Weekly Roundup, July 9-15, 2012

by Blueberry T

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Cannibalistic Capitalism (A Bain Story)

KatieAnnieOakley knows a thing or two about what happens when Bain Capital comes to town, takes over a company and sucks the life out of it, leaving a devastated community.  In this post, she brings us an up-close-and-personal view of how Bain affects people and communities.  She recreates the feelings of fear, loss, hopelessness and struggle that permeated the communities that Bain affected.  We feel how people are manipulated and cast away, and how it affects the entire life of the community.  Katie uses several dialogs that are really effective in allowing us to experience and feel these situations.  Somehow, she manages to maintain her indomitable spirit and sense of humor – well done!

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Bristol’s Pity Party, Continued

Leadfoot tackled episodes 7 and 8 of Bristol Palin’s dysfunctional life.  The episodes show how mean Bristol is to just about everyone she comes in contact with.  Willow is not far behind in the meanness department, for example telling her boyfriend that she hopes he gets trampled and “bites it,” while smiling broadly.  The episodes largely revolve and devolve around their constant nagging, sniping and bickering.  This is someone’s idea of entertainment, right?  Thankfully, Leadfoot offers her comments with her usual wit and insights; it’s really too bad that the Palin kids don’t seem to have anyone who is so thoughtful and sensible guiding them.  Leadfoot does a great job showing how Bristol creates a conflict, mishandles it, and then rewrites history about it – classic Palin MO.  In this series, poor Tripp has been subjected to emotional abuse about his father, forcing him to do things that he is scared of, being encouraged to be rude, and interacting with his sometimes zombie-like mother.  We are beginning to see the early signs of rebellion that will likely make him hell on wheels when he is older.  Bristol, honey, you may think you’re so smart now, making all this money by exploiting your son, but you will pay big time in the end.  That’s a promise.    


Here is Annes' brilliant spoof on Bristol's show -- better than the original, by far.  

New “InstantClassic” Campaign Ad

Patrick highlights the excellent new ad from the Obama campaign, which has gone viral:  Mitt Romney’s off-key singing of America the Beautiful, while his record of outsourcing and investing outside of America flashes on the screen.  The post also includes Henry Blodget at Business Insider pointing out how ludicrous Romney’s claim, that he wasn’t responsible for Bain’s actions during that period, is.  His titles included chairman, president, CEO, sole owner and managing partner – yet he really thinks that the American people are gullible enough to believe that he had nothing to do with the decisions of the company during that period?  Right.  Republicans are coming out of the woodwork, urging Romney to disclose his financial information.  A video shows how he stumbled over a question about this during the primary debates, and quickly tried to change the subject.  Interestingly, Steve Schmidt, who actually SAW 23 years of Mitt’s tax returns, said he would NOT urge Romney to “disadvantage himself with issues like his taxes.”  Dum de dum dum.  (Okay, I’m dating myself with music from Dragnet.)  The post includes much more, including great videos and photos. 

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Bain-gate:  The Plot Thickens

Patrick digs into key documents to see the inconsistencies in what Mitt Romney has said about his tenure at Bain and his prior statements and financial disclosure forms.  In a nutshell: it does not look good for Mittens; the contradictions are obvious for anyone to see.  He may be the first CEO, sole owner and managing partner in history that claims to have no responsibility for the actions of his own companies – but guess what, Mitt: we the people are going to hold you responsible, because we don’t buy your BS.  You’ll also see some of the excellent investigative work and reporting that David Corn of Mother Jones did on this issue.   Giving the story even more “legs,” the Romney campaign is now claiming that he “retired retroactively,” which led to a brilliant and sometimes hilarious “#retroactively” trend on Twitter.  This post is PACKED with much more sourced information – nice to have so much in one place.  H/T to KatieAnnieOakley for her investigative work as well.

