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Obama for America TV Ad: "Makes You Wonder"

Published on Jul 17, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom

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Tax Havens. Offshore accounts. Carried Interest. Mitt Romney has used every trick in the book. Romney admits that over the last two years he's paid less than 15% in taxes on $43 million in income. Makes you wonder if some years he paid any taxes at all.

We don't know because Romney has released just one full year of his tax returns. And won't release anything before 2010.

Mitt Romney: You know what, I've put out as much as we're gonna put out.

What is Mitt Romney hiding?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMo5pykT4uw [currently showing 302 views]


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Late Night: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert hit Mitt on Bain Capital

By Meredith Blake
July 17, 2012, 7:21 a.m.

After a two-week vacation, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert returned to the airwaves with a vengeance Monday night, with both hosts taking aim at presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

For much of the past week, the candidate has been trying to quell the commotion surrounding his tenure at Bain Capital [ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-mitt-romney-bain-capital-departure-date-tempest-20120713,0,6775629.story ], the private equity firm he founded and which he left either in 1999 or 2002, depending on who’s asking.

On most nights, Colbert and Stewart find different ways to satirize the day’s news, but the Bain controversy — and Romney’s perceived evasiveness in response to it — is one of those stories that demands a very specific type of ridicule.

The hosts both took the same two-pronged attack against Romney. First, there’s the rather evocative name of his former firm. On “The Daily Show,” Stewart noted that Bain Capital happens to share a name with Bane, the villain of the latest Batman film, "The Dark Knight Rises." "Not since AYDS diet candy suffered through their somewhat ill-timed 1980s 'lose weight with AIDS' sales campaign, has a brand faced this type of challenge,” Stewart joked.

Colbert also remarked on the name's unfortunate connotations, claiming Obama has scrutinized the company's record [ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/nation/la-na-bain-capital-20120713 ] because "he's hell-bent on making the word 'bain' synonymous with 'a source of harm or ruin,''' which, of course, it already is [as in "bane"].

More substantively, both Colbert and Stewart also scrutinized Romney for claiming publicly to have left Bain in 1999, before the firm became involved in outsourcing deals that may have cost American jobs, while reporting something different on documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Romney has explained the apparent discrepancy by claiming he was on a “leave of absence” which began in 1999, and that even though he was listed as Bain’s chief executive, president and sole stockholder as late as 2002, he actually “retroactively retired” from the firm that year.

Stewart put it somewhat differently: "See, in 2012 I realize the company I was legally CEO of in 1999 did things that would hurt my presidential run in the present, so I retroactively wasn’t there."

He also called Romney’s retroactive retirement "the worst use of a time machine I have ever seen."

As for Colbert, he characterized the debacle as simply "a case of he-said-he-filed-SEC-documents-that-contradict-what-he-said.”

He also seemed excited by the opportunities created by Romney’s line of defense.

“If Mitt can retroactively retire years ago, why can’t I proactively retire now?” Colbert wondered. “I’m officially retired as of now. That way, I can't be held responsible for anything 'The Colbert Report' says or does. For instance, Hitler had some good ideas."

Romney might look evasive, but the Bain controversy has made him more or less unbeatable, Colbert figured: "If Mitt wins, he’s beaten Obama. And if Obama wins, Mitt can just say he retroactively retired from the race in 2009."

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-jon-stewart-stephen-colbert-mitt-romney-bain-capital-20120717,0,2062917.story [with embedded videos of the Stewart ("Democalypse 2012 - Bain Damage", original at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-16-2012/democalypse-2012---bain-damage ) and Colbert ("Mitt Romney's Retroactive Retirement from Bain Capital", original at http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/416488/july-16-2012/mitt-romney-s-retroactive-retirement-from-bain-capital ) segments, and comments]


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Why is Mitt Romney Hiding the Rest of His Tax Returns?

Published on Jul 10, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom

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Mitt Romney is defying calls to release more than one year's worth of tax returns. The Romney campaign response?

"Just take our word for it."

So why is Mitt Romney hiding the rest of his tax returns?

How long can Romney keep information on his investments in overseas tax havens secret? And why did he do it in the first place?

Time will tell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLBgCIsMkwU