We Coulda Been Talking about Tax Returns

A couple of weeks ago, you may recall Ann Romney said that she and her husband wouldn't be releasing any more of his tax returns;

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"
-- ABC News

Of course, this led me to ponder other things, since there weren't decades of financial disclosures to analyze.  And I mused about the secret goings-on of his religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

When the South Florida Daily Blog linked the story, some anonymous commenter tried to paint me as some kind of latter-day Nazi.

Anonymous said...

Man or maniac sounds just like the nazis did in the twenties and thirties. I'll bet he won't attack Islam like he attacks the LDS.

July 23, 2012 11:15 AM

And I replied to that remark, and in that reply I made an offer;

C.L.J said...

...I'll be glad to post more information regarding their activities that they don't want the general public worrying about. Like why they're so interested in Genealogy.

July 23, 2012 7:30 PM

But by pro-active use of procrastination (put off a task long enough, and it will finish itself), I find that other outlets have picked up the story.

Romney Keeps Mum on Mormon Baptism of Jews
Pressure builds to respond to baptism of Nazi-hunter's parents
A researcher discovered that the late parents of famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal were baptized in Mormon ceremonies in Utah and Arizona last month. "Can you believe it?" a stunned Wiesel asked on MSNBC yesterday. Wiesel was also placed on the Mormon to-be-baptized list.

That's right; the Mormons are baptizing dead people into their faith.  The story continues:

The Mormons believe people can be baptized after death, and baptized hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims until they agreed to stop the practice in 1995. They have also baptized Anne Frank, Josef Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, notes MSNBC.

Technically, Mormons are only supposed to baptize ancestors, but obviously that has been loosely interpreted.

This is why they are so interested in Genealogy; once someone has been accepted into the faith, they trace that person's entire lineage so they can baptize every single one of their ancestors to make everyone in the family a member of their religion.

From  Mormon.org:

We learn in the New Testament that baptisms for the dead were done during the Apostle Paul’s time (see 1Corinthians 15:29). This practice has been restored with the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because all who have lived on the earth have not had the opportunity to be baptized by proper authority during life on earth, baptisms may be performed by proxy...

Baptisms for the dead are performed by Church members in temples throughout the world.

Now, if you don't have any religious convictions, this probable sounds like much ado about nothing.  It's not like they're digging up graves, or desecrating tombs.

But if you take your religion seriously, then this is an inexcusable attack on the sacred dead.  It's nothing less than spiritual abduction; the dead are not consulted, they are simply taken.  It's kidnapping.  It's rape.

The church insists the deceased have "the right to choose" whether to accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
-- The Huffington post

Do they really?  I can't recall the last time a dead person actually made any informed decision outside of their Last Will and Testament. 

Tell you what, let's ask Harry Houdini, the great magician and close friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Doyle, as you may know, was an avid spiritualist, while Houdini was a skeptic who spent the last years of his life debunking Spiritualism and exposing the trickery used by mediums and mentalists to con their patrons.

"I've said everything I intended to say from beyond the grave to Arthur Conan Doyle."

"But Harry - you didn't say anything!"

"EXACTLY!"

Dead men tell no tales, and they certainly can't ask to be baptized into the secretive Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Nor can the dead tell the Mormons to stop what they're doing.  That's part of the whole "being dead" thing. But that won't stop Mormons from doing it anyway.  After all, the dead are also very poor at holding public demonstrations.

Until the zombie apocalypse, that is.  
At which point, feel free to baptize as many as you can.

Right about now, I'll bet the Romneys are wishing they'd distracted us with two decades of tax documents instead of leaving us all this time to wonder about other stuff.

"All" that "You People Need To Know"

During a recent interview on ABC News, Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, had heard enough questions about her family's tax returns.

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"

"We've given you people all you need to know" she concluded. 

It seems that the Romneys are afraid that if we saw more tax returns, we'd come up with things that we could attack them on.  Of course, we already have reasons to question this.  She just told us something in this interview.

Ann wants us to remember that Mitt gives ten percent of his income - whatever it is - to his church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Mormon church. 

"He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year."

That sounds impressive, doesn't it?  So much more than the handful of bills that most members of the real ^those other^ Christian denominations throw into the collection basket when it's passed around the church; I doubt it's anywhere near 10%. 

it's still cheaper than a movie ticket.

But she's kind of glossing over the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints requires its members to tithe 10% of their income to the church. So that 10% isn't, as Mrs. Romney would have us believe, due to his charitable nature.  It's a commandment of his religion, not a philanthropic act.  This isn't a demonstration of his generous nature, it's adherence to the dictates of his religion.

His is a secretive religion, doing secretive things with the 10% of whatever Romney earns in a year.  They build huge temples that look like Disney had a hand in designing, fairy-tale palaces forbidden to the likes of you and I. 

"Someday My Prince Will Come - and I will be one of his brides!"

They are forbidden to unclean outsiders like us because of the secrets they house.  Secret rooms, holding the secret golden tablets that Joseph Smith says he plowed up out of the ground, written in a secret language.  A secret language that issues secret commandments.

They even have secret underwear.  I am not making this up; the Mormons have secret underwear they put on while performing their secret rituals in secret places you and I will never get to see.

Even the pope doesn't have secret underwear.

He wears tighty-whiteys, of course.
No, really, that's what he wears.

Of course, if you go to the LDS website, they have this on their FAQ.  "It's not secret," the website reports.  "It's just sacred.  Not secret.  Sacred.  Like a yarmulke.  It's just a sacred garment worn during certain rituals"

Of course, they don't explain or describe the garments, or where to get them. They don't even allow pictures of the garments.

