Behind the Ad: Mitt Romney, job destroyer

By Richard K. Barry

(Ed. note: I posted this video yesterday. It's worth posting again. -- MJWS)

(Another installment in our extensive "Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Web video.

What's going on: Remember when some people, progressive people, said Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's record at Bain wouldn't work, shouldn't work? I think they've worked. I suppose what we could not have anticipated was how helpful Romney would be in making sure these attacks worked. After all, it's not Mitt's job to worry about the 47 percent of Americans he screwed while at Bain.

If you want to say that firms like Bain aren't about job creation, they are about wealth creation, that's fine. But it was Romney who tried to convince us about all the jobs he created at Bain, which is to say that if creating a few jobs made his investors some money, that was fine. If they made just a bit more by closing down the plant, that was even better.

In Romney-Ryan World there are nothing but winners and losers. If you believe in that kind of Darwinian universe in which the strong get stronger and the rest of us die off, then you should vote for these guys. But if you think we ought to help each other even a little bit, you should stay away from whatever it is they're peddling.

In anticipation of Wednesday's debate, the Obama campaign has a new ad called "Remember: Romney's Private-Sector Experience Wasn't About Creating Jobs," once again recalling Romney's fine work at Bain.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Why Bain matters

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Watch this brilliant, and very moving, video from the Obama-Biden campaign.

This is what Bain Capital does. And this is what Mitt Romney is all about.

Romney in '85: Bain objective was to buy up companies and "harvest them at a significant profit"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In other words, to "identify potential value and hidden value in a particular investment candidate" and then to do whatever it takes to maximize profit," including outsourcing jobs, without much regard, if any, for the human costs of this "business."

Look, I get it, this is what a great deal of capitalism is about, and it goes on all the time. What Bain did under Romney, and what it does today, isn't anything special, however devastating. But this serves to remind us that Romney's much-touted business experience isn't business in the sense of making things and selling them but business in the sense of making ruthless investments and profiting off them at all cost. It certainly doesn't qualify him as a "job creator," let alone as someone who can handle the huge challenges of managing the U.S. economy.

But at least he was just being honest, way back when before he sold whatever was left of his soul to run for national office as a Republican. And that makes this clip so much revealing as refreshing. It's just weird to see Romney telling the truth and being so open about himself and his objectives.

More bullshit from the flip-flopper

By Comrade Misfit

To wit:

Mitt Romney said Sunday that he gained no tax benefits by investing part of his fortune in funds based in the Cayman Islands and other overseas jurisdictions, or using a Swiss bank account, saying President Obama's campaign was unfairly accusing him of "some kind of unsavory action."

"There was no reduction -- not one dollar reduction in taxes -- by virtue of having an account in Switzerland or a Cayman Islands investment," the Republican presidential candidate told Chris Wallace in a recorded interview broadcast on "Fox News Sunday." "The dollars of taxes remained exactly the same. There was no tax savings at all."

Of course, we just have to take his word for it, because he won't release his tax returns to prove it.

People keep money in offshore bank accounts for several reasons. Chief among them are these two: to hide the money and not to pay taxes on it. But if you believe Romney, he was keeping his money there because maybe when he went on vacation he wanted to be able to use their ATMs without paying extra fees. So it was worth it to Rmoney to have fifty million or so sitting in the Grand Caymans and Switzerland.

Note also that the article repeats the line about Mittens retiring from Bain in 1999, even though he was signing SEC documents proclaiming that he was the CEO and sole shareholder of Bain Capital into 2002.

At worst, Romney has been lying about what he did at Bain.

At best, Romney had a "no-show" job, where they paid him at least $100,000 a year to act as a figurehead. Which may or may not have been a felony, considering that he held himself out to the Feds as being the HMFIC.

Thing is, if you have a no-show job in government, you go to jail. In business, you get to run for office.

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Myth Romney campaign gaffe: Please pass the popcorn

By Comrade Misfit

So it seems that the Democrats are beating the crap out of Romney because when he was head of Bain Capital, it closed a steel mill, throwing people out of work. Those people lost their health insurance and at least one person died from untreated cancer.

So Mitten's on-duty spokes-troll takes up her verbal arsenal to defend him and offers this corker: If those workers had been in Massachusetts, they'd have had health insurance. Because, as governor, Romney enacted universal health insurance.

Except, of course, that the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) was modeled on the Massachusetts universal health care law (Romneycare). Which means that the Romney campaign just backed into endorsing Obamacare.

And since the Republicans have flip-flopped on the universal health insurance mandate from being "the personal responsibility of any sane adult" (when they suggested it in 1993 and later when Romneycare was enacted) to "zOMG!!!1!! Soczialism!!!1!", the conservatives are losing their collective shit.

Pass the popcorn.

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Death squads and vulture capitalism: The money behind Bain Capital and Mitt Romney's political career

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it...

So how exactly was Bain Capital financed? How did it get started on its work of crushing people and companies into oblivion and profiting off the remains?

Well, how is really who. And the who in large part were El Salvadoran oligarchs with blood-stained hands:

In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it.

When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.

Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globe reporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.

It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients.

"Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital," Strachan wrote in his memoir in 2008.

And just who were these mysterious Central Americans?

When Romney launched another venture that needed funding -- his first presidential campaign -- he returned to Miami.

"I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent," he said at a dinner in Miami in 2007. "When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira."

Romney could also have thanked investors from two other wealthy and powerful Central American clans -- the de Sola and Salaverria families, who the Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe have reported were founding investors in Bain Capital.

While they were on the lookout for investments in the United States, members of some of these prominent families -- including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas clans -- were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador. The ruling classes were deploying the death squads to beat back left-wing guerrillas and reformers during El Salvador's civil war.

Yes, these oligarchic families who helped organize, and supported the activities of, El Salvador's death squads -- see the NBC News report below -- funded not just the firm that made Romney hugely wealthy but Romney's own political career. And they have remained active in both.

This is making a few waves given the appearance of the story at HuffPo yesterday, but it's not the first time it's been reported. The L.A. Times article is from July 19, and The Nation wrote about it the same day, referring back to a Salon piece from way back on January 20 called "The roots of Bain Capital in El Salvador’s civil war." Needless to say, the story deserves much wider attention.

And look for Romney, who likes to play fast and loose with the facts, to deny he ever had anything to do with Bain Capital, or maybe to say that he pre-retired from it before it ever got off the ground, and that he doesn't know anything about anyone from this place called "Al Salvader," the existence of which he can't confirm.

How Romney and Bain screwed Italy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Italy? Never heard of it.

From Bloomberg:

Mitt Romney skipped Italy on his swing through Europe. That was probably prudent.

That's because Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer, made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains controversial in Italy to this day. Bain was part of a group that bought a telephone-directory company from the Italian government and then sold it about two years later, at the peak of the technology bubble, for about 25 times what it paid. 

Bain funneled profits through subsidiaries in Luxembourg, a common corporate strategy for avoiding income taxes in other European countries, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The buyer, Italy's biggest telephone company, now has a total market value less than what it paid Bain and other investors for the directory business.

In Italy, the deals have spurred at least three books, separate legal and regulatory probes and newspaper columns alleging investors made a fortune at the expense of Italian taxpayers.

*****

Romney himself probably earned more than $50 million, and possibly as much as $60 million from the Italian directory sale of Seat Pagine Gialle SpA, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal turned into one of the biggest windfalls of his tenure.

*****

"Mitt Romney and Bain played the role of successful financial speculators at the peril of the Italian government and the small stock-market investors who were burned by the sharp decline in Seat (PG) shares," said Giovanni Pons, a journalist for la Repubblica and co-author of "L'Affare Telecom" (2002), which recounts details of the Bain deal.

Okay, a few things:

First, while this may all have been "in full compliance with all tax and reporting requirements in Italy, Europe, the U.S. and the resident countries of other investors," as Bain contends, this matter provides yet more insight into just what Romney means when he says he has the sort of business expertise that qualifies him to be president. Other than being a one-term governor, what else has he done other than tear companies apart for profit, channelling said profit into tax shelters (just as Romney himself has put money in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands)?

And how would that translate to federal fiscal and economic policy? (Though Romney's plan seems to be merely to cut taxes on the rich, like himself, while hoping for a massive global economic recovery for which he would take credit.)

