Yet another TOD post that has been reblogged by Jueseppi B, despite requests that he make his own effort to support PBO rather than copying others simply to drive up his reblog’s traffic. He doesn’t take kindly to being challenged, as another woman found out: explicit. Genuine bloggers are welcome to use anything they ever see at TOD. Thanks
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ABC: The private equity firm founded by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made use of arcane techniques in several of its Cayman Islands-based funds to avoid U.S. taxes, according to a trove of Bain Capital’s private audit and finance records made public on the website Gawker today.
The audited financial statements of one of the Cayman Islands funds make note of the use of “blocker” entities, which are used to help retirement accounts and nonprofit entities avoid some taxes. Financial statements for another fund note that it “intends to conduct its operations so it will … not be subject to United States federal income or withholding tax …”
Those details emerge on the statements of two funds in which Romney still holds a sizeable investment, according to the financial disclosure statements he filed when he announced his bid for president.
First lady Michelle Obama greets Sikh temple secretary of the board of trustees Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal, left, and Oak Creek, Wis. Mayor Stephen Scaffidi, before talking to victims of the August 5th shooting in Oak Creek, Wis.
Washington Post: President Obama’s reelection campaign will begin accepting donations sent by text messages this week, marking the first foray into a potentially lucrative new avenue of grass-roots fundraising for federal candidates.
The program, announced by campaign officials early Thursday, will allow supporters to send contributions of less than $50 by texting “GIVE” to 62262 — which corresponds with the letters in “Obama.”
Officials said the service will be available almost immediately for Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular customers, and for AT&T and other carriers “in the near future.” Possibilities include soliciting text donations in broadcast and Internet ads and during major political events, such as the upcoming Democratic Party convention in Charlotte, N.C.
“Accepting small donations by text message will help us engage even more grassroots supporters who want to play a role by donating whatever they can afford to the campaign,” campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.
…. As an example of what to expect, the campaign said video screens at upcoming events could include a plea for cellphone funds that reads: “To contribute $10 to Obama for America, text GIVE to 62262.”
Yet another TOD post that has been reblogged by Jueseppi B, despite requests that he make his own effort to support PBO rather than copying others simply to drive up his reblog’s traffic. He doesn’t take kindly to being challenged, as another woman found out: explicit. Genuine bloggers are welcome to use anything they ever see at TOD. Thanks
Steve Benen: …. I watch a whole lot of Obama’s speeches, and I’d say he seemed a little more fired up than usual. (Pay particular attention to his tone of voice in the last 90 seconds.)
Las Vegas, August 22
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Politico: President Obama said he’s beating Mitt Romney “by a few points” and said time is running out in the 2012 presidential election.
“I can’t resist a basketball analogy,” he told donors at a Lincoln Center fundraiser that featured NBA commissioner David Stern and current and former basketball stars including Michael Jordan. “We are in the fourth quarter. We’re up by a few points but the other side is coming strong and they, they, they play a little dirty. We’ve got a few folks on our team in foul trouble. We’ve got a couple of injuries and I believe that they’ve got one last run in them.”
“I’d say there’s about seven minutes to go in the game. And Michael’s competitiveness is legendary and nobody knows better than Michael that if you’ve got a little bit of a lead and there’s about seven minutes ago, that’s when you put them away.”
Politico: President Obama mocked Missouri Rep. Todd Akin here, telling a fundraising crowd packed with pro basketball stars that the embattled Senate candidate “somehow missed science class.”
“Recently some of you have been paying attention to the commentary about the senator from Missouri, Mr. Akin,” Obama said. “The interesting thing here is that this, this is an individual who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology but somehow missed science class. And it’s representative of the desire to go backwards instead of forwards and fight fights that we thought were settled 20 or 30 years ago.”
6:15: VP Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event at the Olmstead County Fairgrounds, Rochester, Minn.
8:00: President Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at Truckee Meadows Community College, Reno
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Michael Tomasky: The addition of Paul Ryan was supposed to infuse the Romney campaign with big ideas that would be argued in big debates with the Democrats, but so far all the GOP campaign has done is grossly distort the truth.
….they muddy the waters as much as possible and lie as much as possible, and hope the press doesn’t call them on it and hope voters buy it.
…. they know that the truth would crush them electorally. And so it follows that they know they must lie. They must lie about their Medicare plans. They must lie about the effects of their tax plans on average people and rich people. And they must tell a number of lies about Obama, all the better if they involve race, as the welfare lie does.
…. the Obama campaign and the Democrats generally have to nail these guys to the wall on what their actual positions are and what the impacts of their policies will be. Romney and Ryan are terrified of a real Big Debate. Obama and Biden need to drag them into one.
Republicans are frantically trying to get Representative Todd Akin to drop out of the United States Senate race in Missouri after his remark about abortion and rape, but not because it was offensive and ignorant. They’re afraid he might lose and cost them a chance at a Senate majority next year. He would surely be replaced by a Republican who sounds more reasonable but holds similarly extreme views on abortion, immigration, gay rights and the role of government because those are the kinds of candidates the party nominates these days in state after state.
Like many Republicans, including the vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, Mr. Akin opposes abortion even when a woman has been raped….
…. The principal difference between Mr. Akin and most other Republican candidates is that they would be more decorous in inventing reasons to stripping women of their abortion rights….
…. The Republicans pressuring Mr. Akin to leave the race didn’t seem to care when he said he doubted that Medicare was constitutional or warned that same-sex marriage would destroy civilization. If the party wanted to end these kinds of embarrassing moments, it could return to the days when it nominated mainstream candidates.
TPM: Politico has pulled Dave Catanese from the publication’s Todd Akin coverage over the reporter’s tweets about the embattled Missouri Republican Senate nominee. After Akin ignited a firestorm by claiming women who are victims of “legitimate rape” have biological defenses to prevent pregnancy, Catanese took to Twitter to defend the tea party candidate “for argument’s sake.”
First Cameraman: The first official White House videographer, Arun Chaudhary, chronicles his time capturing behind-the-scenes moments of the president and his administration in his book “First Cameraman: Documenting the Obama Presidency in Real Time.”
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First Lady Michelle Obama and guests applaud as Big Time Rush performs during the Kids’ State Dinner in the East Room of the White House, Aug. 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)
