It's Not About the Damn Ponies

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/6/23/13610/6146

It's Not About the Damn Ponies

by BooMan
Sat Jun 23rd, 2012 at 01:06:10 PM EST


I have my problems with PolitiFact, but they did decide that President Obama's main critique of Mitt Romney's tax plan was correct. People making a million dollars a year in cash income would receive an annual $250,535 tax break. People in the top 1% of cash income would receive an annual $725,716 tax break. He'd also eliminate the Estate Tax, allowing a new aristocracy to develop in our country. So, it's in this context that we must examine Kathleen Parker's column today. For example, should we be impressed by the following?

Romney’s opponents seem to be aghast that he has made money for investors (aren’t we all investors?), though they studiously ignore other greed-less facts: He never took a dime in salary for heading the Olympics in Salt Lake City nor as governor of Massachusetts, to mention a couple.

It's true that Romney makes most of his annual income off of dividends and capital gains he earns by investing his fortune. But he made $374,327.62 in 2010 on speaker's fees alone. That's a figure, by the way, that Romney characterized as "not very much" money. Kathleen Parker thinks people are just hating on the Romneys' success out of some kind of pony-envy, but we're really appalled about something completely different. We're appalled that he wants to cut way back on programs to help the poor and middle-class survive and advance in our society at the same time that he wants to hand out a $250,000 annual income tax break to millionaires. Over a four-year presidential term, that would be a million dollar tax break to everyone who made a million dollars a year for those four years. You can't make a proposal like that when you are worth a quarter of a billion dollars and then complain about the budget deficit and call for massive cuts in social spending, and then think you'll be above criticism.

As for Ann Romney's horse, Ms. Parker doesn't get into the specifics for a good reason. Apparently, the Romneys formed a corporation to deal with this horse, and they declared a $77,000 loss in 2010 for that corporation. If the corporation ever makes any money by, for example, breeding this Olympic-performing horse, they can write off those losses. And you thought the Olympics were about amateur sports!

Apparently, for the Romneys, the Olympics are a business investment. And if they are successful in making money off the Olympics, you and I get to fork over the cost of feeding and training Ms. Romney's horse. That makes me a lot less impressed with Romney's decision to donate his salary when he worked for the Olympic Organizing Committee.

snip//

We didn't mind when John Kerry went windsurfing either, but that became quite an issue for the right. If this were nothing more than tit-for-tat squabbling, Parker's hypocrisy would still be staggering. But this is about how Romney's policies would line the pockets of people who are so rich that they can spend nearly $80,000/yr on a single horse while telling the rest of us that we have an unaffordable social safety net that must be slashed down to the bone.

[dimbear]

1. In Westerns, if the cowboy's horse broke its leg, he did the right thing and shot it.

Makes it easy to understand the Republican healthcare plan. Horses have a key role to play in the campaign.

[hedgehog]

2. Republicans don't shoot a crippled horse any more -

they shoot it up with pain killers and sell it to a patsy!

[libinnyandia]

3. I never used to read her columns. Then I srarted reading them lately. Then I realized why I don't

like to read her columns. They never make any real sense.

[CBHagman]

5. Parker is the one who wrote the following asinine passage...

...following the White House summit on health care attended by both parties. It's particularly interesting to read the column in light of what has happened since, namely the midterm election of 2010 and the GOP's no-holds-barred approach.

Notice how swiftly K.P. shifts from a grudging expression of empathy for Louise Slaughter's constituent to a cheap joke about death panels. I've yet to figure out how or why anyone ever thought Parker was qualified to be columnist or TV host.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030202745.html

What do people remember from the summit, to the extent they watched? They surely remember Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan hammering the Republican message about deficit spending in the health-care legislation. And, they remember New York Democrat Rep. Louise Slaughter telling about a woman who, because she had no insurance, had to wear her deceased sister's dentures.

There's nothing to laugh at here, obviously. If true -- and she dared us not to believe her -- it's a pathetic tale. Right-wing talk show hosts who have made sport of Slaughter's story don't get much credit for cleverness, but truly, sometimes an anecdote is too strange to be effective.

Maybe Republicans can trade Sarah Palin's "death panels" for Louise Slaughter's dentures and call it a draw.

As a political point, however, the contrast between personal anecdote vs. mastery of health-care economics is stark and telling. If you're in the market for competence, which vendor gets your attention?

Theatergoers learned a couple of other things at the summit. The Democratic spin that the GOP has no ideas was contradicted by the summit. And, the bumper-sticker slogan that the GOP is the party of "no" isn't quite true.

[MADem]

4. John Kerry isn't all that rich--his wife is, though--she is rich, rich, rich.

Like John McCain--he's not all that rich, but his wife is rolling in it. The two of them live like the super rich because they married wives who have a lot of money...but who also know how to protect their assets. If either one of those guys decided to have a roving eye and the wife took issue, they'd be kicked to the curb and forced to survive by living on that "crappy" (I am being facetious) Senate salary and the cash off their investments, plus whatever they got from the pre-nup agreement they had to sign. Awww, darn, no South of France this year!