Second, Italy, and Italian policy, is very much to blame for what happened:

The sale of the government's directory business is "a dark chapter in the country’s privatization history, one that has hurt Italians deeply," said Bernardo Bortolotti, an economics professor at Turin University who advised the Italian Treasury on asset sales from 2002 through 2005. "It was a mistake from the start, damaged by a lack of transparency and the use of offshore funds."

The Italian government didn't have to sell the business, just as it didn't have to adopt privatization -- and embrace "neo-liberalism" -- as official policy. (It is again planning to sell off various public assets, apparently having learned nothing from history, dooming itself once more.)

Romney and Bain took advantage of the situation and profited immensely. This is not to excuse them. Even if what they did was legal, it certainly stretches the bounds of ethics. But the point is that Italy allowed itself to be taken advantage of. Or, I should say, the Italian government. And while Romney made off with tens of millions, Italy is still struggling economically and the Italian people, who were screwed over in the deal, remain the true victims of this madness.

Third, Bain sold the business in 2000, one year after Romney supposedly stepped down to go run the Salt Lake Olympics. Bloomberg reports that he was "personally involved in the deal at various points, including the initial decision to invest." So... was he still involved after 1999? He made tens of millions of dollars. Does it make any sense that he just walked away from this huge money-making deal when he stepped aside? Was everything in place for the sale prior to his departure? And/or did he continue to take an active interest in the deal after that?

Questions, questions. Romney will no doubt do his utmost to avoid having to provide the answers -- truthful answers, that is.

Cory Booker prepares to collect on a debt

By Richard K. Barry

Gee, hate to be cynical, but when Newark Mayor Cory Booker sent a message to the Obama campaign that it just wasn't right to pick on the deep-pocketed guys on Wall Street and at Bain Capital, I, and others, had some idea what might be going on. And, by golly, we were right. Last Thursday, Booker made it official. He's eyeing state-wide office, maybe governor or the Senate.

Word is, he formed a federal PAC last month. And what do you need for a PAC? Why, money. And who has money? Well, you know.

Look, I get it. You need lots of resources to win campaigns in that New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area. But Booker might have mentioned to Obama's team he was going to turn on them, or maybe that was the whole point, to show he's his own man.

Politics is not for anyone with a weak stomach. Wanna see Booker sell his soul again?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Lemon. Wet. Good.

By tmcbpatriot

What a week! First a move, then no Internet, and all during a non-stop summer heat wave. It's enough to make you crazy. So, I can really relate to what has been going on in the world of Mitt Romney.

Here is a quote from the Mittster from a few weeks ago while in New Hampshire:

"Get out and vote next year, this November, I mean!" said Romney, wiping beads of sweat off his brow. At one point, stopping to guzzle a glass of lemonade, Romney was asked how it tasted, to which he replied, "Lemon. Wet. Good."

That is a great quote, is it not? He really nailed it! I mean, can you describe lemonade any better? I don't think so. Maybe if he becomes president we can look forward to more of this. Perhaps he could go to Iran and say something like: "Nukes. Bad. War!" Or maybe when asked to show his complete tax returns, as presidents have been doing since the 1950s, Willard can simply reply "Taxes. Really? No!"

And as if that weren't funny enough, we have seen a ratcheting up of how Romney may have committed a felony by lying about his tenure at Bain. Of course Romney is not a felon, but it has been fascinating to watch pundits and journalists fall all over themselves to tell this story as if there were any room for doubt. Of course Romney was still involved with Bain after he claimed he left in 1999. Whom is he fooling? Why are we pretending there is any doubt about this? He founded the company and made gazillions from it. He expects us to believe he just walked away from it to run the Olympics?

Actually... Yes. He. Does.

Recall, this is a man who expects you to believe he likes grits, is unemployed, and expects to bring unemployment down nearly three whole percentage points during his first term alone! This from a Gordon Gekko archetype who wouldn't know a home-baked cookie from one stuck to his shoe.

We are to supposed to see Mitt Romney as some kind of folksy, down-home, honest businessman who wants to "fix" America. But don't you believe it for a second. He has never been that and never will be. The only thing he intends to "fix," if president, is his tax bracket and offshore bank accounts so he can continue to make millions off his investments while those very investments take jobs away from this country, put people out of work, and make Mitt Romney an even wealthier man while he sleeps.

