War Heroes Denied Right to Vote in Ohio

The Republican-controlled legislature in Ohio decreed that only ACTIVE military personnel or their families could cast in-person votes on the final Saturday-Monday before the November elections...but many African-American war heroes and retired or disabled military veterans can not.

The GOP is supporting the restriction of voting rights that include many of the 913,000 Ohio veterans. An estimated 200,000 of them served during the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone. Ohio also has one of the highest unemployment rates for our military veterans.

Frank Buckles

Frank Buckles, who was the last surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, died at his home in Charles Town, Virginia last year. He was 110 years old. If he had lived another year and resided in the State of Ohio, he would not have been allowed to vote early on week-ends.

Brew Graham

Congressional Medal of Honor Brew Graham, 97, was one of the first Black pilots who fought in WWII and is the oldest living Tuskegee airman. But he wouldn't be able to vote on week-ends in Ohio because he is no longer ACTIVE military personnel.

Charlie Rangel

U.S. Congressman Charlie Rangel was awarded a Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and three battle stars for his brave service in the Korean War...he wouldn't be allowed to vote on week-ends in Ohio because he is no longer ACTIVE military personnel.

John Kerry

Senator John Kerry received three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star for his service in the Vietnam War...and he wouldn't be able to vote on week-ends in Ohio either.

Bradley Manning

Before being arrested after the WikiLeaks scandal, Private Bradley Manning WOULD have been able to vote on week-ends in Ohio (because he was ACTIVE military personnel).

Why do Ohio Republicans suddenly feel so strongly about limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties? GOP Chair Doug Preisse gave a surprisingly blunt answer to the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday:

“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read
African-American—voter-turnout machine.”

Many Americans who fought in wars for this country, will not be able to exercise their most basic Constitutional right in the great State of Ohio....the right to vote.

Disabled vets who are homeless in Ohio will be denied the right to vote because they are no longer ACTIVE in the U.S. military.

Sean Gittens

Army Sergeant First Class Sean Gittens served in the army for 20 years and was deployed three times - first during Desert Storm. The last time he volunteered to go back to Iraq he was left paralyzed as a result of an IED injury.

Besides Ohio, voter suppression laws are being passed in many other states as well. Last year Republicans controlled both chambers in 26 state legislatures, and 21 of those states also have GOP governors. Unlike past reforms that sought to expand access to voting, a massive effort has been underway to restrict voting in the upcoming elections purely for partisan gain.

How many war heroes, in Ohio and across the nation, who fought and risked their lives for democracy and the right to vote, are now being denied that right?

And I suspect that many of the Republicans who wrote and voted for those voter suppression laws are draft dodgers.

Romney and Ryan on Corporate Taxes

DUMB AND DUMBER: People who earn less than a million dollars a year (and don't realize that Romney and Ryan are both liars) and vote for them; and those who DO know they're liars, but vote for them anyway.

Today in a speech with Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan has again touted Canada's low corporate tax rate.

Paul Ryan has repeatedly praised the Canadian conservative government's decision to lower their corporate rate to 15 per cent, pointing to the U.S. "statutory" rate of 35 per cent (not the "effective" tax rate) as increasingly uncompetitive.

Ryan doesn't mention that in Canada, the corporate tax cuts that were supposed to create jobs, have instead only allowed companies to hoard cash and pay larger CEO salaries.

Over a quarter century ago, in 1984, the Washington, D.C.- based Citizens for Tax Justice released its first in-depth report on how much America’s top profitable corporations were actually paying in taxes.

America’s top companies, this initial study found, were paying only 14.1 percent of their profits in taxes, less than a third of the corporate tax rate then in effect.

The last Citizens for Tax Justice tax report says America’s top corporations are now getting what essentially amounts to a 50 percent discount off their tax bills.

If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had their way, corporations would pay NO taxes and their CEOs would pay NO capital gains taxes either, because both Romney and Ryan earn a great deal off money from corporations paying capital gains.

