80 thoughts on “Scurillous Harry”

  1. I used to be a Democrat and I was appalled at the party under Carter. That’s why I’m now an R. I am beyond disgusted at Reid and Pelosi.

  2. Steny Hoyer is the #2 Democrat in the House. When Hoyer and Pelosi ran against each other for the position of Speaker a few years ago, Hoyer won more votes than Pelosi in all the states other than California. Pelosi’s lead in California was enough for her to win.

    Quite a few people think Hoyer would have made a much better Speaker than Pelosi. He’s more moderate and open minded. He listens to people.

    Why, yes, I have met the man and his staff. Comes from living in his district for quite a few years.

  3. Hey, Reid and Pelosi may be rotten coyotes, but that’s better than the Republican moo cows that occupies congress. At least they bite, scratch and kick when the fight’s on.

  4. Since we don’t know who Reid’s source is, we can’t assume they don’t know Romney’s tax situation. Romney may have told the source, and since Romney makes money the same way the investor makes money, if the investor didn’t pay taxes then why would Romney?

    Here’s the bottom line – Romney’s gotten beat up over this for going on two weeks, and by not releasing taxes he’s breaking a precedent going back over 40 years. Romney’s clearly hiding something.

    1. I agree 100%. Seriously, if one is not a Communist, and if one is not a tax cheat, if a person didn’t completely loaf through school, and if a person really was born in Hawaii, a person has nothing to fear from complete disclosure and complete transparency.

    2. Nice to see you dip your toe into the realm of the truthers.

      “Since we don’t know who Reid’s source is, we can’t assume they don’t know Romney’s tax situation.”

      We could rightly assume that they don’t know anything about Mitt Romney’s tax returns because the only people who do are his accountant and his wife. We are talking about personal confidential information not public records. Being an investor at Bain does not give one access to this information.

      But you know this already =p

    3. Chris,

      Actually this is the best speculation I have seen on why Governor Romney is not releasing taxes before 2010. It makes far more sense then if Governor Romney simply paid zero taxes through using his offshore accounts, income deferments and deductions. All that would do is trigger a debate on tax policy since his defense, and a very good defense, would simply be he followed the law and had good tax planning, which is nothing to be ashamed of. But if he had a old Swiss account from before he was thinking of a political career and he had to disclose it, it would indeed be embarrassing.

      http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/17/romney_s_tax_returns_is_the_2009_swiss_bank_account_amnesty_what_he_doesn_t_want_us_to_see_.html

      Did Mitt Romney Take the 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty

      By Matthew Yglesias Posted Tuesday, July 17, 2012, at 3:12 PM ET

      That is why I don’t care about the last ten years, just the complete 2009 taxes would be good to see 🙂

      But the real question is if his Tea Party opponents from the primaries decide they smell blood here and decide to push him under the bus on this issue at the convention so one of them could replace him. Their silence on the issue is deafening. In fact, you have to wonder if the little bird that talked to Senator Reid was really another Senator, (perhaps Senator McCain?) and not a Bain investor.

        1. Wodun,

          Doesn’t preclude him from having had a Swiss account from before he set it up. They were quite popular among the rich in the 1980’s. And adding a secret Swiss account in a blind trust defeats the purpose of it.

          But this is just speculation unless Gov. Romney follows his dad’s advice and release his returns to show 2010 is just a out lying year dressed up for the public.

      2. TM writes:
        “But the real question is if his Tea Party opponents from the primaries decide they smell blood here and decide to push him under the bus on this issue at the convention so one of them could replace him.”

        That’s no real question at all. Besides, YOU said the Tea Party is powerless…a non-factor…dead.

        Right Tom?

        That IS what you said, as we all know.

        Now it’s not? NOW the Tea Party is capable of dumping the prospective nominee?

        Which is it Tim? Were you wrong then or now?

    4. Or Chris, we could use logic and assume that if Romney had failed to as much as dot one eye or cross one ‘t’, the Obama IRS would have come down on him like a sack of shit.

      In this case, a reasonable man can logically assume absence of evidence it highly likely to coorelate to evidence of absence.

        1. Um, Harry Reid did. And everyone asking to see the returns is saying he did something illegal, because the the Tax Code is so cluttered and ill-thought out that it now contradicts itself in multiple places, so everyone who files has broken the law….

