Totally. . .

. . . disgusted with Washington DC. . .

 (Source:  By Matt Stoller, Naked Capitalism | News Analysis - http://truth-out.org/news/item/13648-eight-corporate-subsidies-in-the-fiscal-cliff-bill-from-goldman-sachs-to-disney-to-nascar) Corporate CEOs expressed to the administration their agreement with modest increases of tax rates on the wealthy to tackle the deficit problem. In exchange for their support, they wanted “tax extenders” amounting to about $205 billion in tax breaks to be included in the fiscal cliff bill.  Few political operatives paid attention to this part of the bill. A few hundred billion dollars of tax expenditures is a BIG deal to overlook.

And what about our popular media?  Talk about overlooking!
And here are the winners. . .

1) NASCAR -  Anyone who builds a racetrack and associated facilities will get tax breaks on it. This is projected to cost $43 million over two years.

2) Railroads - Tax credits will be available to certain railroads for maintaining their tracks. The value of this one, around $165 million a year.

3) Disney - Will be allowed extension of special expensing rules for certain film and television productions. According to the Joint Tax Committee, was projected to cost $150 million for 2010 and 2011.

4) Mining Companies - Will get tax incentives to buy safety equipment and train their employees on mine safety.

5) Goldman Sachs Headquarters – "tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which rather than going to small businesses affected after 9/11 (originally intended). Michael Bloomberg actually thought the program was excessive at $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.

6) $9 billion Off-shore financing loophole for banks –Basically allows American banks and manufacturers to engage in certain lending practices without having to pay taxes on income earned from it. This is well supported by GE, Caterpillar, and JP Morgan.

7) Tax credits for foreign subsidiaries –  Extends the “Look-through treatment of payments between related CFCs under foreign personal holding company income rules.” The cost was $1.5 billion from 2010 and 2011, and the US Chamber loves it. It’s a provision that allows US multinationals to not pay taxes on income earned by companies they own abroad.

8) Bonus Depreciation, R&D Tax Credit – Projected to cost $8 billion for 2010 and 2011, and the depreciation provisions were projected to cost about $110 billion for those two years, with some of that made up in later years.

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Shades . . .

. . . of gray?  Not in Mitt Romney's (and his current defenders') world. . .

After seeing the photo of Libyans holding a sign stating that "Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyans",  I decided to change tack a bit.

If you want to have a tough-talking, take-no prisoners, shoot-from-the-hip, show-no-mercy-type of president, vote for Mitt Romney.

If you prefer a rational, sympathetic, empathetic, thorough, fact-loving, humanitarian, logical, intelligent and reasonable president, DON'T.
====================================================================
(from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/mitt-romney-consulate-attack_n_1875906.html)
The Romney campaign's statement seemed to be an attempt to capitalize on the appearance that the Obama administration -- which has overseen the Arab Spring, and the rise of Islamist governments in both Egypt and Libya -- was capitulating to the sensitivities of an unruly Muslim crowd, rather than backing the right of an American citizen to release a disrespectful film.

But the statement criticized by the Romney campaign came early in the day, before the attacks on the two embassies, and was put out not by the White House, but by the Cairo embassy itself.
The White House later disavowed the statement as not approved by Washington, according to a senior administration official speaking to Politico.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt also commented on the statement from the Romney campaign. “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” LaBolt said in a statement.


(from http://www.mediaite.com/uncategorized/cnn-sort-of-calls-out-mitt-romney-and-newt-gingrich-for-lying-and-politicizing-libya-tragedy/)
CNN’s Brooke Baldwin and John Berman did an excellent job of keeping the facts straight as they interviewed former Speaker Gingrich on the subject, no mean feat given Gingrich’s comical contempt for facts. Early in the interview, Gingrich opined that the protests in Libya and Egypt were the result of “collusion and a fair amount of planning,” which may or may not turn out to be true, but which there is no evidence of. When Berman asked the Speaker “Do you have any proof that there is a connection right now?” Gingrich prefaced his response with a long, derisive laugh that tells you everything you need to know about the former Speaker and Romney surrogate’s regard for facts.
“Look, I don’t have access to the NSA listening devices,” Gingrich responded.

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