Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 29, 2012

looking forward to his return to being a private citizen

I just want his tax rate.

Avert your eyes like a true citizen!

But…if he released his tax returns, Duke could give him a tax cut! Like all those Iraqis he used to rule over.

I want to see his Unforged tax returns, his Unforged high school and college grades, and his Unforged birth certificate.

“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation . . . " – Ann Romney

Hey, where’re Iraq’s King George Bush and Blackwater’s Prince Dick Cheney? In the crowd on the floor? Or in a garbage dumpster out back?

How ’bout his “tough, unwavering stand” to swing like a pendulum from RIGHT (as CEO of Bain Jobs Export Svcs.) to LEFT (as governor of MA) to RIGHT (as candidate for the GOP nom) to MIDDLE (as candidate for USA CEO)?

You DO pay tax on unemployment.

“We don’t want to see them, We don’t want to see them, We don’t want to see them,

…Never did and never will.”

(apologies to the Who — “We’re Not Gonna Take It” from Tommy )

I want to see his birth certificate, I don’t for a minute believe he was born in Michigan, but probably in some foreign pesthole like New York City.

I guess this is what Chris Christie meant last night “we will be the party that chooses respect over love” Respect for the 1/10 of the 1%.

If Republicans have their way, that’s for sure. The man responsible for firing lots of Americans and sending their jobs overseas is trying to run the country, after all. And Republicans have made a concerted effort to stall the recovery and destroy the economy over the past three and a half years.

“When is [Obama] finally going to ‘Lead by Example’ and release his sealed records?”π“Sealed records” of what? His basketball performance? His per-game number of 2-pointers, 3-pointers, assists, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, blocks, and turnovers? HIs MVPs?πTHOSE records?

While working at Bain Capital, Mitt Romney bought companies, fired the employees, sold all the assets, stole all the pension funds, and squirreled the money away in foreign bank accounts so he would not have to pay taxes. Will anyone be surprised if he trashes the United States if he manages to steal the election?

I’m going to bed now, so I will leave you with this warning for when Guard SGT wafts in:πDRTT, DFTT = Don’t Read The Troll, Don’t Feed The Trollπ“Thanka vera mush” —Elvis, who, unfortunately, “left the building” 35 years ago.

The convention’s not getting off to a good start, as Nick Kristof reported in this morning’s NYT—seems the opening speaker, a businesswoman from New Jersey, gave a rousing speech about how “We Built It,” creating her business without any help from the government… and it turns out she’s received over $2 million in guaranteed loans from the SBA, and $15 million in government contracts, of which $10 million were obtained without competitive bidding. Oops. .Maybe the company that was supposed to vet the speakers and make sure there were no skeletons in the closet was bought out and gutted by Bain Capital…

While I am not a Romney supporter, we should expect his wife to be his biggest supporter. We can be certain he’d not be in the race if she had been against it. Your words are, frankly, unkind and divisive and just reinforce the “righteous indignation”(accent on the “right”) of conservatives who ‘fear’ the “extremism” of liberal americans. We cannot build consensus and bipartisanship with hateful words and/or actions. Respectfully,C.

Re “We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation . . . " – Ann Romney, the phrase “you people” drips with contempt, echoing that of Leona Helmsly toward the “little people”. Those people are the ones hiring a president, and Mitt is the job applicant.

Notice the ostrich hole perspective in the last panel? In fact in a rebranding effort I’ve heard that they’re going to adopt the ostrich™ as their new party symbol. That’s sure to upset the Palin sect who was agitating for dinosaurs.

There’s between 22.3 TRILLION and 32 TRILLION bucks in less than 3,000 so-called Americans’ secret(!) accounts offshore…ie, Bahamas, etc…according to an FBI report released last month…no, you haven’t seen it in corporate media, have you?

That is 2 and 1/2 times the national debt…go ahead, divide that amount of money by the number 3,000.That might OCCUPY your mind…

WHAT ARE YOU HIDING MR. TAX DODGER?

one wonders what Pat Robertson must think of the hurricane hitting Florida at EXACTLY THE TIME THE REPUBLICANS WERE STARING THEIR CONVENTION? Wraith of God like it was against the gays during Katrina?

Annie might be a bit more understanding if she had to clip coupons or work to support her kids every day of her life. Privilege has it’s rankness.

“… it’s CONGRESS who actually has the most power!”πWhat about the U.S. Supreme Court (SC)? The GOPs want Romney in for 8 years so he can make one or two more SC appointments. Then, if a Presidential election boils down to one swing state which has a very close final numbers, then the grateful and fully partisan SC can SELECT the next President. And the people can’t ELECT one. Witness Bush v. Gore in the year 2000. With justices like Scalia in the majority on the SC, it can then effectively make reich-wing law — such as removing women’s reproductive rights — from the bench.πAmereica, America, O once-blessed democratic republic, thy days are sunsetting away.

Why wasn’t Tim Geithner arrested for tax fraud?

“Baa-aa-aa!”πLo, there’s a sheep! Sheer it, GOP! With holy private insurance. Before it applies for Medicade.

Let’s see GE’s again.

Right after Obama releases his all his records!!

He stands firm on his flip-flops as well. He refuses to stop them.

It’s an issue that won’t go away – and it shouldn’t. Especially considering it was his daddy’s 1968 run for the GOP nomination that set the precedent for candidates releasing at least 10 years of tax returns. All we have for Romney is his incomplete 2010 return (missing a key schedule related to declaration of off-shore accounts – which tells us he has them, and that by including it on his return, despite no capital gains on it, it was probably because he was granted a tax amnesty in 2008-09 for hidden offshore income and the IRS consequently already knew about thtat particular account). And he has released a preliminary 2011 return.

That Romney refuses to release further, or complete returns despite the negative attention, and his daddy’s example, can really only indicate that what those returns contain is sufficiently damaging that he and the GOP agree the public is best left to guess at the contents than to know and confirm – or make their man subject to criminal proceedings for either falsifying tax returns, or falsifying his status, and/or SEC filings for the period he supposedly wasn’t still running Bain, despite legal documents saying he was, and yet supposedly not there while Bain was actively off-shoring jobs.

Of course, what he did while admittedly still at Bain should be damaging enough – like the milking of the troubled companies for fat dividends and fees for Bain, including raiding the pension funds. Nice to steal the worker’s pensions, so that you can claim a $77,000 tax deduction as a medical therapy for Ann, for a race horse down the road, and to put towards keeping the car elevator serviced…

It’s hard to believe the Republicans can’t better vet prospects – like Palin, before Romney. I think it really comes down to deluded thinking, that having candidates that represent a certain image, to appeal to some aspect of their core, will overcome lack of knowledge, or lack of personal integrity. Granted, lots of ordinary people wouldn’t want the details of their private and business lives subject to public scrutiny. But you’d better believe it’s going to happen for a candidate for high office – as it should.

It would not appear that Mittens is paying even close to his share. We don’t know exactly what he pays since he won’t disclose his returns but he himself has said it was around 13 per cent, far lower than middle class folks.

No, the case is certainly not closed, when all other modem prez candidates have disclosed far more than 2 years of their returns. He wants to be given special treatment in regard to this because he is afraid to disclose his returns.

The United States government has no complaint with Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president. Case closed.

DTπ is not running for POTUS.

And don’t forget those wonderful years when Bain controlled a company that disposed of aborted fetuses (feti). I wonder if they converted them to LDS first…

His income is effectively taxed twice – once at the corporate level, then at the personal level. Total is probably around 40%.We now return you to the DNC cartoon programming.

We really don’t know what Romney has done in terms of paying his taxes, BECAUSE HE WON’T RELEASE HIS TAX RETURNS! If he would just release them, and he did such a wonderful job of paying his share, we wouldn’t have anything else to talk about in terms of his taxes. He won’t release them, which must mean that he is hiding something. He is probably not paying the appropriate amount. Maybe he just isn’t tithing as he should, we don’t know. HE WON’T RELEASE HIS RETURNS! Actually, in the Mormon church, if you don’t tithe as you are supposed to, you could be in serious trouble in terms of your Mormon church membership, or even your ability to be a Mormon leader in the church and this is supposedly very important to the Romneys.

I don’t know if he will get us out of Afghanistan, I wouldn’t count on it. He is chomping at the bit to get into more wars. He is all about going after Iran, for example, and he thinks we should be involved with Syria militarily and other places.

Oh you poor uninformed, biased, folks who snipe at Romney or anyone else who thinks Obama is great for America. What a rude awakening awaits you if the Oval Office doesn’t have a new occupant by February 2013. America will start down the road to being a complete totalitarian dictatorship. And, by 2014 America, as we knew it, will be dead and starting to rot. FOO!!

Most of these are trolls here. Although I can’t support either of the 2 major parties, as a very small business owner, I realize that income taxes are very complex, the more investments, the worse it is. To be fair, many people pay an estimated amount and then have there lawyers and accountants fight it out with the IRS for years. I would expect this to be Mitts problem, I would suspect that parts of his last couple (if not more) returns are in contention.

“Show me the last 12 years of your unforged IRS Tax returns”πAnd then you’ll elect me President of the US?

“Screw his tax return. Will he get us out of Afghanistan?”πThe two are probably not unrelated.

DFTT, DRTT

@Guard SGT

I always look for your comments, you are hilarious!

I thought you might reassured if you saw the following: https://store.barackobama.com/made-in-the-usa-mug.html

Word of the day – uttered from the lips of the uninformed,irrational, and idiotic : “Stalinistic”If you don’t agree with someones argument, call it Stalinistic.If someone is more rational than you, call them Stalinistic.If the world isn’t dancing to your tune, call it Stalinistic.If someone calls you out on your stupidity, why then they’re Stalinistic.Just call me Stalinistic !

jsax = Guard STG? One person, two different handles? Each one agreeing with the other?

@DylanThomas3.14159Hi .. are you implying that I agree with Guard STG on something?Did you check the link I provided? Cheers.

‘Maybe he just isn’t tithing as he should, we don’t know. ’Actually, that’s the one thing I am sure he did; he may lie about everything else, but I’m positive the church is #1 in his life.

@Spaghettus1Ah, as one tax professional to another then, do you have a similar treatment for carried interest on private equity as we do in the UK – treated as a capital gain, and taxed in the way that an entreprenuer would be when he sold his business, rather than as an investor in a listed company?

In the UK it means a 10% tax charge rather than a 50% one, and led to the famous comment about paying tax at a lower rate than the cleaner.