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Huffington Post Goes NSA on Its Members

Thanks Adlib. I will be hanging out here – the exchanges are refreshing. I write my own blog and have no moderation on the comments. It is refreshing to find kindred spirits.

» Posted By eldave1 On December 12, 2013 @ 6:51 am

Good article. My last post at HP referenced it – I’m pretty sure that it will never see the light of day.

Wonder how long it will be before someone launches a web-site linking to the Huff Po that will allow for uncensored comments of Huff Po articles?

In addition to the concerns detailed in the article, there are fundamental questions that are not being answered that I and many others have presented to HP, including:

1. Why only Facebook? There are many other ways to verify the authenticity of individuals, including Google + and Disquis.

2. Why are comments that do no violate any of the commenting terms continually denied posting without explanation? This is taking the form of censorship and in fact hurts the integrity of the site rather than enhancing it?

3. Who decided that it was more beneficial to filter the occasional offensive comment than it was to allow an open and free exchange of views by Huff Po readers?

4. If truly “anonymity” was the issue, why didn’t Huff Po merely require a full name and email address when registering? Who erroneously concluded that somehow magically the existence of a FB account equaled the existence of a person?

5. Why does Huff Po continually kill comments that contain links relevant to the issue at hand when the site itself is really nothing more than a collection of links to other web-sites? 90% of it’s content was in fact created by someone else.

I did not join Huff Po because of their unique perspective on the issues of the day as they have very little original content. I joined because I enjoyed the comments of the readers. This is the first step in making this site irrelevant.
11 DEC 8:35 AM

» Posted By eldave1 On December 11, 2013 @ 5:31 pm

MSM Misleads in Telling the Story of Obama’s Personal Taxes

Hey Adlib – First – thanks for the welcome and thanks for your comments.

Not quite in agreement with you on much other than that neither of us appears to care for Romney too much (guess that’s a start).

But there are not two answers on how to calculate an effective tax rate (i.e, one that yields 20% and one that yields 33%). I didn’t make this stuff up. There has been an established definition for effective tax rates for decades and it was wrong for the press to be so lazy is not to apply it for both Obama and Romney. Had they, we would simply be talking about – “see Obama pays 33% and Romney pays 18% despite the fact that Romney’s taxable income is 20 times larger than Obama’s. Long winded way of saying, that the 20% is not a mathematically indisputable number. It is in fact, inaccurate. And I do believe this – if Newt had been the nominee and was clamoring how his effective tax rate of 32% was so much higher than Obama’s – we’d all be educating him on how to correctly calculate an effective tax rate (e.g., don’t include the money you gave away to charity in your taxable income, etc.). But because we happened to be making a point we want to make – the inaccuracy is okay?? I think not.

Will this die out as an issue? Time will tell I guess but I do know that folks have taken to pretty much reading the headlines and not much else. If they walk away from the voting booth in November knowing that there are fundamental differences between Obama and Romney – great – we win and Obama stays another four years. However, if they walk away believing that Obama and Romney are pretty much the same because they both pay less taxes than their secretary – well, that’s not so good for our side.

Finally, I will cede this point. The term “lied” was too harsh and I have removed it from my blog. I’m not sure what the best term of art would be here but there is little doubt in my mind that the data was slanted to support legislation he (as well as me) wants passed. I am not naive – I know the GOP does this all the time – I don’t want to be like them. Eventually, it’ll bite us in the ass.

Take care

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 7:48 pm

Not – that is not true Choice. Here were Obama’s deductions:

STATE INCOME TAXES (31,941)
PROPERTY TAXES (26,863)
MORTGAGE INTEREST (47,564)
CHARITY (172,130)
PERSONAL EXEMPTIONS (14,800)

TOTAL (293,298)

The vast amount of his taxable income was ordinary income just like you and your husband.

Obama and Romney are not even close in terms of having the same type of income. Apparently you don’t believe me. You can get Obama’s 2011 and ROmeny 2010 tax returns anywhere on the Web – so, you don’t need to take my word for it.

And let me state this again. I am totally behind tax reform and am an ardent Obama supporter. That does not change the fact that his press release was factually incorrect

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 12:14 pm

Wow – okay – let me deal with the “liberal part” first since that is the easiest.

I am a lifetime Dem, voted for Obama, will again and think that Bill Clinton was easily the best president in the last 40 years. I am for gay marriage, against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, believe we need to immediately repeal the Bush tax cuts, eliminate the special treatment of capital gains tax, a supporter of planned parenthood (need I go on – if you don’t believe this claim – just take two secs and peruse by blog topics (www.wordsofwhizdumb.com) for the last 4 months. Let’s at least start with getting rid of the – you claim you’re a liberal”. Okay – good, we now can chat lefty to lefty – moving on.

These were Obama’s exemptions and itemized deductions:

STATE INCOME TAXES (31,941)
PROPERTY TAXES (26,863)
MORTGAGE INTEREST (47,564)
CHARITY (172,130)
PERSONAL EXEMPTIONS (14,800)

TOTAL (293,298)

We have never taxed anyone on taxes that they already paid to State and Local government. I assume that you would agree that those are not “tax loopholes”. EVERYONE – including Obama’s secretary gets a personal exemption -Obama. I assume that you would agree that those are not “tax loopholes”. Charitable donations have always been deductible because you don’t have the income to be taxed in the first place and, while it may be in your social interest, it is not in your economic interest to donate to charity. In Obama’s case, he lost a net of 67 cents for every dollar he donated (i.e., $ 1 in profit, less 33 cents in tax savings by donating that dollar = you lose a net of 67 cents). I assume that you would agree that these charitable deductions are not “tax loopholes”.

