Friday, July 20, 2012

Another Massacre In Gun Happy USA 12 Dead and Romney's Lack of Financial Transparency & Shady Deals & Mitt Kow Towing To The Extreme Religious Right ala Tony Perkins


12 Dead :Shooting in Colorado at Theatre showing New Batman Movie
" Well ain't that America " as Mellencamp would say A Nation more in favour of more guns, more war, more prisons but not more healthcare or better Schools. A society that loves guns and violence.

12 Killed in Mass Shooting at New Batman Movie,July 20, 2012




"When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney met privately this week with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, he sought the counsel of a leader who, just days before, selected as his right-hand man a retired general known for his extreme contempt for Muslims.


Romney, hoping to draw the same kind of help organizing evangelical voters that Perkins gave former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum during the primaries, sought Perkins' input on potential running mates and "family" issues, barely 24 hours after FRC announced the hiring of retired Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin as executive vice president, in charge of day-to-day operations. It's a bold move, and one that makes FRC's extremism just a little harder to ignore."
Above quote from:
Romney Meets With Leader of Radical Christian Group, Despite Extremism Exposed By Their New Hire, Alternet.org, July 17, 2012

Today's Agenda:

* Gunman wounds 50 and kills 12 at a Midnite showing of the New Batman Film.

* Ann Romney defends her husband Mitt's refusal to disclose his financial holdings and transactions

* "Mitt Romney Avoided Major Tax Hit By Shifting Stock Of Offshoring Firm" by Huff Post, July 19, 2012

* Mitt Romney gets "Blessing" from Religious-Right Extremist Tony Perkins and The Family Research Council.

Another Massacre in Gun Happy USA. Many American believe that such massacres are unfortunate but they disingenuously argue that such random acts of violence have nothing to do with America's lax Gun Laws.

"50 people shot, 12 fatally, at A Dark Knight Rises Midnight Screening event" by The M'hael at The Horror Club.blogspot, July 20,2012

We watch movies to escape. Whether it's our minds escaping to places never before imagined or just us escaping the hardships of our daily lives, movies set us free.

Last night in Aurora, Colorado, 12 people were killed and dozens more were seriously injured during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, when a cowardly piece of human shit walked into the crowded, dark theater and opened fire on them. It's nothing less than sickening.

It's sickening because innocent people lost their lives, and were seriously wounded. It's sickening because the survivors, both those whom were in the theater and those whose loved ones were injured or killed, have had their lives irrevocably changed for the worse. It's sickening because no one expects a trip to a movie theater to become a deadly experience.

Most of all it's sickening because some disenchanted loser decided to take his anger out on a mass of innocent people instead of just blowing his own useless head off.

The girl in the picture below is Jessica Ghawi. Like everyone else who attended last night's midnight screening, she was nothing more than excited to see the movie. Her last Twitter posts are chilling, to say the least.

The poor girl was nothing more than thrilled to death to see a movie that she had been waiting for, with no clue that her life was about to end.

It's sickening. It's maddening. It's terrifying.



For those directly affected by these events, it's absolutely heartbreaking.

"Ms Ghawi also wrote a poignant final blog about her feelings after she narrowly avoided a deadly shooting in Eaton Mall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada on June 2 where one man was killed and seven others were injured.

She wrote: 
“I say all the time that every moment we have to live our life is a blessing. So often I have found myself taking it for granted. Every hug from a family member. Every laugh we share with friends. Even the times of solitude are all blessings. Every second of every day is a gift. After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given.”

Perfectly stated, and desperately true.

We're truly sorry that she and the other victims of this senseless tragedy have lived their last seconds.

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Mitt Romney proves his arrogance and disrespect for the American electorate by refusing to make full financial public disclosure.

In the video below Mitt is defended by his wife Ann Romney who appears defiant and arrogant calling those insisting on full disclosure as "You People".
She doesn't like her husband realize that "you people" is not just Obama's supporters or just the media but also includes The American Electorate that is average American citizens.

In the case of the Romney's one is forced to spell out in clear terms what is required by the American people especially of someone running for President.
When Mitt was just one of the candidates running to be the Republican 's choice for the office of the presidency he could get away with such a reluctance to reveal all of his financial information .

But as a presidential candidate the average voter needs to know they can trust Mitt as a presidential candidate.

By refusing to be completely transparent in this matter he is inevitably creating an atmosphere of a lack of honesty and integrity and shows his disdain for the American people and America's political history and America's ideals.


Ann Romney again notes that Mitt gives a 10% Tithe to the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints .

But she doesn't mention that the 10 % Tithe is required of church members and is not really voluntary especially for someone as rich as Mitt Romney and as part of the top echelon or hierarchy/ or elite priesthood of the Mormon/ LDS Church .

And some of that money given to the Mormon Church may be invested in corporations owned or run or invested in by Mitt Romney. Again there is a lack of transparency and a secretiveness which is characteristic of the Mormon Church and of Wealthy Americans who see such laws or even traditions as not really meant for them but are meant for those who are not part of the Elite of America.

" Ann Romney: We've Given 'All You People Need To Know' About Family Finances" via Huff Post /AP ,July 19, 2012


UPDATE: Mitt Romney's shady financial dealings hidden income-off-shore accounts, outsourcing jobs. Mitt Romney like the rest of the Wealthy Elite in America as business people have only one agenda to amass as much wealth as possible without any concern or interest in average American workers. The other part of this agenda is to influence federal and state governments to pass legislation to stop interference in the elites amassing money by whatever means necessary. So those as rich as Romney are anti-taxes, anti-government, anti-regulations, anti-Union, anti-minimum wage or any protection for workers' rights. In Romney's 19th century style of Social Darwinism he believes that those who succeed are the more able and deserve to succeed and those who do not succeed or end up unemployed or homeless this is their just deserts for being weak.  Another argument appealed to by the successful and the rich and powerful  is that from the Mormon and Evangelical Christian point of view those who succeed such as Romney are blessed by God for their righteousness and those who struggle and barely able to survive are being punished by God for their sins and lack of faith in God/Elohim/Jahweh .   Mitt Romney Avoided Major Tax Hit By Shifting Stock Of Offshoring Firm by Huff Post, July 19, 2012
WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney saved himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in 2010 by transferring stock in two companies from his personal account to a nonprofit entity he set up. The stock maneuver included $172,397 in shares of Sensata Technologies, a company now under fire for a high-profile effort to offshore central Illinois jobs to China. Sensata produces sensors, switches and various mechanical controls.
The Attleboro, Mass.-based company is owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, and it already does most of its work in overseas plants. A remaining factory in Freeport, Ill., garnered national attention when remaining workers began pleading with Romney to exercise his influence over Bain Capital to save their jobs. Romney had received the Sensata stock as part of a Bain payout; he listed no cost for it on his tax return.
By transferring that stock to his nonprofit Tyler Charitable Foundation, he avoided roughly $25,000 in capital gains taxes he would have owed. He also shaved an additional $50,000 off his tax bill by deducting the charitable contribution from his income.
Workers laid off when the Freeport plant is shuttered will be entitled to far less than that in unemployment compensation. Freeport Mayor George Gaulrapp suggested that as long as Romney was giving that $172,397 in stock away, he could have given it back to the workers. "There's about a thousand dollars that could go to each of the workers here set to lose their jobs," he told The Huffington Post, noting the 170 people scheduled to lose their jobs in November when the plant finally closes.
Sensata employee Cheryl Randecker, who will be laid off under Bain's offshoring plan for the Freeport plant, criticized Romney in a video interview with HuffPost on Wednesday.
"We continue as Americans to move our jobs overseas, thinking about the dollar ... instead of putting people first like this country was based on," Randecker said.
