What's The Matter With Them?

When people express exasperation at their inability to understand the behavior and motives of others, it is usually because they have failed to expend any effort to do so, or their thinking has lead them to a place they do not wish to go.


If you are looking at the actions of others, and are convinced that the actions they are taking are detrimental to their own best interests, then you've most likely got it completely wrong. Throwing up your hands and claiming to just give up is a cop out to say the least. That's really just an excuse to avoid any complicating and inconvenient conclusions.

Can't Win

So, after months of Democrats whining and cat calls for Mitt Romney to release more tax returns he did. But talk about damned if you do or damned if you don't, here was something that the Financial Times printed. I don't think they were being critical per se, but you know the Dems will repeat it. Malt writes a blog and manages Romney's finances.

The Republican’s 2011 tax return showed that the candidate – and his wife, Ann – paid $1.9m in taxes on $13.7m in income, derived mostly from investments. That put their effective tax rate at 14.1 per cent, according to a blog post by Brad Malt, the trustee who manages Mr Romney’s wealth.

The Romneys donated $4m to charity last year, nearly 30 per cent of their income but claimed a tax deduction for only $2.25m of this, pushing the candidate’s effective tax rate higher.

“The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year,” Mr Malt wrote.

Under questioning about his taxes this year, Mr Romney had said he would not be qualified to be president if he paid more taxes than were required.

“I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due, I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president,” he told ABC News in July.

Mr Romney pays a relatively low rate because most of his income comes in the form of dividends and capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate then ordinary income.

A Message to Raj

I have these somewhat ambivalent feelings about Pakistanis rioting, burning and looting their cities and killing their fellow citizens. The government of Pakistan, our staunch "ally" in the war on terror, gave the country a holiday in order to protest a bad film that nobody would have ever seen had it not been pointed out to them. And they used the opportunity to kill over a dozen people in widespread rioting. Of course the duplicitous Pakistanis were predictably trying to stick their finger into America's eye for the sake of domestic politics, but I don't think they wanted this. So as they reek havoc on themselves and their cities, it's hard to have much sympathy. Talk about don't get it, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the Pakistani Prime Minister, called on the international community Friday to pass laws to prevent people from insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

He said: “If denying the Holocaust is a crime, then is it not fair and legitimate for a Muslim to demand that denigrating and demeaning Islam’s holiest personality is no less than a crime?”

Ok, Raj let me just start by saying that we don't believe in international laws governing speech. And you are also mistaken that it is against the law to deny the holocaust here in the United States. Deny the holocaust all you want here. Knock yourself out.You see, our experience has been that letting somebody say their idiotic ideas and theories out loud is the best way to show them to be idiotic and discredited. But I do respect the right of other cultures to choose murder and mayhem instead.



  

Encouraging Polls

Yes, there are polls out there right now in which both candidates can find encouragement, but I saw one today that has given me great hope about voters. As a conservative virtually surrounded by liberals, I often get frustrated with the rampant liberal bias of the press. It's been so obvious to me for decades that I have just assumed that I must be in the minority. After all conservatives aren't even a majority. I've just had little faith that voters in general see it like I do. But a Rasmussen Report poll showed that 51% expect reporters to help Obama, while only 9% expect them to help Romney. 59% believe they have treated Obama better so far while only 18% believe they have helped Romney.

It is still not good that 23% don't see anything one way or the other, but 59% means even a large number of liberals can see and admit to it.

Foreign Policy Experts

Could somebody please explain to me how the Obama administration can adopt such inane, and counterproductive positions in foreign policy, yet present themselves as experts in the field? Obama makes the head scratching decision to announce a withdrawal date from Afghanistan. We don't withdraw mind you, we just tell the enemy the date on which we will withdraw. We also inform them that our strategy will be to stay around long enough to train and indoctrinate locals to take our place and defeat the Taliban. Now the locals look at this and must think, "Hmmm, let's see, the Americans are bugging out next year, and the Taliban has said they will take revenge on any Afghan who aids them in the meantime. Since I have no means or location in which to relocate, I just can't decide who deserves my loyalty. This is a real stumper."

Their Convention

The Democrat National Convention in a nutshell: We're good people, the Republicans are not. We're for poor people, they are for rich people. That's because they are all rich, most of them born that way, all selfishly wanting to stay that way, and none of them the least bit appreciative of all the good things that their government benevolently builds for them, such as roads, bridges and schools, with money that government just had sitting around. Republicans do not seem to comprehend all the good things that government could do, if only we’d let them, using money from somewhere. They are mean, and while we never called them racists, bigots, or homophobic out loud, we're pretty sure you got that message too. Obama is a really good guy, a wonderful husband and likely the most perfect father ever. He is actually very warm and caring, and totally unlike the cool, aloof persona he projects. He had an underprivileged upbringing and was raised by his single mom.

Except he wasn't; he was raised by his grandparents and attended only the best schools. He attended Punahou School in Hawaii, an elite college prep school. From there, he went to Occidental College, then Columbia and Harvard. We’re not exactly sure how he gained entrance to Columbia or Harvard because despite their prominent place on his resume, he has sealed all records from both institutions. Al Gore and G.W. Bush both released there college transcripts even though they were both C students. But you cannot see what classes BHO took, what grades he got, or more significantly, how he got in and paid for it. The irony here is that I’d bet anybody $10,000 that if a person received preferential treatment, or extraordinary, undue credit because of their status and race, it was Barack Obama and not the rich, white Mitt Romney. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the thing he is really hiding here is that he received financial aid as a foreign student. I’m not promoting any birther conspiracies, but it is certainly believable that the then Barry Settoro was simply gaming the system to get his school paid for, just believing this little detail would get lost in the weeds and never imagining that it would add fuel to the born-elsewhere theories.

Race, Again

It's clear that there will be no let up in the charges of racism being constantly hurled by Barack Obama's surrogates. I do admit that it gets to me. It really pisses me off to be accused of racism. If it's to simply deflect criticism, it's infuriating.

But here's the deal. Supposedly all these racist Republican politicians use code words and dog whistle politics to remind racist voters that Barack Obama is in fact black. This has obviously escaped their attention for the past four years so some constant reminders are in order lest they forget again between now and election day. That's probably the only reason they voted for him four years ago. John McCain refused use words like "angry," "Chicago" and "golf." But now, a Romney aide points out that Obama seems to be running an angry campaign, and sure enough, everybody in the room has this look on their face that said, "Oh my god, he IS black, why didn't I notice?"