It's not the when, it's the what....
"Mitt Romney stayed at Bain 3 years longer than he stated; Firm’s 2002 filings identify him as CEO, though he said he left in 1999" by Callum Borchers and Christopher Rowland | Globe Correspondent | Globe Staff, July 12, 2012
Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.
Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”
Related: The Bain of Mitt Romney
Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.
The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date.
For who? I'm taking the guy's rapacious career into consideration, not this s*** fooley semantics the circus media ringmaster.
Contradictions concerning the length of Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital add to the uncertainty and questions about his finances. Bain is the primary source of Romney’s wealth, which is estimated to be more than $25o million. But how his wealth has been invested, especially in a variety of Bain partnerships and other investment vehicles, remains difficult to decipher because of a lack of transparency.
What are you saying, Mitt is hiding money?
The Obama campaign and other Democrats have raised questions about his unwillingness to release tax returns filed before 2010; his offshore assets, which include investment entities based in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and a recently closed bank account in Switzerland; and a set of “blind trusts” that meet the Massachusetts standards for public officials but not the more rigorous bar set by the federal government.
I'm tired of the fooley, sorry. Democrats had filibuster-proof Congress and we got no action on anything. Both parties have presided over this globalization, tax-credit for shipping jobs overseas system for decades now with no change. Just stop already.
Romney did not finalize a severance agreement with Bain until 2002, a 10-year deal with undisclosed terms that was retroactive to 1999. It expired in 2009.
Bain Capital and the campaign for the presumptive GOP nominee have suggested the SEC filings that show Romney as the man in charge during those additional three years have little meaning, and are the result of legal technicalities.
And that is all it is going to be now that Mitt has muzzled Ron Paul.
The campaign declined to comment on the record. It pointed to a footnote in Romney’s most recent financial disclosure form, filed June 1 as a presidential candidate.
“Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way,’’ according to the footnote. Romney made the same assertion on a financial disclosure form in 2007, during his first run for president.
According to a statement issued by Bain Wednesday, “Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies, since that time.”
Evidence emerged last week in reports by Mother Jones that Romney had maintained an ongoing leadership role at Bain beyond February 1999.
Oh, that's who got the scoop, huh?
Related: Mitt Romney's Weekend
Yeah, I'm more concerned about the bullying and dressing as a cop characteristics.
Citing SEC documents, the magazine said Romney had played a role in Bain investments “until at least the end of 1999” and that a 2001 document listed him as a member of the “management committee” of Bain funds. Talking Points Memo reported this week on additional SEC filings listing Romney’s position with Bain in July 2000 and February 2001.
A former SEC commissioner told the Globe that the SEC documents listing Romney as Bain’s chief executive between 1999 and 2002 cannot be dismissed so easily.
“You can’t say statements filed with the SEC are meaningless. This is a fact in an SEC filing,” said Roberta S. Karmel, now a professor at Brooklyn Law School.
Oh, I doubt it will come to much; it's all part of the electoral s*** fooley we endure every two and four years here in AmeriKa.
“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to say he was technically in charge on paper but he had nothing to do with Bain’s operations,” Karmel continued. “Was he getting paid? He’s the sole stockholder. Are you telling me he owned the company but had no say in its investments?”
***************
A Romney campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss the SEC filings, acknowledged that they “do not square with common sense.” But SEC regulations are complicated and quirky, the official argued, and Romney’s signature on some documents after his exit does not indicate active involvement in the firm....
Romney first deployed the defense that he left the firm in February 1999 as a candidate for governor in 2002, when Democrat Shannon O’Brien featured a laid-off worker from a Kansas City steel mill that went bankrupt in 2001, after Bain Capital had reaped a handsome profit from its investment in the company....
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Mitt's Money
Decide for yourself if you think Mitt deserved it.
Romney’s exit from Bain Capital also served as a ready-made rebuttal when in May President Obama’s reelection campaign began its public scrutiny of Romney’s business record with an ad focusing on former laborers at the same mill, GST Steel.