Read: How Corporate Tax Dodgers (like Mitt Romney) Hoarded $2 Trillion

Rich Pays Far Less in Taxes than the Poor...

...as a percent of their income.

Capital gains are taxed lower than regular wages and not taxed at all for Social Security & Medicare...and a greater percentage of discretionary spending by the poor is taxed, as well as their income for food, shelter, and energy.

In 1921 "realized capital gains" used to be taxed the very same as regular income and wages, when the top marginal income tax rate was once 73%.

Then the Republican Secretary of the Treasury (and banker) Andrew Mellon argued that significant tax reduction [for the rich] was necessary in order to "spur economic expansion and restore prosperity" (just like the Republicans had argued a decade ago with George W. Bush, and are again saying in 2012 after the rich "job creators" already had historically low tax rates that helped spur the Great Recession.

In 1976 the capital gains tax rate was as high as 39.9%. In 1987 the capital gains tax rate went down to 28%

President Ronald Reagan ended the oil windfall profits tax and in 1981 he reduced the maximum capital gains rate to only 20%—its lowest level since President Herbert Hoover's administration (then America had the Roaring Twenties, just before the Great Depression).

Ronald Reagan's tax cut mostly benefited the very wealthy and in 1986 President Reagan set tax rates on capital gains to the same level as the rates on ordinary income, like salaries and wages, with both topping out at 28 percent.

President Clinton kept the top capital gains tax rate at 28% until 1997, when he agreed to lower that tax rate to 20%. He later admitted on national TV in 2012 that he now regrets lowering the capital gains tax rate.

In 2003 President Bush lowered the capital gains tax rate even further, to 15% (where it now stands today) while starting two un-funded wars without raises taxes - the first time ever in U.S. history). (Historical Capital gains tax rates)

In 2012 President Obama suggested the "Warren Rule", which would raise the top tax rate to 30% for those earning over $1 million a year, which is STILL LOWER than the current top marginal rate of 35% for regular income and wages.

Starting next year, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would prefer that capital gains should not be taxed at all! Last year Mitt Romney earned $20 million in capital gains (not including all his unreported foreign investments); and Paul Ryan earned $50,000 in capital gains (and paid a penalty for dodging taxes).

For 2011 Paul Ryan paid a tax rate of 20% on his gross income, while Mitt Romney's estimated 2011 tax rate is only 15% (It was only 13.9% in 2010).

By comparison, middle-class wage earners (such as union workers in the public and private sectors) who earn $50,000 a year have a 25% tax rate. Meanwhile, the Social Security Administration reports that 50% of ALL Americans now only earn less than $26,500 a year.

Of the $5 trillion in U.S. wages for FY2010, $1 trillion in personal incomes for the top 1% was NOT TAXED AT ALL for Social Security and Medicare, and most of their earnings were taxed at only 15% for capital gains.

Let's put this in true perspective: As reported by the business channel CNBC, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (listed further below) the top 15 highest paid jobs (on average) doesn't even rank in the top marginal income tax bracket of 35% -- and 97% of "real" small business owners pay themselves a salary of LESS than $250,000 a year.

Most people in the very top marginal income bracket are people like movie stars and professional athletes -- and the CEOs of large corporations, big banks, and hedge fund mangers, those whose principle income is from capital gains, especially the richest of the rich, the billionaires on the Fortune 400 list.

