Afternoon Open Thread

26 Jan 2012 Author: rikyrah

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Reads Gabrielle Giffords’ Resignation Letter On The Floor Of The House

Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day.

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Anonymous
Good Afternoon, Everyone :)
Anonymous
Conservative North Florida voters: Romney’s too rich
By John Sepulvado, CNN Radio
While media outlets and Beltway pundits might use state polls to gauge the race in Florida between GOP presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, Ron Crum uses poles.
Fishing poles.
Crum, a Republican small business owner in this sleepy seaside town south of Tallahassee, calls Romney a multi-millionaire who expects to get breaks because he’s rich — be it a low tax rate or the GOP nomination.
But former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Crum says, is a man who understands the plight of the working class and can articulate conservative principles effectively.
Picking up two fishing rods, Crum says the expensive Penn International, priced at almost $400, is like Romney. Meanwhile, the Jarvis-Walker, which he says does everything the other rod does but sells for about $50, is like Gingrich.
“I got a customer,” Crum continues. “He has about six rod holders on the side of the boat. He’s got six Penn Internationals, and when he leaves port he has them on this side of the boat towards the docks, and when he comes in he puts them on the other side of the boat. We go out there because it’s a good day to be alive, God built a world let’s go enjoy it, but the elitist wants to impress their friends.”
Putting the poles back in the rack, Crum says, “Gingrich, as a capitalist wants to come out here with the working people and the people earn money from the industry of this country. Romney is basically an elitist.”
And for conservative North Florida voters, the term elitist is almost as bad as calling someone a liberal. That label is sticking with Romney, even though both candidates are worth more than many North Floridians earn in a lifetime.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/26/politics/north-florida-conservatives/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Anonymous
The hidden issue in South Carolina primary: labor union clout
Mitt Romney in particular has used the South Carolina primary to test anti-labor union policies as a campaign issue. His pitch to expand right-to-work laws could lead to Wisconsin redux.
When South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley came to New Hampshire to endorse Mitt Romney earlier this month, it marked more than just a meeting of political expediency. Yes, South Carolina was the next state on the primary calendar. And yes, Governor Haley could help him there.
But the topic of her remarks was something more than a typical stump speech. It was a trial balloon that could become a major issue in this autumn’s general election.
“One of the reasons we’re bringing jobs to South Carolina is that we have the lowest unionization in the country, and I want to keep it that way,” she said at a Jan. 6 rally in Tilton, N.H. “Barack Obama doesn’t appreciate right-to-work states. Mitt Romney appreciates right-to-work states … and I need a partner in the White House.”
Right-to-work states are those that that bar unions from deducting dues from worker paychecks as a condition of employment. Unions see right-to-work as a bid to undermine union financing, capacity to organize, and political clout.
Romney has used South Carolina, which is a right-to-work state, and New Hampshire, which is considering ways to become one, as testing grounds for how such a debate might play out nationwide.
Conservatives see the current campaign cycle as a rare opportunity to undercut union political clout. After historic gains in 2010 elections, Republicans hold the governorships and new legislative majorities in a number of strong union states, including Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Moreover, labor unions bankroll opposition to the sweeping pro-business agendas that undergird Republican orthodoxy.
Yet states like Wisconsin, where a Republican governor will likely face a recall election over his decision to strip unions of another right – collective bargaining – show the danger of taking on unions. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) of Michigan says that right-to-work legislation at this time is too divisive and not on his agenda.
If Republicans are going to make right to work a national campaign theme, they will need to do so cautiously, and South Carolina has given the candidates – and Romney in particular – an opportunity to test the waters.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0121/The-hidden-issue-in-South-Carolina-primary-labor-union-clout
Anonymous
January 26, 2012 2:05 PM
Mitt’s Mexican-American Problem
By Ed Kilgore
It’s every reporter’s dream to ask a presidential candidate a question that packs multidimensional dynamite. Univision’s Jorge Ramos had that opportunity yesterday when he asked Mitt Romney if he considered his own self a “Mexican-American,” since his father, George Romney, was born in that country.
Romney sheepishly allowed as how he didn’t think that sort of self-identification would be terribly credible. But it was a tricky question nonetheless, not only because Romney is frantically prospecting for Hispanic voters in Florida right now, but also because it served as a reminder that Mitt’s great-grandparents were polygamists who fled to Mexico (reportedly at the instruction of none other than Brigham Young) shortly before the LDS church officially renounced plural marriage, and the new state of Utah banned it altogether.
