Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick 300
Hugh Pickens writes writes "In 2008, as The Washington Post wrote at the time, 'just hours before [Sen. John] McCain declared his veep choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her Wiki page saw a flurry of activity, with editors adding details about Palin's approval rating and husband's employment. ... Palin's entry was updated at least 68 times, with at least an additional 54 changes made to her entry over the preceding five days.' The obvious — in hindsight — implications of the Wiki activity: Aides were going into the entries to tune them up and clean out any material that was either embarrassing or erroneous. Now Mark Memmott writes on NPR that today's Wikipedia activity may lend a clue to Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, expected to be announced within a few days. So what's going on now with some of those said to be among the leading possibilities to be joining Mitt Romney on the Republican ticket? On August 7, Rob Portman's Wikipedia page was revised 100 times, the Wikipedia page for Marco Rubio was revised 22 times, and the page for Tim Pawlenty was revised only 5 times. Of course, Memmott adds, somebody who knows about the 2008 Wiki tea leaves may just be messing with our minds."
Replace it with a link to a real model (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, as an aside, I think Reid is traveling a dangerous road. Do we really want our political leaders decided on baseless rumors, guilt until the target proves innocence, and purely partisan/tribal cheerleading? Really? Because that's where Reid is going in service of the Obama campaign, and the immediate reaction on Twitter (thousands of tweets claiming Reid is a pederast, with as much evidence as Reid produced) may look funny now, but won't look all that funny when we reach the logical conclusions of such tactics.
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reid is going down the path the birthers laid for him. I find it funny that now the republicans suddenly have a problem with people calling for what should be public records.
It is not a good thing when either tribe does it, but this is what tribalism leads too.
Personally the fact that investment income is taxed at such a lower rate is something the public needs to hear about. This is why you hear of CEOs taking $1 salaries, because they prefer to be paid in ways that avoid the taxes on income. Reid's current course of action is not how to have that discussion though.
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to know what he's hiding personally, and I think the issue probably will "swiftboat" Romney if he doesn't go ahead and release them ASAP...
Re:What? Since when... (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>...did the GOP start believing in Wikipedia?
About the same time the DNC became a pro-war party.
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. No one is saying Romney illegally paid no income taxes, but it's quite easily for him to have paid virtually no taxes relative to his income. We know Romney's IRA is an enormous $100 million + (given IRA contribution limits would either make him the greatest investor in the world or there's something unorthodox going on).
What's likely happened is that he put his shares of the Bain Capital LLC, which he was the sole shareholder, into his IRA at an arbitrary and very low value (since it's a private company the share's didn't have a market price). Then when he left Bain in 2002, the other partners of Bain Capital had to buy the LLC from Romney (because that's what holds the trademarks and such). So Romney's IRA got hundreds of millions of dollars for those shares from 2002 - 2009. Since you don't pay taxes on investments in the IRA until you retire and start taking money out, Romney hasn't paid any taxes on them. It's quite possible for him to have an effective income tax rate during those years of 1%.
Any major investor in Bain Capital would be privy to this information and have signed confidentiality agreements making revealing this information a large legal risk, hence revealing it anonymously via Harry Reid.
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:2, Interesting)
The birthers have been denounced by almost every conservative with any real voice.
The biggest guy on the birther side is Donald Trump. We all know he is just getting air time to increase his shows ratings so even that guy dose not really count.
If as many prominent Dems stepped up to denounce Harry as Repubs did to denounce birthers we would not really be having this conversation.
Re:There's only one clear choice. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't mind modest tax increases if...
Everyone had to pay them. Even the poorest person out there working can pay at least $1 federal tax. No one working should not pay anything net.
Before raising it...by law, any new revenues can NOT be used for new spending...only to pay things off. And..like any family does that is in fiscal difficulty....CUT SPENDING.
Doing these things first...I'd be cool with modest tax increases.