Posts by nathan
Picking Apart The Romney Tax Returns
It was with much fanfare and anticipation that Mitt Romney released his federal tax records for 2010 and 2011 yesterday morning. To keep it brief, Romney made $21.7 million in 2010 and paid 13.9 percent ($3 million) of that to the federal government. It hardly has to be mentioned that a rate of 13.9 percent is far below [...]
Is this real life?
Mitt Romney told reporters today at a press stop in South Carolina that he pays “probably closer to the 15 percent rate” on taxes. This is way lower than what most middle-class families pay in taxes. Taking into account this cherry-on-top consideration, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post today decided to add up the equation that [...]
Taking A Candidates Word For It
Earlier today, the New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane wrote an interesting piece that delved into the question of whether the news media should add disclaimers to quotes by political figures that can demonstrably be proven false. Brisbane phrased it like this: I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should [...]
New Hampshire Primary Live Blog
All day today I’ll be semi live blogging about the New Hampshire Primary and the GOP 2012 nomination in general. All times are EST. 11:25 – Another night, another claim that Obama is going to somehow fundamentally change the American way of life. Mitt Romney said this in his victory speech: Our campaign is about more [...]
Pot and Kettle
Yesterday, Mitt Romney made an incredibly stupid decision when he decided to frame his views on health care as “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” This is a highly potent string of words that can be easily used to characterize him as out of touch with everyday Americans, millions [...]
Fact Check? Anybody?
As the New Hampshire Primary inches closer and another round of Republican debates have come to an end, the news media has invariably published a barrage of ”Fact Check” articles that seek to discern fact from fiction when it comes to the claims of the Republican candidates. One glaringly false claim that has been left out by most [...]
Reality TV: Republican Debate Schedule
It’s undeniable that the Republican Primary Debates of the 2012 election have devolved into one large trainwreck that gives NBC’s Fear Factor or Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club a run for its money. Whether it’s the wild accusations, the physical altercations, the lack of facts, the sitcom “boo track” that makes up the audience, the contestants who forget their lines, or [...]
The Case Against American Exceptionalism
Made by Rick Santorum (1/7/2012): I was so outraged by the president of the United States for standing up and saying every child in America should go to college. Well who are you? Who are you to say that every child in America should [go to college]? I mean, the hubris of this president to [...]
The New Normal?
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly makes a really good point about how accustomed the political news media has become to accepting the GOP candidates charges that President Obama is “un-American”: The idea that a leading major-party presidential candidate would throw around such rhetoric was, up until very recently, madness. The idea that such a candidate would [...]
Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan: Inequality At Its Finest
Mitt Romney hasn’t been too shy about making blatantly false accusations about President Obama’s economic policies throughout the duration of his primary campaign. His wild assertions reached a crescendo on Tuesday when he told supporters at a campaign stop in Iowa: “I think president Obama wants to make us a European style welfare state, where instead [...]