Daily Archives: June 24, 2012

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign may be the greatest business decision the one percent ever made

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The super secret, exclusive shindig for Mitt Romney’s biggest donors in Park City, Utah, dubbed the “First National Romney Victory Leadership Retreat,” over the weekend has some interesting details. If you don’t find this information at least a little bit alarming, I suggest you check yourself for a pulse.

Politico describes the setting — “Eight hundred top donors gathered in the ballroom of a resort here to watch the presentation: the Romney campaign for president is organized, efficient and run like a business. In other words, their money is being wisely invested. The price tag for entry to the exclusive donor retreat was $50,000 and included access to some of the GOP’s biggest names — Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, as well as a briefing from top Romney officials on how they planned to beat President Barack Obama in November. It was a way of saying “thank you” to the hundreds of bundlers — fundraisers who tap their network of friends, family and associates to raise far more than the $2,500 they are allowed to individually contribute to a campaign. While Obama discloses his bundler list, Romney shrouds his in secrecy and the goings-on this weekend were held strictly behind closed doors.”

And who are the lucky folks who scored exclusive invitations? No idea.

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Steve Benen comments – ”All of this, apparently, is “a way to reward top-performing bundlers, who make their own donations and then raise many times that from their networks of friends and associates.” To be sure, this is quite a treat for these bundlers, who will reportedly be “briefed on campaign strategy” during the posh affair (the agenda for Saturday evening includes “dessert and dancing”). [...] Unlike George W. Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama, each of whom voluntarily disclosed the names of their bundlers, Romney refuses to share this information, preferring to maintain a veil of secrecy over his fundraising operation. These bundlers are poised to get extraordinary access to Republican leaders and the man who may be president next year, but we aren’t allowed to know who they are.”

The NYTimes describes the complete access to power for the wealthiest — “Everybody was completely accessible,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier and Romney fund-raiser who said the candidate took the time to warmly greet and thank him by his nickname, Mooch, at a dinner on the first night of the retreat. [...] Donors were unabashed about their desire to have face time with those who might constitute the brain trust in a Romney White House. David A. Wish, a Florida doctor and Romney fund-raiser, said that in order to sell the candidate to potential contributors, “we need one-on-one time with the people who make decisions.” [...] On Thursday night, Mr. Rove held court on a hotel balcony with about a half-dozen financial executives, who peppered him with questions about Mr. Romney’s chances… After Mr. Rove walked away, the gaggle of men excitedly recounted the conversation, reveling in their access. “That’s the price of admission right there,” one donor said to another. “Your six minutes with Rove.”

And, according to Buzzfeed, Bain was there — “Flight records passed along by a Democratic source show that the Bain Capital Jet company jet flew from Bedford, Massachusetts to airfield near Romney’s Utah donor retreat on Friday.”

Think Progress notes that Karl Rove’s participation at this event demonstrates Romney’s poor judgement and hypocrisy – A Saturday panel on “media insight” will feature American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS co-founder Karl Rove. The Crossroads reportedly plan to spend a stunning $300 million to help Romney defeat President Barack Obama this November, but they are legally prohibited from coordinating this effort with Romney’s campaign. [...] in December, Romney decried the rise of Super PACs like Rove’s American Crossroads, saying they have been a “disaster” for the political system. He said at the time: Super PACs have to be entirely separate from a campaign and a candidate. I’m not allowed to communicate with a super PAC in any way, shape or form… If we coordinate in any way whatsoever, we go to the big house.

What you would miss about Obamacare

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Just before the Supreme Court issues its ruling this week on the Affordable Care Act, Think Progress reminds us What you would miss about Obamacare – What happens if the Supreme Court strikes whole or parts of Obamacare? These popular provisions would be lost: 

  1. Access to health insurance for 30 million Americans and lower premiums.
  2. Insurers’ inability to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.
  3. Affordable health care for lower-income Americans.
  4. Investments in women’s health.
  5. Young adults’ ability to stay on their parents’ health care plans.
  6. Temporary coverage for the sickest Americans.

Read more about what you’d miss at ThinkProgress.

RELATED:  An explanation of the Affordable Care Act that’s simple enough for a five-year-old to understand

Mitt’s Mormon army: religious beliefs are an issue only for black presidential candidates

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President Obama’s religious beliefs have been a major issue for teagelicals for over three years now. Raw Story reports that one in five Republicans believe the president is a Muslim: “18 percent of Republicans believed Obama was Muslim, even though the President is a church-going Christian. Both Obama’s religion and his birthplace have been points of controversy in his public career, Gallup noted. These data show that in terms of his religion, most Americans do not adhere to the belief that he is a Muslim. However, the fact that almost one in five Republicans do hold this belief suggests the potential for continuing controversy on this issue in the months ahead.”

Related: Mitt’s Mormon army mobilizes

Note: The Angel Moroni is a registered trademark of the LDS Church.

Romney’s Mormon army mobilizes

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FT.com reports: Mr Romney enjoys a 90 per cent approval rating in Utah and he shares a religion – Mormonism – with as many as 70 per cent of the state’s residents.

The Romney campaign is planning to harness this energy by deploying an army of Utah supporters, like Mr Harkness, to states where the presidential race is close, such as neighbouring Nevada and Colorado. Such efforts could be crucial in battleground states that will decide the election.

