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How Mitt Romney Set Up Offshore Shell Corporations & Bank Accounts and Paid No Taxes

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Setting up an offshore corporation is not difficult, nor is it expensive.

For $650. you can set up an offshore corporation in Belize or the Seychelles Islands or the Cayman Islands, among many other places. And, for a slight additional charge, it can be linked to a bank account in a jurisdiction which is absolutely tax free and completely confidential — in other words, a tax haven. Furthermore, the shell company can be in one offshore jurisdiction and the bank account in another making any transactions even more difficult to track. These corporations and bank accounts are guaranteed absolute confidentiality. No one can obtain any information about them including the US government. It’s even against the law to inquire about these shell corporations in the Cayman Islands. You could get jail time!

For this reason, offshore companies and bank accounts are proliferating. As is well known, Mitt Romney and Bain Capital have partaken of these completely legal schemes to hide money and have it grow tax free. They’ve set up hundreds of these corporations and bank accounts. At $650. a pop, they are ridiculously cheap for the average multimillionaire. All you have to do is google “offshore company registration” and you will come up with thousands of companies who can assist you in this process. Setting up the offshore corporation can be done in 24 hours, and the only documentation required is a scanned notarized passport and a utility bill — all sent by email.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – San Diego’s Mayoral Contest: It Was a Bad Day for Carl DeMaio

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Echoes for DeMaio*….It was a tough night for City Councilman Carl DeMaio. After weeks of outreach and publicity about reaching out for the Latino vote in San Diego’s Mayoral contest, his expedition into Barrio Logan last night was a bust. Despite DeMaio’s web site’s boast that “The Latino Community is uniting behind Carl DeMaio’s vision for jobs and quality schools!”  the ‘Latinos for DeMaio’ event had exactly three voters show up. There were, however, six people who did appear on site to protest his appearance. *(h/t to John Lamb for coining the term ‘Echos for DeMaio’)

The event was catered for fifty. (Crackers, chips and salsa) Candidate DeMaio muttered a few words about his campaign for ‘reform’ winning one voter at a time and left. The protesters moved in and helped themselves to the candidate’s ‘spread’. This venture into the world of voters south of Interstate 8 comes on the heels of much ballyhooed moves by the DeMaio campaign to appeal to voters in San Diego’s less white-bread neighborhoods.

The City Councilman’s campaign kicked off the month with the announcement that former ‘Democratic’ chair Art Castañares had signed on with the campaign as a consultant. Castañares was quoted as saying “I look forward to helping Carl deliver that message to communities throughout San Diego who may not have heard his message before.”  Although the local mainstream media jumped on the news of a former Democrat joining a GOP campaign, word soon leaked out that his association with local dem party efforts had ended more than a decade earlier.

This move the was followed a few days later by the announcement that ‘Latino advocate’ K.B. Forbes had signed on as Communications Director for the DeMaio campaign. The press release announcing his arrival quoted candidate DeMaio saying: “Besides his work in public policy, K.B. has been a leading consumer advocate helping Latinos fight fraud and abuse. I am pleased to have a seasoned communications strategist and accomplished Latino activist on our team.” Forbes made the news earlier this week for having a meltdown in front of the media during which he accused opponent Bob Filner of being a “bold (sic) faced liar”.
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The Starting Line — Ecuador Grants Assange Asylum; British May Arrest Him Anyway

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A showdown is developing in London at the embassy of Equador, which this morning granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The British government has told Ecuador that its orders to extradite Assange to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in a sexual assualt case, would override any asylum order. Police gathered outside the embassy in London last night, and there was rampant speculation that they were preparing to enter the building and seize him. A videographer live streaming the event was hit with a sudden Denial of Service (DDoS) attack over the internet, shutting down coverage and fueling the rumors.

WikiLeaks supporters point out that Assange has not been charged with any offense and  Sweden has a bilateral agreement with the United States which would allow it to surrender Julian Assange without going through the traditional tests and standards of regular, lengthy ’extradition’ procedures. Emails hacked from the Stratfor security firm reveal that a sealed indictment against the WikiLeaks founder was issued by a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia last year.   [Read more…]

Bad Boys With Terrible Judgment

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

Dog days of summer — they’re scorchers.

Not quite like the old days when sweaty families uncapped the corner fire hydrants to cool off with communal dousings.

If you haven’t seen it on TV news you can read about last Saturday night’s ‘happening’ in Balboa Park here.  This was no spontaneous event.  Rather, it was a vigorously-publicized invitational extravaganza to entice thousands of unchaperoned, unsupervised, unpermitted revelers to come on out and wreak some mindless havoc on a landmark piece of public property.  “Load your guns,” broadcasts a Facebook page (now expunged) “and join us for the 2nd Annual Midnight Water Gun Fight in Balboa Park!”   [Read more…]

Our Poetry Place – WMD

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WMD

In countries

where people read

 

A writer

would rot in prison

for burning his president in prose

in the land that manufactured Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

remote-controlled drones   [Read more…]

Has President Obama Lost the Black Women’s Vote?

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By Carolyn Zellander

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance; she asked me if I would join a group called “Black Women for Obama“. I said “Why black women, why not ‘Women for Obama?’ What is the distinction?”