Turns out Mitt still has some distant cousins in Mexico, although most of those early Mormon immigrants to that country (including George and his parents and grandparents) fled during the Mexican Revolution of 1912 and never came back.
So it’s not surprising Mitt turned down the chance to claim his own little bit of Hispanic heritage.
Polygamy aside, Ramos’ question was probably as welcome to the candidate as a basket of vipers. It’s hard enough for pols to navigate the treacherous waters of Florida’s various Hispanic groups, including the Cuban-Americans who tend to participate in large numbers in Republican primaries, and immigrants (and their children and grand-children) from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean who now outweigh them as factors in Florida general elections, which the eventual GOP nominee badly needs to win.
More to the immediate point, Romney is in danger of paying a price for the rightward tilt on immigration policy that he so usefully deployed to crush Rick Perry earlier in this cycle, and also to buttress his shaky movement-conservative street cred. As a new Latino Decisions poll for Univision illustrates, Romney’s ability to win the Florida primary depends heavily on relatively favorable opinions of him among Hispanics in the state. But Newt Gingrich is pounding away at that support, drawing particular attention to Mitt’s praise for strategies to encourage “self-deportation” of undocumented workers. Meanwhile, none of the GOP candidates are looking particularly strong among Florida Hispanic voters in trial heats against Barack Obama (Latino Decisions has the President beating Romney 50-40 in FL and 67-25 nationally, and beating Gingrich 52-38 in FL and 70-22 nationally).
So Romney needs to tread lightly on Hispanic attitudes in the run-up to next Tuesday’s primary, and also keep the focus off those cousins in Mexico and how they got there.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_01/mitts_mexicanamerican_problem035023.php
Anonymous
January 26, 2012 10:55 AM
Biting Them Where It Hurts
By Ed Kilgore
There’s been a fair amount of publicity over the last few months about some of the baleful consequences of new immigration policies in the states, particularly in such Deep South states as Alabama and Georgia. Already, considerable damage has been inflicted on agricultural production as crops rot in the field, unharvested. And anyone living in the region knows that businesses catering to the Hispanic population have been hit hard as immigrants, documented or not, leave—or as Mitt Romney would put it, “self-deport”—feeling less than welcome.
That’s all hunky-dory with a lot of southern conservatives—often the most avid immigrant-bashers because Hispanics are visible enough to unsettle the natives, but not numerous enough to defend themselves politically—but an incident in Georgia this week showed that nativism can bite them where they actually feel the pain.
In the run-up to National Signing Day—the day, rivalled in the Deep South only by Christmas and Easter, when high school football players can sign scholarship agreements with colleges—the University of Georgia football team lost an recruit because he ran afoul of policies designed to keep the undocumented from attending state institutions of higher education. Mark Weizer of the Athens Banner-Herald explains what happened to offensive lineman Chester Brown:

Students who can’t prove they’re legal U.S. residents can’t enroll at the University of Georgia and four other state public colleges under policies adopted by the state board of regents in October 2010….
The new policy went into effect in the fall after a Kennesaw State University student, Jessica Colotl, was arrested in March 2010 following a traffic stop. She was slated for deportation, but immigration authorities agreed to hold off for a year to allow her to complete classes at Kennesaw State.
The regents policy now prohibits any public college or university from allowing illegal immigrants to enroll if the school had turned down any academically qualified applicants for admission during the two most recent academic years. It also requires admissions officials to verify applicants’ residence status.
The Brown family moved to the U.S. from Samoa in the mid-1990s.Violence in Long Beach, Calif., prompted the family to move in 2004 to Hinesville, where Chester’s uncle worked in the military.
“When Chester was there growing up, a lot of kids that were Samoans and his age were shot and killed,” his father Siliga told DawgPost.com in his native tongue while Chester translated. “I didn’t want that to happen to my kids. I wanted them away from that fast life.”

Brown’s family swears he was born in the U.S. (which wouldn’t cut much ice with nativists, who dislike “anchor babies” as much as the undocumented) but don’t have the paperwork to prove it, so young Chester, whose skills were badly needed by the Georgia Bulldogs, will matriculate and play in some other state.