The only item that one could possibly claim as a loophole is his deduction for home interest, which – If I were king, would not be an allowable deduction (never understood while we gave folks who could afford a home better tax treatment than those who can’t). Anyway, if you recalculate his taxes removing the home interest deduction entirely, you end up with an effective tax rate for Obama of 29.82%.

I don’t think Obama is a hypocrite on taxes. I think he lied about his taxes to further a tax reform agenda. Ironically – and sadly, because he misreported his tax rate, 99% of the blogshere is now claiming he is a hypocrite on taxes.

Okay – now I have listed all the deductions Obama used to get from his $789,674 Adjusted Income to his $496,376 taxable income (the one that every damn tax book and financial expert on the planet tells you to use when calculating effective tax rates) – you tell me, which on them were the corporate, rich guys loopholes that are used to avoid paying a fair share of taxes??? Let me know, and I’ll recalculate his effective tax rate for you.

PS – as a final note, Newt Gingrich’s effective tax rate was 31%. It would have been pretty much the same as Obama’s except Obama donated far more to charity. As a lib – how do you like it that folks are walking around saying Newt pays a higher tax rate than Obama, when in fact he doesn’t?

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 11:54 am

First – thanks for the welcome Choicelady – much appreciated.

You should be concerned about “Taxable Income” – not “Adjusted Gross Income”. That is because our tax rate tables are based on Taxable Income – Not Gross income.

As a quick example, let’s say you won a $5,000 jackpot at a Dave’s casino. Your Adjusted Gross Income is $5,000. Let’s say you lost $5,000 gambling at Choice’s Casino. Your “Taxable Income” is zero. i.e., your $5k win less your $5k loss. Since your Taxable Income was $0 you had an effective rate of 0%. What the press release would say using the same logic that was used for Obama’s taxes as that you had an effective rate of 0% on $5,000 of taxable income. That of course would be silly.

My point is this – the white house knows how to calculate an effective tax rate and Obama’s was 33%. However, that did not fit the agenda as he released his tax data right before the vote on the Buffet rule. He thought it was in his political interest to report it this way even though it was a fundamentally inaccurate report.

What deductions did Obama have access to that his secretary did not? Personal exemptions? – nope – they both would have access to them – all taxpayers do. Deductions of State Income and Property taxes paid? – nope – they both get to deduct those. 401K contributions – nope – they both get to deduct those. etc.etc.

On the other hand, the primary difference between Obama and Romney is that Romney made most of his income on Capital Gains and we have a moronic tax system that says if you get your money from capital gains, that your taxes are capped at 15%.

So, why am I so pissed about this? After all, I support efforts to tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income, would have liked to see the Buffet Rule pass, etc. I am pissed for two reasons:

1. I do not want anyone, even if it is someone I support, to manipulate data towards a political end – even if I support that end.

2. I now have to listen to all my right wing friends spew on about how Romney and Obama are no different.

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 9:42 am

First – Romney’s effective tax rate – deducting all the money he gave to the church and other charities was 18%.

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 7:00 am

Hi Choice – no, it’s not that his book sales were taxed at a lower rate. It’s mostly due to the fact that he gave his book sales proceeds away to charity. If you are curious, you can see the actual calculations here on my blog post:

http://wordsofwhizdumb.com/2012/04/obama-lied-about-his-taxes-media-fails.html

Basically, the main problem is that the “effective rate” that the media and White house misled you on was derived by dividing his taxes paid by his gross income. His gross income includes all the income he gave away to charity.

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 6:54 am

I wrote the article (blog post) based on Obama’s actual tax returns. It’s not that difficult to calculate his effective rate.

Romney’s taxable income for 2010 (last available)is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/romney-2010-tax-return.htmlr 2010

His taxable income was $17,120,067. His taxes were $3,106,043. His effective tax rate was 18.1%. Why was is so much lower than Obama’s? – Easy – almost $13 million of Romney’s income is from capital gains, which are only taxed at 15%.

The story should have been Obama pays an effective tax rate of 33% Romney at 18% – that would have been apples to apples

» Posted By eldave1 On April 30, 2012 @ 6:46 am

Obama’s tax rate was almost 33% – not the 20% reported by the White house.

http://wordsofwhizdumb.com/2012/04/obama-lied-about-his-taxes-media-fails.html

In my view, the misreporting of his true tax rate is due to (a) a lazy an uninterested media and (b) Obama’s desire to use his tax return as ammunition for passage of the Buffet rule.

In terms of “b” – I think the strategy backfired as now most comments or news articles and and blog postings are of the nature of – Obama is a hypocrite – really no different than Romney. All in all I think it was a huge PR disaster at best and just out and out dishonest at worst. I am a certifiable lefty, but when our side bends the truth we need to call it out.

» Posted By eldave1 On April 29, 2012 @ 6:59 pm