...unlike Yarmulkes, the totally not-secret sacred head-wear of the Jews.
And Muslims.  And some Catholics.

Thanks, Mrs. Romney, I'm glad you called our attention to your husband's ongoing financial contributions to underwrite the secret goings-on of your strange church that is so full of so many secrets.  I'm sure my fellow Americans will rest easy now that they understand that just because you're keeping some things secret, it doesn't mean there aren't a lot more creepy secrets about you that we didn't even think about before.

Adler Tells an Old Tale

As I've been following the Rothstein ponzi scheme story, something about the the defense by the partners at Rothstein-Rosenfeldt-Adler Law Firm  seemed familiar.  And then when I read the article in The BizJournal about Russel Adler, I realized that I did know the story.

Charles, Lord Lichtman, is solicitor general for His Royal Majesty, The Emperor.

He is no fan of Russell, Lord BlackAdler, and his fiendish companion, the blackhearted Baldrickstein.  Lord Lichtman has been biding his time, knowing that Lord Russell's swagger will lead him to the scene of the crime.

But BlackAdler is as slippery as his venomous namesake, and in the timeworn tradition of thugs and thieves, has arranged matters so that his henchman, Baldricstein, will take the fall for the foul crime.

Lord Lichtman:  Lord BlackAdler, the Emperor has ordered that be you held for trial and face charges for defrauding the Crown by selling His Majesty imaginary clothes, while insisting they were in fact real clothes.

Black Adler: Oh, yes, Scott Baldricstein had me completely fooled.

Lord Lichtman: Excuse me?

Black Adler:  Oh yes, I had no idea that the clothes weren't real.

Lord Lichtman:  Do you expect us to believe that you didn't know that the clothes didn't exist?

Black Adler: Well, the governor and the sheriff didn't know.  Why should I have been expected to know?

Lord Lichtman: Really?  This is your defense?

BlackAdler: My dear Lord Lichtman, I assure you that I am as innocent as a suckling child.

Lord Lichtman:  Didn't you work on the clothes?

BlackAdler: Well, not as much as Baldricstein.  He sewed them together.  He's quite skilled.  I've little talent for manual labour, as you may know.

Lord Lichtman:  So what was your part in the affair?

BlackAdler: Management and administration, mostly.  Tried to modernize the old place, cut the red tape, go green, all of that - I made the firm paperless.

Lord Lichtman: In fact, did you not accomplish your "paperless office" simply by burning all of the firm's records?

BlackAdler: It was cold; I recycled them into heat.  Waste not, want not, that's what I always say.

Lord Lichtman: But getting back to the Emperors non-existent -

BlackAdler: - situationally invisible -

Lord Lichtman:  - NON EXISTENT - wardrobe, did you not have an active part in that?

BlackAdler:  Well, I did cut them to the pattern of course.

Lord Lichtman:  You... cut them to pattern.

BlackAdler: The pattern Baldricstein created. Yes.

Lord Lichtman:  You took scissors to the cloth....

BlackAdler: Yes.

Lord Lichtman:  ...and then you cut the cloth....

BlackAdder: Yes.

Lord Lichtman:  ...even though there was no cloth to cut.

BlackAdler: Well, I had no reason to know that.  I know, in hindsight, I suppose it does look rather foolish.  But you must understand, Baldricstein was so caught up with the styles and colours, and sales were so good...

Lord Lichtman: Sales?  You mean the sales of clothing that didn't exist?

BlackAdler:  The customers were always so pleased with their purchases.

Lord Lichtman: But you weren't selling them anything!

BlackAdler:  How was I to know that?  Everyone seemed to think they were buying stylish clothes, everyone has their own tastes, who am I to say different?  "To Each His Own."

Lord Lichtman:  In fact,  your firm never purchased cloth of any sort. Or thread.

BlackAdler: We had a sewing machine, and I used the scissors myself.

Lord Lichtman: On non-existent cloth.

BlackAdler:  So you say.  Baldricstein said it was "situationally invisible."

Lord Lichtman:  "Situationally Invisible."

BlackAdler:  Exactly.

Lord Lichtman:  And what does that mean?

BlackAdler:  In certain situations, you can't see it.

Lord Lichtman:  "Certain Situations."

Black Adler: Exactly.

Lord Lichtman:  Such as?

BlackAdler:  Well, this is according to Baldricstein, you understand,  if you were stupid, incompetent, or unfit for your position, you wouldn't be able to see the cloth.  That's what he maintained, anyway, and he was running the show.

Lord Lichtman:  And you went along with this?

BlackAdler: Well, I didn't want to appear stupid.  After all, the Governor liked them well enough.  He spoke highly of their fine textures and draping.  I'd like to believe that I'm at least as smart as the Governor.

Lord Lichtman: Wasn't the Governor an old friend of Baldricsteins?

Baldricstein:  You know, I do believe you're right.

(With apologies to Hans Christian Anderson and Rowan Atkinson)

..Coinky Dink?

We're told that Florida is in a severe drought, not six months after a prior two year drought had supposedly ended.

The Republicans maintain that there is no global warming.

With a continuing drought, water levels plummeting, and the planet heating up, it's possible that Earth could become a desert planet.

Like Tatooine.

Tatooine, a desert planet, is ruled by cruel and greedy Hutts.

And who, just by random happenstance, is revealed to be the actual leader of the Republican Party?

Coincidence? I don't think so.