I bet more than a few football-mad Georgia GOP legislators are having second thoughts about their recent forays into immigrant-bashing—or are hearing about it from their constituents.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_01/biting_them_where_it_hurts035013.php
Anonymous
Top Dem Offshoring Expert Smells Something Fishy In Romney’s Tax Code
Brian Beutler- January 26, 2012, 11:05 AM
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) says Mitt Romney will have to make his pre-2010 tax returns available. That may sound like a predictable demand from a partisan Democrat. But it’s more than that.
Levin may well know more about tax avoidance strategies than anybody in Congress. In his capacity as the Democrats’ top investigator he’s has made extensive inquiries into the techniques businesses and individuals use, including overseas havens, to hide their money from the IRS. And what Romney’s revealed so far troubles him.
“I saw in the paper this morning that the spokesperson for the Romney campaign said that it was just an ‘ordinary’ bank account in Switzerland,” Levin told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast round table, referring to the revelation that the Romney family held a Swiss bank account in his wife’s name from 2003 until 2010.
“Folks, we’ve done a lot of research. We went after UBS in my subcommittee. We have seen abuses by American wealthy folks trying to hide from Uncle Sam, putting their money in Swiss bank accounts and bank accounts in other tax havens,” Levin said. “There was a period when the IRS said ‘OK, come on in, pay your taxes on your Swiss accounts, and you won’t have to pay any penalty.’ Thirty-three thousand people, I believe, showed up in the last couple years to pay their taxes…. And the spokesperson for the Romney campaign says it was just an ordinary bank account in Switzerland that Mrs. Romney had. There is no such thing as an ordinary Swiss bank account. Now, there may be a few exceptions where you’ve got Americans who are living in Switzerland who have bank accounts, but as far as I know, Mrs. Romney was not living in Switzerland.”
Levin also raised the issue of the carried interest loophole — a strategy Romney has exploited to avoid millions a year in taxation. Whether in the context of the fight over the payroll tax cut, or later in this session of Congress, Levin and other prominent Democrats plan to make closing the carried interest loophole a major legislative priority.
“My brother [House Dems’ top tax guy Sandy Levin] is working on the language and I expect that somebody on the Finance Committee in the Senate or one of the conferees in the Senate will do something in terms of carried interest, and if they don’t I will,” Levin said. “I’ll introduce my brother’s bill when he finalizes it.”
Nearly all tax experts agree that hedge and private equity fund managers should have to count their “carried interest” — their take in profits of the firms they manage — as wage income. But a loophole in the tax code allows them to treat it as long-term capital gains, and thus pay a significantly lower tax rate on it. This loophole is the key reason Romney’s tax rate is so low. And Levin thinks the confluence of public outrage at inequity in the tax code, combined with Romney’s prominence, will create a groundswell in support for closing this and other loopholes that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans.
“This will be, in the middle of this year … there’s a sea change going on, and that is now the Republicans who ideologically have stood against any revenue are not going to be able to withstand the onslaught of the public outcry against the use of tax loopholes in the code, the tax havens that have been used to avoid paying taxes, the fact that corporations are given deductions for stock options in amounts far larger than they show on their books,” Levin said. “People’s eyes glaze over when you talk that way — until now. And now, because of Romney’s situation, there’s going to be a real focus.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/top-dem-offshoring-expert-smells-something-fishy-in-romneys-tax-code.php?ref=fpa
Anonymous
The Number That Scares Team Mitt
Josh Marshall- January 26, 2012, 1:29 PM
There’s one big fact about the Obama presidency: the US economy has sucked all through it. Who you blame for that is the key to the American political debate. But the reality of the suck is the baseline. The President’s approval on the economy has trended down over the course of the last three years.
Then in early 2011 it veered into really bad territory and peaked around the time of the debt limit debacle. From the summer into the late Fall the president’s approval on this critical metric dipped deep into the 30s and his disapproval numbers were consistently at or above 60%. That’s extremely dangerous territory for a sitting president.
But starting about three months ago those numbers started to improve substantially. The Romney campaign knows that if those numbers get back near even or actually go into positive territory, Romney’s probably sunk in the general.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/01/the_number_that_scares_team_mitt.php?ref=fpblg
Anonymous
Corporations Are (Good) People
Posted on 01/26/2012 at 2:00 pm by JM Ashby
According to Mitt Romney, “the banks” aren’t bad people. In fact, they’re just as scared as you are of the Obama Administration and their job-killing regulations and “uncertainty.” Or something
Romney was standing outside a Fannie Mae-foreclosed home in a struggling neighborhood telling a small crowd why they’re having so much trouble. “In this case, it’s because of the banks,” he explained. “Well, the banks aren’t bad people. They’re just overwhelmed right now.”
