Last Call

The Mitt Romney tax return story will not go away, not with stuff like this in the news.

The New York attorney general is investigating whether some of the nation’s biggest private equity firms have abused a tax strategy in order to slice hundreds of millions of dollars from their tax bills, according to executives with direct knowledge of the inquiry. 

The attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has in recent weeks subpoenaed more than a dozen firms seeking documents that would reveal whether they converted certain management fees collected from their investors into fund investments, which are taxed at a far lower rate than ordinary income.

Among the firms to receive subpoenas are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president. Representatives for the firms declined to comment on the inquiry. 

Mr. Schneiderman’s investigation will intensify scrutiny of an industry already bruised by the campaign season, as President Obama and the Democrats have sought to depict Mr. Romney through his long career in private equity as a businessman who dismantled companies and laid off workers while amassing a personal fortune estimated at $250 million. 

Some executives at the firms said they feared that Mr. Schneiderman, a first-term Democrat with ties to the Obama administration, was seeking to embarrass the industry because of Mr. Romney’s roots at Bain. Others suggested that the subpoenas, which were issued by the attorney general’s Taxpayer Protection Bureau, might be part of an effort to recover more revenue for New York under state tax law. The attorney general’s office does not have the power to enforce federal tax laws.

You can bet New York wants that tax revenue.  You can also bet the more Republicans scream about how it's sooooo unfair for anyone to be going after tax loopholes.  And New York is holding all the leverage here.  You want to be on Wall Street?  You have to play by Empire State rules.  Merry Christmas, Eric.  Take them to the cleaners.

Podcast Versus The Stupid!

Our special coverage of the national party conventions continues with today's bonus show, Million Dollar Boobie Part 2.  Bon and I discuss Condi Rice, peanut tossing jackasses, Romney in Cincy, Springfield's spineless city council, and more.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

We'll have more for you on Monday's Labor Day special show too.  Give it a listen.

Old School Awesome

Zap! Atari and Microsoft today launched Atari Arcade, an excellent example of how HTML5 can change the way we play video games.

The portal of retro entertainment -- primarily launched to celebrate Atari's 40th anniversary -- includes Asteroids, Centipede, Combat, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Super Breakout, and Yars' Revenge. The best part? It's free, and doesn't require Flash, Java, or any other plug-in to play, running solely on HTML5.

That means you can play these classic games in modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and other HTML5-enabled Web browsers (such as those on Android and iOS devices). Talk about the perfect way to sneak a little game time in somewhere.

Awesome fun, and it brings back so many memories.  I got my first Atari when I was four, in 1980.  They were still a revolution, and I cannot tell you how many hours I *ahem* wasted playing the likes of Super Breakout and Night Driver.

Enjoy!

Cops Slam Nurse On The Ground

Two L.A. cops pull a woman from her car, handcuff her, and slam her into the ground again.  The five foot four inch woman is helpless to protect her face or body.  It looks more like an amateur wrestling move.  She's so much smaller than them it's disgusting.  And the best I can tell, besides some reflexes going off, she never resists arrest.

Watch the video to hear the outcome.  Spoiler alert: you'll be pissed.

I'm At WRMONEY In Cincinnati

Mitt Romney's first campaign stop after the convention?  Right here in Cincy yesterday.  Southwest Ohio will determine who wins the state, and Ohio may determine the Presidency, just look at 2004.  Romney wants to turn out Boehner Country and the northern suburbs and Dayton as much as he can to tip the scales, but Hamilton County can go either way and both sides know it.  Obama won here 53-46 over McCain in 2008, for Romney to win the state he's going to have to win Hamilton County...and he knows it.

Returning to campaign mode on Saturday –– the first day of college football - Romney offered several sports-related analogies.

Obama, he said, promised more jobs, but “23 million people are out of work or stopped looking for work or underemployed.

“Let me tell you, if you have a coach that's 0-23 million, you say it's time to get a new coach. It’s time for America to see a winning season again and we're going to bring it to them.”

Romney really is a moron.  He's basically saying having any unemployed or underemployed Americans is Obama's fault.  If having ANY unemployed or underemployed Americans is grounds for not being re-elected, then no President should be.  In fact, basically every President we've ever had is, by the standards of Romney's idiotic sports metaphor, a "losing coach".  Hell, Mitt Romney himself was a losing coach as Governor of Massachusetts, right?  Jesus.   Oh, but it gets worse.

Romney also mentioned Neil Armstrong, the former astronaut and University of Cincinnati professor from Indian Hill who died last week.

“I will do everything in my power to bring us together, because united, America built the strongest economy in the history of the earth,” Romney said. “United, we put Neil Armstrong on the moon.”

We did, Mitt.  And we did it by using the government to do it.  And I'm sure Neil Armstrong would cold cock you for the way your party treats government employees and college professors:  as burdensome cancers on society that need to be cut out so that you can afford more tax cuts.  Jackass.