No. I think we have seen all we really need to see to know the real Mitt Romney. It is something that can literally be summed up in three words:

Rich. Soulless. Dick.

And while that might not be as thirst quenching as a glass of lemonade, it is accurate. And really, can you find a more fitting description?

I. Think. Not.

(Cross-posted at Take My Country Back.)

Behind the Ad: Mitt Romney not responsible at Bain?

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive "Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Obama-Biden campaign.

Where: Campaign website.

What's going on: Obama's campaign has a new man-on-the-street ad that takes advantage of the absurdity of Romney's comments about his position at Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002. The name of the ad is: "Mitt Romney: Chairman, CEO, and Sole Shareholder - But Not Responsible?" It features people reading from Romney's contorted statements about his status at Bain during that time and reacting to the words.

As one woman says: "That sounds very suspicious. If you're a person in charge of a business, then you should take full responsibility for your actions." That sounds about right.

It's a fairly humorous piece, something Jon Stewart might even like. The music is kind of funky too.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

What's left?

By Mustang Bobby

As far as the Republicans are concerned, there are three selling points to Mitt Romney:

1. He has business experience that will put America back on the road to economic recovery;
2. He was a successful Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state, so he can work with everybody; and
3. He's not Barack Obama.

Well, in the last few weeks we've seen Number 1 come under scrutiny for the cutthroat tactics and outsourcing of jobs overseas at Bain Capital, plus questions about when Mr. Romney really left the company. If it really was in 1999, why was he still listed on the company's documents, and why did he collect nearly half a million dollars in payments when he allegedly had nothing to do with the company? (Nice work if you can get it.) The explanations from him and his surrogates are beginning to sound like Bill Clinton's tortured explanations of exactly how he did not have sexual relations with that woman, and "retired retroactively" has become as much an internet and Twitter sensation as "it all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

They're caught in a bind. The Republicans and the Romney campaign have sneered at the attempts by their opponents to point out nuances; they don't think the "common people" pay attention to the difference between "tax" and "penalty" when it comes to the ACA, but now they want us to know the difference between "outsourcing" and "offshoring," and they expect us to understand why it's perfectly okay to still collect a salary from a job you claim you left years before, and you really don't need to see his tax returns. And now, as Josh Marshall points out, the embedding of words like "joke," "liar," "felon," "retroactively retired," "SEC filings," "Caymans," "whiner," "buck stops here," "hiding something" will forever be linked to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital the same way "swiftboating" and windsurfing latched on to John Kerry.

As for Number 2, Mr. Romney's signature achievement as Governor of Massachusetts was the passage of healthcare reform. It's been a huge success, and anyone else would be proud to run on it as a genuine accomplishment. The problem is that it was the model for the Affordable Care Act passed by President Obama and the Democrats in 2010, and Mr. Romney and the Republicans have vowed to repeal it. As far as anyone can tell, the only legitimate reason he might have for that is copyright infringement. So since he can't run on that, what else does he have to show for his government experience? Precious little. Massachusetts did not emerge as a powerhouse of the economy under his stewardship, and aside from his White House ambitions in 2008, he chose not to run for a second term in 2006 because he stood a good chance of losing. That's not exactly a record to run on at the presidential level.

So we get to Number 3: He's not Barack Obama. Well, neither was Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, or any of the other GOP primary challengers who toyed with the idea of running against him. The only reason Mr. Romney emerged as the winner in the primary was because he came in second the last time. The GOP is big on entitlement, so it's his turn. (Are you ready for Santorum '16?) And he's Not Barack Obama.

The problem with that is that he doesn't have the likability qualities of the president. Poll after poll show that even people who disagree with him on policy matters like Mr. Obama personally, especially compared to Mr. Romney's klutzy people skills, verbal gaffes, Etch-A-Sketch changes to his positions, and his complete unawareness that he comes across to people as the caricature of the rich plutocrat. You can't tell your friends that you really told off the NAACP to vote for the other guy to keep getting free stuff while you're taking a $77,000 tax write-off for your pet horse and expect to come across as anything but out of touch. As much as I think elections should not be about which one you want to have a beer with, it still is a question that matters to a lot of people who vote, and Mr. Romney comes across as not the guy you work with but the guy who laid you off.