The Top 15 Highest Paid Jobs (not including capital gains,  just regular wages) Doctors and Surgeons - Average annual salary: $168,650-$234,950 - Current employment: 618,000 plus - Anesthesiologists are the highest paid workers of 2011 at $234,950. Orthodontists and Dentists - Average annual salary: $161,750-$204,670 -Current employment: 101,400 CEOs - Average annual BASE salary: $176,550 Current employment: 267,370 (doesn't include stock options, which can be in the millions of dollars, and is taxed as capital gains at 15%) Petroleum Engineers - Average annual salary: $138,980 - Current employment: 30,880 Lawyers - Average annual salary: $130,490 - Current employment: 570,950. The top three highest paying industries for lawyers are petroleum and coal at around $215,760 per year. Architectural and Engineering Managers - Average annual salary: $129,350 - Current employment: 184,530 Natural Science Managers - Average annual salary: $128,230 - Current employment: 47,510 Marketing Managers - Average annual salary: $126,190 - Current employment: 168,410 Computer and Information Systems Managers - Average annual salary: $125,660 - Current employment: 300,830 Industrial-Organizational Psychologists - Average annual salary: $124,160 - Current employment: 1,230 Financial Manager - Average annual salary: $120,450 - Current employment: 477,690 Airline Pilots, Copilots and Flight Engineers - Average annual salary: $118,070 - Current employment: 68,350 Sales Managers - Average annual salary: $116,860 - Current employment: 328,230 Air Traffic Controller - Average annual salary: $114,460 - Current employment: 23,580 Pharmacist Average Salary: $112,160 - Current Employment: 272,320

Two earlier Congressional Budget Office studies in 2006 and 2002 showed that capital gains revenues fluctuate wildly without regard to the tax rate or who is president,

The CBO concluded in the 2006 study that about half of the 2004 surge in capital gains realizations remained unexplained. And the CBO concluded in the 2002 study that "the relationship of realizations and receipts to gains tax rates is neither predictable or
obvious."

In other words, no matter what the tax rate is on capital gains, people are still going to do whatever they can to make money, and no matter what the tax rate is, it doesn't have an affect on GNP. The middle-class thrived and the rich got rich in the 1950's when taxes were once very high on individuals and corporations.

So we should tax capital gains as REGULAR WAGES, close the deficit gap, and stop the Republican strategy of "STARVE THE BEAST".

We should also remove the $110,000 CAP on wages for Social Security taxes and tax capital gains as "regular wages" and tax them for Social Security and Medicare like we do for "regular wages".

Mitt Romney was "a pioneer of outsourcing" when President Obama was still in school. Romney either laid off people and rehired them back at half their previous wages, or sent the better paying jobs to places like China.

Now Romney is blaming Obama for all the low-paying jobs at Staples and Dominos pizza, or those low-paying jobs provided by our 2nd and 3rd largest employers (Wal-Mart and McDonalds), corporations that usually provide part-time jobs averaging $8 an hour and offer no healthcare benefits or pension plans.

The Republicans want to starve government revenues by further reducing taxes on the top 1% and forcing cuts in programs like Social Security and Medicare...and keep capital gains from ever being taxed for Social Security and Medicare.

Tell me, just exactly when in U.S. history did America's super-rich ever make their "shared sacrifice"? They paid lower tax rates, dodged the taxes they did owe, and the dodged the military draft that protected their financial assets.

* For more details, GOOGLE:

• Bud Meyers SWAG investments
• Bud Meyers tax evasion
• Bud Meyers corporate taxes
• Bud Meyers capital gains
• Bud Meyers Mitt Romney
• Bud Meyers taxes

90% of Re-hires were Young People

90% of younger people were re-hired to work after the massive lay-offs during the recession, whereas only 22% of older people were ever rehired.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics focused on the marital status, without blaming age discrimination...but the statistics glaringly point that way.

According to the Labor Department, single unemployed people have since gained back 90% of the jobs, whereas married people (who tend to be older and make up a slightly larger part of the adult population) have only recouped about 22% of the lost jobs.

People under the age 35 have been gaining far more jobs than those over 35, which can only mean that many younger people were being hired to fill jobs that older people had lost.

Younger workers are more likely to be single than those over 35; and younger people had been much more likely to experience unemployment, but they've also been returning to work far much quicker.

Single people are more likely to take low wage positions or move to a new location in order to take a job.

But the Labor Department doesn't mention that most younger people were probably laid off because they had less seniority at the work place (and were the first laid off); and that younger people could also better relocate because they weren't tied down to a home mortgage.

