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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."
He's activated the Colbert Nation to edit Wikipedia yet again on his show last night.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
...did the GOP start believing in Wikipedia?
Its entirely possible that whichever candidate will get the nod had his wikipedia fixed up a couple of months ago, to avoid notice of this. The other candidates fixing theirs up might just be window dressing in case there is a problem with the first candidate and they need a replacement.
Curiously, the entry for Beelzebub was edited 250 times, Quetzalcoatl 100 times and Ronald Reagan's Zombie an astonishing 345 times.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Wikipedia locked articles for controversial subjects. And what is more controversial than a politician come election period.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Great, now that's two missing tax returns.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Quick! Someone go make 200 edits to David Duke's Wikipedia entry!
Well... every smartass has to point out there is some bad information in Wikipedia. The GOP should be right at home there.
Rob is probably one Portman that you don't want to see naked and petrified.
This is most assuredly false as Mitch Daniels has been named to head Purdue University starting in January.
A education-hating man that pulled all the funding he could out of Indiana's great University system... named president of a University. Welcome to 2012.
Gee... I wonder how Reid could be proved wrong???
There has to be something bad in there if he's willing to go through the huge amount of political damage.
It's not impossible, but if you look at the editors who've made most of the edits, they're fairly active, longstanding Wikipedians who edit lots of things. A more likely explanation is that the causality is the other way around: they've heard the speculation about Rob Portman and Marco Rubio from the news, just like the rest of us have, and went over to see what shape the Wikipedia article is in. Some out of personal interest, some out of political interest, but probably not with inside information.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Tannenbaum maintains an election model that currently predicts an Obama win (334 to 206 electoral votes) http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Also, as an aside, I think Reid is traveling a dangerous road. Do we really want our political leaders decided on baseless rumors, guilt until the target proves innocence, and purely partisan/tribal cheerleading? Really? Because that's where Reid is going in service of the Obama campaign, and the immediate reaction on Twitter (thousands of tweets claiming Reid is a pederast, with as much evidence as Reid produced) may look funny now, but won't look all that funny when we reach the logical conclusions of such tactics.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Tea Party supports Freedom from government and lawyers how? They are a another tool to get the useful idiots to vote in policies that hurt themselves. Ask those folks about their stance on gay marriage and watch how fast they support government intrusion into people private lives.
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.
...did the GOP start believing in Wikipedia?
Is it a revealed work or intelligently designed? I think we can rule out being intelligently designed. That leaves us with a revealed work. Also the deletionists have made a nice apocrypha of wiki pages. So. GOP was taken over by religious nuts awhile back and they like a revealed work, surprise surprise.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Ever since they realized they could "Change history" by editing the facts to match Sarah Palin's version of Paul Revere's ride.
I'm wondering who Obama's running mate will be.
Dark Reflection
Reid will not comment on the matter unless he his on the floor of the Senate. This is because Reid is protected from being sued for telling a lie as long as he is on the Senate floor. You wont see him repeating his lies on the Sunday shows because he can be personally sued for making false statements.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
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.
Good for you, now go talk to the ones holding the "Keep government out of medicare" signs about that.
I would like to inform you that sometimes government intrusion is needed for freedom. Without government intrusion you could not own land, as I could just take it.
So you think that Romney didn't pay ANY taxes for 10 years and the IRS just let it go?
I think I'm going to side on Reid is a moron.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
They don't.
They believe in Conservapedia.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
Go. Read.
--
BMO
He should select Ron Paul. It would consolidate the Republican base. On the other hand, if Ron Paul runs as an independent in just a few swing states (e.g., Texas), Ron will give the election to Obama. As VP, Ron could be effectively managed, as Kennedy did with Johnson and Reagan did with Bush. Remember what Mr. Gates used to say, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."
However, I am talking about Mitt, a man with few political instincts. Therefore, he will pick Portman as an electoral hedge, because Rob is from the critical swing state of Ohio.
So you think that Romney didn't pay ANY taxes for 10 years and the IRS just let it go?
There are many ways to make millions and not pay taxes. You just need good lawyers and accountants.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I suspect their exact words were, "If you think you can do a better job at running this university on such a small budget...".
Besides, I think it's perfectly apt. It gives him a chance to put his money where his mouth is. If he succeeds, then American universities are horribly inefficient. If he fails, the Republican education policy will be unimpeachably shown as an abject failure.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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"
Cool; then we can apply it to CCW licenses, too.
You need a license to go counterclockwise?
Where do you live?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Christopher Schurmann 1896 Election
Charles Evans Hughes 1916 Election
George Romney 1968 Election
Barry Goldwater 1964 Election
Lowell Weicker 1980 Election
Roger Calero 2004 and 2008
John McCain 2000 and 2008
Mitt's father was questioned too when there was a chance he might become the nominee because the Romney's were from Mexico. By extension Mitt himself released his birth certificate to Reuters because questions arouse.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
Being selected as a VP candidate gives that politician instant name recognition in presidential politics. Sometimes this is enough to make them an early contender for a presidential nomination in the next election (Edmund Muskie, Walter Mondale, Sarah Palin) or gives them a building block for later campaigns (FDR, Bob Dole). This is somewhat of a modern phenomenon. The age and performance of the candidate and the strength of the field are certainly factors.
