Harry Reid Responds to Republican "Henchmen" and "Cowards"

Harry Reid has responded to all the Republican accusations on the Sunday Talk Shows, as posted here: Journalism Derp and Question Fail

Give 'em Hell, Harry Reid!!!

From Politico

“They’re a bunch of cowards and they’re avoiding the issue,” said David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff, in an interview with POLITICO on Sunday night. “Lindsey Graham, Reince Priebus - they’re a bunch of henchmen for Romney and they’re all reading off the same talking points. They couldn’t hold a candle to Harry Reid.”

Krone added: “What Harry Reid said is the fact of what he was told. To turn it around, all their childish rants this weekend about calling Reid a ‘liar’ and all that, it just shows you how scared they are that Harry Reid was telling the truth.”

Via Talking Points Memo

Late Sunday morning, Reid’s spokesman Adam Jentleson responded via email to TPM.

“Republicans can try to cover up for Mitt Romney’s stonewalling all they want, but this issue is not going away until Romney decides to be straight with the American people and release his tax returns. It is sad that the most secretive candidate since Richard Nixon has forced his party to defend his decision to hide the truth about his tax returns. As Senator Reid has said, an extremely credible source informed him that Mitt Romney did not pay taxes for ten years. From the one year of returns Romney has released, we’ve seen that he uses secret offshore accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands to avoid paying U.S. taxes. It’s clear Mitt Romney is hiding something, and the only way for him to clear this up is to be straight with the American people and release his tax returns.”

Some stories are so juicy that you wish they would never end. I almost hope Mitt Romney never releases his income taxes so that Harry Reid can keep the Republicans in an uproar about this, Sunday after Sunday, till the election, LOL.

Sunday Talk Shows ~ Journalism Derp and Question Fail

The Sunday talk shows were horrible this week, with even seasoned journalists lined up in bipartisan support with Republican pundits, trying to save Mitt Romney from the dastardly clutches of the evil Harry Reid, who dared ask the national candidate to do something every other politician or federal employee has to do and release his taxes.

Both Bob Schieffer and George Will said Reid is practicing McCarthyism. Hmmm, I don't remember them ever saying anything about Michele Bachmann and her witch hunts.

. . . isn't this kind of like Joe McCarthy back in the era when he said, "I have here in my hand the names of 400 people in the state department who are communist?" It turned out he didn't and he was saying the way to prove that they're not is for them to come forward here. I mean, asking somebody to come forward to, to just because there's been an unsubstantiated charge, that's a little thin to me.
~ Bob Schieffer on CBS Face the Nation

Look, in 1950, Joe McCarthy went to West Virginia, didn’t know what to tell to the Women’s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, so he said I have in my hand a list of 205, we think that are — 205 communists in the State Department. Didn’t have a list. Harry Reid doesn’t have any evidence either. This is McCarthyism from the desert (ph).
~ Republican pundit, George Will on This Week

Nice to see you both got your talking points straight, fellas. Does Reince Priebus email them to you directly? And speaking of our favorite Republican leader (not), here is Priebus on ABC This Week calling Reid a "dirty liar" and saying he hasn't released his taxes either. Oh yeah?

RNC Chairman, Reince Priebus: And as far as Harry Reid is concerned, listen, I know you might want to go down that road, I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself. Complains about people with money but lives in the Ritz Carlton here down the street. So if that’s on the agenda, I’m not going to respond to that. This is just a made-up issue. And the fact that we’re going to spend any time talking about it is ridiculous.
George Stephanopolous: Mr. Chairman, you say you're not going to respond, but you just called him a 'dirty liar.' You stand by that, you think Harry Reid is a dirty liar?”
Priebus: I just said it.
ABC News This Week with George Stephanopolous

Most Democrats were probably screaming the obvious point at the TV, which Stephanopoulos ignored - it's easy to prove whether Reid has released his taxes as a member of the Senate. Why didn't George just say that? And you know what? Reid has released his taxes for many years.  Going back to 1995. Yet George Stephanopoulos didn't question that outrageous statement at all, even after cuckoo Ann Coulter repeated the lie, and she was babbling like an idiot.

