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Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick
Hugh Pickens writes writes "In 2008, as The Washington Post wrote at the time, 'just hours before [Sen. John] McCain declared his veep choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her Wiki page saw a flurry of activity, with editors adding details about Palin's approval rating and husband's employment. ... Palin's entry was updated at least 68 times, with at least an additional 54 changes made to her entry over the preceding five days.' The obvious — in hindsight — implications of the Wiki activity: Aides were going into the entries to tune them up and clean out any material that was either embarrassing or erroneous. Now Mark Memmott writes on NPR that today's Wikipedia activity may lend a clue to Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, expected to be announced within a few days. So what's going on now with some of those said to be among the leading possibilities to be joining Mitt Romney on the Republican ticket? On August 7, Rob Portman's Wikipedia page was revised 100 times, the Wikipedia page for Marco Rubio was revised 22 times, and the page for Tim Pawlenty was revised only 5 times. Of course, Memmott adds, somebody who knows about the 2008 Wiki tea leaves may just be messing with our minds."
Tannenbaum maintains an election model that currently predicts an Obama win (334 to 206 electoral votes) http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Reid is going down the path the birthers laid for him. I find it funny that now the republicans suddenly have a problem with people calling for what should be public records.
It is not a good thing when either tribe does it, but this is what tribalism leads too.
Personally the fact that investment income is taxed at such a lower rate is something the public needs to hear about. This is why you hear of CEOs taking $1 salaries, because they prefer to be paid in ways that avoid the taxes on income. Reid's current course of action is not how to have that discussion though.
I'm sure Reid has inside knowledge -- after all he IS a high-ranking member of the LDS Church and has many friends who would know more about the Romney situation. Obviously he can't have access to the tax returns themselves (that would be a felony) so he can't produce any "evidence" but John McCain (who HAS seen the returns from when Romney was being considered for VP in 2008) has stayed mum on the subject which strongly implies that he knows a little more than we do.
Well, remember McCain saw something like 10+ years of Romney's tax returns during his vice-presidential vetting and decided that Sarah Palin was a better candidate for vice-president. Just think about that for a bit, Palin a better "heartbeat from the president" than Romney 4 yrs ago. What has Romney done since except campaign more for president and now hide his tax returns from public? I've read reports how there's a good chance that he DIDN'T pay taxes particularly in 2009 because of the stockmarket dive and even McCain hasn't seen those tax returns.
I want to know what he's hiding personally, and I think the issue probably will "swiftboat" Romney if he doesn't go ahead and release them ASAP...
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
>>>...did the GOP start believing in Wikipedia?
About the same time the DNC became a pro-war party.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Yes. No one is saying Romney illegally paid no income taxes, but it's quite easily for him to have paid virtually no taxes relative to his income. We know Romney's IRA is an enormous $100 million + (given IRA contribution limits would either make him the greatest investor in the world or there's something unorthodox going on).
What's likely happened is that he put his shares of the Bain Capital LLC, which he was the sole shareholder, into his IRA at an arbitrary and very low value (since it's a private company the share's didn't have a market price). Then when he left Bain in 2002, the other partners of Bain Capital had to buy the LLC from Romney (because that's what holds the trademarks and such). So Romney's IRA got hundreds of millions of dollars for those shares from 2002 - 2009. Since you don't pay taxes on investments in the IRA until you retire and start taking money out, Romney hasn't paid any taxes on them. It's quite possible for him to have an effective income tax rate during those years of 1%.
Any major investor in Bain Capital would be privy to this information and have signed confidentiality agreements making revealing this information a large legal risk, hence revealing it anonymously via Harry Reid.