Two thoughts from BBT:  1) the biggest take-home message to me is that Romney’s business career is now a liability – he tried to run on his business acumen but now he’s running from his business record as fast as he can.  2) It looks to me like Mitt was deliberately keeping all his options open during that critical 1999-2002 period because he didn’t know which way he wanted to go.   He tried to play things both ways so that he could #retroactively claim whatever worked to his advantage regarding his role at Bain and his residence.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to Bain or run for Governor of Utah or Massachusetts, so he hedged his bets, and it’s only now that his keep-options-open trickery is being exposed.  His MO is to try to play things both ways and claim whichever side of an issue helps him at the moment; this fudging of the Bain departure date shows the same mindset. 

Some comments and links:

CracklinCharlie (to Leadfoot): Sorry you had to watch that.  At least your daughter was spared.

Psalm023:  What I can't understand is what type of individuals does Lifetime hire to allow this abusive spectacle - they must know this family has questionnable mental issues, and they continue to promote this.........unbelievable.

More_Cowbell:  Did Bristol think that the producers liked her so much that they would edit out the bad stuff? Or does Bristol, like Sarah, think that she can make things true just by saying them? Or does she think that viewers are so stupid that they'll forget what they just saw? Or is Bristol so stupid that she just doesn't remember what she says, the second the words leave her constantly flapping mouth? The options are practically endless with the Palins. 

GetaLife:  Sarah thought this show was going to be brilliant, but all it does is show that all the Palin myths (outdoorsy, tough, thick-skinned, athletic, smart, close family) are just that - myths.

FormerRepublican:  I have vivid memories of being pushed by a narcissistic mother into doing things that terrified me when I was Tripp's age (and younger). Not only are you feeling fear, but also deep distress over how Mommy, who claims she loves me, is making me do this terrifying thing and is unmoved by my increasingly panic-stricken sobs.

Alwaysthink found this:  "Mitt started this campaign with no real convictions. The way things are going, he may definitely have one before it's over."

Balzafiar:  The Great Mittsby is denying he was at Bain during those years in question, but an employee of Bain at that time has publicly stated that he answered to only one person -- Mitt Romney.

Linda1961:  Rmoney is trying to claim that Democrats are attacking him because he's successful, Patrick, but Rmoney doesn't have it quite right. Democrats are attacking him because of HOW he became successful. He gamed the system in a way that most can't, and some who can don't, to make millions. It may be legal, but isn't ethical (hence, some who can, don't). Now it appears he may have done something illegal - lied to the SEC. Rmoney is successful because he is unethical and possibly a crook. He isn't handling this very well, but then he hasn't handled other crises well either - he's weak, and unable to think on his feet. Rmoney is not presidential material at all.

ProChoiceGrandma pointed out the Romney has repeatedly claimed that he was in business for 25 years…let’s see, 1977+25=2002…

Maelewis gave a good synopsis of Bain-gate and other discrepancies in Mitt’s story:   The short answer is that Bain dismantled companies and outsourced jobs during that time. Since Romney has chosen to run on his record at Bain, he has to run on the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. Now, he doesn't want to be blamed for the bad stuff, notably after 1999. In a number of places, he claimed not to be part of Bain after 1999, where legal documents contradict him. It's hard to vote for a presidential candidate who is not truthful-- especially when there is a paper trail.

Mitt has misrepresented other information as well, claiming residence in his son's  Belmont, Massachusetts unfinished basement when that was not his residence. When he ran for governor of Massachusetts, there was a seven year residence requirement. However, Mitt was working in Salt Lake City 1999-2002, claiming a tax exemption on his home as a legal resident of Utah. When confronted with the seven year Massachusetts residence required, he claimed that Utah had made clerical errors-- it was Ann's house, not his, and he paid the out-of-state higher tax. Slick Willy has been too slick before. (Mitt also applied for a Utah State drivers license-- not a clerical error).