Must be a good gig to get on these shows and lie your brains out week after week with no "journalist" to call you on it. Coulter also tried to deflect the criticism back on Obama and even on Bill Clinton for some unknown reason, but all of it still begs the question of why Coulter  is so afraid for Romney to release his taxes. She might as well have been talking to herself for all the questioning anyone gave her. She even implied that people are asking for Romney's taxes because he is a Mormon, which is absurd because Harry Reid is also a Mormon, LOL. Derp de Derp.

He absolutely should not release any more tax returns. He has released two years. Bill Clinton wouldn’t release his medical records. You know, people kind of wondered about that. We know after the JFK presidency, you could have an issue with a drug addict president, but he just dug in his heels. We have two years on Romney. You know perfectly well, the media, this is Obama’s modus operandi, and unfortunately Romney isn’t divorced. Hopefully, his vice presidential candidate won’t be divorced. It’s always dirty politics. You remember when Romney was — or Obama was running against McCain and Sarah Palin. What did we get? False rumors of a McCain affair. We had investigations into the Palin marriage, claims they were getting divorced. They have nothing on this Mormon, and they want his tax records. If they releases 10 years, they’ll demand 20 years.
~ Ann Coulter on This Week

Everyone expects Coulter to sound like a partisan wingnut, but what about a so-called "Senior White House Reporter," in this case Jonathan Karl of ABC News? What's his excuse for protecting Romney? And how does this guy "know" that Mitt Romney paid any taxes at all? He doesn't know!

It's one of the most outrageous charges that I've ever seen actually made on the Senate Floor. . . . When Harry Reid takes to the floor of the Senate and makes this outrageous charge that has absolutely no evidence. . . I mean Mitt Romney paid $3 million in the one tax return we've seen. He's paid taxes, so it's a completely false charge.
But Reid loves this. The Democrats love this. Because no matter how he digs in, no matter how much he gets attacked, you know - here or by John Stewart - or anywhere else, it gets the story out there again and again.
And I tell you - Mitt Romney played right into this by telling Harry Reid to 'put up or shut up,' so it becomes this back-and-forth. Instead, he should have laughed it off, he should have made a joke about Harry Reid's imaginary friend, and moved on . . .
Jonathan Karl, ABC senior White House reporter, on This Week

Over on CNN, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC, also called Reid a liar, and "journalist" Candy Crowley was just too busy and in a hurry to ask any follow-up questions. *snort* What a joke! These alleged "interviews" are like little commericials for the Mitt Romney campaign.

Senator Lindsey Graham: I think he's lying about his statement about knowing something about Romney's . . .
Candy Crowley of CNN: That's pretty stiff. You think the leader of the Senate is lying?
Lindsey Graham: I really do - I think he's created an issue here, I think he's making things up. And at a time when the country is just about to fall apart.
. . . I just can't believe that the Senate Majority Leader would take the floor twice, make accusations that are absolutely unfounded in my view, and quite frankly making things up. . . .
Candy Crowley: Senator Lindsey Graham, I wish we had more time. I've got to run. Thank you so much.
From CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley

Of course, CNN as usual had "two sides" so everything could cancel out evenly, and at least Robert Gibbs got in a few lines of truth:

We can put all of this to rest tomorrow. Mitt Romney can go to Kinko’s, he can photocopy his tax returns, they’re several hundred pages. He can hand them out to people like CNN, he can hand them out to reporters all over the country, and you know what? We wouldn’t talk about this tomorrow.
~ Robert Gibbs on CNN, quoted by Politico

Indeed! Come on Mitt - show us the taxes!!!

The Fierce and "Decent" Harry Reid

Who would have thought that the Democrat who would finally throw down the gauntlet and not back down an inch on Romney's taxes would be the usually reticent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? And this story is getting bigger and bigger almost by the hour.

Harry Reid to Huffington Post

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said, in reference to George Romney's standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s.

Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

"You guys have said his wealth is $250 million," Reid went on. "Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

On Wednesday, Reid spoke out again on the Senate Floor, repeating his accusation that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in ten years.

So, the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. We already know from one partial tax return that he gave us, he has money hidden in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and a Swiss banking account. Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more.

Then he told reporters that he has more than once source to back up his claim.

LA Times Story

In a conference call with Nevada reporters on Wednesday, he broadened what he said were his sources for the contention that Romney was able to avoid federal taxes.