SOURCE at CNN Money

Secret Trade Agreement Subjects Taxpayers to Foreign Corporations

After Two Years of Closed-Door Negotiations, Trans-Pacific Partnership Leak Replicates Alarming Bush Trade Pact Terms That Obama Opposed as Candidate

A leak of one of the most controversial chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reveals that extreme provisions have been agreed to by U.S. officials, providing a stark warning about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring under conditions of extreme secrecy without press, public or policymaker oversight.

Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade and in a move that will submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do.

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, says that although the TPP has been branded a “trade” agreement, the leaked text of the pact’s Investment Chapter shows that the TPP would:

• Limit how U.S. federal and state officials could regulate foreign firms operating within U.S. boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms;
• Extend the incentives for U.S. firms to offshore investment and jobs to lower-wage countries;
• Establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt U.S. courts and laws, directly sue the U.S. government before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for financial, health, environmental, land use and other laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges.

Allow foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. financial or environmental regulations that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms.

While about 600 official U.S. corporate advisors have access to TPP texts, and have a special role in advising U.S. negotiators for the public, press and policymakers, this leak (on June 13, 2012) provides the first access to one of the prospective TPP’s most controversial chapters.

Last May, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness (the committee with jurisdiction over the TPP) filed legislation to open the process after he and his staff were denied access to the U.S. proposals for the TPP negotiations.

The U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk defended the unprecedented secrecy of TPP negotiations by noting that when the draft of a major regional trade pact was released previously, it became impossible to finish the deal as then proposed.

“The top U.S. trade official effectively has said that the administration must keep TPP agreement secret because otherwise they wouldn't be able to shove this deal past the public and Congress,” said Wallach. “The airing of this one TPP chapter, which greatly favors foreign corporations over domestic businesses and the public interest, and exposes us to significant financial liabilities, shows that the whole draft text must be released immediately so it can be reviewed and debated. Absent that, these negotiations must be ended now.”

The TPP is the first trade pact that the Obama administration is negotiating. The leak last June further complicates the administration’s goal of completing TPP negotiations this fall. Already the TPP timeline was generating political headaches for the Obama re-election campaign, as repeated U.S polling shows that majorities of Democrats, Independents and Republicans oppose more NAFTA-style trade deals.

The TPP may well be the last trade agreement that the U.S. negotiates. This is because TPP, if completed, would have a new feature relative to past U.S. trade pacts: It would remain open for any other country to join later. USTR Kirk said that he "would love nothing more” than to have China join TPP.

The TPP offered an opportunity to develop a new model of trade agreement that could deliver the benefits of expanded trade without unduly undermining signatory nations’ domestic public interest policies or establishing special privileges for foreign corporations.

President Barack Obama and countless members of Congress have campaigned on fixing these investment rules to better protect the public interest, but Public Citizen’s analysis of this text shows that the U.S. positions do not reflect any of the changes that candidate Obama pledged when he recognized the threats posed by the NAFTA-style investment provisions in trade agreements.

The leak also reveals that:

• Australia has refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the “investor-state” private corporate enforcement foreign tribunal system.
• U.S. negotiators are alone in seeking to expand this extra-judicial enforcement system to allow the use of foreign tribunals to enforce contracts that foreign investors may have with a government for government procurement, or to operate utilities contracts related to concessions for natural resources on federal lands.
• Other countries are proposing safeguards for financial regulation and limits to the corporate tribunals that the U.S. has not supported.

Trade advisers for the notorious secret trade agreement are being negotiated by the Obama administration. The TransPacific Partnership will meet in Leesburg, Virginia from September 6th to 15th.

Advocacy groups are working together to put a spotlight on this agreement which will set the rules for international business dealings for the foreseeable future and gives transnational corporations more power than governments.

There will be events outside of the meeting to educate the public about this trade agreement and actions to let the trade advisers know that the public opposes the TPP. For more info, contact info@october2011.org

Public Citizen’s analysis of the leaked text and guided tour through its provisions can be found here. Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org

Trade Agreement Passes in Middle of Job Crisis

Trade Agreement (TAA) Held Hostage for Jobless Benefits

Today's CEOs are People Without Virtue or Honor

From the HuffPo Hill newsletter: "The Heritage Foundation has discovered another example of President Obama helping poor people slide into lives of sinful dependency, this time by waiving food stamp time-limits for able-bodied adults who have been unable to find jobs. If only Americans would just get back to work already, America's future would be so much brighter!"

The right-wing Heritage Foundation reports that "the number of able-bodied adults without children on food stamps has doubled, increasing from 1.7 million people in 2009 to 3.9 million in 2010."

Maybe the Heritage Foundation has never heard of the Great Recession, a historic time in American history when millions of Americans were laid off from their jobs through no fault of their own because of greed in the financial industry.

The Heritage Foundation's biggest concern seems to be, not so much about poor or hungry Americans, but about the scheduled modest cuts in spending to the military-industrial complex. They write, "Defense would bear as much as 43 percent of total sequestration cuts, even though it makes up only about 11 percent of total federal spending." (What? Only 11%?)

They go on to complain that, "On the other hand, entitlements, which comprise over half of all federal spending and are the fastest growing part of the budget, would remain essentially untouched, receiving only 15 percent of the cuts. But this would be a reduction of less than 1 percent of all entitlement spending."

OK, so let me get this straight: It's more important to Heritage Foundation to keep the CEOs in the defense industry fat and happy with their multi-million dollar salaries every year, at the expense of poor and hungry American children?

Are the poor, disabled, elderly, retired and homeless people in this country so concerned about a foreign invasion, that they'd rather build more tanks, jets and submarines, rather that have food, shelter, and healthcare?

But this type of corporate greed (enabled by crooked politicians who are influenced by right-wing "think tanks) hasn’t always been popular in Western societies. Societies in medieval Europe would find this type of greed today “blatantly selfish economic behavior,” says Stanford University historian Linda Stokes, “and simply unacceptable.”

What would the entrepreneurs of those medieval times think of our contemporary CEOs today? Observes the Stanford researcher, “A medieval businessman would surely be impressed by the successes of his modern descendants, but he would also despise them as men without honor or virtue.”

Here's a short list of those people "without honor or virtue" that I despise.

If Mitt Romney is Elected President...

If Mitt Romney is elected President, can you imagine what America might be like? Below is short list of those who have been very influential in the current Republican Party, and who might have access to the Oval Office and War Room next year.

1) The billionaire Koch brothers who financed the Tea Party and wants to end Social Security.

2) The Mormon convert and delusional conspiracy theorist, Glenn Beck, a multi-millionaire who helped propagate the Tea Party movement before being fired by Fox News.

3) The Jewish billionaire and casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, who is very anti-labor and is currently under investigation for bribing foreign government officials in China (and whose loyalty is to Israel, not America.)

4) Racist Southern "Dixiecrats" in Congress (who now call themselves Republicans), who hold many of the same views today that the KKK held 40 years ago.

5) The greedy and serial adulterer, Newt Gingrich and the racist Rick Santorum, who both think that most Americans on food stamps, welfare, and Medicaid are deliberately lazy and unemployed and/or black.

6) The egocentric billionaire (millionaire?) and casino mogul Donald Trump, who doesn't know that the State of Hawaii joined the Union 3 years before President Obama was born. I know, I was living there as a young boy when my father was stationed there at Hickam Air Force Base. Remember Pearl Harbor?

7) Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, both multi-millionaires, who spent most of their time on Fox News over the past four years slandering the President of the United States.

8) The wealthy Paul Ryan, who worshiped the Russian atheist Ayn Rand and was chastised by the Catholic church for his harsh policies towards the poor. He's the guy that wants to end reform "fix" Medicare.

