We should applaud Harry Reid. No, I don’t care what Jon Stewart said, we should.
Harry Reid crossed a heretofore unknown Rubicon yesterday when he repeated his claim that Romney might be withholding his tax returns because “[h]e didn’t pay taxes for ten years.” National Review‘s Jim Geraghty pounds Reid with a series of “How likely” questions, the answer to all of which is “Not very.” Jeff Goldstein condemns Reid for “trying to manufacture a news cycle and gin up innuendo [in a manner that's] so transparently hamfisted.” Ed Morrissey demands an ethics investigation for behavior he deems so “despicable and grossly irresponsible … it should be actionable in court.” Nor is it just the far right that considers Reid’s statement to be bad form: even Jon Stewart’s upset with him. In their own way, each of these folks fails to realize that Reid’s probably laughing at them.
He’s made two statements that demonstrate tactical savvy, because he knows we live in a country where National Review writers and professional charity cases have been not-so-idly discussing evidence of kerning on birth certificates. He’s heard the soft denunciations of birthers by self-styled “serious” thinkers who just want to remind their readers that it’s patriotic to question the validity of state-issued birth certificates. He realizes that saying he has third-hand knowledge of an alleged tax impropriety means that people will be hearing that there are allegations that Romney’s tax returns may not be kosher. Do you know what I think about that?
I like the fact that someone who’s nominally a liberal has finally recognized what conservatives have been doing to Obama for four years now, and I appreciate the fact that he’s choosing to do so about a financial disclosure instead of, for example, whether someone’s really an American or whether they’re a sleeper agent for the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s not Harry Reid’s fault that conservatives have tacitly authorized this particular model of public document-shaming, he’s simply taking advantage of the fact that they have.
It makes me sort of nervous and giddy when Democrats act like Republicans.
If Reid were floating rumors that Romney’s secretly a Mexican with eleven wives, I’d be nervous, but he’s chosen an utterly valid issue. He’s pressing the advantage to learn something that even conservative pundits want to know, i.e. whatever it is that Romney doesn’t want anybody to.
Oh, I agree. I think he’s doing it in a really iffy way, but I’m down with it.
Plus, Rmoney looks really weak by saying Reid needs to ‘put up or shut up’ with the name of the person he supposedly got the rumor from. I think most people will see this as Rmoney needs to be the one releasing some information here…
The only think Reid is accusing Romney of is cleverly taking advantage of tax law, something Romney not only approves of, but has cited as a qualification for office.
Oh, please please please let Rmoney make that argument in public very often indeed. Especially since his tax plan cuts taxes even further on the already tax-dodging scum of his ilk, and raises them on everyone else.
Rush Limbaugh assures me that Romney has nothing to hide.
So does Romney. The problem being that when he ran for governor of MA the Mittster said everyone should trust him, of course he was a resident. Turned out Romney had been filing his income taxes as a resident of UT and was working on retroactively filing his taxes as a MA resident.
I read that as “a Mexican with elven wives” and got excited for a moment.
Why won’t Mitt Romney answer questions about his secret wives?
Reid’s statement is really weak tea compared to the many things said about Obama by Republican members of Congress.
Acting like Republicans would have meant promoting trutherism or wiferism. What little we know of Romney’s taxes indicates that he pays very little, and perhaps occasionally not at all.
That’s questioning someone’s patriotism or citizenship, and it’s not asking someone to prove a negative.
“Not” questioning patriotism, apologies
Actually, I would argue it is. Given that taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society, paying them is our patriotic duty. Obviously Rmoney and the Republicans do not agree.
Right. And notice that the Romney campaign’s only response has been to deny that there have been any years where he paid literally $0, suggesting that he gets as close to that as possible.
Indeed. God, Obama pounding Mitt on Bain was just amazing to watch. As one TPM reader wrote in “Are we sure Obama’s a Dem?”
No, we’re not. The choice is between a continuation of the slide rightward or Bush/Cheney redux. Obama doesn’t deserve re-election, but then no sane American deserves Romney.
This isn’t acting like a Republican. This is just good politics. Plutocrats like Romney should be tarred and feathered if they try to enter the political arena and in a sane world they should. It’s certain that a guy like Romney has engaged in plenty of high level chicannery over the years and hiding his tax returns is some of the clearest evidence. Calling him out for refusing to release those records in the most politically effective way not only reasonable but called for.
This is a lot different from continuing to question the validity of a birth certificate, which was a bullshit issue to begin with.
Harrumph, harrumph, a thousand times harrumph.
Hogan, quit fucking that walrus.
Everyone here saw it…beautiful new life, coming into the world..the birth of a meme. *sniff*
In this case, it’s the afterbirth that confuses and frightens me.
Almost done!
Have to wait for the walrus to come first!
Jon Stewart should probably spend more time focusing on being funny again so that he’s not a *totally* useless waste of space.
When Jon does bothsidesditism, it kinda makes me want to smack him.
Colbert is a lot nervier. But then he probably doesn’t hope to take Jay Leno’s spot one day.
Nervier and funnier. He cuts to the quick with a smile on his face.
It’s worse than both-sides-do-it, it’s both-sides-do-it-duh-but-we-really-hip-people-know-it’s-all-a-shuck-snicker.
The viability of ‘too cool for school’ ceases, or should cease, when, you know, leave school.
Jon Stewart is a media critic. As such, he cannot afford to let anyone get away with shenanigans like this. Personally, I love it, but It is not my job to call bullish#t on everyone.
“Shenanigans” like what? Like making a claim that Romney could easily refute by releasing his tax returns, if in fact he can refute it? I call bullshit on Stewart.