Two legs of the Romney candidacy stool have been weakened considerably, all without the help of outside forces, and the third leg -- "I'm not the other guy" -- only works when you're running for student council. So what's left for him to run on?

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Rob Portman plays whining Romney attack dog

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Hey Rob, ever been to the Caymans?

Reports have Ohio Sen. Rob Portman on Romney's short list for veep, and he's certainly acting like he wants it:

GOP Sen. Rob Portman defended his party's presumptive presidential nominee Monday from President Barack Obama's "personal" attacks, saying the Democrat was focusing on Mitt Romney because his record falls short.

*****

"The president said back in 2008 when he was running for office complaining about the Republican campaign, he said, 'When you're out of fresh ideas you turn to stale tactics, to attack your opponent because you don't want to talk about your record.' He said that makes big elections about small things. That's exactly what he's doing right now," Portman, who represents Ohio in the Senate, said Monday.

Translation: Mr. President, don't say anything more about Bain or the outsourcing or the tax shelters and foreign bank accounts or those tax returns not being made public or really anything else that goes to Mitt's business record, personal finances, and character because, well, he's vulnerable. There's a lot there, more than most people know, and we're afraid it could all bring him down. Afraid? Really we're shitting-our-pants terrified. The Obama campaign is successfully defining Mitt based on the truth, and it's totally controlling the narrative. We're fucked. So, please, lay off. Please!

Otherwise, Portman, Romney at Bain is fair game, and so are his personal finances. It all speaks to his experience, the experience he himself has been touting as his main qualification to be president, and to get the economy going again, as well as to his character. How he made his money (and what Bain did), what he's done with it, and whether he's been lying to the American people for personal political gain -- all this deserves close scrutiny. Just because he's rich and privileged, and has been that way his whole life, doesn't mean he can get away with being secretive. He may think he deseves to be president and shouldn't really have to go through this whole messy democracy thing, but thankfully America doesn't work that way.

And, Portman, the president has been talking ideas and policy -- throughout his entire presidency thus far -- whether it's been economic stimulus or the rescue of the auto industry or health-care reform or deficit reduction and entitlement reform or immigration or the Iraq and Afghan wars or the war against al Qaeda or Libya and Egpyt or... it goes on and on. Just because Republicans have decided to wage a war of obstructionism against everything he proposes doesn't mean he isn't trying to get things done. And if Mitt wants to talk ideas and policy, and not just the sort of ad hominem attacks and superficial, propagandistic statements he usually traffics in, then, yes, by all means, tell him to go for it. I'm sure the president would welcome that debate and benefit from the clear contrast. But I suspect Mitt won't go there, because he knows he'd lose. All he can really do is talk selectively about his experience, call Obama an un-American interloper (which is the gist of his attacks), and make silly claims about what incredible things he'd do as president.

The point is, if Romney isn't going to tell us about himself in an open, honest, and meaningful way -- and he clearly isn't -- then he's vacated the space for others to fill. Americans deserve to know what sort of a person he is, to know something of his real character, and that means, among other things, going back and looking at what he did at Bain and what he's done with the wealth he made as a vulture capitalist.

You may not like it, Portman, what with all your whining, but if anyone's to blame here, it's Mitt. He may want to spin a nice little mythology about himself, like selling snake oil to the masses, but it's all self-aggrandizing deception. And we're not buying it.

More Romney inconsistency on Bain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

David Corn, who's been doing some fantastic reporting on this matter, at Mother Jones: "Romney's Account of His Departure From Bain Undercut by... Romney Testimony."

In 2002, in sworn testimony at a hearing in Massachusetts, Romney said there was "some transition away from my work in Boston" after he supposedly left Bain to run the Salt Lake City Olympics in February 1999. Corn writes:

The problem for Romney is, he's now insisting -- and he signed a federal form declaring -- he had no participation in Bain (besides owning the company and its various entities) once he headed to Utah. During this current controversy over his role at Bain, he has not said anything about a transition period.

Romney's mention of a "transition" period for his "work in Boston" is another contradiction for him to explain. Did he testify inaccurately during that hearing -- after swearing to tell the truth? Or is he now trying to create a bright line -- to distance himself from Bain-related layoffs and outsourcing -- that didn't exist? Any transition time for Romney at Bain would undermine his central claim about his last days at the firm.

