Slashdot Mirror
Secret Service Investigating Romney Tax Hack Claim
A federal investigation has been launched after hackers claimed to have stolen Mitt Romney’s tax returns. The hackers have given Romney until September 28th to pay $1 million in bitcoins or they say they will release the returns. From the article: "The claim was made in a post on the Pastebin site on Sunday that alleged that Romney's federal tax returns were taken from the offices of PriceWaterhouse Coopers in Frankin, Tenn., on August 25 by someone who snuck into the building and made copies of the document. The message author threatened to release the files publicly on September 28 and said copies of the files had been given to Democratic and Republican leaders in that county. Democrats have made Romney's refusal to release his tax returns a key point in their criticism that he is not in touch with working class voters."
No one is saying that Republicans are stupid in terms of playing politics. They have stupid policies such as force-feeding creationism in science class, but they are geniuses at fear-mongering, name-calling, and just flat-out lying in order to get what they want. You want to talk about leaving Iraq? Well, you're a cut-and-run coward who hates America. You want to help the poor and middle class? You're engaging in class warfare, and you hate success. These guys are freaking geniuses at political gamesmanship. Look at ObamaCare. They were able to stop even a single Republican representative from voting in favor of the bill. Are you telling me that not one of them thought the bill was a good idea or was the leadership that absolute? Hint: it's the latter.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
For me at least, it isn't a case of 'should we go after them', but how much more attention gets paid to a case by law enforcement if the target if famous or politically connected. The Palin one was is a classic example... a type of hack that is not unusual and gets reported to the police fairly frequently, but very little is done about it. Yet all the stops came out to track down the person when Palin's emails were stolen.
I am all for people like this being tracked down and arrested for their crimes, I just wish it did not matter so much who your victim is.
Or for that matter, his college records. As much as I'd like to see those from Obama, he's under no obligation to release them, and it would be just as wrong to release them illegally as it would be to release Romney's tax returns.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Mitt Romney pays less taxes (~15%) because his money was taxed when it was initially earned and now he's paying taxes on his investments so he's being taxed twice - a fact often omitted form reports.
By that logic, my plumber should only have to pay 15% on his taxes, since that money was already taxed once when me and all of his other customers earned it. But of course things don't work that way for ordinary people, only for the 1%.
How in the world did you go from 'these crimes should be prosecuted even if the victim is a nobody' to 'watergate should never have been prosecuted'?
I am just tired of the 'people with power deserve more justice then regular people'. Crow, a crime like this probably has less personal impact then one on a regular person... you think something like this would actually impact Romney in any significant way? Hacks like this are about as politically dangerous as fumbling a line during an interview. On the other hand when some average person has their personal information stolen it can be life destroying. So in a very real way this is a less serious crime since it is unlikely to have much impact on anyone or anything.
I didn't think anybody was dumb enough to think that we have the resources to "track down and arrest" someone for every crime that is reported. So I assumed (incorrectly) that your point was every instance of a crime should be treated the same as all other incidents of that crime. Since we can't possibly prosecute them all, we should either prosecute none, or just randomly pick some to prosecute. It is unlikely that Watergate would have been prosecuted to the extent it was in those circumstances.
Like it or not, prosecution of crime (like everything else we do) is going to have priorities assigned. We do not have infinite resources. And like it or not, any crime which is done for the purposes of influencing an election is going to get a high priority, whether you think the crime would actually influence the election or not.
I agree mostly with the parent, but not entirely.
To the extent Romney legally made a lot of money, and legally paid his taxes the actual amounts are pretty nearly irrelevant.
However, there is some interesting speculation out there that what's in his returns is in fact he was a tax cheat. You see, in 2009 the IRS had an amnesty program for people with money stashed overseas. We already know Romney had a bunch of money stashed in overseas accounts. The amnesty was because a high percentage of folks with overseas accounts (upwards of 80%, by some estimates) had failed to report their assets in the required way. Since they are the 1%, the Congress passed a "one time out" program, admit breaking the law, but rather than get thrown in jail or pay a penalty simply pay the tax you would have owed.
We don't know if Romney took advantage of the program, but the odds are quite high he did. If so, what he did by participating was admit he had cheated the tax code for some number of years. That would absolutely be relevant for a political candidate.
It's a gimmick. It's right up there with having a Philly cheesesteak in Gino's versus Pat's. American politics is filled with those kinds of traps.
All the issue is there to serve is to suggest Romney is "not one of you" and fits the stereotype of "rich white republican."
Truth is, Obama is rich, too. You can't really do federal politics without being quite wealthy.
Time wasted talking about tax returns, or birth certificates, or whatever is time spent not talking about the facts. And when you look at FACTS, both Republicans AND Democrats have each done massive harm to this country over the past 80 years.
More Twoson than Cupertino
A fine example of whataboutery. The issue is not that Romney is wealthy - it's a matter of public record that his wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined - but that he may have been illegally evading taxes through the use of off-shore banks, and took advantage of the 2009 amnesty.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush