn to Obama because term limits, but it would sure be nice if SOMEBODY in the party got the idea and grew a spine.

[Zaratustra]

Oh yes, that's another thing the republicans should be hated for: Making the democrats look good.

In other news:

[Disposable Ninja]

I live in Texas, and I'm still voting Democrat because I don't want it to even look like the Republicans came close to winning the popular vote.

Because, as we all know, winning by just slightly over fifty percent means the entire continent and the millions of people who live in it, as well as assorted spots throughout the world within the country's purview (some of which do not have the capability of voting) wants your incredibly specific set of values made concrete into the empire's very philosophical structure.

[Royal☭]

DN, your reason for voting comes out to roughly the same whether you vote for Democrat or Green. Any vote that isn't Republican counts against them. So feel free to vote for whoever you want.

[TA]

I live in Virginia.  Virginia went for Obama in 2008.  Prior to that, Virginia hadn't swung blue since 1964, and basically took a sharp red turn from 1952 onwards.  The Southern Strategy is alive and well here, but Obama still won it in 2008.

I've learned not to take for granted that my state will go a certain way.

[Brentai]

If you live in a red state with any sort of minority population (other than Mormons), then eyes up.

[Shinra]

Paul Ryan clings to message in a hardball interview while watching his career sink to the bottom of the ocean with the leaky ship that is the Romney campaign.

The leaked Romney video was like an early christmas gift.

[Brentai]

Eric Holder cleared of wrongdoing.

It's a terrible effect of partisan politics that I felt very satisfied about this until I realized what the hell I was acting all smug about.  I think I need a shower.