It's pretty amazing that Romney hasn't been able to keep to a consistent story -- even a consistent lie -- on Bain.

And as more and more comes out, he just keeps getting caught.

At Bain, Romney created wealth, not jobs

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it, here was PolitiFact on Friday:

Romney was the company's founder, and we think it worth a broader look at Bain’s investment practices, starting in the early 1990s...

Our research shows that outsourcing was well established by the time Bain began buying shares in the companies described in the recent articles. To call these companies pioneers is a stretch.

"This had been going on for decades," said Tim Sturgeon a researcher who focuses on outsourcing at the Industrial Performance Center at MIT.

Outsourcing grew significantly starting in the early 1990s thanks in part to the expansion of the Internet and changes in the rules of international trade. Bain was one of scores of private equity firms that participated.

"They were part of the herd," said Sturgeon. "To say they picked the pioneers gives (Bain) too much credit for being innovative. It was a mainstream strategy by that point."

Every expert we contacted agreed that when Bain invested in the companies in question, it was counting on high returns that included the results of outsourcing.

Bain may not have been a pioneer of outsourcing, but it was deeply involved in it. Because it -- and Romney personally -- was all about making money, not creating jobs. If making money required that jobs be sent overseas, so be it. If making money required that jobs be destroyed without regard, you know, for the actual human beings in them, whatever.

So much of the talk right now, and understandably so, is about whether Romney was still at Bain, or still in some way responsible for its activities, after he left in 1999. But we also need to look at what Bain did, and what Romney himself oversaw and approved, before he left, that is, when he was fully in charge of the firm. There may have been some success stories, the ones Romney brings up to tout his business acumen, but the record in all its ugliness and brutality is getting clearer and clearer.

As Greg Sargent wrote yesterday: "The larger point here is that Romney's business background was about creating wealth -- regardless of the impact it had on American jobs -- and that in so doing, his company invested in firms that outsourced and ultimately moved jobs overseas, even as Romney remained listed as CEO and sole shareholder."

Care to go back on the talk-show circuit to try to defend yourself, Mitt?

You just keep thinking that, OMitt!

By Carl 

(Like the new nickname for Romney? It's in honor of his lies and failure to disclose fully his financial information and employment status.) 

Methinks Mitt Romney is starting to feel the heat:

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney demanded Monday that President Barack Obama back away from his persistent attacks on Romney's record at Bain Capital, advising that it would be better "if you spent some time speaking about your record."

"What does it say about a president whose record is so poor that all he can do in this campaign is attack me," Romney said in a nationally broadcast interview.

Obama said an interview that he has run mostly positive campaign ads but said they have not been given much attention in the media. 

OMitt has gotten great mileage out of his "business experience," yet a careful examination of that experience shows a pattern of lies and misinformation designed to protect Mitt and his investors at all costs, while they rake in gobs of barely-taxable income.

As I covered back in April, even his acknowledged time at Bain capital shows a significant amount of collateral damage to real Americans and real failures for his firm.

Romney wants the best of both worlds, have his cake AND eat it too while never letting you know there's extra slices available.

President Obama is calling him out on this, and OMitt is squirming. OMitt displayed a thin skin on the campaign trail and I suspect the strategy is to rub him raw until he blows up.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Romney was Bain, Bain was Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Even a high-ranking Bain insider says that Romney didn't retire in 1999:

A former partner at Bain Capital, who worked at the firm when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was in charge, acknowledged on Sunday that Romney was "legally" the chief executive officer and sole owner of Bain Capital until 2002, not 1999 as Romney has previously stated, and said that Romney was engaged in a "complicated set of negotiations" over his exit pay for at least two years after he says he left the firm.

"Mitt's names were on the documents as the chief executive and sole owner of the company," Ed Conard, who served as a partner at Bain Capital from 1993 to 2007, said in an exclusive interview with Up w/ Chris Hayes. Asked again if Romney was chief executive officer of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002, Conard said, "Legally, on documents, I suppose, yes."

Yeah, but who cares about what's legal, right?

Romney's wagon-circling defenders, if not Romney himself, will say that he was just negotiating how much money he'd get, not actively running the firm anymore. But the point isn't that he was running it on a day-to-day basis (which we haven't been suggesting), the point is that he was still responsible for it, and its actions, as owner and CEO.

