Mitt Romney

Did Mitt Romney Lie To The SEC About His Management Of Bain Capital?

Posted by on July 10, 2012 at 12:47 pm. 3 Comments :

Mitt Romney’s core argument for supporting his candidacy for president is the assertion that his business experience has prepared him to deal with the economic challenges that the country faces. But that case is muddled by the many unanswered questions about his past that he refuses to reveal. Unlike his father, who released twelve years of tax returns in his White House bid, Mitt Romney has released tax filings for only one year. Then he expects everyone to take at face value his insistence that he has never sheltered income off-shore and has always followed the law. OK, fine, then why not release the documents to prove it?

Swiss Mitt Romney

The problem with taking Romney’s word for anything is his proclivity for telling lies about almost any subject he discusses. With regard to his tenure at Bain Capital, Romney has declared emphatically that he was not responsible for any of the reported instances of terminating domestic employees and sending those jobs overseas. His principle claim is that he left Bain in 1999, before any such actions occurred.

However, new evidence has emerged showing that this is just another false statement from Romney. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Romney was identifying himself as the Managing Directer of Bain as late as 2001.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, DC 20549
SCHEDULE 13D
February 11, 2001

Bain Capital, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Bain Capital”), is the sole managing partner of the BCIP entities. Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital and thus is the controlling person of Bain Capital.

Romney has said that, despite what official filings may say, he could not have been running Bain at the time because he was too busy working on the 2002 Olympics. If that’s true, then he lied to the SEC when he signed the Schedule 13D cited above. So Romney is either lying on an official government form, or he is lying to the American people. That’s not a choice that has any positive outcomes.

Another example of Romney’s blatant disregard for the truth is his claim that any off-shore investments in his name were made in blind trusts without his knowledge. Just yesterday he told an Iowa radio show that “I don’t manage them. […] I don’t even know where they are.” But records reveal that he did, in fact, own off-shore assets in 1997, prior to having created his blind trust. And furthermore, despite his denial, he knew of other such investments that were reported in the one tax return he released for 2010.

Mitt Romney Pathological LiarAll of these incidents illustrate that Romney has no shame when it comes to lying about his past, even when those lies can be exposed with information from public records. It makes one wonder what is in the tax returns that he is so feverishly struggling to keep from becoming public. How much worse can it get?

In the wake of these controversies, the response of the Romney campaign appears to be a rather childish “I know you are, but what am I” approach. His operatives are now saying that they plan to go on TV and call President Obama a liar. That’s the sort of projection that is typical of the tactics employed by Romney surrogate, SuperPAC kingpin, and Fox News contributor, Karl Rove. But it’s a dangerous strategy for someone who’s veracity is already so tarnished.

John Boehner To GOP Donors: I Can’t Make You Love Mitt Romney

Posted by on July 7, 2012 at 1:37 pm. 5 Comments :

Mitt RomneyIn a stunning display of understatement, John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, confided to a group of prospective donors at a fundraiser that Mitt Romney is not all that lovable. In a candid response to a question posed by an attendee, Boehner lamented that…

“The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney.”

No kidding! A nation comprised of a large but shrinking middle class is not going to have an affinity for a multimillionaire, ruthless titan of business, who prospered by throwing thousands of Americans out of work. They are not going to embrace an elitist who regards power as a birthright granted via his ruling class status. They will never be seduced by an empty suit who refuses to take a position on vital issues without contradicting himself.

Americans want a leader who is unafraid to tell them what he believes, rather than pandering to partisan extremists. They want a leader who can lay out an agenda more substantive than incessantly bleating that the other guy sucks. They want someone who will level with them about who he is, which includes releasing his tax filings for twelve years as President Obama did (and as Romney’s father did when he ran for president).

Boehner has helpfully allowed some truth to stumble out of his mouth while he was in the midst of a friendly audience. He added that the only people who are affirmatively for Romney are “some friends, relatives, and fellow Mormons.” He could have added to that list wealthy, multinational corporations whom he regards as people. Boehner’s larger point was that, in this election, people will be voting for or against Obama. That’s pretty much an admission that Romney is no more than cardboard cutout who could be replaced by any other celebrity billionaire, like say, Montgomery Burns.

When a prominent surrogate like Boehner is reduced to soliciting donations by highlighting how unlovable you are, your campaign has gone off track. When he confidently asserts that this is “an election about competence,” reminding everyone about the last person to make that a campaign theme (Michael Dukakis), you might want to adjust your strategy. But if even your strongest supporters can’t summon up actual affection for you, then perhaps it’s time to pack it in and retire to one of your seven mansions.