"I have had a number of people tell me that," said Reid, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, while refusing to elaborate. "I don't think the burden should be on me," Reid told the home-state reporters. "The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn't he release his tax returns?”
On Thursday morning, Reid said that a nominee for a Cabinet position couldn't get confirmed by the Senate if he made as limited a release of tax information as Romney has thus far.
"Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn't," Reid declared, then adding that “Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more

This is throwing the Romney camp for a loop - and as we know, it doesn't take much to get them into a tizzy of alleged victimization by the mean old Democrats. Romney said on Sean Hannity via Mediaite:

Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry’s going to have to describe who it is he spoke with, because, of course, that’s completely and totally wrong. It’s untrue, dishonest, and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources, and we’ll probably find out it’s the White House.

Also on Thursday, Romney spokesperson Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom accused Reid of "McCarthyism," which is rich coming from a campaign that has ignored the witch hunts of Michelle Bachmann and her pals.

Harry Reid's statements are baseless and untrue, and I would ask him one simple question - 'Have you no sense of decency, Sir?' Is there nothing that you won't do to debase yourself and the office you hold, in the name of dirty politics? . . . This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s.

From Huffington Post

"I don't think there is anything behind it. He hasn't produced any evidence," Fehrnstrom said Thursday in an interview with Fox News. "I'm telling you speaking on behalf of the governor that those charges are untrue, they are baseless and there is nothing to back them up."
"This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s," he added.
Fehrnstrom's line, "Have you no decency, sir?" is a paraphrase of what Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in 1954, when he famously stood up to the powerful, witch-hunting senator who was falsely accusing people of being Communists.

On this issue, not only is Reid standing fast, but he is practically begging the media to keep talking about Romney's taxes, and especially to investigate people at Bain who would know the truth.

The elegant flourish of the whole thing is that Romney can't complain that people are picking on him because he is a Mormon, since Reid is also a Mormon. Ann Romney tried to play that card in the "You People" interview in which she mentioned tithing to the church, and how that meant they could be trusted on the tax issue. But it doesn't really work when another Mormon is saying it, plus where are all the other Mormons out there who should be speaking out on Romney's behalf? *crickets*

Tonight both CNN and MSNBC covered the tax return issue for hours. Lawrence O'Donnell offered a Romney-tax montage and discussion, while CNN's Dana Bash told Anderson Cooper that Reid's sources are good or he wouldn't be standing firm.

Mitt Romney could "shut up" Harry Reid. Mitt Romney could "shut up" all of us by doing what every presidential candidate does and show his tax returns. Every day that Mitt Romney refuses to show his tax returns costs him politically and therefore logically casts more and more suspicion on why he is not releasing his tax returns.
~ Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC


Tax Montage & Discussion from Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

 

Transcript: Dana Bash on CNN's Anderson Cooper, August 2, 2012

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We now have a couple of responses, Anderson. Let me read you the first one, that is, "Senator Reid stands by his comments. Governor Romney's continued refusal to release his tax returns raises legitimate questions about what he is hiding and whether he paid any taxes at all. Governor Romney can easily end this debate by following the precedent set by his father and releasing his tax returns."

And as you were coming on the air, Anderson, I got a follow-up like the statement, which also stands by what they call his credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for 10 years, and he's calling Romney playing tricks, many tricks at his disposal for avoiding taxes. So not backing down at all.

I got to tell you, covering Harry Reid for a lot of years, there are times when he says things off the cuff that make his aides wince, like talking smelly tourists in the capitol. I'm not making this up. This is not one of those times.

This is one of those times where he knows exactly what he's doing. He's doing it on purpose. He's doing it for political reasons because he wants this issue, Romney's taxes, to be talked about on programs like yours, and wants it to be headlines in newspapers, and wants Mitt Romney to respond on this issue, which they think is a negative for Romney as opposed to issues that Romney wants to talk about.

. . . But this is -- when Harry Reid doesn't like somebody, he goes for the jugular. And that is what he is doing now. He is an old boxer and he still likes to be a political street fighter. He knew full well that he was going to be questioned over and over again on who his source was. And he said -- he's told people close to him who I have spoken today that he didn't care. He's not telling going to tell who his source is.

But I did speak, I just have to tell you, that I did speak to one source who's very close to Senator Reid who claims to also know who this Bain investor is that Reid spoke with, and insists that this is a credible person and this person if we knew the name we would understand that they would have the authority and the ability to know about Romney's tax returns. Whether we'll find it out ever, who knows. But they're doing this on purpose so that this is the discussion.