THE MITTEN$ GAFFES JUST KEEP COMING

I heard about this on a radio show and at first I thought it was a mistaken report but Robert Rowley found an MSM link.  On Mitten$ 2011 Federal Income Tax return, America is listed as a foreign country:

THIS IS MORE BAD NEWS FOR MITTEN$

According to the AP, Romney is directly responsible for his mediocre campaign.

Romney runs campaign like CEO; is it too much?
By KASIE HUNT | Associated Press – 18 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney seems to be both candidate and campaign CEO these days, and some Republicans say he's trying to do too much.

He reviews TV ads and polling data on an iPad. He writes many of his speeches. He's often talking like a consultant.

Some Republicans grimaced.

They say Romney's explanation was evidence of a big problem with his campaign: The nominee simply is taking on too many duties. Romney's job is to inspire voters, they say, and not manage every detail of his campaign.

Bain Capital carefully avoided what company veterans call "imponderables" — enterprises where success hinged on doing something that couldn't really be estimated. A biotechnology firm working on a cancer cure, for example, could offer a high payoff, but it was difficult to assess just how likely it was that the research would ever succeed. Instead, the companies were often old manufacturing enterprises or companies that sell everyday products.

Presidents have to solve those types of intractable problems.

THE TAXES

(h/t Josh Marshall)

Mitten$ said earlier this year that if you pay more in Federal taxes than you legally owe, you should not be President.  Rick Newman points out that using that rule, Mitten$ should drop out now because of his 2011 filing.  Newman also wonders how the 2011 shrunk by about $7 million since the preliminary release.

UPDATE: Jacob Weisberh finds another goof:

...Brad Malt, the trustee of Romney’s blind trust, notes that the candidate and his wife paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in income, for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent. Malt notes that the Romneys claimed only $2.25 million in charitable deductions, despite having given more than $4 million to charity. By way of explanation, Malt states:

“The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.”

In fact, Romney never made any commitment to pay a minimum of 13 percent, or more than what he owed in 2011.

QUEEN ANN SPEAKS TO THE 99% & PEGGY NOONAN

This woman has to be a liability now:

“This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

UPDATE: Queen Ann's remarks don't sit will with most people on this POLITICO thread.

TIM PAWLENTY IS, THOUGH

Pawlenty has quit as national co-chair of one of the worst Presidential campaigns (Mitten$) in modern history and I'm wondering is he is the first one to be tossed overboard. The AP, the NYT don't mention any hard feelings but the LA Times has a couple of interesting tidbits:

The group said that because it is a bipartisan organization, Pawlenty would step down as a national co-chairman of Romney's campaign. Romney said he regretted the departure of his "dear friend," but that Pawlenty's "new position advancing the integrity of our financial system is vital to the future of our country."

Pawlenty probably would have been a contender for a Cabinet post were Romney to win the White House. But to land the new job, Pawlenty had to agree he would not take a position in a Romney administration, a spokeswoman for the Financial Services Roundtable said.

I suspect Pawlenty had decided that the good ship Mitten$ will never reach port.

In related news, both POLITICO and the Financial Times note that Mitten$ is hurting GOP Senate candidates.

THE NOONAN ISN'T FINISHED WITH MITTEN$

POLITICO reports that she's doubled down:

This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant "rolling calamity."

How long before some conservative pundit comes out with the truth: Mitten$ sucks?

KEEPING TRACK OF THE CONSERVATIVE RACISTS

I decided on 9/15 to start keeping track of this viciousness.

Texas man lynches chair with invisible Obama
By David Edwards
Thursday, September 20, 2012 10:59 EDT
The Raw Story

A Republican man in Austin, Texas this week lynched a chair which many are interpreting to be a threat against President Barack Obama because of Clint Eastwood’s bizarre speech at the Republican National Convention last month.

When Haenschen contacted the homeowner on Thursday, he made it clear that the first African-American president was on his mind when he decided to lynch the chair.

“I don’t really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not,” Bud Johnson reportedly said. “You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don’t give a shit. If you don’t like it, don’t come down my street.”

Over the weekend, photos emerged of another chair with the word “Nobama” being lynched in Virginia.

PERFECT TIMING

Atrios made this point today:

One can never be quite sure how much conservatives believe their own bullshit, but my longstanding theory is that they believe there's some secret super generous welfare system that only black people have access to. When they had hard times, got their government handouts, their government handouts sucked. But the blahs are out there buying their t-bones and driving their cadillacs, so they must be getting the really good welfare.