An Arrogant Romney Campaign Shifts Focus To Window Dressing

Posted by on July 6, 2012 at 11:16 am. 2 Comments :

In the past week Mitt Romney has come under severe attacks by conservatives who think that he is blowing any chance he had of beating President Obama. Bill Kristol, Laura Ingraham, and Rupert Murdoch have all made it clear that they are more than disappointed with Romney’s performance as a candidate. Even the Wall Street Journal published a scathing editorial that said that “the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb,” and that those responsible “ought to be fired for malpractice.”

In the wake of this disastrous week that saw stinging criticism from staunch allies, Mitt Romney’s campaign has announced a new shift in tactics. They are now going to commit themselves to better messaging.

“Mitt Romney is planning to fortify his communications and messaging team […] The campaign plans to bolster its rapid response and overall messaging operations.”

Messaging? That’s what Romney thinks is the problem? The Washington Post is reporting that Romney is committed to his current and insular staff of long-time associates. The sense of the campaign is that they are doing just fine but for a lack of effective media.

That’s a fatal misperception. Rather than addressing serious shortcomings in his campaign’s lack of direction, Romney thinks that better PR is all he needs. But Romney’s campaign is almost exclusively centered on his opposition to Obama. He has not articulated an alternative to any policy put forward by the President. There is no Romney health care plan (except for the one that he implemented in Massachusetts that he now disavows).
Mitt RomneyThere is no immigration plan. There is no job creation plan. There is no economic revival plan. There is only heaps of scorn on whatever Obama is doing and promises that he has some magic formula to make everything better – a magic formula that he refuses to disclose.

So now that he is widely viewed in his own circles as being perilously close to blowing it, Romney makes a major announcement that he’s going to beef up his media team. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Continue to rely on all the same people that are driving you into a ditch, but bring aboard some more flacks to lie about it. That should work out just great – for Obama.

Ted Nugent Says: It Would Have Been Best Had The South Won The Civil War

Posted by on July 6, 2012 at 10:09 am. 11 Comments :

OK, I know. Ted Nugent is about as foul and depraved an individual as you’re ever likely to encounter. He is the guy who raged through a profanity-laced tirade that threatened perverse assaults on Hillary Clinton and Diane Feinstein. He’s the guy who implied that he would resort to violence, and possibly assassination, if President Obama is reelected. He’s the guy who Mitt Romney sought out for an endorsement. And now this…

“Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers’ concept of limited government is dead.”

So Ted Nugent thinks that everything might be better if the South had won the Civil War? Nugent must be terribly disappointed that slavery was abolished and that the union was preserved.

Nugent’s grotesque remarks were published in his regular column for the “Moonie” Washington Times. The article is his response to the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare. But his logic is unfathomable. He seems to think that a limited government is one that permits the ownership of human beings. If the Founding Fathers’ concept of allowing such atrocities is dead, that’s for the better. How can anyone argue against that?

In addition to his repugnant advocacy of slavery, Nugent expresses his desire to end some other popular programs. He contends that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are more “unaffordable, unsustainable, runaway, unaccountable social program[s].” He attacks Chief Justice Roberts saying that he “engineered the ultimate demise of this great experiment in self- government.” It’s startling how wingnut cases like Nugent can argue that democracy is imperiled by ObamaCare when it was passed by a popularly elected congress, signed by an elected president, and affirmed as constitutional by justices who were confirmed by elected senators. At which point in the process was self-government hampered?

This is just another in a long series of heinous outbursts by Nugent. Yet Mitt Romeny, who has embraced Nugent’s support, has never repudiated any of these vile, violent, and unpatriotic sentiments. The media always seems to hold Obama accountable for commentaries from anyone perceived to have even a slight leftward tilt – even when those people have no association with the President or his campaign. When will the media hold Romney accountable for one of his most prominent and contemptible surrogates?

GOP Can’t Make Up It’s Mind On ObamaCare

Posted by on July 4, 2012 at 4:44 pm. 1 Comments :

Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney spokesman: “The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court’s ruling that the mandate was a tax.”

Reince Priebus, Republican Party Chairman: “Our position is the same as Mitt Romney’s position. It’s a tax.”

There is apparently some internal debate as to Mitt Romney’s position on whether the mandate in the Affordable Care Act is a tax or penalty. This debate has been raging for many months, but escalated considerably when the Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare is constitutional. So let’s bring in someone who would have to be regarded as an authority on Romney’s position.