FormerRepublican also had a good explanatory comment (as did others):  BlueRinse, yes, it was illegal. It also matters because Bain ran a lot of good companies into the ground after his alleged "retroactive" retirement and put thousands out of work. Bain and Romney profited enormously from this. Romney knows that this is a terrible thing to overcome politically, particularly while we are still trying to recover from a recession caused by corporate greed and lack of financial oversight. It also goes to his character because while the Republicans champion the virtue of personal responsibility, Mitt refuses to accept responsibility and is instead demanding an apology. Any minute now he'll be rolling Ann out in a wheelchair in a sympathy bid and so she can insist that people stop picking on him. It's the only defense he has left.

I'm reposting my comment from the previous thread:  In 1999, Mitt unwittingly articulated the motive for his big Bain lie to the Salt Lake Tribune, as posted by Alex Koppelman at The New Yorker on July 13, 2012 in Mitt Romney, Psychic.  Mitt said in 1999:  I'm not a powder puff…. By that I mean that it's not that I would never consider laying off workers or losing down a plant to save a company. Unfortunately in the business world I know, the world of troubled companies, many businesses can get better with medicine. But many others require painful, wrenching surgery. I have been involved with companies that concluded they had to close a plant in order to survive. And that's an awful, awful thing to have happen. And it's death for a politician to be associated with that.

EbbtideMB:  Ladies and gentlemen, sit back and relax. Act Three of our drama will be starting shortly--Mitt Romney, The Olympic Years. The third act will include intrigue, massive government subsidies, shady land deals, back alley lobbying by Utah congress critters, questionable sponsorship arrangements and so much more for your viewing enjoyment as Mittens goes "off to run the Olympics." (it bugs me when he says he went "off to run the Olympics"--not sure why, but it just sounds so tally-ho-ish.)

BellPeppery found this LinkedIn profile forMitt Romney; hahahahahaha!  (Edited to say they finally took down the profile talking about how Romney was a vulture/vampire capitalist while at Bain.)

Older_Wiser found more on Romney’s lies aboutthe Bain departure timeline.  

BanditBasheert pointed out this on politicususa on Romney’s dog-whistles to racists.  

and this from Irishgirl:  

MrsTarquinBiscuitbarrel:  “You’re so Bain.”  

Mmboucher reminded us of this link to the McCain campaign’s opposition research on Romney.  

Scorpie found this article in the BostonPhoenix (from a few years back – perhaps even more relevant now):  

HonestyinGov linked to Karoli atcrooksandliars and to HuffPo on Mitt’s partner saying Romney was legally CEO of Bain until 2002 and also reminded us of this important story about Mitt’s company’s Medicare fraud (while he was in charge).  

Mxm pointed out this in-depth articleon how Bain operated back in the day, and this confirming that Mitt was involved in the Stericyle deal after 1999.  

Bluerinse found some great #retroactively tweets:  here are two

@Johngcole I guess retroactive retirement makes sense to people who baptize the dead. #retroactively

How did Bristol Palin become an abstinence expert? #Retroactively

Here’s one from enigmaplanner:  Is it too late for @mittromney to suspend his campaign and #retroactively go back to Bain to outsource jobs and fire people? #likeheneverleft

BicPent found this one:  https://twitter.com/HannieOkel...
JOB POSTING: Bain Capital seeks CEO to work #retroactively from 1999-2002. Attractive salary, plus "Caymanian" IRA, lots of "free stuff"”

PMom_GA pointed these out:  https://twitter.com/leclemot/s...  I must say this retroactive thing has me all excited! Let's #retroactively NOT confirm Scalia, Thomas, and Alito! 

https://twitter.com/leclemot/s...  Let's impeach Bush/Cheney #retroactively

And while we’re at it with tweets, here is a brilliant tweet from LOLGOP: 
‏@LOLGOP Melinda Gates pledges $560,000,000 for contraception. And that's just for the Palin family.

O/T mental health break fromAndrew Sullivan, with h/t to Linda 1961