An old story about LBJ has him proposing to make a public accusation that his opponent has sex with pigs. An aide says “Lyndon, you can’t say that! It’s not true!”. And Johnson replied “I know, I just want to make him deny it.”
Look, I think you can justify this on the level that all’s fair in politics. But if we took this out of the political context, Stewart would be right. I’m sure, for instance, that you wouldn’t appreciate being publicly accused of being a tax cheat even if it was possible to release all your financial information and thereby clear your name.
In other words, in the ordinary context, non-disclosure does not justify defamatory accusations. If you are going to justify this, it has to be on the ground that there’s a lower ethical standard in politics. And perhaps there is.
We didn’t break the code. We didn’t want national politics to be War, complete with Newt’s list of preferred language.
We didn’t bring it there; we didn’t deal the play. But bringing your fists to a knife fight is just stupid, a way to be Pure in your powerlessness at best.
Notable also: big difference between Reid spreading an ugly rumor about Romney’s tax returns and, e.g, Matt Drudges racial smears. Less radioactive and more grounded in reality. No apologies.
Would that it were, but that, in fact. Is not the case. He holds Democrats to higher standards, I think because that is where his sympathy is. So, mechanically,he attacks Democtratic politicians for playing politics, while politely mocking the other team.
All nice and high-minded, and then you get shivved.
Stewart still spends 95% of his time and energy attacking the right.
He holds Democrats to higher standards
This is a problem in the media generally, and the further left you go, the higher the standard to which you’re held. I suspect it has to do with the presumption that Dems, socialists, and leftists are more likely to actually read books and engage with the world, while Repubs and Tea Partiers are assumed to be less swift of neuron.
Regardless, it’s a game that needs to be challenged often and loudly.
Even wingnuts I know hold Democrats to a higher standard.
This. That was the tragedy of his National Mall Rally For Sanity right after Beck’s: what could have been a rallying cry for engagement on the issues, for caring about the truth and about what laws get passed, instead became a giant disinterested shrug of a-pox-on-both-their-houses, a rousing cry for every voter to give up and go home, because it’s all one big dishonest game. A big chunk of my affection for Stewart died that day.
Ayup. Same here.
That’s about when I stopped watching. That, and the streaming connection on Comedy Central’s website sucks.
Same here, haven’t watched since. As the folks at Balloon Juice once pointed out, he’s become the Hipster David Broder.
Yep. Good to see I am not alone. Colbert at least knew it was ridiculous; Stewart looked like he thought he was MLK but even more earnest.
Standing for nothing, and imagining that was principle somehow. Surprised the WaPo didn’t hire him as a token Liberal after that.
N reading about the Progessive and Populist eras, one notes the presence of corruption on both sides. Stewart’s noting the two parties in this country are the “Money” party and “everyone else” and the former is QuickRing the latter’s ass is the same thing this blog notes frequently.
Harry Reid invoking Romney’s father was over-the-top and I have trouble not seeing myself as a partisan hack for thinking you don’t double down on hearsay. If it’s wrong when Trump does it, why isnt it wrong when Reid does it! ‘Cause, I love me some SEK and I like some Harry Reid, but Scott’s distinction does not hold water. Swift-boating is wrong.
Still, I’d like to see what’s in those returns
Well, perhaps this would be true if releasing these documents weren’t SOP in Presidential campaigns.
After reading this comment this morning, I would just to acknowledge that I hate Auto Correct
Bullshit. This is not swiftboating. This is calling out a plutocrat for being a plutocrat.
That was the tragedy of his National Mall Rally For Sanity
That, and that none of it, except maybe three seconds of the Ozzy/Cat Stevens “Crazy Train” vs. “Peace Train” thing, was funny.
Apparently Romney has just told Reid to “put up or shut up,” which must be the most bizarre response I’ve heard from a guy who specializes in bizarre responses to things. We’re talking about your tax returns, Mitt. It’s you who has to put up. If these rumors can be dispelled, you can dispell any time you want to.
If this is how Romney reacts when given some time to cool down and formulate a response, God only knows what he’ll say when (if?) Obama brings it up in a debate.
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,don’t know when.
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.
I’d like to see the Republican party talk about how they spent the last 3 1/2 years deliberately trying to wreck the economy.
Hold it, that IS their accomplishment. Have they done ANYTHING?
You mean the way they gave in to Republican demands to cut spending in the middle of a recession, were thwarted in getting any real jobs legislation passed, and had to placate Republicans and Blue Dogs in order to get even the little stimulus and imperfect health care reform passed? Sure.
GM is still alive, Osama Bin Laden is still dead.
They should put it on a bumper sticker
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,don’t know when.
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.
Jennie, please.
Go home to your mother, you’re embarrassing the family here.
Hell (s)he is embarrassing the livestock.
Not to mention the walruses.
Why won’t Mitt Romney release his tax returns from the Saginaw Plaza Hotel?
It’s going to be struck down any day now, and I don’t think they’ll survive.
I am sure that they would if the Republicans had not invoked a record number of filibusters to prevent that from happening.
Interestingly enough, the way Reid responds back to this will probably be something along the lines of “Hey, I’m just sayin’ what my constituent told me. Frankly I believe him, because he’s a helluva guy and here’s a list of all the things Mitt Romney has lied about just recently … (10 minutes later)… But hey, you know, Romney could clear this all up by just releasing those tax returns of his and PROVE THAT I’M WRONG. He’s the one holdin’ all the cards here. He could really make me look foolish by releasing those records, couldn’t he.”
At which point the shiny, shiny ball bounces back into Romney’s court.
There really isn’t a response that Romney can give that would shut Reid down and prove him to be a fool other than “Okay, fine, here’s my tax records for the last 10 years and look – my effective rate was really damn high and nowhere close to zero. So stuff it Reid.”
