Author: Trish

Romney Would Likely Donate Presidential Salary to Mormon Church

Trish

If Mitt Romney is elected president, the Mormon Church can expect quite a windfall.

Romney says if he wins, he will donate his presidential salary to charity. If he stays true to past form, that means most of the money will go directly to the Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints.

Romney explains his largess with that ol’ golly-gee Republican bootstraps rags-to-riches fairy tale.

Go ahead, vote for Romney. The Mormons need your money.

“When I got started, I went to school and I never anticipated that I’d be as financially successful as I was, and then my business went far better than I expected it would,” Romney said at a question-and-answer session…

Mitt’s business was probably really boosted by the fact that his father was the governor of Michigan and former chair of American Motors. At any rate, Romney is rich. Way rich. So rich he doesn’t need to collect the paltry salary we taxpayers are willing to pay a president.

Aides have said Romney’s net worth reaches into the hundreds of millions of dollars, but a clearer snapshot of his finances will emerge when he files financial disclosure documents with the federal government in the coming weeks. Romney, who has given millions to charity in the past, is believed to be the wealthiest candidate in the 2008 race.

Which is why he can well afford to be generous with those less skilled at picking parents. As recently as 2005, he gave to the Mormons in a big way. Like a $2.2 million way.

Governor Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, have donated nearly $2.9 million to more than 40 healthcare groups, schools, and other charitable organizations since 1999, including $2.2 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Globe review of Internal Revenue Service documents shows.

The couple’s private charitable foundation donated primarily to groups in Massachusetts and Utah, where they lived while Romney ran the 2002 Winter Olympics. The foundation stepped up giving to groups based in Massachusetts after Romney was elected governor in 2002.

His contributions to the Mormon church, where he has long been active, are by far the largest. The foundation gave $1.9 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2003, the first year Romney was governor, and $311,000 more in 2000 and 2001. The foundation donated $250,000 to the Mormon-affiliated Brigham Young University of Provo, Utah, including $50,000 in 2004.

Go ahead, vote for Romney. The Mormons need your money.

Give Us Your Tired But You Keep Your Poor

Trish

Without even waiting for the other snobbish and judgmental rules of the new immigration bill to go into effect, the Bush administration is plowing ahead to put all the costs of coming to this country on the new residents. No matter how much benefit you believe we get from immigrants — whether it’s a lot or a little — this hardly seems fair.

But no one ever accused George W. Bush of being fair. The new asking price for citizenship tells us that in his view, the only good immigrant is a rich immigrant.

When my grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Italy in the 19-teens, his family could have never afforded fees like these

…the Bush administration made final Tuesday a new set of fees that will significantly hike the cost of becoming a U.S. citizen or legal resident.

Beginning July 30, the citizenship fee will rise to $595 from $330. Those seeking to become legal permanent residents will see the cost nearly triple to $930 — plus a fingerprinting charge.

The $930 is higher than the $905 fee proposed for legal residency in February, when critics charged that the government was pricing residency beyond the reach of many potential applicants.

But, in what Citizenship and Immigration Services chief Emilio Gonzales said was a change in favor of families, the cost to process a child as a legal resident will be cut to $600 from the proposed $805.

That means a family of two adults and two children will pay $3,060 to become legal residents, compared to $1,100 under the current fees.

But, see, we really need the money. We have to grow the government even more, as we have at unprecedented rates already, under Bush.

Citizen and Immigration Services needs the additional $1 billion that the fee increases will raise to hire personnel, upgrade computer systems, train employees and make other improvements…

Gonzales acknowledged the fee hikes are steep, but vowed that the increased revenue would help reinvent the agency, with a 20 percent improvement in service in the first year…

The agency gets more than 90 percent of its funding from the fees and will have a budget of about $2.3 billion after the new fee structure goes into effect, officials said.

I don’t know about you but I’d say that having the Immigration Service work 20 percent better is money well extorted.

When my grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Italy in the 19-teens, his family could have never afforded fees like these. It was all they could do to scrape up the money for some fake papers and a ticket on a boat bound for Ellis Island.

Unfortunately, Grandpa spent the whole voyage arffing over the rail or passed out in steerage, so he failed to memorize the false information in his papers, such as what his name was supposed to be, who had sponsored him, where he would be living, who his closest relatives in America were, etc. He was shipped right back to Italy. The next time he made the crossing, he studied harder and gave the right fake answers. He passed his citizenship test for real in the 1950s.

Cindy Sheehan’s Parting Shot

Trish

Almost from the beginning, I had mixed feelings about Cindy Sheehan. I say “almost” because back at the very beginning, before I read anything she said or wrote and only heard there was a mother of a fallen soldier protesting the Iraq Occupation, I thought, “Wow, that’s wonderful.”

What Sheehan said or did never moved me precisely because of the way she said and did it.

But when I got more exposure to the actual person — through the press of course — I had my doubts. I felt I had met Cindy, and one-issue crusaders like her were the reason I got out of party politics. I found it much more fulfilling to work with individual candidates because at every party meeting, there was a Cindy or two who caused a complete and utter logjam with their inability to see shades of gray or look on compromise solutions as anything but defeat. Everything was a zero sum game to them.

I think all of our hearts go out to Sheehan for the loss of her son and for her determination not to back down. But admiration and liking are two different things. She’s a hard person to like.

Take, for example, her pity party today in which she both announced she’s quitting her protest of the Occupation and lashed out at every single American except herself.

I have spent every available cent I got from the money a “grateful” country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

That’s the kind of stuff, bordering on codependence, that made me tune Cindy out.

On the other hand, she’s right about a few things.