9) Mike Huckabee, the hypocritical ex-Baptist minister and ex-Governor of Arkansas who preferred renewing his lucrative contract with Fox News and pursuing his book sales rather than run for president in 2012.

10) Sarah Palin (Nuff said)

11) Grover Norquist, the radical anti-tax and anti-government advocate who wants to "Starve the Beast" (starve the U.S. government of all revenues needed to run the country.)

12) The serial liar and the likely next Apostle of the Mormon church, multi-millionaire (billionaire?) Mitt Romney, who dodges taxes and dodged the military draft; and who wants to lower taxes for millionaires and billionaires -- even though their tax rates are already historically low.

13) The wealthy and radical Michele Bachmann, who "prays the gay away" and takes government subsidies while receiving a very generous government salary and enjoys a gold-plated government healthcare policy; but at the same time, wants to "take our country back" and deny healthcare to everyone else.

14) The clown and irrelevant pizza king, multi-millionaire Herman Cain, who is also a pathological liar and serial stalker. "Nine-nine-nine!"

15) Big mouth and mega-multi-millionaire, Rush Limbaugh, who lives in a mansion on the beach in Palms Springs Florida and has nothing better to do with his life than spew hate on the radio. Did I mention he's ignorant too? He thinks women have to take a birth control pill every time they participate in an act of sex! He is living PROOF of the American Dream...anyone can get rich in this country!

16) Ann Romney, the plain and simple "stay-at-home" mom --- who has no idea how much money the Romneys have in their IRA account, foreign bank accounts, or their blind trust funds.

Stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could go on all day! Can you imagine all these people visiting the White House and micro-managing our lives over the next 4 years? But for the grace of God....

In an interview with Fortune, Mitt Romney outlined some of the cuts he'd make to get the country's finances in order. Sam Stein at the HuffPo writes: "Romney identified subsidies for Amtrak, PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities as some of the things he would eliminate.

Romney also said he would block grant Medicaid and send programs like housing vouchers and food stamps back to the states to use as they please.

He said he would reduce the number of federal programs by 10 percent through attrition, while tying the compensation of federal workers to that in the private sector -- which are now mostly low-paying jobs in the service industry, such as Staples, Dominos, McDonalds, and Wal-Mart -- part-time jobs that offer no pensions or healthcare plans (thanks in part to Mitt Romney).

Ann Romney recently said, "We have a reason why we're running and it's because I believe in my heart that Mitt is going to save America." (Save America from what and from who? The Catholics?)

REVEALED: The GOP Strategy

Is the GOP employing a racist strategy to get Mitt Romney into the White House? Watch this video to find out.

Visit www.theromneycovenant.com  to learn more.

Add to my list of selfish, crazy, and greedy people with a comment below.

The Romney Covenant

I just launched a new website at www.TheRomneyCovenant.Com

As a former Republican for 30 years and an advocate of the Tea Party in 2009, I felt it was imperative that I put up this website to warn Tea Party members just who they are voting for.

While it's true that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan both hate "government", they both have many different reasons. Romney, for his religious faith and the Mormon's history of conflict with the U.S. government; and Ryan, for his adoration of the Russian atheist Ayn Rand.

You'll still have "big government" with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, but the only difference is, your tax dollars will be going to the defense industry, rather than Medicare and Social Security.

Obama is no Socialist. Despite his early college-day associations with Marxists, Obama is actually to the right of the Democratic President FDR (who was elected unanimously by the deep south for 4 straight terms during the Great Depression and World War II.). Obama is even to the right of the Republican World War II general and war hero President Dwight D. Eisenhower!

I too once received all my information from Fox News and believed everything they told me. I believed Glenn Beck (the Mormon convert), Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity...until I realized they were all multi-millionaires who were only looking out after their own self- interests, not ours.

The early Mormon pioneers were encouraged to keep diaries and journals. Most of the information cited in this website was derived from historians obtained through their logs and other records through time, academic articles and studies, including news sources and testimony from ex-Mormons (with some of my own personal opinions interjected).