          1. No, they pointed out that submitting false filings to the SEC could be a felony. Those false filings concern who was actually in charge of Bain Capital, not his tax returns.

          2. Oh ya, so they called him a felon on how his exit from Bain was handled and merely said he broke the law by not paying any taxes. #hopeandchange

            I can understand the partisan attack but that is exactly what it is, partisan.

  5. Chris, are you actually credulous enough to believe the IRS would ignore ten years of unfiled taxes in an amount that has to be in the millions each year?

    1. Who says they’re unfiled taxes? It’s surely the case that they were filed and totally legal. What would come out is what a tiny percentage of this total income he paid. It’s surely much, much smaller than the percentage I pay, which is near the top of the curve. Am I looking for middle class tax relief? You bet I am. Call it class warfare if you want, my class is under siege.

      1. Dingy Harry says he was told Mitt didn’t pay taxes, Dave. Are you suggesting Romney filed his tax return and then didn’t pay, and the IRS ignored that? For ten years? Do you think that’s any more likely than the idea that he simply didn’t file at all and the IRS ignored that?

        1. For native speakers of English, saying “didn’t pay taxes” is usually taken to mean “I filled out the form, didn’t owe anything, and so didn’t write a check.”

          1. If he didn’t owe anything, it may be because he took advantage of legal tax deductions (Oh, the humanity!) and had no greater obligation than what was withheld. That applies to millions of people including everyone who gets a tax refund.

            Taking legal deductions is called obeying the law. There’s nothing at all wrong with it, unless you’re some brain dead person who thinks he has an obligation to pay more than the law requires (like Obama for others but not himself).

            “Didn’t pay taxes” can also mean that he didn’t comply with his legal obligations (Helmsley: “Only little people pay taxes.”). That’s a felony and unlikely to be ignored by the IRS for 10 years for someone in Romney’s bracket.

          2. “I filled out the form, didn’t owe anything, and so didn’t write a check.”

            That’s pretty darn normal. It’s called “withholding”.

            Anyone saying they didn’t pay taxes in that case is a complete moron.

            If it’s the case Larry lays out, he still is required to file. If your -gross- income exceeds a certain limit, or your -investment- income exceeds a limit, you’re required to file.

            And the IRS already has the records of all the dividends, all the stock sales -> they know you cashed in, and they _WILL_ find you just to slap the $500 fine for failure to file on you.

          3. Akshully the failure to file penalty would be 4.5% of the unpaid tax for 5 months following the normal due date as well a 0.5% of the unpaid tax per month as a failure to pay penalty for a maximum of 50 months. One could also be tagged with, iirc, a 100% penalty of the unpaid tax if the IRS believes you’ve willfully chosen to tell .gov to shove it. Kinda like what W. Snipes tried to pull off. And yeah, at the Mittster’s income levels that’s going to be evident in pretty short order.

      3. Ya, we already know that Romney lives off investment income which is taxed at a lower rate because it was already taxed at the corporate level.

        Democrats are all hot and bothered to increase taxes on financial transactions because they want to punish the rich out of fairness but people like Romney are an extreme minority. The majority of the investment class that would be effected are people with 401ks, pensions, and other retirement plans.

        Punishing the small minority of the uber rich will disproportionately effect the middle class and make it harder for them to plan for a secure retirement. Which would make them more dependent on the state, reduce the amount of money they can pass on to their children, and lower the quality of life for the elderly.

        This is so obvious so one must ask why Democrats want this to happen?

          1. Corky, your investment advice is about 15 years out of date. The best retirement vehicles require after-tax contributions.

          2. Democrats have been advocating a tax on each stock market transaction not only in the US but globally. Even a small transaction tax would have a horrific impact on the investment class.

  6. By Reid’s logic, ““I don’t think the burden should be on me,” Reid told Nevada reporters about proving his charge. “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.” ” then the burden is on Reid to prove he’s not a pederast, because anonymous people have made the charge.

  7. I’m no fan of Harry Reid, but if you’re going to get upset at the leaders of political parties making false charges you aren’t going to be happier with the GOP. Romney’s whole campaign is built on lie after lie.

    And unlike most false political charges, Reid’s can easily be refuted (if it is in fact baseless) by Romney doing what every other presidential candidate has done for decades.