Throwing the book at him, was he?
But the SEC filings examined by the Globe indicate Romney remained at the helm of Bain Capital when the steel mill declared bankruptcy, in February 2001.
And financial disclosure documents Romney filed in Massachusetts show that he was paid as a Bain Capital executive while he directed the Olympics....
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Related:
Romney attacked on Bain exit date
Romney fires back at Obama on Bain attacks
Account of Mitt Romney’s Bain departure has evolved
Romney service on Lifelike board undercuts claim
Translation: he's a dissembling liar, we knew that.
"Unrelenting Obama jabs at Romney’s job record" by Jim Kuhnhenn | Associated Press, July 15, 2012
GLEN ALLEN, Va. — An unrelenting President Obama jabbed at Mitt Romney’s record with a private equity firm in an ad Saturday that aimed to keep his rival on the defensive just as the Republican challenger’s campaign hoped to take advantage of poor economic data to gain an edge on the incumbent....
A soaked Obama, campaigning in a downpour in closely contested Virginia, hewed to his middle class-centered pitch in remarks in the district represented by one of his top Republican nemeses, House majority leader Eric Cantor. Obama attacked Romney and his Republican allies for pursuing what the president branded as outdated and discredited economic policies.
An omen?
Obama spoke to about 900 people in Glen Allen, arriving in a downpour. He eschewed a rain jacket or umbrella and apologized for ruining hairdos.
‘‘We’re going to have to treat everybody to a salon visit after this’’ he quipped.
Ha, ha.... ha.
Obama did not dwell on Romney’s business record, leaving the sharpest attacks to his campaign and the new television commercial. Still he played up the charge that Romney and the private equity firm he founded in 1984, Bain Capital, sent jobs overseas.
‘‘He invested in companies that have been called pioneers of outsourcing,’’ the president said, his shirt drenched and water streaming down his face. ‘‘I don’t want pioneers in outsourcing, I want some insourcing. I want to bring companies back.’’
Well, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
At stake is Romney’s chief contention that as a former businessman, he has the experience to create jobs and spur a struggling economy. The Obama campaign has countered that Romney ran a firm that pioneered the practice of sending American jobs out of the country. Romney insists that he stepped down from his private equity firm years earlier than federal records indicate
In a round of interviews broadcast Friday evening, the Republican candidate said he wouldn’t release more tax returns beyond the 2010 and 2011 returns. ‘‘You can never satisfy the opposition research team of the Obama organization,’’ Romney told CBS on Friday.
Oh.
So what are ya' hidin', Mitt?
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"Wisconsin governor offers Mitt Romney advice, July 15, 2012
Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who survived a tough recall election last month and has become a hero to many of his fellow Republicans, has some advice for Mitt Romney: Get on offense and stay on offense. “Never fight a battle on your heels,” he says.
Republicans are nervous about what some see as the Romney campaign’s relative passivity in the face of the onslaught by the Obama team. The president’s forces have spent almost $25 million on ads this spring and summer, attacking Romney over his role at Bain Capital and the outsourcing that was done by some of the companies in which Bain had invested. Overall, they have vastly outspent Romney on television.
I'm sorry I no longer have the energy for the campaign, readers.
Romney went on the offensive Friday. In a round of television interviews, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee lashed back at President Obama’s campaign for suggesting he may have committed a felony by not being entirely truthful about when he relinquished control at Bain Capital.
Romney’s finances and tenure at Bain dominated the campaign week, despite the fact that it came immediately after the third tepid jobs report in three months, which should have put the president on the defensive.
Instead, the Obama team kept the pressure on Romney, taunting him to release more years of tax returns and hectoring him over the private equity company he founded. The week ended with the president and Romney hurling questions and accusations at one another.
Romney is at a financial disadvantage right now, despite the fact that he is raising money faster than the president. Obama is spending money raised for the primaries. Romney’s primary season account is significantly depleted, due to the length of the GOP nomination battle.