During a Monday roundtable with business owners struggling in Florida’s hobbled housing market, the former Massachusetts governor told the group that their troubles with banks came because the lenders were worried about staying in business.
“The banks are scared to death, of course,” he said. “They’re feeling the same thing that you’re feeling. And so they just want to pretend that all this is just going to get paid some day.”

Yes. The banks are terrified of going out of business and they’re feeling the same pain the average American is right now!
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2012/01/corporations-are-good-people.html
Anonymous
Dems Introduce Latino Voters To The ‘Two Faces’ Of Romney
Pema Levy- January 26, 2012, 5:31 AM
Mitt Romney laughed off the suggestion on Thursday that if elected he would be the country’s first Mexican-American President. The Univision host Jorge Ramos cheekily asked about Romney’s Mexican heritage, referencing the fact that Romney’s father was born in a Mormon encampment in Mexico.
“I would love to be able to convince people of that,” Romney joked in response. “Particularly in a Florida primary.” But, he added, “I don’t think people would think I was being honest with them if I said I was Mexican-American.”
The Florida primary on January 31 is the first time in this cycle that the candidates have had to appeal to Latino voters. Whereas in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney was courting white audiences as the far-right candidate on immigration, Romney is now moderating his stance for a Florida audience, where 11% of registered Republicans are Latino. Gingrich has struck a more moderate tone on immigration and Romney needs to win over at least some of this community.
Since Romney began running on an extreme anti-immigration agenda, he must have known he would eventually have to temper his position in Florida and ultimately in the general election. And Democrats don’t want him to get away with it.
Enter the service workers union SEIU and pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action. The two groups have teamed up for a Spanish-language radio ad campaign in Florida attacking Romney. But rather than hammering his positions head-on, the liberal groups are attacking Romney’s strategy of saying one thing to white audiences and something else to Latinos.
Their first ad want on air Tuesday with a six-figure ad buy in targeted markets in Florida. Called “Dos Caras” or “Two Faces,” the spot attacks Romney for running exactly the kind of campaign he has run — saying one thing to the Hispanic community and the opposite to everyone else.
Monday night’s debate in Florida is a good example. Asked about the Dream Act — which he has called a “handout” two weeks ago and said he would veto — Romney qualified his stance by saying his was open to a bill that provided a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who join the military. Asked about it on a conference call Tuesday, Paul Begala, senior adviser for Priorities USA replied: “If you want to know his position, take a look at where he’s standing and who he’s talking to.”
That’s the first level of Democrats’ attack on Mitt Romney as he reaches out to the Latino community now. But the radio ad also hints at their trump card which could become a big issue in the general election: Romney’s embrace of the anti-immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama and the man who’s behind them, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
Romney’s code-word here is “self-deportation;” in essence, it’s a strategy of making life so miserable for Latinos that they are forced to leave the country. When Romney talks about his position, he mentions identification cards, E-Verify, and punishments for business who hire undocumented immigrants — policies that would make it impossible for undocumented immigrants to work in the United States. Critics charge it with being harassment by law enforcement — in cases where it’s been put into practice in Alabama it’s included losing running water, and kids dropping out of schools.
In Florida Romney’s tried to brush aside his position on immigration and play the Cuban card instead, embracing an aggressive policy against Fidel Castro. That may work in the Florida primary, where poll show him leading Gingrich, but it won’t be enough to make-up for his position on immigration reform down the road.
At the end of the day, Democrats and their allies say they’ll be able to point to Arizona and Alabama and say, the Obama administration filed lawsuits to stop these laws; Romney is for them.
Romney’s strategy of tacking far to the right on immigration and then reaching out to the Latino community was, of course, sensed a mile away. “Mitt Romney can surround himself, if he wishes, with all the Cuban Republicans in the world,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said on a conference call last week, “and he will be doing exactly that in Florida. But look, the stink of all the anti-immigrant positions has taken just isn’t gonna rub off.”