    2. “2. In the same interview, Romney said, “I think a lot of people forgetting is there is only one president in history that’s cut Medicare by $500 billion and that is President Obama.”

      Romney says this a lot. He’s not telling the truth.”

      Ok so I went to the link and it didn’t say anything about any other presidents cutting Medicare by $500b. Obamacare does cut medicare by $500b, these cute were part of the whole double counting fiasco that made the cost of Obamacare to be $500b less than it actually is.

      So, the link you provided was lying. It is kind of ridiculous to call Romney a liar and use lies as proof of it.

      1. I agree, Benen is citing the wrong evidence for that one. But you have to cut the guy some slack — he’s up to part XXVIII in his weekly series on Romney lies, and that’s a lot of lies to catalog.

        As for this particular statement, it’s only true because Obama specifically cut Medicare by $500 billion, and other presidents cut it by other amounts. Citing a specific figure is a bit like accusing Obama of being the only president to sign Obamacare; it makes the argument true by making it meaningless.

        Romney’s used a more meaningful version of this statement at other times, saying “Let’s not forget, only one president has ever cut Medicare for seniors in this country, and it’s Barack Obama”. Politifact rated that one False.

  8. It’s funny to watch the usual suspects pile in here to defend the barely coherent mutterings of a man who’s clearly in Stage III of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Obviously he has more credibility than the myriad other Democrats telling him to stuff a sock in it before he embarrasses himself further.

  9. Funny, when Tea Party favorites like Newt Gingrich were calling for Governor Romney’s tax returns the Tea Party supporters were in favor of it.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/18/news/la-pn-gingrich-romney-tax-returns-20120117

    [[[“Either there’s nothing there, so why isn’t he releasing them, or there’s something there, so why is he hiding them?” Gingrich told reporters here after holding a town hall at an art gallery. “I believe we have the right to know. Therefore, he owes us the knowledge. If there’s nothing there, why not release it this week?”]]]

    1. I do hope you’re able to discern a distinction between “asking for tax returns” and “accusing someone of repeated failure-to-file-or-pay-taxes based off of a single source whose sole stated qualification, ‘Bain Investor’ is ludicrous.”

      1. Al,

        I hope you are able to discern the difference between what Senator Reid actually stated, “he bragged that he didn’t pay any taxes” and what he did NOT state, that he didn’t file. Two very different things.

        BTW I assume you know that about half the country doesn’t pay any taxes, mostly because their income is too low, but the vast majority of them do file their tax returns because their income is above the level required to file.

    2. But Matula, by your own words the Tea Party is dead…

      a non-factor….

      dead as a doornail….

      So why do you keep bringing them up?

      1. Gregg,

        Because Republican candidates, like generals, are always fighting the last election. But the fact that none of their candidates did well in the primaries should how their influence has sagged nationally, except in regressive states like Texas and Indiana.

        1. “But the fact that none of their candidates did well in the primaries should how their influence has sagged nationally, except in regressive states like Texas and Indiana.”

          So, first you said the Tea Party controlled the GOP, then you said, right on this blog, they are dead. Then you put “Tea Party in every one of your posts as if they are a force to be reckoned with. Now you say they are “sagged”.

          You talk like Obama – truth is fungible.

          Were you wrong then? Or are you wrong now?

          So which is it? Were you wrong

          1. Gregg,

            FYI

            http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/158232360/older-tougher-but-will-the-tea-party-be-stronger

            [[[Polls showed public support for the movement falling off significantly after several nasty showdowns in Congress. But the Tea Party remains a force in many states. Its favored candidate for the U.S. Senate won big in Texas last week, sending the strongest signal yet that the movement will be a factor this fall.

            Yes, the big Tea Party rallies of 2009 and 2010 seem to have vanished. The noisy confrontations at town halls seem a thing of the past, too. And the movement’s biggest champion in the media, Glenn Beck, no longer holds forth daily on Fox News.]]]

            Like the dinosaur it is, its taking the Tea Party a while to finish dying off and in the process of its death throes it is crushing the Republican Party. Also prolonging its death throes are the deep pocket backers like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers dumping megabucks in PACs to support Tea Party candidates to keep it visible.

