UnrepentantLiberal
UnrepentantLiberal's JournalStudy: Romney tax plan would shift burden toward poor
By Charles Riley
CNN Money
August 1, 2012
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Mitt Romney's tax plan would provide large tax cuts to the very wealthy, while increasing the tax burden on the lower and middle classes, according to a study released Wednesday.
The report -- produced by researchers at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center --illustrates just how difficult it would be to recoup government revenue lost under Romney's plan.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee's tax plan calls for 20% cuts to today's Bush-era income tax rates. He would also eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax.
Those tax cuts would lead to a sharp decline in government revenue. Yet Romney insists he will make up the difference in-part by limiting deductions, exemptions and credits currently available to top-level income earners.
More: http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/01/news/economy/romney-tax-plan/index.htm
Chick-fil-A supporters recognize appreciation day
Associated Press
August 1, 2012
ATLANTA —Chick-fil-A supporters are eating at the chicken chain's restaurants as the company continues to be criticized for an executive taking a public position against same-sex marriage.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, declared Wednesday "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day."
A spokeswoman for the Rev. Billy Graham says the 93-year-old evangelist ate a Chick-fil-A lunch, including a chicken sandwich and waffle fries, at his North Carolina home.
Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press last month that the Atlanta-based company was "guilty as charged" for backing "the biblical definition of a family." Gay rights groups and others answered with calls for boycotts.
Opponents of Cathy's stance have planned "Kiss Mor Chiks" for Friday, asking people of the same sex to show up at Chick-fil-A locations and kiss each other.
More: http://ww2.ajcmobile.com/wap/news/text.jsp?targetUrl=http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/chick-fil-a-supporters-1488729.html
How Oakland became the spiritual capital of Occupy Wall Street
By Jonathan Mahler
New York Times Magazine
August 1, 2012
The Anti-Capitalist Brigade started gathering early on May Day at Oakland’s Snow Park. There was free coffee, oatmeal, doughnuts, fliers with the day’s agenda and plenty of pot. A “street medic”—“I just finished a wilderness first-aid course,” he told me when I asked about his training — tended to his first case of the day, a man in his 20s whose leg had been beaten to a purple hue with a metal rod in an overnight fight in the park. Nearby, an organizer reminded protesters to take down the toll-free number for the National Lawyers Guild: “This is important. Do not put it in your cellphones, because if you get arrested, the cops will take those away. Write it on your bodies. In indelible ink. There are Sharpies on the table.”
No central action was planned. A coalition of labor unions had asked Occupy Oakland, with its proven ability to turn out large numbers of militant activists, to blockade the Golden Gate Bridge, but then withdrew the request at the last minute. Instead, thousands of Occupy protesters met at various “strike stations” and fanned out into the streets with shields and gas masks (or the homemade alternative: bandannas soaked in vinegar), transforming downtown Oakland into a roving carnival of keyed-up militants of every shape and size: graduate students, tenured professors, professional revolutionaries, members of the Black Bloc, dressed like ninjas, their faces obscured.
Joints were passed, but this was not a mellow crowd. A barefoot man known as Running Wolf grabbed an American flag from outside a popular cop bar and dragged it behind him. Packs of protesters charged into businesses, overturning tables, shattering windows and smashing A.T.M.’s. An activist spray-painted vulgarities on the window of a Bank of America branch.
The Menace was loose again, as Hunter S. Thompson wrote about a different group of rabble-rousers, the Hell’s Angels. This riot had a soundtrack, too, a cacophony of chants—“Strike! Take Over!” and “Take Back Oakland! Kick Out the Yuppies!”—overlaid with beating snare drums and the rhythmic thump-thumping of the police and news helicopters hovering overhead.
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/magazine/oakland-occupy-movement.html
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