Republicans are worried that Obama will effectively disqualify Romney in the eyes of many voters before the two national conventions....
THEN TELLS US NO VOTE FRAUD in Wisconsin recall!!
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Let me clue you in: ALL AmeriKan elections are rigged, and the agenda-pushing, system-supporting AmeriKan media has no interest in exposing them.
Related: Presidential campaigns still sparring over Bain Capital
(Yawn)
"Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital years pose a target" by Brian C. Mooney | Globe Staff, July 17, 2012
President Obama and his reelection campaign are betting heavily that American voters are not ready to elect a wealthy wizard of the global economy to the highest office in the land.
The only "benefit" I see to Romney as president is the mask will finally be off. Corporate government will finally have a corporate face.
Btw, I'm not a betting man (my casino posts will tell you that), but I wouldn't bet against Mitt, not with the rigged machines running rampant in this country. That's how Georgie won the presidency.
Mitt Romney is not the first Republican presidential candidate with a background in business to run, but the challenger is the first who became rich in the exotic realm of private equity investment. The Democrats are trying to take what Romney has offered as his top credential for the Oval Office during a sluggish economy and use it to discredit his candidacy.
Related: Catholic Caritas Makes Deal With the Devil
Oh, the HEALTH BILL HELPED PRIVATE EQUITY, huh?
Looks like Democraps made the same deal.
For two months, Obama and his allies have carpet-bombed a group of key swing states with negative ads painting Romney and Bain Capital, the firm he once headed, as ruthless profiteers, who ran some businesses into the ground while making money, or investing in companies that outsourced jobs to cheap-labor markets overseas. The Romney camp has responded belatedly with an ad citing independent media reports that there was “no evidence” that Romney “shipped jobs overseas” while in charge of Bain.
It truly is a war paper, right down to the self-internalized terminology.
Related: President Obama spends $100m in swing states
Friday he denied forcefully that he had a role in Bain management after he left the firm in 1999, when Bain-affiliated companies took some of the actions criticized by Democrats.
Independent polling indicates the Democrats’ assault is having some effect, though after at least $46 million worth of mostly harsh attack ads over that time, Obama retains only a slim lead in most surveys.
Then it isn't having any effect, and the reason is clearly obvious: WE DON'T CARE ABOUT FOOLEYS when BOTH PARTIES $UPPORT the $Y$TEM.
The Romney campaign is convinced that in the end voters will worry more about his ability to manage the government’s rickety finances than the way he handled his own, including a tax return that indicates recent holdings in the tax havens of Switzerland, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands.
Noted and filed.
The Bain attack by the Obama camp would be routine campaign stuff were it not for its prolonged ferocity and the full-blown character assault that accompanied it, signs that the president’s campaign considers this its best shot to cripple the Romney candidacy early.
See: Presidential race takes nasty turn
On Thursday, Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter went so far as to suggest Romney may have lied or committed a felony, following reports in the Globe and other media outlets about documents that raised questions about when Romney relinquished his managerial role at Bain.
What gets lost in all this is that Obama is a war criminal.
Other reporting, however, produced evidence supporting the assertions by Romney and Bain that he exercised no control over Bain’s investment decisions during the period he left the firm to oversee the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. A Romney campaign ad on the air now claims Obama “doesn’t tell the truth” about Romney and Bain.
Neither one does.
When Romney gave up control of Bain is relevant because an Obama ad slamming Romney for “shipping jobs overseas” refers to companies, in which Bain invested, that provided services in overseas markets to US businesses but after Romney left to manage the Olympics.
“We’ve come a long way from the time when the United States was proud of the fact it was the finance center of the world, but I think private equity and these new forms of wealth creation have in too many cases been abusive and what the Obama campaign seems to be trying do to is play a game of guilt by association,” said David Gergen, a professor and administrator at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and former adviser to both Republican and Democratic presidents.
Ah, a handmaiden and lieutenant of the behind-the-scenes string-pullers.