            BTW did you see that the Tea Party elected Santa to run as its candidate in Michigan 🙂

            http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/08/tea-party-candidate-bentivolio-wins-michigan-11-house-primary/

            Guess then needed someone to balance the witch they elected to run in 2010 🙂

            I wonder if his elves will be able to vote by absentee ballot?

      1. He’s released only part of his 2010 return (he held back the form on offshore holdings). As his father put it, “One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.”

        FWIW, he also never released his 2000-2002 returns to prove that he paid taxes in Massachusetts, rather than just in Utah, before running for governor of MA. The Globe asked for copies of his MA returns with all the financial information redacted, and he wouldn’t release even that.

        1. Well, I would like Romney to release more than one tax return and I don’t think it needs to be ten but to some extent it doesn’t matter either way because Obama and the Democrats are going to attack him for being wealthy regardless.

          To me it looks like Obama, a multimillionaire, who was raised by the VP of a bank in Hawaii and who went to the most expensive schools in the country and had all of his post schooling opportunities as a professional social agitator handed to him on a silver platter and who made the bulk of his fortune off a memoir that is a near total work of fiction is attacking a person, Romney, because he had a privileged upbringing, went to fancy schools, and made lots of money.

          It is just a bunch of BS.

      1. What’s he hidden? Obama’s released everything that presidential candidates are expected to release, and more. Romney hasn’t.

  11. “If I were a Democrat, I’d be appalled that creatures like Reid and Pelosi were the leaders of my party.”

    Yes, it does seem that the Dems get scummier with each decade. I think the ghosts of JFK, Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey would probably get sick to their stomachs–if ghosts have stomachs–seeing not just Reid and Pelosi but also the Red Diaper Baby as the Troika currently leading the party of Jackson and Jefferson.

      1. LBJ, no; JFK, possibly. Really not talking about tactics but the general scumminess of today’s Dems. Not that you’d notice, Jim.

  12. Let’s see. On the list of important things…

    1.) An admin actively destroying our country…
    …
    zillion.) Mitt’s taxes.

    Reid’s a senator. If there is any wrong doing, why doesn’t he hold some hearings?

    Let Obama bring it up in the debates. That should be fun.

    2. I heard a rumor that Mitt was bragging to one of his buddies that he’s got a ten inch dong that pays no taxes. Maybe we should arrest him for that, yeah?

  13. It’s one thing for the candidates in the primaries to go after each other on these sorts of things. After all you got 4-5 people all running for the same job. All sorts of accusations and demands for proof are flying from every which direction. And the primaries are held when the election is far off in the future so there is time to focus on these sorts of issues. But now were coming down to the home stretch to the election. And the Obama campaign would like to do nothing more than harp on Romney about this one thing all the way up until the election. Even if Romney did release his taxes then Obama would be demanding something else and we’d be going down this rabbit hole of demands. All of which is nothing more than an attempt for the Obama campaign to talk about anything else other than his track record as President. But this is precisely how the Obama campaign operates. It’ll make some unsubstantiated claim on a commercial or in a speech. Days later it gets 4 Pinocchio’s and they quietly walk it back. But by that point it doesn’t matter because they got the thought into people’s brains. And lots of people just hear something once and go with it and don’t bother to follow-up for themselves to determine if its true.

    1. But this is precisely how the Obama campaign operates

      And you think the Romney campaign is telling the truth? Hardly (be sure to read the previous 27 issues too…).

      The big lie today is that Obama is gutting welfare reform by issuing waivers requested by GOP governors — waivers that Romney himself requested in 2005. Tomorrow there will no doubt be a new one. Romney knows that voters don’t want his policies, so instead of talking about what he’d do he tells lies about Obama.

        2. The fantasy that there is something in Obama’s distant past that will bring him down — even after he’s been president for nearly four years, and voters know from experience exactly what sort of president he is — is apparently a dream that will never die. If it isn’t the birth certificate, it’s the college transcript.

          The simple fact remains that presidential candidates aren’t expected to release college records, they’re expected to release tax returns. Romney can thank his late father for that.

          1. Jim,

            Really, the only one with a past to fear is Governor Romney. Look at what just surfaced today.

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/mitt-romney-death-squads-bain_n_1710133.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

            Ryan Grim
            Cole Strangler
            Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads
            Posted: 08/08/2012 9:38 am
            Updated: 08/08/2012 1:05 pm

            It will be interesting to see where this story goes.

