IANABirther but . . .
Being a natural born citizen is a requirement to be president. Releasing tax returns is not.
Because some people recognize where the burden of proof really lies.
[QUOTE=Truman Burbank]
Shodan, just out of curiosity…
When birthers were demanding more info about Obama’s birthplace, (or grades, or whatever) what was your stance about that?
[/QUOTE]
I’ve never paid that much attention to birthers. Sooner or later more information was bound to come out, and it did.
If you mean did I ever call for Obama to release his birth certificate, no, I didn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
As near as I can tell, the Republican position is that element #4 has not been satisfied. Romney’s reasonable excuse for not releasing the returns is that the Obama campaign would find something damaging in them, and therefore we can’t conclude that anything damaging is actually there.
Yeah? So? What’s to stop Romney from fighting fire with fire and picking apart Obama’s tax returns for this, and this and THIS!
Burden of proof? Running for president is not like being accused of a crime. You don’t hold some privilege against the public’s interest in disclosure of your finances. If more people think that they deserve to see Romney’s tax returns before they would vote for him than not, then they’re not going to be swayed based on some imagined burden of proof. They are legitimately able to infer that he’s not disclosing because he has something to hide.
The very fact that we and others are discussing this indicates that Mr. Romney is making a serious political misstep in not releasing his tax returns for the past 12 years.
This has nothing to do with Mr. Reid’s stance on the matter except that he brought up the issue to begin with. It has now received enough attention to ‘have its own legs’ as they say.
I am far from a normal partisan. I think presidential politics in the US has become much more of a spectator sport than a genuine exercise in governance. However, this has become much more than just a easily dismissed issue.
It has been tied into Mr. Romney’s somewhat inchoate explanation about his involvement with Bain Capital (for one example). If I were on Mr. Romney’s staff, I’d be urging him to defuse this potential explosive hand-grenade sooner rather than later.
What do you think Reid is hiding?
Regards,
Shodan
So, your answer to the “Let’s Make A Deal” conundrum is that it doesn’t matter whether you keep Door #1 or switch to Door #3, because it’s logical to assume that they’re as empty as Door #2 (which Monty chose to reveal before giving you the choice)?
Members of the jury, we have proven that my client did not kill anyone December last. Thus it is logical to think he did not kill someone in November when the murder he was accused of took place.
Not being sleazy when people are watching is no proof you weren’t before people started watching.
As for nitpicking - there is a lot of that going on about the returns he did release, right? or not.
May it please the court, my client is being accused of a serious crime, but the state refuses to produce the witness on whose testimony they base their case. Not even that witness’ name has been given.
Instead, the prosecution insists it is up to the accused to prove his innocence.
Seriously, ladies and gentlemen of the jury - a second hand account from an anonymous source? From a known racist?
Regards,
Shodan
This isn’t a trial, it’s an election. No one gives a damn if he answers the question, or if he’s content to look like a tax cheat. His call, really.
Tell it to Voyager.
Regards,
Shodan
That was actually pretty sloppy of Reid. If Romney ever paid sales tax on a candy bar, he can say Reid’s allegation is false, and be technically correct.
And I would bet my house that that is pretty close to what Romney is doing. I think that his returns would show so many offshore accounts and shady tax shelters that all but the most fanatical Reps would be disgusted.
The analogy works in his case – it does make sense to say, “hey, this tax return he did release is fine, but the others are not necessarily the same”; the analogy makes perfect sense there. It doesn’t make sense to say, “hey, Romney is innocent of tax fraud until proven guilty, so we shouldn’t hold him refusing to reveal his taxation information against him, nor assume that there’s anything wrong with his taxpaying”. That analogy doesn’t work. The courtroom analogy doesn’t always hold up.
Reid is playing this exactly right.
Bottom line, unless you are willfully naive, you know that Romney has indeed paid substantially less than 13% in recent years, else he would not have reneged on the offer he made to ABC a week or so ago to “research” the issue.
He’s afraid to lie about that, because it’s bound to come out. So Romney’s refusal to answer gives Reid’s charge more credibility than any name Reid could provide as his source.
Here’s what I heard from a “guy.” This credible, would never lie, source told me that Romney keeps sheep for his own sexual pleasure and writes them off as “farming expenses.”
Mitt, just release your tax returns and you can prove me wrong!
There’s some (reasonably plausible) speculation that it was Jon Huntsman or one of his family. The Huntsman’s don’t really have much use for Romney and are pretty close to Reid (a fellow Mormon).
So, Mitt using sheep for sexual pleasure is just as believable as Mitt legally avoiding taxes for ten years? Was there some other point you were trying to make?/
Article about how Romney might not be popular with the Italian public. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-06/romney-persona-non-grata-in-italy-for-bain-s-deal-skirting-taxes.html
Then why are you all worked up about it? 
Oh? When did Reid declare his candidacy for President?
You are *really *totally mystified by how this campaigning business works, aren’t you?
Considering how, well, let’s call it “superficial” was his consideration of the person he *did *choose, you don’t have to guess; it’s a certainty.
Then why do *you *think he won’t release them? What would be the harm?