"We actually just want Governor Romney to come and sit down and talk to us and explain why he continues to outsource jobs to the Chinese and other countries. And we need the jobs ... not the minimum-wage jobs, but the good-paying jobs that you can actually raise a family on."
Romney no longer runs Bain Capital, but his tax returns show he is a significant Sensata shareholder who stands to profit from any lower labor costs that result from offshoring. Bain declined to comment for this story. In 2010, Romney also transferred about $1.3 million worth of stock in Domino's Pizza to his nonprofit, which shaved about $600,000 off his tax bill. He reported paying nothing for the pizza shares, having acquired them as part of Bain's takeover of the company.
Romney Meets With Leader of Radical Christian Group, Despite Extremism Exposed By Their New Hire With the hiring of the right's favorite Islamophobe, the Family Research Council's extremism just got a little harder to ignore. by Peter Montgomery at Alternet, July 17, 2012
When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney met privately this week with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, he sought the counsel of a leader who, just days before, selected as his right-hand man a retired general known for his extreme contempt for Muslims.
Romney, hoping to draw the same kind of help organizing evangelical voters that Perkins gave former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum during the primaries, sought Perkins' input on potential running mates and "family" issues, barely 24 hours after FRC announced the hiring of retired Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin as executive vice president, in charge of day-to-day operations. It's a bold move, and one that makes FRC's extremism just a little harder to ignore.
Perkins and the Family Research Council have too often been treated by mainstream media as the reasonable and responsible wing of the Religious Right movement -- maybe because the former state representative has the polished presence of a politician and the Rolodex of a Washington insider. Republican officials flock to the Values Voter Summit, FRC's annual political gathering. But by hiring Boykin, FRC has dramatically undermined its claim to be an advocate for religious liberty as well as its efforts to position itself in the mainstream of the conservative movement.
While Perkins' extremism has largely flown below the media's radar, Boykin's style is in-your-face intolerance. In April, for instance, Boykin told Glenn Beck that anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is a "Muslim Brotherhood facilitator." That’s the kind of rhetoric that got anti-Muslim zealot Frank Gaffney kicked out of the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Now it's the kind of rhetoric that will define the Family Research Council. Boykin may not be a household name, but he has in recent years become a folk hero on the far right. Boykin had a legendary military career as a leader of America’s special forces, but he was rebuked by then-President George W. Bush and by the Pentagon’s inspector general for giving speeches in uniform while dismissing the God of Islam as an "idol" and portraying the "War on Terror" as a spiritual war between "our God" (Christian) and Satan. That, of course, endangered members of the American military serving in armed conflicts and undercut the diversity of our armed forces.
After retiring, Boykin continued diving further into the deep end of Religious Right extremism. “Islam is evil,” he says; Islam is not a religion but a "totalitarian way of life." Boykin, a board member of the dominionist Oak Initiative, is a leader of the Religious-Right push to scare Americans into believing that the U.S. Constitution is under dire threat of being replaced by Sharia law. He is the co-author of Sharia, the Threat to America, popularly known as the Team B II report.
Since, he has claimed, Muslims are under an "obligation to destroy our Constitution," American Muslims are not protected under the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious liberty. (Muslims, by the way, are under no such obligation.) He even said no mosques should be allowed to be built in America, though he has since backed away from that outrageous statement.
And Boykin is, like Perkins, unremittingly hostile to President Barack Obama. Boykin has charged that Obama is creating a Hitler-like cadre of Brownshirts to force Marxism down Americans’ throats. No wonder Tony Perkins loves him!
But what really made Boykin and FRC a match made in heaven is their shared expertise in portraying criticism of Religious-Right extremism as an attack on religious freedom. In March, AlterNet published "The Mythical Martyrdom of the Religious Right's Favorite Islamophobic General," People For the American Way Foundation’s report on the propaganda campaign to depict Boykin as victim of religious persecution.

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