Mitt Romney: “I said that I agree with the dissent, and the dissent made it very clear that they felt it was unconstitutional. But the dissent lost. It’s in the minority. And so now the Supreme Court has spoken. And while I agreed with the dissent, that’s taken over by the fact that the majority of the court said that it’s a tax and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There’s no way around that.”

There…that should clear it up. Except that it doesn’t. Romney seems to take both sides. He agrees with the dissenting jurists who did not hold that the mandate is a tax. But he also concedes that the majority ruled that it is a tax. So Romney seems to be saying that he acknowledges the ruling of the majority, but that he doesn’t agree with them. Therefore, he acknowledges that the Court holds that the mandate is a tax, but he still thinks it’s a penalty.

That’s a convenient stance because it permits him to criticize the President for raising taxes while asserting that his own identical legislation was merely a penalty. Isn’t that special? And if he’s able to escape the hypocrisy inherent in that, then he is surely the reincarnation of Houdini.

What’s more, Romney also seems to be saying that once the Court has spoken, the matter is closed. Therefore, he must be conceding that ObamaCare is constitutional and that there’s no way around it. So he, and every other right-wing blowhard who insisted that the law not only violated the Constitution, but abolished the very notion of American liberty, were desperately wrong and are terrible interpreters of constitutionality. That’s not much of a recommendation for a prospective president.

Despite the disarray in the GOP, the Court was clear about the administration of the mandate. They did not say that it is a tax (no matter how much Romney and Fox News say they did). It’s not really that hard to grasp. Take it from Cletus, the Slack-Jawed Yokel:

Cletus on ObamaCare

Rupert Murdoch Proves That A Fish Stinks From The Head

Posted by on July 2, 2012 at 5:52 pm. NO Comments :

The CEO of News Corp, parent company of Fox News, has been tweeting up a storm lately. Much of it was silliness about Tom Cruise’s marital troubles and his view of Scientology as “creepy, maybe evil.” But some of it was revealing and noteworthy.

Rupert Murdoch on Mitt Romney

The first tweet above is interesting because it is so openly disparaging of Mitt Romney’s campaign team. He does not disguise his opinion that they are amateurs who came to their posts by being Romney cronies. More interesting is the vague introduction wherein he says that he “Met Romney last week.” That’s a news bite that had not previously been disclosed.

As it turns out, Romney met with 40 to 50 fatcat supporters at a secret meeting in Manhattan including Murdoch, investment banker Ken Langone, Goldman Sachs head Lloyd Blankfein, and other business barons and political operatives. It’s somewhat disturbing that a meeting with this kind of firepower went unreported until after Murdoch let it slip on Twitter. One thing we learned from the meeting was why Romney has been so hesitant to take an actual position on immigration. He told the group that…

“I know I took some positions in the primary that are” hard to contend with in a general, Romney said, according to two sources. “I am not going to be a flip-flopper,”

He is admitting that, were he to take a position, it would be contrary to what he told conservative audiences during the GOP primaries, so he says nothing instead. The Etch-a-Sketch has spoken. He believes that he can get by with Latino voters by relying on surrogate Marco Rubio and one of his sons who speaks Spanish. Yeah, right.

The second Tweet above is even more revealing. It was Murdoch’s response to all of the flack he got after criticizing Romney. It’s bad enough that he openly states that he wants Romney to win, but what goes farther over the line is his reasoning. He says that he wants Romney to “save us from socialism.”

After years of hearing Fox News anchors and guests making delusional comments about President Obama being a socialist, you sort of grow accustomed it. It’s easy to dismiss (and ridicule) wingnuts like Eric Bolling, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin. But now we know where they get their marching orders. Rupert Murdoch himself believes that Obama is a Manchurian candidate bent on delivering America into the arms of our commie adversaries. The conspiracy obsessed right-wing media has a leader and a hero in Murdoch. That little tweet explains a lot.

Even Fox Nation’s Vacation Coverage Is Blatantly Biased

Posted by on July 2, 2012 at 11:58 am. NO Comments :

The Republican Press Release Agency known as Fox News can’t even report trivial side issues without resorting to pathetic and insulting misrepresentations. Here is how Fox Nation is portraying the news that both President Obama and Mitt Romney are taking a few days of R & R:

Fox Nation Vacation

Notice that the President is characterized as a shiftless slacker who “Takes the Week Off,” insinuating that he is neglecting his obligations. The Fox Nationalists accompany this headline with a photo of a tropical paradise suitable for sunbathing and luaus, despite the fact that Obama is actually going to Camp David. Furthermore, he is only spending two days there, where he will also be working. This news is viewed as “Obnoxious” by the Fox Nation community.

