Romney demanded opponents’ tax returns and lied about residency in 2002

On Friday night’s edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow waded in to the escalating political battle between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and presumptive Republican nominee for president, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA).

On Thursday, Romney did something which he rarely does, which is to take questions from reporters. In the entire six day overseas trip that he recently completed, he took three unscripted questions, in spite of the fact that the campaign was traveling with a full compliment of representatives of the media.

Yesterday’s questions revolved around Reid’s allegations that a source from Romney’s hedge fund, Bain Capital, has told him that the former governor paid no income taxes at all for ten years, a charge the Romney campaign has noisily and emphatically denied, but produced no proof. Even as reporters have hammered Romney to release the forms, he has doubled down and refused.

Thursday, Reid issued a statement calling Romney “the most secretive presidential candidate since Richard Nixon…Forget president, Mitt Romney couldn’t get confirmed as cabinet secretary. Every single nominee overseen by the Senate Finance Committee has to release more tax returns than Romney is willing to release.”

The dogged intensity of Reid’s hard offense against Romney has shocked many in Washington. Reid is normally a much more mild-mannered type and this honey-badger style attack is very out of character for him.

“Even for a person who’s usually hyper,” Maddow said, “that is a little unhinged: an unnamed single source making a phone call to his office with a wild accusation that the Senate Majority Leader puts on the record to reporters, even though he admits it’s just hearsay and he doesn’t know if it’s true? That’s outrageous. It’s weird.”

And yet, when everyone expected Reid to back off and excuse himself, he doubled down, forcing another angry denial from the Romney camp. However, said Maddow, Romney did this very thing in 2002 when he was running for Massachusetts governor, he would not release his tax returns.

He demanded, however, that the husband of his opponent in that election, Shannon O’Brien, release his tax returns in addition to Mrs. O’Brien’s records, which were already available to the public. “What is she hiding?” demanded longtime Romney aide and confidant Eric Fehrnstrom.

Yet now, as Maddow points out, when Harry Reid is doing the exact same thing, all the Romney campaign can do is whine and complain about how unfair this tactic is and how nasty mean old Harry Reid is being. And while the campaign is making what Maddow calls “positive empirical claims” about Gov. Romney’s taxes, they still refuse to disclose the actual records.

In the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, it was alleged that Romney had gamed his taxes to qualify to run for governor. The Massachusetts Democratic Party said that Romney had lied about filing jointly as a resident of Massachusetts and Utah, a charge that the Romney campaign denied and denied and denied until the very last minute when they were forced to admit that yes, the charge had merit and that Romney had filed retroactively.

In that instance, as in this one, Romney and his top aide Eric Fehrnstrom said over and over, “You’re just going to have to take our word for it,” while refusing to disclose any proof.

So what are they hiding this time?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/04/ma...eturns-in-2002/

The Lib. party who Johnson is running under has been around for years growing the whole time. A national canidate will really help their growth on state and local levels.

The Lib. party who Johnson is running under has been around for years growing the whole time. A national canidate will really help their growth on state and local levels.

Lmao..your logic gland is toast.

If he owed taxes Obama would have the IRS climbing down his throat..

Ask yourself this....why isnt the IRS going after romney.

Think man, think! Dont fall for this liberal crap..youre better than this

Nobody cares man...we want jobs..

Libs are now concerned about "residency"?.. lol..they dont seem concerned about obamas past residency..



Your joking right? Nobody knows shit about obama or even where he was born...lmao

Why hasnt Reid calld the IRS? Why isnt romney getting arrested or even audited? Think man think!



Whining? Show me a clip of this alleged "whining"...Nobodys whining..romney told the dems to suck it.

Its not funny to a Repuke when the tables are turned...
Notice too how 100% of the time the Repukes rally and landblast the opposition... Especially when the tactics are reversed...

Not paying tax's is not saying he's cheating or doing anything illegal but I think if he made say, 5 million dollars but didn't have to pay any tax most Americans would be upset.

This was Funny as hell.. But True..

Jon Stewart calls out Judy Miller for hypocrisy on national security leaks

Its Miller time Folks,

The irony of former NY Times reporter Judith Miller using her perch at Fox News to castigate the Obama administration for recent national security leaks was not lost on The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who used his Monday night broadcast to call her out.

Miller –a Pulitzer-Prize winner– became infamous during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq for reportage of that country’s alleged “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” She also played a role in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

During a recent appearance on Fox News, Miller expressed concern over recent national security leaks reportedly emanating from the White House. “This is the problem. These leaks –especially the kind of leaks that are being investigated now by not one, but two special prosecutors– they are truly injurious to the national security. They jeopardize our security as a nation. They make it harder to implement foreign policy,” Miller said.

Given Miller’s history of leaking information that could damage national security, Jon Stewart said, “And now, to bring the whole thing full circle, she’s on fucking television as the expert on why other people doing it is not good! When in reality, the move she is describing should be called ‘pulling a Miller.’”

watch and see:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/07/jo...security-leaks/

Romney used ‘the world’s financial dialysis machine’ against Italy

After briefly discussing Harry Reid’s accusations of tax-dodging against Mitt Romney, Jon Stewart took a closer look Tuesday night at the financial deal that made Romney persona non grata in Italy involving what he called “a country that exists solely as the world’s financial dialysis machine.”

About 12 years ago, Romney’s company, Bain Capital, bought a phone-directory company from the Italian government and made $1 billion when it sold the company two years later, making a profit of 25 times the original sale.

But what earned Bain – and Romney – all the derision was the company’s move to funnel the profits through subsidiary companies in Luxembourg, a move one of the directory company’s shareholders called “the beginning of the destruction of Italian industry.”

For Romney’s dealings to be considered shady in Italy is something else, according to Stewart, considering that the country’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi was also “the head of the country’s largest media conglomerate, and the host of their finest bunga-bunga parties.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/08/st...-against-italy/

Another Repuke beyond ridiculous:

‘Why can’t I watch Steve King have sex with a dog?’

In a dog-eat-dog world, Stephen Colbert said Tuesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) should be applauded for standing up to the “puppy-huggers” at the Humane Society, before playing last week’s tele-town hall event where King defended his introduction of legislature that would undercut animal-cruelty laws. (Warning: graphic image)

“When the legislation that passed in the farm bill that says that it’s a federal crime to watch animals fight or to induce someone else to watch an animal fight but it’s not a federal crime to induce somebody to watch people fighting, there’s something wrong with the priorities of people that think like that,” King said at the time, adding that he did not believe animals “should be raised above human beings.”

Colbert backed King up, asking, “If two consenting adults want to fight under the auspices of the WBA [World Boxing Association], why not two consenting dogs?”

Colbert then played an Aug. 1 video where King defended his argument, where he somehow tied the issue to a story about a sexual predator impregnating a teen victim, then taking her across the border and forcing her to have an abortion to cover up the crime and said that was not against the law. (It turns out that that entire scenario is against the law.)

But in a world where humans do cruel things to each other, Colbert explained, King is saying they should be allowed to be cruel to animals, too.

“Why can’t Steve King watch dogs have sex for money?,” Colbert asked. “For that matter, why can’t I watch Steve King have sex with a dog? Stop putting dogs above Steve King – I’m sure he’d be the top!”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/08/colbert-why-cant-i-watch-steve-king-have-sex-with-a-dog/