Gutierrez was right. Less than an hour after the Univision interview, Romney was making a speech before the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC. Between Romney and Gingrich next Tuesday, that strategy could work. But all over the airwaves, Democrats are making sure that Romney’s strategy will backfire down the road — that he can’t call himself something he isn’t and get away with it.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/democrats-are-ready-to-take-on-romney-in-latino-community.php
Anonymous
found this over at Balloon Juice:
37.Cat Lady – January 26, 2012 | 2:09 pm · Link
@KG:
Mitt’s lived in a bubble his whole life, and hasn’t had to learn anything other than what he needed or wanted to know. Other people have only provided utility to him, and now he’s finding that his fate is at the mercy of peons (and Newt the Unstable Barbarian) he can’t control, and he can’t manage it. He’s got no golden parachute this time – and you can believe he’s terrified of being a two time loser of the thing he’s always believed he’s been entitled to – the presidency. Newt’s got his shiny scrubbed nuts in a vise, and it’s exceedingly fun to watch.
http://theothertwofifths.blogspot.com/ ProfGeo
Moving RobM’s comment from the morning thread since I’m having trouble posting there:
This is how bad it has become for people in the USA whose first
language is Spanish. They are now challenging each other abut whether
or not their English is good enough to hold political office.
From the Times story, the one bringing the challenge should NOT be casting the first stone:
“I do feel this opening a box of Pandora, and we don’t know where it’s
going to lead,” said Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla, who filed a legal
challenge of Mrs. Cabrera’s English ability.
I think we are watching some unfortunate dirty laundry being aired that has nothing to do with English proficiency. Too bad they had to go there with it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/us/arizona-candidates-english-under-challenge.html
Anonymous
January 26, 2012 4:04 PM
The Unkindest Cut
By Ed Kilgore
There’s lots of jabbering going on today about conservative opinion-leaders going after Newt Gingrich with hammers and tongs. And I must say, it’s worth jabbering about, if only because of the spectacle of these folks trying to put the genie back in the bottle and convince The Troops to re-adopt conventional views about candidate electability (viz. a National Review editorial pointing to Newt’s perpetual unpopularity).
But the most vicious attack on Gingrich was from Washington Examiner columnist Philip Klein, who seriously (at least I think he’s serious) makes the case that Newt’s political tactics are right out of the Gospel According To Saul Alinsky.
It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for the wiggy former Speaker, even though I suggested earlier today that he privately imagines himself some sort of inter-galactic Warrior-King. As a token of limited solidarity with my fellow sort-of-Georgian, I’ll mention something I omitted from my self-introduction post: I was a teenage school janitor. The job paid a booming $1.30 an hour, but it did help me finance my secular-socialist college education, which ultimately enabled me to become a member of the Liberal Media.
Funny how it all works out.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_01/the_unkindest_cut035025.php
Anonymous
Posted at 11:08 AM ET, 01/26/2012
Romney paints Gingrich as mentally unstable
By Greg Sargent
The New York Times reports today — based on unclear sourcing — that Mitt Romney has endorsed a strategy of raising doubts about Newt Gingrich’s “emotional stability.”
Well, if that’s the case, here’s Exhibit A.
A Florida source passes along a mailer that the Romney campaign — not the pro-Romney Super PAC; his campaign — just dropped in the state, and it comes as close as possible to making that case, hitting Gingrich as “erratic” and “reckless.”
The mailer also prominently features a quote from my colleague Jennifer Rubin, describing Gingrich’s “well of sleaze.” Here’s page one
This the sort of attack that’s probably too hot for the Romney campaign to be directly associated with on the airwaves, which may explain why it’s being pushed via mail, which is relatively under the radar.
The mailer underscores the lengths the Romney campaign is now willing to go to in order to destroy Gingrich’s character, after aides had previously congratulated themselves for mostly sticking to the issues. It suggests the Romney camp knows how dangerous a Gingrich victory in Florida — where the two are deadlocked in polls — would be to Romney’s long term hopes.
The Times observes that Romney’s new strategy of tearing down Gingrich’s character risks turning off the independents, women and suburban Republicans that Romney will need in a general election. As the above mailer suggests, it’s a risk the Romney team is prepared to take — and perhaps sees as an imperative at this point.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-paints-gingrich-as-mentally-unstable/2012/01/26/gIQAM2b0SQ_blog.html
RobM
It’s good to know someone is reading the posts but the fact remains another Spanish speaking American went there. She must be getting advice from Ron Christie
To follow up she has been kicked off the ballot: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/judge-orders-arizona-candidate-struck-from-ballot-over-english-skills.html?_r=1&hp
RobM
The Problem is it is not enough to have a job if it doesn’t pay the bills

Not all jobs are equal
Liza
Haha, let them go after each other like rats in a closed barrel, the rats they are.
RobM
For everyone who thought the movie Red Tails wasn’t real enough read this
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201201202102/NEWS/301190232
Pass it on
http://theothertwofifths.blogspot.com/ ProfGeo
I note your point, just adding to it. If Mayor Escamilla had perfect Anglo English (whatever that means, don’t go there please) it would still be classic crabs-in-a-barrel, one minority making sure another isn’t successful.
Anonymous
Why GOP Elites Fear Gingrich
Sabato’s Crystal Ball created an electoral map for a Gingrich-Obama race:
In several Midwestern swing states, Republicans gained many House seats in 2010 that, thanks to their control of redistricting, they sought to lock in through aggressive remapping. Under this map, all of those states — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — would be tough territory for Gingrich. If his candidacy were a disaster, those new Republican gerrymanders could unravel. The close battle for the Senate could also be affected — Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia all have competitive Senate races this year, and all of those states get bluer on our map under a hypothetical Gingrich candidacy.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
Anonymous
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Racism Chasing? Republican Mark Oxner’s Campaign Ad Features a “Slave Ship” the USS Obamaboat
I will let you all arbitrate the semiotics of this ad.
At least Mark Oxner’s people had the good sense to make sure that the enslaved children on Obama’s “ship of state” (with its upside down U.S. flag and crossed out “United States Constitution”) were a diverse group. We can count that as a small measure of progress in the post-racial age.
In a political moment where campaign commercials have featured Islamic terrorists, demon sheep, and gangster rappers who penetrate white women with their guns, this ad is par for the course.
Is race an element here? I am not sure. This anti-Obama campaign commercial could be one more example of the “benign” myopia that is common to the white racial frame (“how could anyone be offended by a boat, an allusion to slavery, and a black captain whipping his crew? How shocking!). Alternatively, the race work done here could more sinister, as any reference to “white slavery” has historically done potent political work from the Revolutionary War to the present (with the Tea Party faithful using that very same phrase to oppose the Obama administration and play on white racial resentment and anxiety).
http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2012/01/racism-chasing-republican-mark-oxners.html
Anonymous
Romney failed to disclose income from Swiss bank
By KASIE HUNT
The Associated Press
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mitt and Ann Romney failed to list an unknown amount of investment income from a variety of sources, including a Swiss bank account, on financial disclosure forms filed last year, the presidential hopeful’s campaign announced Thursday as it worked to correct the omissions.
Also missing is income from at least 20 different investment funds in the Romneys’ blind trusts that are either not listed on his disclosure or contradict information listed on the former Massachusetts governor’s 2010 tax return. At least one of the 20 is an investment fund held by Ann Romney carries an “offshore” label. It’s part of a fund operated by Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney ran for 15 years.
A campaign spokeswoman offered no explanation for the omission. She said Thursday the adjustments would be “trivial” and would not alter the overall picture of the Romney’s finances. The former Massachusetts governor has estimated his wealth at as much as $250 million.
The Swiss account was held in Ann Romney’s blind trust. The tax returns show the Romneys made $1,783 in interest income from that account in 2010.Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also failed to report income from his 2010 tax return on his financial disclosure. Gingrich will amend his disclosure to show $252,500 in salary from one of his businesses, spokesman R.C. Hammond said Thursday.
Romney’s campaign said it was updating 2011 financial disclosure forms after the Romneys’ 2010 tax return, released this week after intense pressure from his rivals, showed income from the Swiss account. Romney reported earning nearly $22 million that year, mainly from investments, and paid about $3 million in federal taxes.
Gingrich had hammered Romney to release his tax returns while Republican voters were still choosing a nominee. Romney initially said he would release them in April, during tax filing season, but then gave in to demands that he make the tax returns public sooner.
Romney’s missing income, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, could become a campaign issue as Gingrich looks to criticize Romney ahead of Florida’s Jan. 31 primary.
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/romney-failed-to-disclose-1318869.html

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