Romney, on the other hand, is described “Recharging” at his own personal resort destination on Lake Winnipesaukee, where he has his own vacation home. His holiday is seen as a well-deserved respite from the stress of the campaign trail (which everyone knows is much more severe than being the leader of the free world). This news is viewed as “Cool” by the Fox Nation community.

Imagine for a moment if Obama had been photographed in the manner Romney is above. It would immediately have revived memories of John Kerry windsurfing, wherein he was savaged by the media for engaging in a sport that was reserved for upper-crusters (as opposed to dancing show horses). Put Obama on the back of a jet ski with his wife driving and there would be endless mockery of him as a pussy-whipped wimp. And add to that the fact that the jet ski is stalled in mid-lake and Romney is helplessly throwing up his hands, and you have the makings of a story about a clueless and out-of-touch elitist who can’t even get his jet ski started.

These sort of visuals are subtle, but they are also effective and deliberate. The problem with them appearing on Fox Nation is that they will only be seen by people who already share the puerile views of the emotionally-stunted editors at Fox Nation. So the exercise is a waste of time except for the degree to which they validate every criticism of Fox News as a brazenly biased mouthpiece for the GOP.

Fox News Covers Up Mitt Romney’s Lies As Exposed By PolitiFact

Posted by on June 30, 2012 at 9:16 am. 5 Comments :

Mitt Romney - Pathological LiarAnother example of the myriad means by which Fox News distorts reality on behalf of Republicans are the choices they make in what not to report as well as what to report dishonestly (which are the only two options considered by Fox reporters).

The truth detectors at PolitiFact are a favorite source of newsmaker evaluations to the folks at Fox Nation. In the past few months they have referenced the site repeatedly when seeking to defend the right and bash the left. After reading a few of the articles post by the Fox Nationalists, it would be fair to conclude that they hold PolitiFact in high regard:

  • Politifact Annihilates Harry Reid
  • Fact Check Destroys Pres. Obama’s Claim He Didn’t Raise Taxes
  • Fact Check Nails Maddow…Again
  • Pelosi Jobs Claim Skewered by Truth-o-Meter
  • PolitiFact Rates Jon Stewart’s Fox News Claims … False!
  • PolitiFact: Perry Did NOT Say Texas Wanted to Secede
  • Politifact: Perry Was NOT Al Gore’s TX Campaign Manager
  • Watchdog: Obama’s List of Kept Promises Is a Stretch
  • Politifact’s Lie of the Year 2011: ‘Republicans Voted to End Medicare’
  • Politifact Shreds MSNBC ‘Lean Forward’ Ad
  • PolitiFact: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Is a Liar

Like many things in the political realm, the conclusions reached in some of those articles were debatable. PolitiFact has made its share of tortured appraisals that miss the mark. But, if nothing else, the list above proves that they are not the sort of knee-jerk leftists that conservatives think dominate the media.

Nevertheless, the Fox Nationalists are shamelessly selective in their use of material from PolitiFact. The day after the Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare is constitutional, Mitt Romney spoke out against the decision in a litany of lies. PolitiFact posted reviews of a couple of points in Romney’s remarks and rated them both as false.

Romney's Lies

So despite a long track record of publishing PolitiFact’s findings, for some reason the Fox Nationalists declined to report on these obvious and deliberate falsehoods. It’s probably the same reason they have neglected to inform their audience of dimwits that Romney has been rated as untruthful 54 times by PolitiFact, and 13 of those were “Pants-on-Fire” lies. In fact, 40% of PolitiFact’s findings on statements by Romney are rated as untruthful.

If Fox actually had even a hint of aspiration to be fair and balanced, they would be reporting that Romney is as close to a pathological liar as anyone who has ever run for president. However, there is nothing stopping the rest of the media from reporting the truth about Romney’s compulsive dishonesty. But that’s another problem altogether (Liberal media my ass).

The Difference Between Fox News And Actual News

Posted by on June 27, 2012 at 4:19 pm. 6 Comments :

It has been well documented that Fox News is a partisan agent of the Republican Party. They brazenly promote the interests of the GOP and employ “analysts” who split their time between appearances on Fox and guiding multimillion dollar campaigns against President Obama and other Democrats (i.e. Karl Rove). But now Fox News has demonstrated perfectly why they are not in any reasonable sense a news enterprise.

