Rachel Maddow says John Kerry and Apple computer are unpatriotic [Reader Post]

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From HuffPo:

Rachel Maddow: Romney Has ‘Issues Of Patriotism’ Due To Offshore Accounts

Now pay attention carefully. Maddow went after John Mica about Mitt Romney’s offshore accounts:

Rachel Maddow grilled Florida Congressman John Mica about whether Mitt Romney’s personal finances and work at Bain Capital were “unpatriotic” on Tuesday night.

and this one especially

Before the polls closed in the Florida primary, Maddow put Romney supporter Mica in the hot seat about another controversial aspect of Romney’s finances: his offshore accounts. She asked if he thought that the candidate’s holdings in “notorious tax havens” raised “issues of patriotism.”

Now let’s note that Maddow is specific- having offshore accounts is “unpatriotic.” It’s in the title.

OK, now who else has had offshore accounts?

1. John Kerry

Democrats were pushing for tax reform in 1984, and Lieutenant Governor John F. Kerry, candidate for US Senate, had some ideas.

“You need a major overhaul of the tax structure,” Kerry told a panel of reporters on a May 6 broadcast of WBZ-TV (Channel 4). “You need to close crazy loopholes that are non-productive.”

Though he did not share it at the time, Kerry had recently learned a costly lesson about loopholes in the tax code.

Weeks before that interview, Kerry, by his own account now, had jettisoned an investment of between $25,000 and $30,000 in an exotic tax shelter after his accountant questioned its legitimacy. In an interview with the Globe, Kerry acknowledged that fear of political embarrassment was a factor in his decision to swallow the loss.

Until now, Kerry has never disclosed details of this tax shelter, which utilized offshore companies registered in the Cayman Islands and a “straddle” scheme of forward contracts to buy and sell commodities, apparently worth up to $238,527.

2. Apple Computer

Apple (AAPL) has accumulated a whopping $54 billion of its $82 billion offshore. More startling, the company’s foreign coffers are increasing three times faster than its U.S. cash, and the trend is accelerating rather than plateauing. While nowhere near starving for capital, Apple’s growth potential is more constrained here than offshore simply because capital production is more efficient overseas. Apple’s wiser using pre-U.S. tax foreign money to make an investment than using its American cash. For example, it’s far easier for Apple to swallow ARM Holdings (ARMH) than Broadcom (BRCM) although both have similar market capitalizations.

3. Microsoft

Microsoft (MSFT) is even more lopsided in its cash position: $51 billion of its $57 billion in cash resides frustratingly offshore. In its 10K, the company explains its options to complete significant acquisitions or share repurchases: costly tax repatriations, debt or equity offerings. So far, Microsoft has not touched its foreign cash, opting to borrow $11 billion to fund its discretionary needs. The $51 billion sits tantalizing out of reach without incurring additional taxes. Microsoft may find itself struggling to increase its dividend without either borrowing money or accessing this offshore capital.

4. Cisco

Reportedly, when President Obama asked John Chambers how to jump start the economy, Cisco’s CEO suggested a tax repatriation holiday on overseas profits.

Indeed, for Cisco (CSCO), overseas cash is a big deal. Cisco holds a greater share of its money overseas than either Apple or Microsoft: $40.6 billion of its $44.6 billion cash.

Cisco has been quickly accumulating foreign capital: Since 2005, off-shore cash has risen almost four fold. Cisco’s approach to its foreign largesse: Hands off. The company meets its financial needs by borrowing money. In 2005, Cisco had no debt. Since, debt has increased to $16 billion. Cisco is a multibillionaire abroad, but here at home, it’s hungry for capital.

According to Maddow, John Kerry and these corporations are “unpatriotic.”

Not content to limit how big a fool she is, Maddow goes on to pound Romney for his taxes

Romney’s career and wealth, of course, have both been hot button issues in the campaign. The candidate released his 2010 tax return after much criticism about his reluctance to do so. The return revealed that he earned $21.7 million in 2010, and paid a lower tax rate than someone who earns $50,000 a year.

John Kerry paid a lower rate then Romney the year he ran for President.

What’s ever funnier is watching the creatures over at HuffPo twisting themselves in knots trying to assert that it’s different when these things are done by someone other than a Republican.

logic63

“we are talking about romney here. Kerry is old news and that was up to you to yell if you were opposed to him. Did you?”

htowncarrie

“Well, John Kerry didn’t become president and neither should Mitt.

LiberalDemIda

“Uh…is John Kerry running for president? No? Go play outside.”

If it wasn’t wrong for Kerry, it is not wrong for Romney either.

This really is hysterical. Once again it proves my axiom that liberals have zero long term memory. And they’re not very much for principle either.