Learn who Mitt Romney really is, and why he's been so secretive about his life and income tax returns. You might be surprised.

The RNC, Nudie Bars and Family Values

Sarah Palin won't be at the GOP convention in Tampa Florida, but her look-alike will be taking off all her clothes for the GOP attendees.

Strip clubs in Tampa are ready to cash in on the approaching G.O.P. convention. And these aren't your daddy's topless bars; these gentlemen's clubs are elite lounges with fully nude dancers offering contact lap dances with bottles of expensive champagne and limo service.

Republican conventioneers will have 60 strip bars to choose from. Thee Dollhouse is bringing in Lisa Ann, the Sarah Palin impersonator who is also an adult film star.

Glenn Beck's website appears to be almost advertising these clubs with glee. They write, "Florida’s strip club owners are pretty convinced that the Republican National Convention attendees aren’t as concerned with family values as they may appear, and they expect that bringing in a stripper who dresses like Sarah Palin is the perfect way to entice them."

Congressional Republicans have reportedly held sessions warning that even "innocent" behavior in Tampa could be "distorted" with just a single cell phone shot.

Many strip club owners are well aware that some people will want to be discreet about going to one of the area's strip bars. Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele knows firsthand how a scandal can cause issues for a political brand. He ultimately lost his bid for another term as head of the party committee after news reports revealed that the RNC paid for donors at a strip club.

To protect the convention-goers privacy, Don Kleinhans, co-owner of 2001 Odyssey (a full nude club) says they will be putting up a drive-thru tent in the back, so someone wanting privacy while entering or leaving the club will not be seen by the public.

"They can actually come in and have direct access to the spaceship VIP room without having to go through any typical public areas," Kleinhans said. "We've been told to expect two to three times more people than what a Super Bowl would be."

One full-nude gentleman's club, Skin Tampa, is advertising its proximity to the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the convention will be held. “Closest club to the R.N.C.!” exclaims a banner on the club’s Web site, which also promises “Free transportation and complimentary V.I.P. for R.N.C. Attendees and Press.”

The operations manager says he's not worried about Republicans staying away. "We're glad to have them here and we'll show them a good time," said Eric "Ice" Terrell. In fact, Terrell says they even plan on staying open longer if needed. "We normally close at 6 a.m., but if we have guests, we'll stay open 'til 8 a.m."

Kristen Hubbell, the manager, said, “We’ve had a couple of people stop by and take a look at the club. We had one guy who said he was bringing a group of about a hundred.”

The Penthouse Club, somewhat farther away, devotes a section of its website to the convention, offering “R.N.C. cabanas” for V.I.P. guests and claiming the only multimillion-dollar gentlemen’s club and five-star steakhouse in the area. All pre-order cabana or V.I.P. areas will receive a $1,000 bottle service credit

It's nice to know that all those contributions to the Republican campaign PACs by Christian evangelists are going to a worthy cause.

(Below) Previous attendees at the 2008 RNC.

Mitt Romney and Marriott "Son of Boss" Tax Scam

The Marriott hotel chain was founded by the Mormon missionary J. Willard Marriott in 1927. Mitt Romney has had a close, long-standing, personal and business connection with Marriott International and its founders for decades; and Romney served as a member of the Marriott board of directors for many years.

From 1993 to 1998, Romney was the head of the audit committee of the Marriott board. During that period, Marriott engaged in a series of complex and high-profile maneuvers, including "Son of Boss," a notoriously abusive prepackaged tax shelter that investment banks and accounting firms marketed to corporations such as Marriott. In this respect, Marriott was in the vanguard of a then-emerging corporate tax shelter bubble that substantially undermined the entire corporate tax system. More here at CNN...

From Wiki: Son of BOSS is the informal name for a type of tax shelter used in the United States, one that was designed and promoted by tax advisors in the 1990s to reduce federal tax obligations on capital gains from the sale of a business or other appreciated asset. "BOSS" is an acronym for "bond and option sales strategy", an earlier tax shelter that Son of BOSS resembled.