And a windsurfer isn't a dressage horse, in any event. That's probably why "we" didn't mind so much. I'll bet we could muster up a hundred people on this board who have windsurfed....or tried to (here! I sucked at it), easily. I don't think we'd be able to "pony up" (pardon the pun) the same number of people who have fiddled about in the Wide Wonderful World of Dressage. I've never been on a frigging dressage horse in my life. I've never been within walking distance of any dressage horse horseshit, either, I'm betting!

RMoney is out of touch because he has never had a day of want in his life. He doesn't move in circles where "want" is part of the equation. About the only hunger he has ever felt is the hunger for power. He's a stupid, selfish, greedy and petty man, unable to relate to ordinary people. He's so stupid that he thinks money is the equivalent of happiness, because he thinks it will buy him the only thing he still craves--power.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I never understood the windsurfer thing at all

It's not an expensive leisure item. It's cheaper than most boats with an outboard motor, and you don't have to pay for fuel, or have a trailer to transport it - just put it on the roof (it you haven't got a dog up there, that is ...). You can do it on your local lake or reservoir, or the sea, for free. Friends of mine had their own straight out of university, before they could do anything like afford to buy a house. For anyone earning a senator's salary, it was a remarkably cheap hobby.

[GoCubsGo]

8. I knew poor grad students who windsurfed.

I never understood the right's outrage over Kerry's participation in it, either. Of course, I never understood how Al Gore's allegedly being "stiff", or wearing brown suits, would make him unqualified to be President, either. Other than the fact that those who purveyed that garbage, and those who bought into the faux outrage over it all, are batshit crazy.

[MADem]

11. I understand it. It's all down to "fitness jealousy."

It's not the wealth thing--it's the "lack of ability" thing!!!

Ever try to ride one of those beauties? Geeeez, it's a gut buster! Especially if you are old, a bit of a pudge, not in "marathon" shape (or even "jog with the dog" shape)! If you can get the thing to stay up and actually start going in a decent direction, you feel very proud (and pay for it the next day with the screech of unused muscles). Then, if you fall on your ass, you can spend twenty minutes trying to get going again. Up--twitch around like a nitwit--FALL. Up--twitch around like a nitwit--FALL! It's a very amusing AND humiliating exercise in recognizing that Youth Is Fleeting and Shit Hurts Like Hell The Next Day! Anyone who does it well has my (envious) admiration! Hell, put me in a sunfish or a sailfish and I can hold my own, but a windsurfer...eh...? Ouch!

Now me, I can look at someone who is in better shape than I am and be quite humanly envious, but I know that's down to my lazyass attitude as well as my advanced years. I'm certainly not going to withhold my vote because the candidate can do more sit-ups than I can, any more than I would offer my vote to the wee cowboy who can cut the most brush in a day!!

Republicans, though, they look at someone who is in better shape than they are and, rather than realize that THEY are the masters of their fates, will figure the best way to rid themselves of the terrible envy they feel is to denigrate the PERSON, and pretend that they don't like the activity that the person can do better than they can. I know damn right well there are Republicans with a basketball hoop nailed up over the garage who suddenly think playing basketball is some kind of "negative"--simply because Obama enjoys it, and it's obvious that he has more game than they do!

They're rather childish that way.

[Retrograde]

6. No salary? How big of him!

If I had his millions I could afford to work for a while for free - especially if the job comes with perks, as I imagine the Olympics and governor gigs did.

If someone can demonstrate one thing either Ann or Mitt done solely out of the goodness of their hearts - i.e., no church-required tithing, or donations to their own foundations, or playing to the cameras - I'll refrain from saying bad things about Republicans for a week.

[Zoeisright]

9. Kathleen Parker is a fucking idiot.

She's a shill for people like KKKarl Rove and Cheney. And she should NOT be published in ANY paper.

[The Wizard]

10. Rmoney never had to sweat

for a dollar. Hard work is not on his agenda. Huckster and shyster, yes.

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. As usual, BooMan hits it out of the park.

[Ghost of Huey Long]

13. Call for massive cuts in social spending, and then think you'll be above criticism.

"You can't make a proposal like that when you are worth a quarter of a billion dollars and then complain about the budget deficit and call for massive cuts in social spending, and then think you'll be above criticism."

Exactly!

And yet, they expect to be. When it comes to the 'liberal' media, they expect them to cover their asses and then some.

Why isn't this man being booed off of every stage?

The corporate media is using our public airwaves to manufacture consent.

No one likes this moron, no one likes the direction this country is going...maybe it's time to take back our public airwaves so the rest of the world won't think we are so stupid and we will have some chance of saving this country and the election in Nov.