By chance, I was listening to Alan Colmes' radio show last night and a woman caller voiced exactly the bogus complaint that Atrios described.  I've also heard other callers on other shows refer to "those people" who drive a Cadillac Escalade and buy steaks & lobsters with food stamps.

WINGNUTS IN PANIC MODE

Their responses to Mitten$ all-century gaffe (so far) have been pretty weak.  Some make the bogus claim that the video was edited to make Mitten$ look bad.  Others have been harping on the murders of Americans in Libya, some going as far as Mark Levin to falsely the administration is involved in a cover-up.  The neo-con contingent have also tried to portray Pres. Obama as appeasing Al Qaeda, a claim so preposterous that it can only appeal to their own troglodytes.  Finally, some diehards have tried to distract Americans by bringing up Monica Lewinsky.

MARK "FOAMER" LEVIN VS. OTHER WACKOS

Tonight, Levin assailed Peggy Noonan, Bill Kristol and other notable conservatives for daring to point out that Mitten$ is a FAIL.   In the past, Levin hasn't been shy about attacking Michael Savage and some pols he thinks are RINOs but it's rare that he is critical of any movement conservative.

THE REAL CLASS WARFARE + IGNORANCE + MEANNESS

(h/t Atrios)

Let's not forget that Matalin is a Villager in Very Good Standing.

Mary Matalin: Thanks To Romney, We Can Single Out ‘Parasites’
Benjy Sarlin 7:30 PM EDT, Tuesday September 18, 2012
TPMLivewire

Conservative commentator Mary Matalin hailed Mitt Romney's "47 percent" line on CNN as good news for Republicans.

"There are makers and takers, there are producers and there are parasites," she said. "Americans can distinguish between those who have produced and paid in through no fault of their own and because of Obama's horrible policies who cannot get a job or are underemployed. That's what the campaign is about."

MITTEN$ PISSED OFF HIS BASE... :-)

If The Poors don't pay, America is doomed but apparently it's OK is the Richest don't pay.

4,000 of the richest in Romney's '47%'
By Jeanne Sahadi
CNNMoney.com – Tue, Sep 18, 2012 3:03 PM EDT

Nobody's really talking about this slice of the pie, but Mitt Romney's "47%" who pay no federal income tax include several thousand of the highest-income households in the country.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 4,000 households with incomes over $1 million ended up with zero federal income tax liability in 2011. Another 14,000 made between $500,000 and $1 million.

Combined, those households represented just 0.025% of the more than 76 million who did not pay.

MITTEN$ REALLY SCREWED THE POOCH

Even Megan McArdle (glibertarian), Charles Krauthammer (neo-con war whore) and Mark "Foamer" Levin (right-wing wacko) are criticizing his moochers statement.  Levin alone reaches more people than most of the wingnut Mitten$ supporters.

UPDATE: POLITICO reports that even Doughy Pantload smacked Mitten$:

A stable of prominent writers associated with National Review—including Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponnuru and Reihan Salam—questioned the substance of Romney’s comments.

SOMEBODY SHOULD ASK MITTEN$ ABOUT STAPLES

That's one of Bain Capital's success stories but as jiml1956 points out:

Romney's claim to fame is Staples, right? You do realize that most employees of Staples don't make enough to pay Federal income tax, right? Staples employees are part of Romney's 47%.

Over at Glassdoor, there are some stats about Staples employees pay:

A LOT OF WINGNUTS SUPPORT MITTEN$ ON THE POORS

Erick Erickson fully supports Romney's moochers statements and provides a list of other conservative gasbags who do too:

• Hot Air – Allahpundit: Romney: Obama’s 47% Of The Electorate Is Dependent On Government
• Townhall – Carol Platt Liebau: Is Mitt Romney Wrong?
• Blaze – Becket Adams: Romney Revealed: Leaked Footage Shows Gop Candidate Claiming 47 Percent Of Americans Will Vote Obama Because They Want Gov’t To Take Care Of Them
• The Corner – John O’sullivan: How Romney Should Respond
• Gateway Pundit – Jim Hoft: Mitt Romney Responds To Leaked Fundraiser Video – Slams Obama (Video)
• Human Events – John Hayward: Mitt Romney And The 47 Percent
• Fox Nation: Romney Calls For Release Of Full ’47 Percent’ Video, Says Comments Weren’t ‘Elegantly Stated’
• Campaign Spot – Jim Geraghty: Here’s What Inspires The Gop’s ‘Entitlement’ Perception
• Campaign Spot – Jim Geraghty: What Inspires The Gop’s ‘Entitlement’ Perception, Part Two
• Power Line – Scott Johnson: The 47-Percent Solution
• PJ Media – Bryan Preston: Julia Nods Her Head
• Marathon Pundit – John Ruberry: From Doug Ross: Campaign That Wrote Off The White Working Class Decries Romney’s concerns With The Culture Of Dependency
• Daily Caller – Jim Treacher: The Democrats Think Romney Just Self-Destructed By Pointing Out, Um, Their Entire Strategy
• Right Sphere – Thomas: Romney And The 47%
• Townhall – Guy Benson: Video: Romney Holds Presser To Respond To 47 Percent “Controversy”
• Washington Examiner – Paul Bedard: It’s Worse Than Romney Said: 49% On Federal Aid, 49% Pay No Tax
• Twitchy – Brett Taylor: Conservatives Not So Shocked By Secret Romney Tape Revelations
• Marathon Pundit – John Ruberry: Romney Is Right: Obama Is Turning Us Into An Entitlement Society
• Mediaite – Noah Rothman: Laura Ingraham Fired Up Over Romney’s 47% Tape: ‘It’s Ridiculous’ This Is Getting Airtime
• Hot Air – Ed Morrissey: No, Romney Didn’t Just Lose The Election

WHAT MITTEN$ SAID

I've been reading this POLITICO thread and listening to Slots Bennett's radio show and it seems that too many conservatives don't know exactly what Romney said:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Just to be clear, Mitten$ claims that 47% of Americans are parasites.

THIS MAY BE A HUFFPO RECORD FOR COMMENTS

As of right now, it's almost 80,000...

THIS IS WHEN THE GOP LOST THE HISPANIC VOTE FOREVER

It was when the crowd booing Rick Perry...

Opponents pile on, Rick Perry calls them heartless on immigration
By ALEXANDER BURNS | 9/22/11 9:58 PM EDT Updated: 9/23/11 8:51 AM EDT
POLITICO

The word of the night is “magnet.”

First, Michele Bachmann used it to describe laws that allow illegal immigrants to get in-state tuition benefits for college. Rick Perry signed a law making such benefits available in Texas.

Mitt Romney piled on at the first opportunity, saying Perry’s argument that tuition benefits help make immigrants part of civil society “doesn’t make sense to me.”

“That kind of magnet draws people into this country to get that education,” said Romney, telling viewers that in-state tuition benefits in Texas come to $22,000 a year.

“We have to have a fence,” Romney continued. “We have to crack down on employers that hire people illegally. And we have to turn off the magnet of extraordinary government benefits.”

Offered the chance to respond, Perry stood by the Texas tuition law, saying that to deny opportunities to children who have been brought into the country illegally through no fault of their own would be callous.

To candidates who would take that stance, Perry said: “I don’t think you have a heart.”

“We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society,” Perry said.

The audience booed.

RAMESH PONNURU COMES THROUGH AGAIN

Back in 2004, he demolished the wingnut meme that St. Raygun only reduced taxes and now he smacks down Mitten$ claim that those 47% who receive a government check will never vote GOP:

The Right Is Wrong to Pin Obama’s Edge on Welfare State
By Ramesh Ponnuru Sep 17, 2012 3:30 PM MT

More recently, many conservatives have expressed worry that the growth in the percentage of Americans who pay no federal income tax will make the electorate more supportive of big government.

As an explanation for electoral trends, though, this theory doesn’t hold up.

One major reason for the growth of the federal government in recent years has been that entitlement spending per beneficiary has increased, and so has the number of beneficiaries as people have retired. Yet senior citizens -- who benefit from federal programs, on average, far more than younger people -- have become more Republican over that same period. They actually voted for John McCain over Obama in 2008 by a slightly higher margin than they did for George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004.

In 2010, their Republican margin increased even more, to a whopping 21 points. Pollster Scott Rasmussen told me that in his latest poll, Romney still leads among seniors by 19 points.

It’s true that Americans with low incomes -- more and more of whom now receive food stamps and federally subsidized health insurance -- have generally voted for Democrats over Republicans. But in 2010, these voters shifted toward Republicans even as food stamps, unemployment benefits and the like continued to increase.

ANOTHER GREAT CATCH BY ATRIOS

This is why Mitten$ lost the election today:

Helping The Moochers

Romney spokesperson from the twitters:

"Mitt wants to help all struggling in Obama economy. he's concerned about growing number dependent on federal government."

But this is what he said:

"[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

by Atrios at 18:39

MITTEN$ TRASHES AMERICANS

The Great Mitten$ Gong Show seems to be picking up speed.  First we get POLITICO exposing once again how Mitten$ just can't run a decent campaign.  Second, we get an audio clip of Mitten$ admitting that the Chinese factory Bain Capital was considering investing in was a giant sweatshop.  Third, and the very best, Mitten$ is caught going full-on trash radio by calling Pres. Obama's supporters The Poors.  Mitten$ realized that he had to do damage control, so he called an extraordinary late-night press conference in a vain attempt to Etch-A-Sketch his way out of this huge blunder.

DEFENDING MITTEN$ INSTEAD OF TELLING THE TRUTH

Bill "Slots" Bennett introduced Paul Ryan at the Bigoted Voters Summit and repeated Mitten$ despicable lie about the Obama Administration's response to the attacks in Egypt and Libya.  Byron "Goodhair" York agreed with slots and they were both amazed that Mitten$ hadn't gotten a boost in the polls because of his smear.

UPDATE:  According to Pew, Mitten's smear of Pres. Obama didn't win him any points.

MORE ON TAX CUTS

(h/t Mark Thoma)

I've noted before that cutting taxes on corporations doesn't lower prices and cutting taxes on the top earners doesn't boost GDP.  David Cay Johnston reports on a study of the effects of the latter cuts on individual states also doesn't boost the state's economy:

Which tax cuts stimulate the economy?
By David Cay Johnston
September 12, 2012
REUTERS

Owen M. Zidar, a graduate economics student at the University of California at Berkeley, and a former staff economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama, has taken another crack at it, sifting through the data, using the National Bureau of Economic Research’s tax simulation model. Zidar looked at state level income and economic data.

He reasoned that “if tax cuts for high income earners generate substantial economic activity, then states with a large share of high income taxpayers should grow faster following a tax cut for high income earners.” The data show that tax cuts at the top, though, do not result in faster growth in states with more high-earners.

“Almost all of the stimulative effect of tax cuts,” Zidar found, “results from tax cuts for the bottom 90 percent. A one percent of GDP tax cut for the bottom 90 percent results in 2.7 percentage points of GDP growth over a two-year period. The corresponding estimate for the top 10 percent is 0.13 percentage points and is insignificant statistically.”

You can download Zidar's paper here.

UPDATE: See this post & links for another view.

THE FREE MARKET GAME IS RIGGED AGAINST US

(h/t Barry Ritholz)

The SEC has discovered that the NYSE has a two-tier system for reporting orders, one for the MOTU and one for the rest of us.

Here's the basic picture:

CARTER VS. REAGAN POLLING

Some wingnuts attempt to stave off depression by falsely claiming that Carter led Reagan in the polls until the 1st and only debate.  This is another wingnut lie, as Nate Cohn found out:

The voters that flocked toward Reagan already demonstrated their willingness to vote for him, never indicated any intention of voting for Carter following the DNC, and uniformly disapproved of the president’s performance. Check out this chart from John Sides:

ANOTHER SIGN OF CONSERVATIVE DESPAIR

On tonight's Billy Cunningham Show, Wayne Allyn Root said that he has renounced the Libertarian Party and become a Republican to help defeat Pres. Obama.  

MITTEN$ EVEN SCREWED UP THE BIGOTED VALUES VOTER SUMMIT

According to Weigel, neither Paul Ryan nor Bryan Fischer (AFA) knew ahead of time that Mitten$ was going to give a video address.  This is another FAIL for Mitten$.

WHO IS NETANYAHU TALKING ABOUT?

On Meet The Press, he said that "Some have even said that Iran with nuclear weapons would stabilize the Middle East, stabilize the Middle East" and I would like to know WHO exactly has said this.

LOWER TOP TAX RATES & GDP

(h/t Kevin Drum)

The conservative loonies have telling telling us for almospt 40 years that reducing the top marginal tax rate - the rate paid by the highest income earners - will greatly improve the economy.  Per capita GDP is a good proxy for how well the economy is doing and according to this study by the Congressional Research Service, THERE IS NO CONNECTION between the top rate & per capital GDP from 1945-2010:

FUNDIES NEVER WISE UP

They will spout their Jeebus nonsense at the drop of a hat, as Palin did before the election in 2008:

"I know at the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4,"

Now, some Fundies are taking another tack: (h/t Kyle at Right Wing Watch)

God's judgment on the U.S.
Chad Groening (OneNewsNow.com)
Thursday, September 13, 2012

The head of a Messianic Jewish ministry believes a victory for Obama in November would be a sign that the United States is under God's judgment. Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, says the Democratic Party is "corrupt" and morally "bankrupt."

With that in mind, Markell suggests an Obama victory means only one thing.

"If God rewards them with a victory, then I have to believe it's a further judgment on us, because I can't imagine God being on the side of this kind of darkness," she says. "I just can't!"

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

I got this link at HuffPo.