Random Politics & Religion #00

I'm totally calling him [Romney] Mittens from now on btw. I can't believe I've never thought/heard of that until Jetackuu just said it.

My wife is a foreign citizen and I can promise you that just being foreign doesn't mean crap. American women are generally more self-centered and uncompromising, but that's a generational thing. Almost all women who grew up in the 80's or 90's are going to have the same attitude barring any significant cultural or political circumstances. My wife grew up in post-communist Russia with all the same techno-feminist culture we have domestically. Most American men simply aren't willing/able to actually get respect from modern women for whatever reason.

Where you under a rock in 2012? (I guess so huh, wth the world ending and all?)

I kinda glossed over this post yesterday, what was your point exactly?

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are two peas in the same pod

It was in response to the post about finding a foreign woman. I pose that the attitude that men don't like in American women is more generational than cultural.

Republicans have a 65.1% chance of winning a majority.

Democrats have a 34.9% chance of keeping the majority.

President Barack Obama will begin laying out a strategy this week to defeat Islamic State militants in the Middle East, meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday and giving a speech Wednesday, the eve of the 13th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Obama disclosed his plans during an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I just want the American people to understand the nature of the threat and how we're going to deal with it and to have confidence that we'll be able to deal with it," he said in the interview conducted Saturday at the White House shortly after his return from a NATO summit in Wales where the Islamic State threat was a key topic of discussion.

Looks like an opinion.

Edit- my bad, that actually looks like a fantasy.

I called him Mittens first in the last page!

The record numbers of Americans who have renounced their U.S. citizenship since January 2009 did so at the bargain-basement cost of $450, a subsidized fee that the State Department plans to raise sharply this week as more and more people sever their ties with the United States.

Officials say the new pricetag of $2,350 will “capture the real, unsubsidized cost of providing this service” at a time when escalating demand has put new strain on consular resources.

The government does not make public any reasons citizens may have given for renouncing U.S. citizenship, making it impossible to say for certain what has driven the sharp rise in demand. But the most likely cause appears to be the Obama-era crackdown on U.S. citizens hiding wealth overseas.

From 2001 to 2008, 3,937 people who had lived on U.S. soil for at least eight years either renounced their citizenship or gave up lawful permanent resident status, according to Andrew Mitchel, an international tax attorney in Centerbrook, Connecticut, who tracks the figures closely.

From January 2009 to the quarter ending June 30, 2014, the number rose to 9,566, according to a Yahoo News analysis of the figures published on a quarterly basis by the Internal Revenue Service.

The rise has coincided with a campaign that has scooped up about $6 billion in taxes, interest and penalties from more than 40,000 U.S. taxpayers since 2009.

A State Department official who requested anonymity linked the fee hike directly to the escalating numbers of people casting off their citizenship — technically known as “expatriations.” The new fee goes into effect on September 12.

The amount certainly doesn’t seem likely to be a deterrent for some people who might be inclined to give up citizenship or permanent resident status. Highly affluent people shedding their U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes can afford to pay more. And families going home after a long stint working in the United States on a green card may not view the additional cost as much of an obstacle, particularly if they are hoping to stop paying their U.S. taxes.

But Mitchel told Yahoo News by telephone that the State Department's intent in increasing the fee might make some people think twice before taking an irrevocable step.

“They want to impress upon those individuals that there’s no going back,” he said. “They’re making sure that you really, really want to renounce your citizenship.”

Obama's America!

Renouncing U.S. citizenship is about to get a lot more expensive

I called him Mittens first in the last page!

I used to call him Mittens back during the last presidential primary season and campaign.

Now I call him past pull date.

I would call Obama an idiot, but that would make me racist to some people.

The Governator is back.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning to the state capital on Monday for two high-profile public events to discuss California’s fight against climate change and unveil his official portrait at the Capitol. Both events are expected to highlight more positive aspects of his two terms as California governor.
Schwarzenegger, who has returned to acting since leaving the governor’s office in 2011, has made few political appearances with the exception of advocating for renewable energy.
While in office, the former governor frequently promoted California’s landmark 2006 global-warming law, called AB32, which paved the way for the state’s cap-and-trade system for controlling greenhouse-gas emissions by the worst polluters.
The Republican will share the stage with the current governor, Democrat Jerry Brown, at a symposium highlighting California’s position at the forefront in developing policies to address climate change. Organizers are using the state’s public policies to counter naysayers ahead of United Nations climate-change conferences in Lima, Peru and Paris.
Monday’s gathering at a 250-seat auditorium at the California Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters will feature research experts, businesses executives from Apple Inc. and UPS Inc., as well as actor Ed Begley Jr. The panels will highlight the costs of failing to move away from fossil fuels, citing noticeable changes such as the expansion of California’s wildfire season.
“Arnold always likes to say, ‘When the people elected me, they don’t see it as Republican air and Democrat air. They just want clean air,’ “ said Bonnie Reiss, a former administration adviser who now directs the Schwarzenegger Institute at the University of Southern California, which is co-hosting the event.
Schwarzenegger will then head to the Capitol rotunda for a ceremony to unveil his governor’s portrait. The painting, by an artist who has yet to be named, eventually will be hung on the third floor of the building next to his recalled predecessor, Gray Davis.
Schwarzenegger had promised to bring fiscal accountability, but he left office with a mixed record, as the state was facing a huge budget deficit. Brown has been credited with passing a tax increase, cutting additional services and bringing the budget back in balance.
In one of his final acts in office, Schwarzenegger commuted the involuntary-manslaughter sentence of the son of a former political ally.
Schwarzenegger said at the time that he cut Esteban Nunez’s sentence from 16 years to seven because he thought the sentence was excessive, a decision that caught San Diego prosecutors and the victim’s family by surprise. But he also acknowledged he was helping a friend, former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.
Months after he left office, embarrassing revelations broke about an affair he had with his maid that resulted in a son born out of wedlock, destroying his marriage to Maria Shriver.
Since then, Schwarzenegger has largely committed to a Hollywood comeback. He appeared in this summer’s “The Expendables 3,” and he returned to his cyborg assassin character in a new “Terminator” film due out next year.
While promoting his action movie “Sabotage” earlier this year, Schwarzenegger told The Associated Press that he has no plans to run for elected office again.
“No. I have no interest in running for anything. I’ve done that,” he said. “I never wanted to be a career politician.”

Technically, you are also supposed to pay a 5% "expatriation tax" on top of that fee. The tax is figured by the total net worth of yourself and your family.

Expatriation on or after June 16, 2008
If you expatriated after June 16, 2008, the new IRC 877A expatriation rules apply to you if any of the following statements apply.
Your average annual net income tax for the 5 years ending before the date of expatriation or termination of residency is more than a specified amount that is adjusted for inflation ($147,000 for 2011, $151,000 for 2012, $155,000 for 2013 and $157,000 for 2014).
Your net worth is $2 million or more on the date of your expatriation or termination of residency.
You fail to certify on Form 8854 that you have complied with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the 5 years preceding the date of your expatriation or termination of residency.
If any of these rules apply, you are a “covered expatriate.”

That's not necessarily true.

Edit: Also, have to laugh at the concept of going from 450 to 2350 will in any way, shape, or form deter people who wish to revoke their citizenship for tax purposes. I'd also be interested to see exactly how that un-subsidized cost breaks out.

A 16-year-old high school girl in Rock Hill, S.C. told police that another high school girl taunted her on a school bus and then beat her up after she got off the bus. The assailant allegedly was angry at the victim because she was behaving “too much like a white person.”

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