Josh Marshall has this whole theory of “Bitch-Slap” politics, and how the Obama campaign has been the first Democratic party campaign in a while that mastered that. The thing is, when Republicans are getting bitch-slapped by Harry Reid, well, things are bad.
Ever seen Maddow’s pieces on what Harry Reid looks like when he gets really, really pissed off? Milquetoast does not begin to describe it.
Yup. Reid is a powerful man, and he can exert that power sometimes. The tragedy of Reid isn’t that he’s weak, it’s where he cares to be strong.
People think that Harry Reid is a wimp because of how he acts in the Senate.
As Majority Leader, Harry Reid is a moderately left-of-center Democrat who is the leader of a herd of cats.
But he’s one of those old-school politicians who separate “electioneering” from “governing”. He doesn’t govern the way that he campaigns because until the Republicans went into 24x7x365 campaigning mode you didn’t do that. And Reid can’t adapt to the new reality. (Obama also has this ideal of separating campaigning and governing – I still wonder if the last 4 years have convinced him that that ideal needs to be tossed yet).
He doesn’t campaign the way the leads his party in the Senate. Didn’t anyone watch him deftly maneuver to win his re-election in 2010 despite something like a 33% approval rating when the campaign started? How he maneuvered the candidate he wanted to fight against into position and then unleashed the hounds upon her?
The man doesn’t hold back when he’s campaigning. Don’t mistake traditionalism and a small-c conservative reverence for the rules of the Senate as milquetoast.
Incidentally, he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the work he’s done as the party leader in the Senate. He was pert near perfect as the minority leader, and holding the entire caucus together to vote for the final package that was the PPACA really should put him up there with the titans of the body when the book is written.
It doesn’t look like much as you bear witness to it, because everything that comes out of the Senate is so disappointing, but when you consider how many chips he’s been able to pile up while consistently being dealt a 2-7, it’s much more impressive.
I used to be really annoyed by Obama’s insistence on treating all political opposition like they were good faith actors, but I feel like he’s shifted on that a bit. This campaign against Mitt is more evidence of that. The campaign against McCain was basically “you voted with Bush 95% of the time, and you claim to be ‘responsible’ on FP while singing about bombing Iran.”
I think my response goes like this… “If Obama had to release his birth certificate, how can you not release your tax returns?”
I mean seriously, no one really doubted Obama was born in Hawaii. Even conservatives want Romney to release his tax returns, and it’s traditional. Everyone is doing it, except Romney. How many people had to release their birth certificate while in office!?
Score one for the BULLY PULPIT, which, to its proponents, doesn’t magically pass legislation — it helps shape the debate. Not that it matters, really.
Which policy position presently out of favor with the electorate is Reid booming here, pray tell?
What does any of this have to do with the bully pulpit?
Why don’t you remember how old Teddy Roosevelt said that the Senate majority leadership was a bully pulpit?
If it’s false then Reid has just given Romney cover to release his taxes… cause of those lying liberals and their crazy ideas.
But Romney does not need “cover” to release the returns. He can do it whenever he wants. And if it turns out Romney just paid next-to-nothing rather than literally nothing, Reid can say, well, he just said what he was told.
This is a no-lose for anybody but Mittens.
Of course, I heard Romney won’t release because his K-1s will disclose all the abortion clinics he ran until last year. Maybe I’m wrong, but questions are being asked. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
He does need cover at this point. Better his base be focused on the “liberals attacking success” meme as a nice distraction.
I don’t think that’s what R voters are thinking on this issue. My suspicion is the typical R voter -particularly in the south where they’re still deep-sixing long term Rs in exchange for “tea partiers”- is thinking “I didn’t want this guy in the first place, he’s a Mormon which is kooky, he’s dishonest, he’s a bumbler, he’s a rich man, and we all know that rich people cheat on their taxes; what with their fancy lawyers and accountants and all.” The polling looks real bad for Romney now, and contra what the wealthy “sober” pundits in our establishment press who -very much for personal reasons- don’t want us talking about tax policy seriously have to say on the issue, I really think this tax thing -which Romney has not been able to get out from under now for nearly 6 months- is a big part of that.
Forced abortion clinics in China is what I hear.
Nonsense, he can’t spare any capital from his funding coyotes to run immigrants in from Mexico, his ancestral home.
‘cover’ to release his taxes?
What kind of cover does he need, and why?
If there’s nothing to the tax returns, there shouldn’t be any need for cover. If there’s low or no taxes, then releasing them makes him look like a dick.
I just wish Reid would have figured out how this game is played earlier. And I hope he is busy teaching it to Barack Obama.
If there’s nothing to the tax returns, there shouldn’t be any need for cover. If there’s low or no taxes, then releasing them makes him look like a dick.
That’s my point… he would look like a dick. A diversion would be quite nice at this point.
One can safely gamble at this point that there is a reason Mitt Romney isn’t releasing his returns. I think the key is to keep it in the press.
Reid did this well. It doesn’t matter if people are mad at him about basically people sh*t out of his a*s. News is already over it. All anyone remembers is “What IS in Romney’s tax returns!?”
I could not agree with this more. For two decades, Republicans have understood how to play politics and Democrats usually haven’t. This is a refreshing tactic from Reid. Maybe he is starting to get it. And if serious people are disappointed in Democrats for playing the Republican game, they can stick it.
This is the kind of guy I hoped Reid would be back in 2004. Whether it’s the caucus that’s been holding him back, or the other way around, between this and his baby steps towards filibuster reform I’m starting to like him.
I wish I’d thought of my status update before I published this with this title: “I love that conservatives are complaining that, for the first time in recent memory, liberals put down their knives and brought a gun to a gun-fight.”