We are taxed on income, not gross receipts. That means that when you sell something you get to deduct your basis (initial investment). In its simplest manifestation, basis is the amount of money that you paid for something. You buy something for five dollars and sell it for six, your income is one dollar. That could be done with stocks, real estate, or by investing in SWAG (silver, wine, art, and gold)

EXAMPLE: A dime made in 1873 was recently sold for $1.6 million (plus a 15% buyer's fee) at an auction to an anonymous bidder. If the unidentified buyer later sells the dime for a profit, they should be subjected to a 15% capital gains tax on the profit. If they sell it for less than what they paid for it, it might be considered a realized capital loss.

It can be more complicated if you acquire assets in other ways, such as by gift or inheritance. The important point though is that when you sell something, the higher your basis the less your gain or the greater your loss.

The way that the designers of Marriott's "Son of Boss" tax scheme came up involved combining two things – "short sales" and the formation of a partnership. The important tax principle is that the proceeds of a short sale are not gross income. You recognize gain or loss when you close the short sale. Details for the tax scam can also be found at Forbes Magazine: Romney, Marriott And Son Of Boss ---- For Dummies

Because of the tax laws congress writes, every year $1 trillion in personal income from capital gains by high-income earners like Mitt Romney is not taxed at all for Social Security or Medicare, and it is taxed at a lower rate for federal income taxes than Warren Buffett's secretary.

In a campaign advertisement released on August 9, 2012, incumbent President, Barack Obama made specific reference to his GOP opponent Mitt Romney and his involvement in Son of BOSS tax avoidance as a Marriott International board member.

www.barackobama.com - Four ways Romney helped Marriott avoid paying taxes - August 8, 2012

"Son of Boss" tax shelter: Marriott executed a Son of Boss trade in mid-1994—a scheme that manufactures “a gigantic tax loss out of thin air” to offset actual gains “without any economic risk, cost, or loss.” Marriott later filed a return claiming an artificial loss to lower the company’s taxable income. Son of Boss schemes were notorious, involving about 1,800 people and costing the IRS an estimated $6 billion, and was described as “perhaps the largest tax avoidance scheme in history.”

“Spray and pray”: Marriott purchased four synthetic fuel plants in 2001 in order to benefit from federal tax credits for synthetic fuels, a strategy which was dubbed “spray and pray”. In 2002, the company legally claimed $159 million of those credits, reducing their effective tax rate to just 6.8 percent—far below the normal corporate rate of 35%. Even Sen. John McCain criticized Marriott’s behavior: “One of the greatest beneficiaries of this tax shelter—and that is all that it is, a tax shelter—is a very profitable hotel chain: Marriott.’’

"Profit-shifting" to Luxembourg: In 2009, Marriott collected $229 million in revenue—primarily from royalty, licensing and franchising fees—at its Luxembourg subsidiary, Global Hospitality Licensing. The subsidiary reported having only one employee. By the end of 2011, the company $451 million in offshore earnings that it left overseas to delay paying US income taxes. Under Romney’s proposed corporate tax plan, Marriott would never have to pay U.S. taxes on those earnings.

Questionable deductions: The IRS challenged $1 billion in deductions Marriott took related to an employee stock ownership program from 2000 to 2002. The company eventually agreed to pay about $220 million of what it owed in income taxes, excise taxes, and interest to the IRS and a number of states.

Marriott ultimately had to pay over a $220 million fine for using this "Son of Boss" tax sham. As usual, no one went to prison for ripping off the U.S. government -- the government that Romney wants to lead. This "Son of Boss" tax scheme is but just one of thousands of tax "avoidance" tools that the top 1% uses to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

On February 2012, Marriott International announced the construction of tallest hotel in the world...in Dubai.

Below: One of my first political ads I created and posted to YouTube last week.

GOOGLE: Bud Meyers tax evasion