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.
Or he will succeed in saving money, and destroy the value of those degrees at the same time.
You know like all those advertised on daytime TV private colleges. They make tons of money, and sell degrees that are totally worthless. Which is pretty much the perfect outcome in the mind of any politician.
First, the political damage is not that huge. Second, it's very likely that Romney has paid little income tax, though quite large amounts of other taxes, given that most of his income is from investments, which are taxed as capital gains.
Wrong. They never cash in their investments, so they never pay that tax. They leverage their assets for cheap loans. Jobs was a master of this, as is Ellison.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
There's a difference between collecting water than runs off your house and putting up a 20 foot damn to create a reservoir and stop water flowing into the local river.
What would you do if you were down stream and your river dried up?
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Do we really want our political leaders decided on baseless rumors, guilt until the target proves innocence, and purely partisan/tribal cheerleading?
Versus the current system where two trillion dollar parties backed by billionaires select two nearly identical people to run for office?
You mean like Obama college transcripts and Harry Reid's tax returns?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
No it lets them get paid in stock, which they use to get loans against to avoid paying taxes. It really is that simple.
Delete the nytimes.com cookie and you can continue reading.
It doesn't. And it doesn't matter. This whole campaign is a farce designed to give the appearance of opposition to the Obama regime.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What the states and feds should do, is allow for, and enforce across state lines...civil contracts..between two or more of ANY sexual preference, etc. This should be the ONLY legal binding contract there is.
If someone in this relationships also wants the "marriage" moniker on their relationship, let them get a church to do this....but merely having a church blessed marriage, would not hold any legal binding bonds....that is the civil contract part offered by the govt.
Let that civil contract between 2 or more people, take care of all the inheritance, insurance...etc....and that would be the same for any group of people wanting such a legal relationship, and should do away with all this controversy of marriage.
Let's put marriage back in the church where it resides, and out of Govt hands where it causes controversy. The Govt is there to help enforce contracts...let's put the govt back to work doing what it is supposed to do in this case.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They shouldn't have to be, but when you run for political office, there's a tacit understanding that you no longer have the degree of privacy you would have if you were just Joe Q. Citizen. Sure, you can refuse to show your tax records at that point, but your opponents and the electorate are also free to draw whatever conclusions they want from that.
The underlying point here is that political damage doesn't have to be logical, rational or, hell, even right. But damage is damage nonetheless. A lot of Republicans are really getting concerned that the longer Romney refuses the more people will assume he has something nasty to hide, so that even if it is nothing more than a bit embarrassing when and if it does come to light, he will have already put too many holes in the hull of his campaign.
Here's my advice for anyone running for public office. If you value your privacy, don't bother. They are mutually exclusive.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well as you can see John McCain's and Roger Calero's names have two dates. You can name one person who still pushes the idea in the entire country. I hardly consider that a continuing conspiracy. 6% of people don't think we landed on the moon. Sharif Joe only constitutes .00000000000000000000003% so until you reach the 6% threshold I think your conspiracy theory is a conspiracy theory.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
Don't forget he had 3 of them on his property.. Stocked with bluegill, a boat dock, etc. and this creek is a tributary of the Rouge River, a designated "Wild and Scenic River".. Not only was he keeping the water, he was blocking fish from going upstream for spawning..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
What is the benefit of many smaller pools, as we have now with multiple insurance providers?
Above a certain size, there's enough of a base among which risk is already pooled that any marginal benefit of a larger pool is insubstantial.
What's wrong with having only one large pool, and better still, have it exist as a nonprofit entity?
Different entities can't compete to pool risk more efficiently.
There's truth in what you say, but the GOP already has wiki of their own, with all sorts of misinformation.
Make the taxes on investment income far more progressive than the normal tax code and suddenly it doesn't effect any of the average folks you're trying to protect. Oh but wait, this whole "increased taxes are bad for everyone" motif is just a ruse, so you were being hypothetical and not seeking an actual answer that would solve problems. Sorry, carry on.
On those merits he should have picked Natalie Portman, he might have actually won at that, I mean, who wouldn't vote that way?
Ahh...the good old days...before all the modern problems started...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I wouldn't mind modest tax increases if...
Everyone had to pay them. Even the poorest person out there working can pay at least $1 federal tax. No one working should not pay anything net.
Before raising it...by law, any new revenues can NOT be used for new spending...only to pay things off. And..like any family does that is in fiscal difficulty....CUT SPENDING.
Doing these things first...I'd be cool with modest tax increases.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........