            It really is a sign of Tea Party/Republican desperation that there is no talk of replacing him before the convention even thought they chances of the winning the presidency would greatly increase.

        1. Romney’s campaign is built on lies. He lies that Obama went around the world apologizing for the US — he even titled his book “No Apologies” to highlight that smear. He lies that Obamacare will increase the deficit. This week he lied that Obama was trying to disenfranchise military voters. It’s lie after lie after lie.

          Romney wants to cut taxes on the wealthy, raise taxes on the middle class, and cut spending on the poor and elderly. Voters don’t want his policies, so he runs on lies instead.

          1. “He lies that Obama went around the world apologizing for the US”

            Uh, because he did…..

            “He lies that Obamacare will increase the deficit.”

            Uh, because it does….

            “He lied that Obama was trying to disenfranchise military voters.”

            Uh, because he is……

            That word, “lies”, I think it means something different then what you think it means.

  16. Even if the accusations against Romney were true (and you always have to remember they come from people whose politico-economic policies are based on legalized looting), given the choice between a bad Romney and the Red Diaper Baby/New Party socialist/Rev. Wright altar boy, if you value liberty (and that leaves out Moby Matula and the Usual Gang of Colectivist Idiots who post here) don’t you pretty much HAVE to vote for Romney?

    1. Bilwick,

      But there is a third path. Getting Governor Romney to drop out before the Republican Convention and then picking a true libertarian like Ron Paul. Or even inviting Governor Gary Johnson back into the Republican fold. That way you both defeat President Obama and get a capable candidate as President.

      1. I think that history, to the limited degree that it cares, will look back at this comment and note that this was the moment that Tom Matula took the long dive over the shallow end. I won’t say that it is the most insane comment at this blog, because that is a very high bar, but it has to be in the top five. And that doesn’t count all his ravings about the Tea Party.

        1. Rand,

          Funny, you were hoping for a brokered convention a few months ago.

          http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=39324

          Now that their is a path, a low probability one yes given Governor Romney’s tunnel vision but a path never the less, for one happening you claim its insane. Why?

          What happened to change your opinion? Are you that much in love with Governor Romney as a candidate? Also I was under the impression you were a Libertarian. Wouldn’t you like to see a true Libertarian go mainstream? Instead of someone like Governor Romney who blows which ever way the wind blows.

          1. Funny, you were hoping for a brokered convention a few months ago.

            A few months ago there was still a possibility of it. To think that there is any possibility at all that Romney is going to drop out over his tax returns is loony tunes.

          2. Rand,

            Why? Candidates have dropped out for far lesser issues.

            The real question is at what point do the folks with money and power in the Republican Party decide Governor Romney’s negative baggage is just too heavy and decide they need to cut their losses and get someone who has a far better change of beating President Obama. It could be a very interesting three weeks.

  17. TM scribbles:

    “FYI

    http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/158232360/older-tougher-but-will-the-tea-party-be-stronger

    [[[Polls showed public support for the movement falling off significantly after several nasty showdowns in Congress. But the Tea Party remains a force in many states. Its favored candidate for the U.S. Senate won big in Texas last week, sending the strongest signal yet that the movement will be a factor this fall.”

    Oh ok so you are admitting you were wrong back then, when you said the TP is dead.

    Though NPR and many of the (un-named) polls that they use are faintly ridiculous.

  18. Gregg,

    Just like Sheldon Adelson kept Newt Gingrich alive in the primaries long after his run was over, so are the deep pocket PACs keeping the Tea Party alive past its expiration date. But they are expecting a return on their investment and when it becomes clear all they are doing is electing Democrats by pulling the Republican Party so far to the right they will move on to something else, just a Sheldon Adelson moved on beyond Gingrich when even he recognized he was just throwing go money after bad.

    This is my beef with the Tea Party, they make it easier for Democrats to be elected. The only reason President Obama even has a chance at re-election is because the moderate Republican candidates who are able to swing the moderate voters, those who actually decide elections, decided to sit out this election cycle so they could cleanse the party of the radical right as they did in 1964.

    1. So Tom, you were wrong when you declared the Tea Party dead and gone, many months ago…

      right?

  19. Gregg,

    Its dead, but like the Dinosaur it is, the message hasn’t reached its most fanatic followers who have nothing better to do but cling to it.

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