And that he's been lying. Again and again and again.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A flurry of dishonesty and deception: Romney hack Ed Gillespie claims Romney "retired retroactively" from Bain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Okay, here goes: Why are you and your hacks lying so much?

Romney advisor and unabashed partisan hack Ed Gillespie was on the teevee earlier today defending his lord and master's... uh... retirement from Bain Capital:

He took a leave of absence and in fact he ended up not going back at all, and retired retroactively to 1999 as a result. He left a life he loved to go to Salt Lake City and help a country he loves more, and somehow Chicago... is trying to make it something sinister.

This is the sort of bullshit we've come to expect from the likes of Gillespie. Let's unravel it by asking a few questions:

First, how exactly do you retire "retroactively"?

Second, if he took a leave of absence, why did SEC filings still list him as Bain's Chief Poobah long after 1999?

Third, did the "life he loved" involve making a fortune outsourcing jobs (which went on at Bain well before he supposedly left the firm) and destroying companies (or, more to the point, the workers at those companies)?

Fourth, did he leave Bain to help his country (this claim that Romney is oh-so-patriotic being oh-so-transparently opportunistic) or to make a name for himself and build his political capital running the Olympics being hosted by the city that is home to his church?

Fifth, isn't it ridiculous to refer to the Obama campaign as "Chicago," the intent being to suggest that it's run by some thuggish political machine, as if to show utter disrespect for the president?

Sixth -- and this isn't a question -- the Obama campaign doesn't have to try to make this something sinister. It is sinister.

Everything Romney has done in his career has been either to make shitloads of money at any cost, including at any human cost, and/or to sell himself like snake oil and pander shamelessly for the sake of his political aspirations, cynically counting on voter ignorance to give him a free pass.

Lying about what he did at Bain, and about what Bain did, is just par for his course.

Retro-fire

By Mustang Bobby

Romney adviser Ed Gillespie says Mr. Romney " retired retroactively" from Bain.

What a concept. Can I bet retroactively 100-to-1 that the Miami Heat will win the 2012 NBA Championship?

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Mitt Romney: Trying to have it both ways on Bain Capital

By Richard K. Barry

Hey, stop reporting the things I say.

Here's a funny thought. Mitt Romney did the rounds at media outlets this past week to argue unequivocally that he had nothing to do with Bain Capital after February of 1999.

CNN listed the ways in which he said it:

"I had no role whatsoever in the management of Bain Capital after February of 1999."
 
"I left in February of 1999 to go out and run the Olympics."

"I went out and did that full-time, relinquished all management authority and role in Bain Capital after February of 1999."

"But the truth is that I left any role at Bain Capital in February of '99."

"And I had no role whatsoever in managing Bain Capital after February of 1999."

And then, when pressed abut the discrepancy between his own words and government documents that list him as head of the company between 1999 and 2002 and the extent to which that would be a distraction for the campaign, he offered a blanket defence of Bain's work.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with being associated with Bain Capital, of course."

But Mitt, apparently you do think there is something wrong with being associated with Bain Capital and you've been screaming it from the rooftops for quite a while.

Mitt Romney co-founded Bain in 1984 and ran it for years. He no doubt helped define its corporate identity, its ethos, how it does business.

Even aside from the absurdity of claiming to have no knowledge of the companies dealings after 1999 even as he was legally tied to it in government documents, are we to believe that deals that happened after 1999 don't reflect at all on the kind of businessman he was?

Either there is nothing wrong with the decisions made at Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002 or Mitt Romney should stop claiming at every turn that he had nothing to do with them. After all, there's nothing wrong with being associated with Bain Capital, right Mitt?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Mitt Romney's bad timing on Bain

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our "Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: The Romney campaign.

Where: Romney's website.

What's going on: In a colossal case of bad timing, the Romney campaign has released an ad calling President Obama a liar for claiming Romney was the head of Bain Capital when it did a lot of bad stuff on the very day The Boston Globe ran a big story that Romney was the head of Bain Capital when it did a lot of bad stuff.

(I wrote about this earlier today.)

Here's Romney's voice-of-doom ad. Better luck next time on the whole timing thing, Mitt.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)