Casey died for a country that cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months…

Good-bye America… you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

Of course we’ll manage to go forth without Sheehan and I’m not trying to be snippy about that, only stating a fact. In the end, I feel the same way about her as I did almost at the beginning. What she said or did never moved me precisely because of the way she said and did it.

Wolfie Says It Wasn’t His Fault

Trish

It’s not just George Bush who has never made a mistake.

Neocon Paul Wolfowitz has the same gift. You see, it wasn’t his fault that the World Bank wanted to can him as its president for promoting and upping the salary of his employee girlfriend. Whose fault is it then, you ask?

Give yourself a gold star if you answered, “the media.”

“I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I’ll leave it at that,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp…

“I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don’t think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about,” he said.

It tells us more about the media than the bank? Nobody was asking about those two institutions, Wolfie. This is about you, you Iraq-losing, twisted, Dumbo-earred freak.

Good Lord. So he wanted to accomplish even more for the people he really cares about? Like what? Hummers and Rolexes on the house, everybody!

Deciphering Romney-Speak

Trish

Translating what Mitt Romney means — and when — is almost as challenging as parsing out a George W. Bush screed.

Listen to what America’s best-known Mormon said in a recent “Ask Mitt Anything” convocation in Florida.

Romney would not say whether he thought homosexuality was immoral.

Suffice it to say that Romney’s answer to the question of whether homosexuality is immoral was not a simple, “No.”

“I don’t think that a person who’s running for a secular position as I am should talk about or engage in discussions of what they in their personal faith or their personal beliefs is immoral or not immoral.”

But suffice it to say the answer to the question was not a simple, “No.”

And here’s a clue why:

“What you look for in a leader is someone who will welcome and treat with respect people who made different choices and have different beliefs in their lives and have differences. I have nothing but respect and feelings of tolerance for people with differences from myself and feel that way with regards to those who are gay.”

Got it. Romney believes that being gay is a “choice” and a “belief,” not a physiological state.

His views on immigration are equally enlightening. Apparently, he thinks the only immigrants are Mexicans. And welfare-seeking, criminal Mexicans at that.

“I don’t think that we’re going to round up 11 or 12 or however many million people and bus them out of the country. That’s not what I’m talking about,” Romney said. “Those who committed felonies, of course, would be deported. Those who require government assistance to stay here would surely need to get off government assistance and ultimately could not remain here on government assistance.”

Put them on a bus, eh? I hope he wasn’t talking about the immigrants I see a lot of down this way: Haitians.

Romney’s little Mormon mind isn’t nearly as inscrutable as he would have us believe. Maybe the average Republican would miss these clues to his true world-view but those of us on this team just aren’t feeling him.

Gotta See This Video. Then Show It To Somebody Else

Trish

Outrage fatigue and Bush fatigue make us forget there are others like us out there. Watch this video and remember there is cause for hope as well as outrage. Then visit the web site to learn more.

Avaaz.org (Our name means “Voice” or “Song” in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian) is a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today. Our aim is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people — and not just political elites and unaccountable corporations — shape global decisions.

New Cheney Grandchild: GOP Cognitive Dissonance Runs Amok

Trish

Above, Lynne and Dick Cheney hold their sixth grandchild, Samuel David Cheney, the son of Mary Cheney and her wife, Heather Poe.

Bush press release titled, “President Calls for Constitutional Amendment Protecting Marriage,” issued Feb. 24, 2004:

After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization. Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity.

Bush: “Ages of experience have taught that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society”

On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse. If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America.

…An amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly. The amendment process has addressed many serious matters of national concern. And the preservation of marriage rises to this level of national importance. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honoring — honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife. The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.

May is National Military Appreciation Month. Participate!

Trish

Military Times has put together a wonderful resource so we can all share in National Military Appreciation Month. There’s a great multimedia gallery, where you can view amazing, and often very moving, pictures and film clips. You can also submit a salute to a specific service member, everyone in the military, the families waiting for them to come back, or all of the above.

Take a few minutes to post your own salute. If you need inspiration:

“I salute my brother, my hero, Rick for all the courage and maturity he has displayed in the army these last four years. He is currently stationed at ft. bragg, NC and he already did one tour in Iraq in 2005.. For all of other deployed military men and women, i pray for your safe arrival home. God bless our troops. Without our military, our country couldn’t survive. Ricky, I love you. i can’t wait until you come home. You’re my older brother, my protector, and my HERO.”
— Lisa
Branchburg, NJ

“Thank you for all that you do to keep our nation safe!”
— Rob
Virginia

“I would like to say a special thank you to my son, Kyle DeMitry, who is in the Navy and my daughter-in-law, Suzi DeMitry, who is in the Army. I am so proud of you both! I would also like to say thank you to all those serving in the states and abroad, thank you for keeping us safe and free. We owe you everything!!!!”
— Anita
Salisbury, NC

Also, do what I did a couple of weeks ago. If you see someone in uniform dining out or getting a cuppa joe, pick up the tab. It’s a tiny way to say thank you to people who are willing to do something most of us aren’t, but that we trust someone else will.

Hold Off on Packing the Suitcase for Europe, Wolfie

Trish

ABC News, which always seems to get these little scoops right, is reporting that Paul Wolfowitz is toast.

World Bank officials say the bank’s board is completing an “exit strategy” that will allow World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to resign this afternoon and “still save some face” over the issue of his efforts to seek a promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend at the bank.

The officials say the bank’s board will accept Wolfowitz’s resignation but will also acknowledge that the World Bank’s Ethics Committee bears “some responsibility” for giving him bad advice on the issue of his girlfriend.

The decision is likely today, officials say, because Wolfowitz had been scheduled to leave tonight for a European trip.