Scratch the “I love that” and you’ve got a much better title for this post.
Ann Romney will be glad to buy your “I love that.”
Also, her husband wants you to know that your post is the right length.
He loves this post.
“Lemon. Wet. Ouch.”
It isn’t even the “Republican game”; 60 years ago this would have been considered b-flat basic politics. What Reid just did is a classic rumor-based smear; it’s conspiratorial(“I know this guy who says…”), which flatters the audience; it plays on Reid’s position and reputation, both of which paint him as the sort of guy who would know insider financial gossip; and it fits into the common US narrative of how the rich don’t follow the same rules as the rest of us, particularly when it comes to taxes. What this all comes down to is that it’s a classic, “I can buy that” smear; the sort of stuff people like talking/arguing about in the bars and restaurants or on the job where political opinions are really shaped.
The one big difference here is that Reid said it openly himself instead of spreading it around through intermediaries as it would have been done in the 60s or 70s, but I think that’s more a cultural change than anything. Beyond the “post-truth” point SEK makes, our society is just far more confessional these days. Stuff like blogs, twitter, and facebook have publicized all sorts of behaviors which once we would have kept private while at the same time increased the social value of reputation and affiliations. That Reid is the one who said this makes it all the more serious in the minds of those who hear it; not necessarily because it’s more believable from him but because it makes for an especially good story coming from him.
60 years ago this would have been considered b-flat basic politics
Yep. This is just a more-on-topic version of LBJ and the pig-fucker.
Or, as I often say, fuck civility, this is real.
Civility is the thin line of civilisation, the only thing that prevents us all turning into .. anthropologists
Thank God. I hear anthropologists are all wine snobs.
“And if serious people are disappointed in Democrats for playing the Republican game, they can stick it.”
Seconded. Note that Reid is getting on Romney for not releasing tax returns, which is customary for candidates. It’s not like he’s stating that Romney didn’t release the ‘long form’ of his ‘certificate of live Natural Taxius Payius’, or some other such f-ing lie.
I don’t see the similarity at all and I think Stewart’s invocation of the birthers is a classic example of false equivalence.
Reid says that a specific individual, known to him, was an investor in Bain and told him as a fact that Romney didn’t pay any tax.
How would the investor know? Probably because he himself didn’t pay any tax and knows the gimmicks that Romney used to avoid tax. That’s the most likely explanation for why the accuser is anonymous.
The accusation is plausible, fits all the known facts, and could be easily refuted by doing something that every presidential candidate for decades has done – make the returns public.
Compare that with the birthers. Their accusations were ludicrous and obviously racially motivated from the beginning. All the evidence demonstrated that Obama was born in Hawaii. Nonetheless, Obama did something no other candidate had to do – he made his birth certificate public – and accusations still didn’t go away. Instead, the birthers doubled down and called him a counterfeiter. So he went further and asked Hawaii to make a special disclosure of his long-form birth certificate, which it did, and the accusations still don’t go away – proof that facts have nothing to do with the accusations and that the people making them are either insane or evil or both.
Seems to me that it’s pefectly reasonable for Reid to repeat what he was told when it’s obvious that Romney is hiding something. By contrast, it was always obvious that Obama was hiding nothing. There’s no equivalence here.
+1
More succinctly, even if Reid made the whole “someone told me” thing up, the relevant distinction is that Obama released his birth certificate (and birthers didn’t shut up anyway) while Romney has yet to release those tax returns. So, as per usual when Stewart gets his panties into a bundle, there’s no actual equivalence here.
I forgive Stewart, because I understand he tries to make his show seem bi-partisan. I assume this is due to ratings or something.
It’s not often there is something like this coming from Democrats to criticize. I didn’t really find his piece that funny, but he’s there to make jokes not further the Progressive cause.
I’m so over Jon Stewart.
It is false equivalence, but in the end, Stewart is doing us a favor, intentionally or not. The basic message is, “How dare Reid make the accusation that Mitt Romney didn’t pay income taxes for ten years? Mitt Romney doesn’t need to say anything about Reid’s accusation that Mitt Romney didn’t pay income taxes for ten years! Reid needs to come forward with his proof that Mitt Romney didn’t pay income taxes for ten years.” If they want to play this game, they can go ahead.
I think the only valid point that Stewart had was that the “father is ashamed of you” comment was over the line.
the rest of it…puts fingertips together, kisses them, separates the group
Yeah, the father line is pretty bad…but even then, Reid’s has a good chance of being right. George Romney was as close to a saint as a politician gets.
On the other hand, he raised Mitt.
Actually that struck me as the most true part of it all, I’m quite sure George Romney would be terribly ashamed of his son (and completely appalled at the mess now known as the GOP)
I don’t think that was over the line at all. His father was a good man, and released 12 years of returns when he ran for the presidency.
Moreover, his father explicitly demeaned any politician who’d do less.
Close textual analysis, done with computers, strongly suggests that Reid’s statement was actually written by Bill Ayers.
Not enough nautical references.
“Mitt, release your tax returns. Yo, ho, yo, ho, yo, ho.”
Surely this cannot be Harry Reid, but rather someone else of the same name?
Also, could somebody get Cory Booker some dramamine? He’s looking kind of green around the gills, and these are new shoes.
Reid should laugh, and not because he is beating Republicans at their own game.
He should laugh because this is rather reasonable and on point rhetoric, and it certainly is not absurd to wonder whether a guy in Romney’s position could avoid income taxes altogether.
If GE can do it, I have no doubt Rmoney can.
And, in fact we’ve rather been assuming that Reid made it all up. It might be true.
Yes, indeed it might.