She said “Obama lost black women with that gay marriage endorsement, and they will not be voting for him in this election.”

About this time, I am really becoming intrigued with that statement, as I personally thought it was about time he stepped up to the plate and acknowledged that constitutional rights are not just for the heterosexual. Nevertheless, she felt it was a slip-up on his part. I said that was no slip-up on the part of the President. You see Mr. Obama knows on which side to butter his political bread. The LBGT community is a growing and important constituency and besides it was just the right thing to do.

She continued, “You know homosexuality is a sin don’t you? It is in the Bible.”   [Read more…]

Taking Note of City Heights Job Creators

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We are reminded time and time again that the only human beings in a position to rescue us from our economic woes are the enormously wealthy “job creators.” The bad news is that they are just too uncertain about the economy to tap their accumulated wealth parked far far away from City Heights to start investing again in the US, anywhere in the US.

We are also told that they simply can’t do their “job creating” job without more tax cuts and less government regulation. And they also want us to know that their feelings are very very hurt that we don’t love them enough. None of these wealthy aggrieved individuals live on my block, so I am of course getting this information second hand, but I extend the invitation for tea, even though it will not be accompanied with much in the way of sympathy.   [Read more…]

Homelessness: Love, Sex, Companionship

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“Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.” – His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium

In the above quotation, His Holiness points out the importance of having positive relationships with other people. Among the positive ways we may relate to others is through love, intimacy and companionship. But, do homeless people have these relationships? I asked homeless people about this topic and I thank them for their responses that follow.
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Choice of Paul Ryan as Veep Crystallizes the Choice in November’s Election

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The Republican budget hero provides a clear context and contrast to a race where there previously was little.

So it’s now official: Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has a running mate. Last weekend Team Mittens announced the selection of Wisconsin Congressman and House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan as Romney’s #2. You could almost hear the champagne corks popping in Chicago.

The selection of Ryan, the principal author of the official Republican budget proposal, entitled “The Path to Prosperity,” changes this presidential election in a very substantial way; it defines it in a way that it had not been defined before. Romney wanted to make this election exclusively about President Barack Obama’s handling of the national economy, a dubious tack to begin with for a number of reasons that need not be spelled out here other than to say that deliberate and systematic Republican obstructionism has played a starring role in the slow pace of economic recovery.   [Read more…]

Surviving Higher Education: A mad feminist gets her degree in Women’s Studies

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There is a nice little pool outside my office door. I recall thinking late one night that the thing would kill me before it ever became a reality. My excavated yard had metamorphosed into a mud pit, transformed by a malevolent deluge, and I was down, sinking into the sucking miasma, my flashlight lifted to the heavens, afraid that my corpse might be found in the morning’s muck.

Turns out, all I had to do was sit up: The mud was barely a foot deep.

But that sense of inundation, of being caught in a vortical force that I could not escape, that became my operating mode as I pursued a degree in Women’s Studies for the past 18 months.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Escondido Denies Permit for Voter Registration Drive on National Voter Registration Day

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Here’s an example of too much government... San Diego’s ACLU chapter is challenging an Escondido ordinance that requires citizens to give the City two months advance notice in order to receive a permit for a special event. The group became aware of problems with the North County city’s permitting policies when they applied for a permit to hold voter registration and get-out-the-vote event at the Grape Day Park on September 25, 2012, to coincide with National Voter Registration Day. A city staff member told the San Diego ACLU that the event would require at least 60 days advance notice, and declined to accept the application.

A press release issued by the ACLU asserts that “Escondido’s ordinance represents an illegal prior restraint, pitting the public’s right to protected expression against the government’s power to approve or disapprove an application. On a number of fronts, the city’s current ordinance violates First Amendment protections…” The group is currently negotiating with the Escondido city attorney’s office, but indicates that litigation remains an option if necessary.   [Read more…]

From Petrolia with Love: Alexander Cockburn RIP

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Progressive media is only worth a damn when it has the courage to think bad thoughts and consistently afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

I learned of Alex Cockburn’s death when I picked up a copy of the North Coast Journal in a gas station minimart in Eureka. My family and I were in transit between the deep woods near the California-Oregon border and our next destination off the Lost Coast Highway when we stopped to fuel up and get snacks. While I stood waiting for my son to finish buying a candy bar I picked up the paper and randomly flipped it open to an article entitled “Cockburn Country” in which Marcy Burstiner chastised the local daily, the Times Standard, for failing to adequately comment on Cockburn’s demise.

To rectify this omission Burstiner details how Cockburn had been living in Petrolia for two decades where he co-edited the left online journal and publishing outlet CounterPunch, continued to pen his column for The Nation, and published many books challenging the sacred cows of American Empire and skewering the pieties of the right and left alike. Burstiner tells the story of Cockburn giving a speech in 2009 to “a rag tag bunch of nobodies” in the rain inEureka with incredible passion and energy despite the circumstances. She then ends her tribute by musing, “Alexander Cockburn, if your spirit hovers over me at some rainy Eureka rally in the future, know that one of your fellow residents appreciated you for being a thinker in a world where most people avoid thinking, for calling out the bullshit you saw in the world around you, for exasperating people around you of all political stripes and for being part of our little world out here.”   [Read more…]

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