In a segment of Fox’s signature “news” program, Special Report with Bret Baier, chief Washington correspondent James Rosen gave an account of a memo circulated by Mitt Romney’s campaign that alleged that the Obama campaign had contracted with companies to employ foreign-based call centers. Rosen regurgitated the information provided by Romney’s camp as if it were irrefutably true. The impression left by the report was that Obama is a hypocrite for criticizing Romney’s business record of outsourcing American jobs to other countries, while he was allegedly doing the same thing with his campaign.

There’s only one problem with this irrefutably true allegation – it has been refuted by a real news organization. ABC reporter Devin Dwyer did what reporters do. He investigated the claims made in Romney’s memo and discovered that they originated from a four month old right-wing blog, the Washington Free Beacon, whose web site describes it as being “Dedicated to uncovering the stories that the professional left hopes will never see the light of day.”

The Beacon reported that Obama’s campaign paid several thousand dollars to two foreign firms for telemarketing services. One of the firms was Pacific East, whose headquarters is in British Columbia, Canada. However, as ABC’s Dwyer learned after inquiring, the company also has offices in Oregon. The other firm is Donor Services Group, and it is based in Los Angeles, California, with no current ties to foreign operations. The Beacon apparently found data from 2009 that referenced services provided to a specific client from a facility in the Philippines. But there was no indication that there was any ongoing business there. And in neither case was there any evidence that the work performed by either of these companies for the Obama campaign was done by anyone outside of the United States.

Fox News has once again embarrassed itself as a haven for shoddy journalism. Their chief Washington correspondent took an unsubstantiated blog posting and broadcast it, without any fact-checking, to a Fox audience already dreadfully misinformed and pitifully ignorant. And Baier, the anchor of the program, never bothered to exercise any of the due diligence that a credible journalist would do. The story went straight from an avowedly conservative blog to Romney headquarters to Fox News, without any effort to certify the allegations.

It took a reporter from ABC to make a couple of calls, get the real story, and reveal that Romney, the Beacon, and Fox News were all accomplices in disseminating a lie. This is what happens when you have pseudo-news organizations that don’t actually do any news gathering. The broadcast news networks and CNN have bureaus staffed with reporters all over the world. But Fox News only has presenters who read copy off of TelePrompters and don’t do any original reporting. You can’t expect them to actually verify things they read on blogs, can you? Especially when it’s so much easier to just go with the talking points you get from the Republican National Committee. That’s the difference between Fox News and actual news.

Tough Guy Chuck Norris Is Afraid Of Obama’s Gay Boy Scouts

Posted by on June 27, 2012 at 1:47 pm. 12 Comments :

Conservatives have made bashing Hollywood a cornerstone of their strategy to defeat the evils of Liberalism. They jump at every opportunity to criticize celebrities who dare to exercise their right to free speech unless, of course, they speak ill of liberals. Then, suddenly, celebrities are brilliant observers of the human condition.

One of the reasons that conservatives hate Hollywood in general is that there are so many respected, productive, and successful actors who recognize the benefits of a progressive agenda. Compare that to the washed-up losers who slobber over right-wing dogma – people like Ted Nugent, Victoria Jackson, and today’s special, Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris - Gay Boy Scouts

Yep, you read that right. Obama is turning Boy Scouts gay. Who knew? He must be building an army of polite, well-prepared children to wage his war on marriage. Norris made this charge in an article for AmmoLand (where else?) and it is based on his delusional claim that Obama manipulated Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, who sits on the board of the BSA, into becoming an opponent of rules that ban gays from joining the Scouts. The devious method employed by Obama to force Turley’s hand was to invite him to parties. The scoundrel. They must have been fabulous parties.

However, Norris doesn’t bother to speculate as to how Obama manipulated Mitt Romney into having the very same position as Obama and Turley. In 1994, Romney responded to a question on the subject during a debate for the Senate saying…

“I believe that the Boy Scouts of America does a wonderful service for this country. I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.”

Since Obama was a young lawyer in Chicago in 1994, who had never run for office, it appears that Romney may be the one who is responsible for turning the Boy Scouts gay. Norris ought to do a little more research and get back to us on that. And, just for the record, Romney was also pro-choice in 1994, whereas today he is for overturning Roe v. Wade. So the fact that he once supported gays in the scouts does not mean that he does so now. Once you shake that Romney Etch-a-Sketch all bets are off.