We need to wait and make sure Mitt Romney is the nominee officially first. Has this happened?
I’d hate to make Mitt drop out of the race… much rather have him lose the election.
Mitt Romney is not officially the candidate until the delegates vote him in at the convention. That said, F*** waiting until he’s official. Even if it wasn’t pretty much unthinkable that he’d be forces to drop out of the race, it would be good news for President Obama if he had to. Who would step and take over? Rick Santorum, Mr. Google-Problem himself if next most viable prospect and it just goes downhill from there. No one else could get the nod before and now they’d be coming in to take the spot of a disgraced predecessor. Some of it would stick to them, if you’ll pardon such references in relation to Santorum.
But since that’s never going to happen, what I want is every morning when Mitt Romney gets out of bed or the recharging station, to absolutely dread what he’s going to hear in the news about his campaign. I want him to curse God for allowing this happen to his chosen, preferably in front of a hot mic…
It’s a slippery slope, man, from disrespecting billionaires to Robespierre. And to sweet, sweet walrus love. For all.
First they allowed women to vote, and I did nothing.
Then they proposed raising the top marginal tax rate from 35 to 39%, and I did little.
And when a walrus banged my girlfriend, there was no one to speak for me.
Seems like LBJ knew how to play politics, and maybe Harry is dusting off the playbook.
Or maybe Mittens DIDN’T pay taxes for ten years. Only one way to find out….
Although, Duncan raises a good point:
Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past Willard at this point. Or maybe even faked fake returns, complete with Free Republic provided kerning analysis.
That can be forced on them without their consent? No, not really.
That said, there are a lot of things a politician could do willingly that would put the matter to rest definitively, and a properly functioning journalism establishment would presumably contain people willing to seek out IRS employees as sources.
Kerning!
This is the statement written above the signature line of your Form 1040:
“Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this return and accompanying schedules and statements, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, they are true, correct, and complete. Declaration of preparer (other than taxpayer) is based on all information of which preparer has any knowledge.”
That’s your statement to the IRS that the tax document that you sent to the IRS is legit. If you prepare a different document for public consumption and don’t sign it, this does not apply.
That’s what i was trying to say, but ploeg said it better. What if Mittens releases one unsigned stamped TAXPAYER COPY DO NOT FILE, and it is different from the one actually filed? Don’t think that would be perjury. And it isn’t like Mittens has any shown regard for truth so far this campaign.
Going further, if you must submit your tax returns to somebody other than the IRS (say, for example, to apply for a loan), then it would be fraud if you did not give that person your bonafide tax returns. But it’s fraud because you’re lying to get money out of that person. Strictly speaking, we’re not entitled to see Mitt’s tax returns at all as a condition for anything. It would not be good for Mitt to be caught lying, but there wouldn’t be any legal implications if Mitt did.
Yes, but if the return is one that was never actually submitted, then have you perjured yourself?
If he signed, the false return, then I believe that he would have perjured himself. He would still be signing the statement I quoted earlier under penalty of perjury. And as the 2010 return he released was a signed copy, it’d would look a tad fishy if any others weren’t…
Love it! Hot Mormon-on-Mormon action. Almost beats lesbian walruses.
a slippery slope, man, from disrespecting billionaires to Robespierre
I shall take up knitting.
I’d think Romney’s casino magnate sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson can give him better pointers than me on playing poker. But if Romney thinks Reid is bluffing, the normal way to call a bluff is to lay your own cards face up and call.
But yeah, if you don’t trust your hand, Romney, keep trying to bluff us.
How about this: Romney will release his taxes when Obama releases his academic transcripts.
Unless, of course, they would show that Obama THE MOST BRILLIANT MAN EVER(tm) might have been a shitty student who got through with a first-class ticket on the Affirmative Action Express. Nah, COULDN’T be…
Screw the transcripts, we need his movie rental history? Is there woman on walrus action in there? It would be irresponsible not to ask.
And those long visits to the Lincoln Park Zoo: http://www.lpzoo.org/animals/factsheet/asian-small-clawed-otter Community organizing, right.
Why shouldn’t we make it a prerequisite, before Rmoney does what his opponent has done, what every recent major party nominee has done, and what his father said was the least we ould expect of a serious candidate, that Obama release his school transcripts, even though I don’t know of any previous major party nominee who released their school transcripts?
I can’t believe the troll didn’t mention a Teleprompter! How can he/she be that off-script
Anon’s teleprompter must be down.
Weak sauce. Obama’s released over a decade’s worth of tax information AND his birth certificate.
Romney has released 2 years of tax info. And even those didn’t have information on the money he’s got hiding offshore.
At this point I know more about Romney’s horse than I do Romney. The horse is more likeable too (Republicans should have nominated the horse.)
Back in the day, a reporter asked George Romney to release his tax returns for that year. George declined, saying that one year would prove nothing and would be just a political stunt.
The next day, he released 12 years of returns.
Republicans should have nominated the horse.
Well, yeah–half measures are pointless–why not nominate the whole horse?
You don’t want to be half-assed about it.
Romney = Nero?
For values of ‘Nero’ that include Caligula.
If you’ve seen one crazed Julio-Claudian, you’ve seen them all . . .
See Caligula and die
Thanks. i couldn’t remember which crazy bastard I meant, so I took a stab. Honestly, though, a horse as consul probably is a better idea than whomever Romney would appoint to the DOJ
To my knowledge, he’s only released his 2010 returns. He promised to release 2011 estimates but those aren’t the same thing. I’m sure the reason that he hasn’t released the actual returns is that they have not been filed yet. The final extended filing deadline for personal returns is October 15. I’m sure that right after he’s sent off his 2011 return in October, he’ll release it and it will show that he paid an effective tax rate that isn’t ridiculously low.