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My first reaction would be, “Rachel, can I see your glasses?” And then point out that there were made in Germany or China…

Is this hideous creature actually Jay Carney in drag??

The Kennedy funds are in off shore accounts, too. The lefties love to call out others, but forget about their own issues. Actually, they depend upon their brainless supporters to follow their every word with out question. “Vote for us, we will take care of you!” You can see that here with the continuing dismissal of “facts” refuting AGW in post after post.

To add to your list of John Kerry hypocrisy about a year ago it was discovered that Kerry was berthing his yacht in Rhode Island to avoid paying taxes in Massachusetts.

Global business often keep large amounts of funds in other countries for many purposes. Its protects against the fluctuation of the dollar. It its easier, quicker, and cheaper then covering funds in the foreign exchange market. Being a global company, many large companies have divisions outside the United States and keep their funds in local currency. The only time they actually convert funds is usually when profits are reported back to the parent company. There are so many reasons a company would rather finance operations then just put the cash up……..

I will bet that Maddow doesn’t realize her own network probably keeps funds in foreign accounts for the purpose of having quick cash to fund news coverage in there area.

I’ll admit the left-wing hysteria machine is as bad as the right-wing’s.

Well, thank goodness she made the distinction between “unpatriotic” offshore accounts and those famous tax dodge accounts in Delaware.*
Phew!
Wouldn’t want to have to lump Joe Biden and all the Delaware tax dodgers into the ”unpatriotic” swamp.
LOL!

*A wedge-shaped chunk of land 96 miles long sitting halfway between Washington and New York, the state of Delaware is home to 870,000 people, 0.3% of the US population. But more than half of the nation’s publicly traded companies are incorporated here, including 60% of the Fortune 500 firms. One anonymous office block serves as the registered address of more than 200,000 corporations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/10/tax-havens-blacklist-us-delaware

@Liberal1 (objectivity): The word here is hypocrisy The left wing hypocrisy is historical and nearly unbelievable.

@Liberal1 (objectivity): I think hell just froze over

@Curt:

It doesn’t really matter that Liberal1 stated that, as he will still use some irrational justification that absolves the left of doing the same thing he derides the right for. As Randy said, it is hypocrisy.

Laugh all you want. They say this stupid ignorant crap without fear or embarassment because it works. It almost always works. You are not the intended audience. They are talking to someone else.

Always remember: The typical voter is a low-information voter. Misleading sound bites work. A bunch of talking heads all repeating the same lie in an orchestrated fashion creates the illusion of consensus.

I love it when she puts on those nerdy schoolboy glasses…

Bag(R) Echo-nomics:
Ask not what your co(R)po(R)ation can do for your country, ask what you country can do for your co(R)po(R)ation … eh!?

Snerd

What is that thing? Has it’s species been identified yet?

Harry Potter sure grew up to be ugly. What? Oh. Nevermind.

The only problem that the right has with Rachel Maddow is that she’s intelligent, perceptive, articulate, funny, and aims her criticisms with laser sights. I’m sure no one minds that she’s openly gay.

Romney is worth a cool quarter of a billion dollars. He dodges taxes by keeping corporate transactions and profits offshore–on paper, at least. That, in spite of the fact that much of his income is subject to lower tax rates than wages or other regular income to begin with.

Is that unpatriotic? Probably no more so than moving U.S. factories and millions of U.S. jobs overseas to increase your profit margins. Besides, it’s all perfectly legal.

The only problem that the right has with Rachel Maddow is that she’s intelligent, perceptive, articulate, funny, and aims her criticisms with laser sights. I’m sure no one minds that she’s openly gay.

She is none of those things. She is another loony leftist foaming over with hatred and bigotry. Sexual orientation is irrelevant, but greg knows that. He is happy to whore himself out for the left.

I think she’s more into humor and irony than hatred and bigotry, but she’ll cheerfully hold up a mirror in the face of either. People are sometimes startled by their own reflections, which they often fail to recognize.

@Greg: You are right Greg, everyone laughs at her. After her reports, she needs Paul Harvey to “tell the rest of the story”!

@Silverfiddle: Thats Maddow? I thought it was the kid from the Wonder Years. Maybe I should retract my e-mail sent to the editor for providing a photo that had nothing to do with the subject.

Rachel Maddow has been promoting a proposed NYC ticker-tape parade to honor returned Iraq veterans since December 23rd. This is the second segment from the Rachel Maddow Show on Thursday. A third segment was devoted to the issue tonight.

So where’s the coverage been on FOX? Where’s the conservative support? We can’t get wide bi-partisan agreement even on something like this?