“What I found surprising is that [Obama’s campaign] immediately accused or strongly suggested that Romney might be a felon. That used to be below the belt,” Gergen said. “Today, apparently, there is no belt.”
This is the campaign of extreme caricatures: Obama as socialist sympathizer vs. Romney as robber baron. Through sophisticated polling and voter identification methods, the messages are targeted to the relatively small number of undecided likely voters in fewer than a dozen states.
Did you RECEIVE that SCRIPT, American people?
“The argument comes down to ‘Do you want someone like Obama, who was a community organizer, whatever that means to you? Or do you want Romney who was CEO of Bain Capital and whatever that means to you?’ ” said Richard R. Lau, a Rutgers University political science professor who specializes in the psychology of voter decision making.
NOTA.
“Before Obama became president, many Republicans feared him and hated him — and that’s not too strong a word — and that was before he did anything,” said George C. Edwards III, a Texas A & M University professor who has written extensively about the presidency. “So, the Democrats are savaging Romney just as Republicans have been savaging Obama because they see that as the only way they can win.”
I actually had hopes, but those were soon dashed.
The cudgeling of Romney for his Bain experience has had mixed results in the past. In 1994, Senator Edward M. Kennedy unloaded a Bain-themed broadside that stopped a Romney challenge in its tracks. When Romney ran for governor in 2002, Democrat Shannon P. O’Brien reprised the strategy, but Romney won anyway.
Yes, I always wondered how that Mormon Republican from Utah defeated a well-known Democratic name. So did my college history professor at the time.
This year, prominent Democrats have come to Romney’s defense regarding his Bain years. They include Bain Capital managing director and Boston Celtics managing partner Stephen G. Pagliuca, who was hired by Romney.
Related: Selecting a Senator: Pag's Bags
Start packing them, Steve.
In a CNBC interview last week, Pagliuca, an Obama contributor and unsuccessful candidate for US Senate in 2010, dismissed as “hyperbole” and “just politics” the Romney-Bain onslaught. “Absolutely not,” he said when asked if Bain had shipped jobs overseas....
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Related:
"Rove compared Romney to the late Apple chief executive Steve Jobs."
Interesting edit because my printed paper leads the sentence with "In knocking down the straw man he erected," So that's what is passing for news these days?
Related: A Bite of the Boston Globe Apple
And now he is dead, too?
And when all else fails, change the subject and point the finger at someone else:
"On Monday, after Romney brought Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, into the argument....
Heinz Kerry’s reluctance to release tax returns, which she files separately from her husband, was a major story line in 2004. She eventually released the first two pages of her 2003 return, which showed she earned $5.1 million that year, almost all of it from interest and dividends. She paid $627,150 in federal taxes in 2003, only 12.3 percent of her total income. Heinz Kerry inherited a vast fortune after the sudden and tragic death of her first husband, Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania, in a plane crash.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
"Senator John Heinz and former Senator John Tower had served on powerful Senate banking and finance committees and were outspoken critics of the Federal Reserve and the Eastern Establishment. On April 4, 1991, Senator John Heinz was killed in a plane crash near Philadelphia. On the next day, April 5, 1991, former Senator John Tower was also killed in a plane crash. The coincidences seem to mount."
Plane crashes are never as they appear in the AmeriKan media. You have to dig through the wreckage to get the truth.
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Related(?): Is John Kerry a Murderer?
Cui bono?
Struggle for straight answers from Mitt Romney
Did Romney approve of Bain’s practices after 1999?
I can answer that for them:
Yes, Romney Perjured Himself
Romney, Obama drum up donations overseas
You can see for yourself the sickening amounts they are charging for dinners while people suffer and starve, and what Romney will be doing in Israel.
Related:
"Mitt Romney’s joint fund-raising committee announced Monday it raised $106.1 million in June, the second-highest monthly total ever for a presidential candidate. The haul is $35 million more than what the president’s haul of $71 million....
Las Vegas casino giant Sheldon Adelson is giving $1 million to a super PAC aimed at helping conservatives get elected in Florida....
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