I expect part of his planned October Surprise is that he’ll say, “See, I usually pay more taxes than that.” It can’t work if he has to release prior year returns that show that’s a blatant lie.
You were more interesting back when you were gloating about how the Supremes were gonna overthrow Obamacare any minute now, Jennie.
Now, you just smell of flop sweat and too many sock puppets all encrusted with leftover walrus spunk.
Leftover walrus spunk? That sounds like a scene from Meet the Feebles.
He graduated Magna from Harvard Law, which means that he was near the top of his class (I know the information is current, not historical, but I’m not spending the time and energy to satisfy this mook’s bad faith question) based on grades and completion of an honors thesis.
Transcripts, at that point, are pretty much irrelevant.
I can tell you that the reason (at least, the stated reason) wingnuts want his transcript is precisely because he graduated Magna. The idea is that he was a C student who got given Magna honors because he is blackity black black, and his transcripts prove it.
That may well be the dumbest conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard.
Though I like the structure of it: if Obama did release the transcripts, they could claim that it was faked or altered, and demand original grade records. If Harvard did release the original grade records, they could claim fakery or forgery, and demand original papers. If Obama did release original papers, they could claim post-hoc creation or ghost-writing (cf Ayers) and demand handwritten and notarized drafts, Republican eyewitness accounts, etc.
Nah, that’s not how they’d play it. Things like grade reports and transcripts, those are objective. They exist.
But whether those grades were DESERVED is another matter. One you got your hands on his actual papers, you trot out people saying that they weren’t deserving of the grades they received, that this is high school work at best, etc.
The stupidest thing about this is that law school exams are blind graded. Further, admission to law review is based on first year grades (which are all blind graded) and a law review writing contest (which is blind graded by upper class members of law review).
Law schools are extremely careful about making sure that grades aren’t biased for or against a given student because of any external factor (race, religion, gender, body order, physical attractiveness, favorite sports team, sex with the professor, etc.) since the entire class is graded on a curve and ranked accordingly.
Wingers can only plausibly claim that Obama may have got into Harvard Law via affirmative action and he may have been voted in as editor in chief of law review based, in part, on his race (those elections are like high school student government elections and there’s no way of knowing precisely why he was voted editor in chief other than that he was almost certainly popular and well liked by the members of Law Review.
I agree that the entire thing is stupid, but law school grades are rarely entirely blind grades. The exams are usually blind graded, but then the professor matches the exam grades to the names and can make adjustments for class participation. In the vast majority of professors’ hands, these adjustments are rarely more than one scale (i.e., B to B+), but in law school, I heard of at least one instance of serious favoritism in grading.
None of which is likely to have made the difference in Obama’s achieving magna cum laude.
Class participation is only a factor in the “fluffy” classes at HLS – the kinds of classes that have 15 students in them, where the professor doesn’t want to give a real final exam.
Given that most core classes have anywhere from 80-120 students (and that’s *after* reducing the size of the 1L core classes – I think it was more in Obama’s time), there’s simply no feasible way for most professors to even track participation, let alone weight it.
So are birth certificates
and demand original grade records
Shirley you mean the long-form grade records.
Don’t call me Shirley.
So in order for us to learn what Mitt did 3 years ago, Obama has to tell us the grade he got in Physics freshman year of college?
How about this: Romney will release his taxes when Obama releases his taxes.
Well, if we’re doing tit-for-tat…
Obama already released his birth certificate, long form birth certificate, AND tax returns.
Looks like Romney needs to release his tax returns for last 10 years, in addition to two other highly private documents.
Or when Republicans play “eye-for-an-eye” do they really mean that it’s only fair if Republicans are winning?
How about this: Romney releases his tax returns from the Saginaw Plaza Hotel. It’s going to be struck down any day now, and there’s no way they’ll survive.
Hey, look over there: a black guy!
I’m willing to cut Stewart some slack on this. He’s done enough good work over the years that when he gets things wrong/has an annoying tic (his particular brand of false equivalence) I’m willing to say “No, you’re wrong, Jonny Boy” without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If I only paid attention to people who were always right the list would be short indeed.
Having said that, what Reid said would have been greeted with chin-stroking seriousness if uttered by a journo. He has a source inside Bain who gave him information that he deems to be 1) reliable, and 2) in the public interest. He put that information out there, so we can all judge for ourselves, based on our own opinions of Harry Reid’s reliability in light of his past actions and claims.
I am somewhat appalled a legislator, who already has a day job (two day jobs in Reid’s case, as Majority Leader would be a full-time job by itself even if you weren’t a Senator) had to do something journalists should be on top of.
+1 and/or This.
The difference between Colbert and Stewart is that Colbert is all in on his performance – he’s not asking anyone to like him personally.
Stewart wants to keep his career options open and he knows that he’s on permanent double secret probation after the Tucker Carlson takedown which while it was effective was not very smooth. He’s used up his free pass with the Villagers and he knows it.
Colbert aint asking for no steenking passes.
Stewart’s a conflicted Republican voter.
Jon Stewart literally voted for Republican Bush I and regularly pimps Republican war criminals, torturers, and liars.
Watch Stewart’s softball, almost sycophantic, interviews with Republican sociopaths like Yoo, Feith, Rumsfeld, Rice, amongst others.
Right-wingers go on Jon Stewart’s show because they _know_ he’ll pimp their books with little, if any, push back.
Beyond Stewart’s right-wing enabling politics, is Stewart’s often hard right-wing economic outlook.
Look up Stewart’s completely sycophantic interview with right-wing liar Amity Shlaes and compare it to Stewart’s disrespectful, even demeaning, interview with economist Robert Reich.