And as far as uniting America?  This is the guy running ads saying Obama is making it easier for those people to get welfare.  It's an awful, racist, divisive lie and the Romney campaign admits that being a racist bunch of assholes has been their most effective ad campaign so far.  That's the kind of "uniter" Mitt Romney is, a disgusting con man playing on fear and hatred in order to drive people to the polls.

President Obama's response was in Iowa again on Saturday.  He summed up the entire RNC in one sentence:

The president recalled the GOP convention as a look backward. “It was a re-run — we’d seen it before,” he said. “You might as well have watched it on a black-and-white TV.”

Well played with the double entendre, Mr. President.

The only thing Romney will do to unite us is make all of us poor to make him rich.

Jackass.

[UPDATE]  Speaking of jackasses, I see Hugh Hewitt is convinced the election in 2012 will cement Ohio's permanent red state status or something, with Romney and Senate candidate Josh Mandel winning in a fashion that "won't even be close".    He gives five reasons (Ohio loves Kasich and the GOP leadership, Ohio loves fracking, the Catholic vote will abandon Obama, the Jewish vote will abandon Obama, and Sherrod Brown is a, "uber-leftist") as to why, all of which are laughable when you look back at the 2011 election where the Jewish and Catholic vote helped viciously smack Kasich down. 

This state has union autoworkers Hugh, and they know which side left them for dead.  Kasich's at 41% approval.  Things are getting closer for Josh Mandel, but that's because the state's been close.  It always is.  Brown continues to lead in poll after poll. And let's not forget that the GOP leadership is suing to stop people from voting.  And fracking?  Yeah Hugh, people like earthquakes in Ohio.  Not even Kasich wants that in an election year.

Don't speak up about the Buckeye state's politics unless you know something about them, Hugh.

Last Call

Everything you need to know about the delegates at the RNC:

Thousands of delegates have assembled in Tampa this week to nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, vote on the party rules, and wear ridiculous hats in a socially acceptable setting. But what do they think about, you know, certain things — such as where President Obama was born, and whether he has committed impeachable offenses? In an effort to find out, Daily Intel presented 50 of these delegates with a multiple-choice poll. (The goal was 100, but many delegates did not want to pause from their busy schedules to share their opinions.)

In case it's not obvious, this is not a completely representative polling sample. That said, there are some interesting nuggets in here.

Like this:

 

 

...and this.

 

 

 

Questions?

The Romney/Ryan Welfare Card Is Nothing New

On this morning's Melissa Harris-Perry show, Melissa and her guests discussed just why Americans hate the word welfare when they love social spending, safety nets, Social Security, Medicare, and education spending.

The problem of course is that for the last 32 years, Republicans have been relentlessly tying the word "welfare" to black Americans.  Melissa is joined by Bob Franken, Nancy Giles, David Coates, and Monica Mehta and the discussion is certainly worth your ten minutes to watch. Do so.  At one point Melissa uncharacteristically blows a gasket about the notion that the reward of being rich is sufficiently cosmically balanced by the risk of investment.

“What is riskier than living poor in America?” Harris-Perry demanded. “Seriously! What in the world is riskier than being a poor person in America? I live in a neighborhood where people are shot on my street corner. I live in a neighborhood where people have to figure out how to get their kid into school because maybe it will be a good school and maybe it won’t. I am sick of the idea that being wealthy is risky. No. There is a huge safety net that whenever you fail will catch you and catch you and catch you. Being poor is what is risky. We have to create a safety net for poor people. And when we won’t, because they happen to look different from us, it is the pervasive ugliness.”

And it needed to be said a thousand times more.   Thank you, Melissa.

Podcast Versus The Stupid!

This week's episode "Million Dollar Boobie" is up.  Give a listen as we take on Clint Eastwood losing arguments with inanimate objects, Chris Christie and education, Paul Ryan's lies and more as we cover the first part of the RNC in this expanded week of coverage.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

Part 2 will be coming up tomorrow.

Parents Do Time For Baby Dying Of Neglect

JIM THORPE, Pa. — Two eastern Pennsylvania parents whose baby daughter was left alone in a car seat in a hot room for several hours and died have been sentenced to time behind bars.

Authorities say the Palmerton couple's daughter had no food or water for 16 hours.

A judge sentenced Kimberly Taschler to 14 months to 3 1/2 years in prison. Husband Jacob Taschler was sentenced to 11 months to two years.

Authorities allege the Taschlers had neglected 11-month-old Kayla even before her death in January 2010.

Of course they did.  Rarely do healthy normal people just neglect a child until it dies.  That girl likely suffered her entire life.

The mother cried and said she was overwhelmed.  What the hell ever.  While she was busy being overwhelmed, a little girl died.  She didn't get the chance to be overwhelmed, or to see the sun rise today.

No pity.  No second chance.  These kids deserve safety, and the only way to deter morons like this is to make them fear the punishment.

The Immoral Minority Hits One Out Of The Park

I love The Immoral Minority, as regulars well know.  But this time, he posted something so fantastic that I would be ashamed to even try to add sprinkles to this cupcake.

So please, take a moment and show Gryphen some love.  Here is a teaser from his masterpiece titled: Fox News literally calls Paul Ryan a liar. Exactly which part of hell just froze over?

Not only were most minorities kept out of the building, but the truth itself was persona non grata as well. 

So the fact that Paul Ryan played fast and loose with the truth should not come as much of a surprise. BothMSNBC and CNN could not miss the plethora of lies that fell easily form the lips of Ryan. 

However what might be of some surprise, at least it surprised me, is that there were indeed SO MANY lies that even Fox News could not take it.  

We then get a nice breakdown of the facts, and I agree with his analysis for the journalist's future.

Well done, sir.

Page Break

August was our best month ever here at ZVTS, on a personal note.  We broke 15k visits according to Sitemeter and 13k visits according to Quantcast.  I'm pretty happy with that, and hopefully we can bring in some more traffic with the podcast.

As we head into the heart of the election season with Labor Day weekend, the game begins in earnest.  Keep it here and we'll try not to disappoint.  And hey, tell your friends about us too!

Back to your regularly scheduled weekend.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Michigan's Donald Lawson stepped forward as the sole winner of Powerball's most recent mega-jackpot, worth $337 million.
• Police in Austin, Texas have admitted to infiltrating the Occupy Austin movement, possibly with intent as provocateurs.
• The new judge for the accused murderer of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, is the same judge presiding in Zimmerman's wife's perjury trial.
• California lawmakers have struck a deal to put $55 billion in state worker pension cuts over 30 years on Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown's desk.
• Facebook stock is down to a new low of just over $18 a share after analysts cut the share's target price to $10-$15.

Last Call

The trees are the right height.  Also, the flooding is the right depth.

Mitt Romney looked to capitalize on the Republican National Convention on Friday, rallying supporters in Florida and making a surprise visit to storm-battered Louisiana.

The freshly and formally nominated Republican candidate traveled to Louisiana after a traditional post-convention rally in Florida, shelving plans for a second rally in Virginia and meeting instead with storm victims in a move that his campaign hoped would reinforce a convention message to the country that he’s more than a dollars-and cents-businessman.

Romney toured Jean Lafitte, La., where emergency responders have been helping people hit hard by floodwaters from Hurricane Isaac. He met Gov. Bobby Jindal and local officials, asked questions and discussed evacuation procedures. “Did the water come from the sky, or the rivers, or the ocean?” Romney wondered. Reporters couldn’t hear the answer. 

Mitt.  Get some sleep, man.  Take a day off or something.  You actually managed to screw up a hurricane appearance with a friendly governor.   Sheesh.

Who says weird stuff like that?  I mean when you're obviously making a political ploy out of Louisiana's pain after telling them to go screw themselves last night in your big speech because global warming is soooooooo goddamn funny, and then you show up and botch it with some garbled nonsense where you then ditch the press pool to go riding around in a flood zone.

You're not President yet, Mitt.

And lord knows you won't be.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/31/164602/fresh-off-convention-mitt-romney.html#storylink=cpy

Ask A Question, Get An Answer

As part of their most recent poll, the Washington Post included the question: "What's the main reason you think most black voters support Democratic candidates?"  The biggest answer among Republican voters, independents, and Democratic voters?  "I don't know."

However, the Post cataloged the top five responses they got after that.  They're pretty much exactly what you expect as you can see in this graphic here:

 

The Democrats' answer can be summed up as "We're the party of civil rights." Republicans sum it up as "Black people are lazy and stupid." Independents edge towards the GOP position slightly.

Yeah, that's about par for the course for the body politic.

Autopsy Confirms Sage Stallone Died Of Heart Disease

People magazine explains more in the full article.

Heart disease, not drugs, was the major cause of Sage Stallone's untimely deathearlier this summer at age 36, the Los Angeles County coroner announced Thursday. 

After conducting an autopsy as well as a full toxicology screen, the coroner cited atherosclerotic coronary artery disease as the cause of death, and said that the drug test was negative except for a small, "sub-therapeutic" level of hydrocodone, more commonly known as Vicodin. 

There's no good way to lose someone you love, but there are still things that bring you comfort.  Knowing his son's death wasn't intentional or brought on by drugs will bring them some small relief.  What will bring them even more relief is just knowing the truth.  Closure is important.

My heart still goes out to him.  After watching (and loving) The Expendables 2, there were a few themes and things that brought a tear to my eye knowing the loss he suffered after filming.  But yeah, not to throw a spoiler, but if you know his son died a few scenes are touching.