I could make five diaries an hour about this...
From Examiner.com (among a whole slew of RW outlets):
After spending days pounding on presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney for having a Swiss bank account, disclosure forms show that DNC boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz also had funds in a Swiss bank account at one time.
Sounds damning. Except it's not. And I'll tell you why, right after the fleur-de-kos.
Because you see, here is the little bit of information that the right is using to smear the DNC chair:
Disclosure forms show that in 2010, "Wasserman Schultz invested between $1,001-$15,000 in a 401k retirement fund run by Davis Financial Fund. As the fund discloses, it is invested in the Julius Baer Group Ltd. and the State Bank of India GDR Ltd., as well as other financial, insurance, bank institutions," Halper added.
Disclosure forms from 2004 also show that she had holdings in the Fidelity Advisor Overseas Fund, a fund with investments in a number of foreign institutions, including a Swiss luxury goods company.
Okay. Let's just be blunt here.
Buying into a mutual fund, or a hedge fund, or an exchange-traded fund with foreign exposure is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM HAVING MONEY IN A SWISS BANK ACCOUNT.
I'm a stockbroker, and I use foreign investments. I'm certainly not doing it to evade taxes. What I'm doing, and what it's pretty safe to say the distinguished chair of the DNC is doing, is legally and ethically investing in funds made available to us through domestic brokerage firms. Firms that, while they may try to play games with the taxes on their own revenue and assets, dutifully report your information to the IRS as required.
There's a pretty goddamn clear difference. But the right doesn't seem to see that.
"The Democrats, as well as President Obama, hope to paint Romney as an out of touch man for holding money in overseas bank accounts, when in reality their own chairman, Wasserman Schultz, had overseas investments," Halper wrote
It's pretty obvious that the 1% know well the difference between "overseas bank accounts" and "overseas investments," and the useful idiots who enable them are being cynically manipulated to vote against their self interest once again.
That is why they are out of touch. And that is why they must be stopped.