@Greg: FOX commented on the fact that Bloomberg nixed the parade while they praised the two guys in ST Louis! You really need to know what you are talking about before you open your mouth Greg. Oh wait, didn’t we just comment on this in another thread? Yes, it was about the lefties spouting off about others when they are as guilty! In other words, they are grossly misinformed, ignorant or deliberately misleading others.

The graphs on the unemployment rate looks like Michael Mann’s hockey stick turned down. Line Mike’s AGW hockey, when something looks fishy, it likely is. Wonder where all of those 1.2 million workers went? Likely they went overseas along with their employers who moved due to Obama’s fiscal, environmental and energy policies..

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/02/january_unemployment_report_the_devil_is_in_the_details.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/record-12-million-people-fall-out-labor-force-one-month-labor-force-participation-rate-tumbles-
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000071275

@Greg: You said:

The only problem that the right has with Rachel Maddow is that she’s intelligent, perceptive, articulate, funny, and aims her criticisms with laser sights.

Um, I think you might need to borrow her glasses, there Greggie.

If she is so all-fired “intelligent, perceptive, articulate” and “funny,” why can’t she even draw 300,000 viewers?

But it is no wonder that you gravitate to her, Greggie. She is the poster child for hypocrisy and disingenuous reporting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkB65srEH9w

@anticsrocks: We really need Greg and Larry here. Life would be so boring if we didn’t have to prove how right we right really are!

@Randy: LOL, you’re right!

@Hard Right:

Hard Right: “… [Greg] is happy to whore himself out for the left.”

Snerd: Well … that explains the ‘hard’ part …

@Greg:

Greg, Maddow has been calling for a parade for the returning vets, since December. FOX will do the same, once they can find the ‘hate Obama’ purchase in it ….

Snerd

In one way this is really weird and almost McCarthy-esque.
Remember when Bush was president and ”patriotism,” was almost a dirty word?

Then the rhetorical turnaround happened:
There were people burning flags and holding signs against every Bush policy (aped by Obama in his 1st 3 years) while shouting,”Don’t question my patriotism!”

With the McCarthy hearings it was not the term ”patriotism” that was tarred, it was the then-new term, ”un-American.”
Now, to this day, the term un-American is the most derogatory term in politics.
But catching up fast is the term unpatriotic.
And Obama is doing his best to put ‘‘unfair” right up there, too.

But, going back to that classic movie, The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya said it all: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I do not question Rachel M’s Americanism, patriotism or even her fairness, I simply wonder if she knows what the words she uses mean.

Facts are stumbling blocks to militant leftists like Maddow
They are simple minded people with a simple minded view of the world and humanity in general.
Thomas Sowell says they have an unconstrained vision of humanity as opposed to the conservative constrained vision which allows for more in the way of wishful thinking on the part of leftists and more in the way of realistic solutions to social and economic problems on the part of conservatives.

Patriotism was never a dirty word. Some people just deplore seeing patriotic sentiments being appealed to with ulterior motives. A lot of unworthy motives have been wrapped in the flag over the years in an effort to sell them to the public. The same thing is sometimes done with religion.

@Gregie: You said:

A lot of unworthy motives have been wrapped in the flag over the years in an effort to sell them to the public. The same thing is sometimes done with religion.

You mean a religion like Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ appeared Wednesday on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and leveled some serious accusations against global warming skeptics. Nye said that not adhering to a belief in anthropomorphic global warming constitutes unpatriotic behavior and also that skepticism of global warming claims is equivalent to “denying science.” In the beginning of the interview Nye said that skepticism of global warming was “almost unpatriotic” and at the end he said he found skeptical behavior “inappropriate” and reiterated that his intellectual opponents are not sufficiently American. Host Rachel Maddow seemingly agreed with Nye, indicating that she shared his feelings on the matter. – Source

“I thought it should look more modern instead of being retro, because the impacts of climate change are in the future,” Immen tells Co.Design. “I also wanted it to stand out and be visible from a distance, so I used bold colors inspired by the Obama campaign.” The hawk imagery was obvious enough: “This whole notion of ‘hawkish” references the military and patriotism, which are concepts that have become disassociated from the idea of taking climate change seriously”Source

They also found that in climate change framing environmentalism as patriotic can be more effective than appealing to fear as a motive.Source

One of their latest projects is the Green Patriot Bus Ads, designed by world-famous, Cleveland-born artist Michael Bierut. This month, more than 60 buses were released into the streets of Cleveland to encourage what they call “Green Patriotism”. – Source

Hmm, seems you might be correct about patriotism being used to foist a false agenda upon an unsuspecting public…

@Greg:

The same thing is sometimes done with religion.

Are you talking about Obama’s recent comments about Jesus and giving and government?