2 shows out of 5 are still usually funny.
But of the remaining 3 not funny shows, 2 of those have me cursing Stewart’s right-wing enabling sycophancy, false equivalency, and outright pissing on legitimate left-wing concerns and tactics.
He could be a closet Lorne Michaels.
I’m fond of pointing out that Ron Paul has been a guest of the show 3 times, while Paul Krugman has been a guest once.
Krugman has already one of the tallest soapboxes in the world (NYT writer).
The fact that “serious people” ignore his advice is not due to the fact that his opinions are not well-publicized.
I could see the argument that Jon Stewart was a Republican a decade ago. And I don’t find that damning at all. Sure, I may not agree with his political stance completely…
… but at least he got he good thought to get out. He may be a fiscal conservative, but he seems to be aware that the Republican party is now crazy.
Leaving the party because it is now embarrassing is not the same thing as acknowledging that the party’s basic ideas are flawed.
No points for refusing to stand next your drooling cousin.
Stewart lost me for good with that bullshit “Rally For Nothing” a while back.
Not to hate on him, really. It’s just that on a certain level, he’s going do do just fine no matter what happens with that silly politics thing.
For 90+ percent of us it is real deal, life or death shit, whether one knows it or not; if Romney wins and the GOP takes the Senate, how will Jon Stewart’s life change, exactly? He’ll pay less in taxes and maybe say some preciously ironic things about it on the TV. Hey, he was fun during the Bush debacle, but OTOH what did Jon Stewart do to make anything any better, even by a little bit? Snark and laughs will get you on the NYC subway, so long as you have two bucks.
Not to pick on him, this is a disease that afflicts much of the Liberal commentariat. (cf. Bill Keller, if you want to see what the terminal condition looks like.)
Harry Reid is one hell of a Senator, one hell of a Majority Leader, and one fuck of a knife fighter. It used to shock me how much I’ve grown to appreciate and yes, even admire the guy over the last few years- now I’m used to it, even when I hear him sounding like Malcolm X later in the same article.
(Love his the remarks about CU and “17 angry old white men” drooling into their oatmeal, surprised Jon Stewart didn’t throw a hissy fit about that too.)
I saw (and see) nothing improper at all about his remarks here: Romney has handed Democrats a club with which to beat him. Now I’m supposed to clutch my pearls because we’re fighting back?
Uh, no. Fuck that. Sorry Jon, but this sort of “balanced” bullshit is pretty much why I gave up on the Daily Show a few years ago.
“Harry Reid is one hell of a Senator, one hell of a Majority Leader, and one fuck of a knife fighter.”
I don’t know about the first two, but the last is certainly true. The thing that has long irritated me is that Reid kept his knife-fighting skills within the state politics of Nevada instead of using them against national Republicans. That’s fine to control Nevada and all, but let’s put these use where they are super valuable–making Romney look like a tax evader.
“look like”?
Maybe Romney’s not a tax evader. Maybe he just doesn’t want to let people see all those for-profit abortion clinics on his K-1s.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
He had a lot to do with the various policy wins we got over the last few years. Hauling Ledbetter, Dodd-Frank, PPACA over the goal line despite our utterly broken and sabotaged Senate is noteworthy. Maybe the biggest reason that DADT got killed, too. He’s been a very forceful and effective advocate for progressive policy.
I catch your meaning, though. Reid’s ’10 re-election campaign should be in textbooks someday; ruthless and determined. (Threw his own son’s campaign under the bus! Cutthroat, ambitious, definitely not nice, but “Senator Angle” would be a far worse outcome for all concerned.) Even that was not a gutter campaign though.
I just see powerful evidence that Reid does in fact swing that pimp cane on a national level, at least in terms of policy making if not stumping for the Party. (Charismatic he’s not.)
I actually think he was a much, much better Minority Leader than Majority Leader until very recently.
When he was Minority Leader I remember being very impressed at the dogged tenacity with which he was fighting rearguard actions against the Bushies, often handicapped and betrayed by members of his own caucus. He sort of… lost his mojo when he became Majority Leader, though. Wasn’t nearly aggressive enough when it came to things like congressional oversight and he seemed to be clinging desperately to collegial norms in the Senate the Republicans have long since disregarded.
He seems to have realized that now, though, and is fighting back. It takes a big man to admit he was wrong about filibuster reform. I’ve been more and more impressed with him this year… but this year is an election year, and Reid knows how to fight like a demon during election season.
We’ll see how it goes afterwards when he actually has to govern again. To an extent that depends on his caucus, but if we hold the Senate and can nuke the filibuster, at the very least we’d be able to staff the damn government.
Fair point about Senate rules, but failing to anticipate unprecedented douchebaggery by the GOP is a failing that even my cynical ass shared. (I got it sooner than Reid did maybe but I have little to no power, so what is that worth?)
OTOH, Reid nailed down Nelson and Lieberman as #59 and #60 for PPACA. (Horrible people both, I shan’t miss them.) The 111th Congress did a lot more than I could expect given the poisoned-well environment, and that soft spoken Mormon grandpa has been a quiet storm throughout. He didn’t raise his voice once as I remember during the whole DADT thing, even as activists were tearing him several new ones- but DADT is dead now, by law and not by an easily reversible executive order.
As a surrogate Reid beats the shit out of Cory Booker or Ed Rendell, both of whom are presumably looking out for their careers. As TBogg said (at the much loathed by me anyway FDL), Harry is now the honey badger. He don’t give a shit, HE WILL SHANK YOU.
Good to have a scrapper or two on our side. I miss Russ Feingold, but his principles got him replaced with someone perhaps even dumber and more extreme than Sharron Angle.
And no, I don’t get paid for this. Many moons ago I thought, “Dammit we chose some old, white, Mormon, pro-life guy from Nevada to lead our caucus, oy!”
Unlikely bedfellows and all. Glad to have this guy watching my back something like 80-90% of the time. (As for the “pro-life” thing, funny… I never saw him twist arms for that shit. I do see him fighting hard for Planned Parenthood.)
Converted skeptic, I guess with all the zeal that entails. Harry Reid has done more to make this country a better place than Ralph Nader, Noam Choamsky and Cindy Sheehan put together.
The game is for real, and for keeps: as a baseball fan I value WAR over “gritty” and “clutch”, as a citizen I appreciate real policy wins more than, say, Alan Grayson’s attitude.
Is it okay to wonder why a “Bain insider” wants Harry Reid to know about Rmoney’s tax returns?
Hell, we haven’t even officially made it to the convention yet.
Because not all Bain insiders are amoral trash and at least one knows how a Romeny presidency would destroy the American economy by eliminating the middle class that business owners need to sell things to?
Or maybe they simply have the good taste to hate Romney as (an alleged) human being.
Does anybody think Romney would have been a nice man to work for?
The NYMag article about his Bain days made it pretty clear that he did not have any personal friends at the firm. They may have respected his acumen in pension stealing, but they didn’t want to hang out with him after work.
Think about the implications of the “At Bain” “Not At Bain” scandal. Romney stated clearly that he was using his official positions at Bain as leverage to negotiate his retirement package. He openly acknowledged that he was reaming the rest of the people at Bain for as much cash as he could squeeze out of them despite not doing anything for the company.
It’s not hard to see how he might have madesome enemies.
This will be a classic some day if it isn’t already:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-spends-most-of-factory-visit-yelling-at-emp,28508/
Have you ever met people at these these types of companies? Half of the personnel are like alphas males with rabies, the other half are alpha males on PCP…
I’m sure a good chunk of those who worked with or for him at Bain hate his guts – and while I’m sure almost all would view a Romney presidency as good for them personally, more than a handful would see being the one to stick a shiv in him as being even more personally beneficial- in a psyche type sense.
these are people to whom living well is NOT the best revenge- ruining the other guy is
I keep going to all these websites hoping I don’t have to register to leave a comment.
I just want to remind them all Obama is from Kenya, because he hasn’t managed to prove to me otherwise. Pretty sure everyone on the boards are just going to agree, and remind me how shameful it is Obama lied about where he is from…
Cody,
No one here amongst the illiterati will agree with you, it’s unfortunate, but the, and I shudder to even utter the term, liberals, are uneducable. They’ve never had the advantage of learning physics from Mother, or sexual education from a priest, a true man of god (girls, anyhow, for some reason they had a layperson teach us sex ed and the priests taught the girls in a chaste manner.)
My father taught me how to wrestle, fish, and identify an Kenyan at 20 paces. (In western Wisconsin, it was not hard, everyone knew the Kenyan family, they were not to be trusted. I never learned why.)
I am getting tired of all these, oh Lord, it hurts to say, liberals, trying to tell me that He-Who-Dares-Call-Himself President has proved he was not in the Green River Valley in Washington State in the 1980s and 1990s, or that he was not the One who gave Hirohito the idea to reinstall the Bushido code, thus creating the violent loyalty of the Imperial Armed Forces in the Pacific.
Cody, you are a gentleman and a patriot, and I’ve never said that, or felt that way, about another man before. Please take care and if you wish to talk, or do you like sushi, you can visit my place.
Umm, best, something. I don’t want to be forward,
paleo
Aw hell, I screwed the dammit. Sorry Cody, I read this so wrong, my apologies. Snarkmeter need recalibra…recliberat…fuck it, fixing.
Actually, that one was some pretty great material.
Getting better and better all the time.
GASP!
I would bet that most legislators on both sides know exactly (or hire accountants who know exactly) how to take advantage of any poor people shelter they can.
And hypocrites or not, I still hope they drag Romney through all kinds of hell. Wealthy folk like him are always going to be able to exploit the system, at least they can be shamed for it.
I can’t remember ever seeing a mercilessly aggressive Democratic campaign like this, not since LBJ’s time anyway. They just won’t let Romney off the ropes and he’s already getting groggy. For all my many beefs about the post-Clinton Democratic Party, this warms my heart.
Dude,
I’m from Barsoom, and I don’t care if Obama is from… where? Kenya? What planet are you from, anyway?
If he can do the job, and we see from the past 3.4 years that he can, then we owe it to him and ourselves to let him go on for the next 4 years!
That’s just things are on Barsoom!
JR ;-{)
to say Obama is better than Rmoney is quite a compliment. Obama has been able to attack Social Security funding. something no Republican has done as yet.
Americans deserve Rmoney after excusing the right wing behaviour of Obama. Obama can do things no Democrat could ever get away with.
to watch Reid say something “threatening” is so out of character. wonder why all of a sudden, Reid throws dirt. there have too many times when Reid needed to stop the “game playing” of the Republicans.
just shows how easily the Elites play with each other to “focus” our attention.
Rmoney will do to us quicker what Obama/Obush is doing slowly. that’s the real difference between the two.
AFP should be able to pay for more competent trolls. Pathetic, even by internet comment standards.
[...] (or was it?) claim that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes for past ten years. First, as SEK points out over at Lawyers, Guns & Money, the idea that a claim like Reid’s is beyond the pale went [...]
[...] you want to say that Reid is engaging in dishonorable tactics, you can. For the reasons SEK and Jonathan Zasloff have stated, I don’t agree — Reid didn’t breach any actually [...]