Next week, the state’s Republican National Committee will send its first busloads of members – as many as 180 – to the Romney campaign “victory centre” in Mesquite, Nevada, to talk about their ground-game for winning the state.

In addition to hitting the neighbouring states, the Romney campaign and the RNC are also planning to use the energised Utahns to put “boots on the ground” further afield in places such as California and Idaho too.

 

Mitt Romney’s “business experience” = a robber baron in the White House

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Laura Clawson at DailyKos argues that Romney’s big rationale for his presidency, his business experience at Bain Capital, is based on bringing jobs BACK to America by making America more like China. American jobs that Bain Capital, and companies like Bain, outsourced to other countries for their own profit for the past three decades:  

If you pay attention to what Romney is saying past the quotable “My job is to bring jobs back to America” lines, he’s saying the jobs would come back because he’d make the U.S. into China. What he’s talking about when he promises to bring jobs back to America is weakening safety and environmental protections, lowering corporate taxes, keeping workers from organizing for better pay and working conditions. If Romney can accomplish all that, his time at Bain certainly does qualify him to exploit the giant new pool of low-wage, poorly protected workers that would result.

Romney’s business philosophy at Bain: Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.

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The New York Times takes another deep look at Bain Capital (via: Political Wire):

“The private equity firm, co-founded and run by Mitt Romney, held a majority stake in more than 40 United States-based companies from its inception in 1984 to early 1999, when Mr. Romney left Bain to lead the Salt Lake City Olympics. Of those companies, at least seven eventually filed for bankruptcy while Bain remained involved, or shortly afterward, according to a review by The New York Times. In some instances, hundreds of employees lost their jobs. In most of those cases, however, records and interviews suggest that Bain and its executives still found a way to make money…”

“Bain structured deals so that it was difficult for the firm and its executives to ever really lose, even if practically everyone else involved with the company that Bain owned did, including its employees, creditors and even, at times, investors in Bain’s funds.”

via: randomactsofchaos: Mike Luckovich/Atlanta Journal-Constitution (06/23/2012)

 

Health care ruling due this week

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The New York Times reports the Supreme Court’s decision on President Obama’s health care law may not come on Monday as many have assumed.

Sarah Kliff on Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog says we should know by Friday. She also offers a really great ”refresher course on what they’re deciding, what’s at stake and what happens next.”

RELATED:  An explanation of the Affordable Care Act that’s simple enough for a five-year-old to understand

The President’s weekly address: appealing to House Republicans to do their job

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Right now, we are seven days away from thousands of American workers having to walk off the job because Congress hasn’t passed a transportation bill. We are eight days away from nearly seven and a half million students seeing their loan rates double because Congress hasn’t acted to stop it.  [...] This is a time when we should be doing everything in our power – Democrats and Republicans – to keep this recovery moving forward. My Administration is doing its part. On Friday, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced $500 million in competitive grants for states and communities that will create construction jobs on projects like road repair and port renovation. And that’s an important step, but we can’t do it all on our own. The Senate did their part. They passed a bipartisan transportation bill back in March. It had the support of 52 Democrats and 22 Republicans. Now, it’s up to the House to follow suit; to put aside partisan posturing, end the gridlock, and do what’s right for the American people. It’s not lost on any of us that this is an election year. But we’ve got responsibilities that are bigger than an election. We answer to the American people, and they are demanding action. Let’s make it easier for students to stay in college. Let’s keep construction workers rebuilding our roads and bridges. And let’s tell Congress to do their job. Tell them it’s time to take steps that we know will create jobs now and help sustain our economy for years to come. – President Obama


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When Romney’s Bain Capital created jobs outside the U.S. that could have been done here

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Caroline Bankoff at Daily Intel discusses the recent Washington Post article about how Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved American jobs overseas: [The Romney] campaign has responded with a statement criticizing the article as “fundamentally flawed”:

[The] story that does not differentiate between domestic outsourcing versus offshoring nor versus work done overseas to support U.S. exports.  Mitt Romney spent 25 years in the real world economy so he understands why jobs come and they go.

However, as Politico notes, the statement does not address one of the article’s main points, which is that Bain was directly involved with companies that created jobs outside the United States that could have been done here. Meanwhile, the New York Times has a piece (also based on Securities and Exchange Commission filings) detailing a number of instances in which Bain made a profit off of taking over companies that eventually went bankrupt. While some of the companies profiled may have simply been “too troubled to rescue” (or brought down by larger economic or industry trends), there are examples like steel manufacturer GS Industries… Continue reading »

Steel – YouTube – Kansas City’s GST Steel had been making steel rods for 105 years when Romney and his partners took control in 1993. They cut corners and extracted profit from the business at every turn, placing it deeply in debt. When the company eventually declared bankruptcy, workers not only lost their jobs but were denied their full pensions and health insurance, and the government was forced to step in and provide a bailout.


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Romney economics (why jobs come and why they go): creating wealth for a few at the expense of many.

Sunday: Bible Club

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The Vatican needs a little Fox “News” propaganda magic / training – APNewsBreak: VATICAN CITY – The Vatican has brought in the Fox News correspondent in Rome to help improve its communications strategy as it tries to cope with years of communications blunders and one of its most serious scandals in decades, officials said Saturday. Greg Burke, 52, will leave Fox to become the senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state, the Vatican and Burke told The Associated Press.

TPM: The younger generation is abandoning God in droves. A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that belief in the existence of God has dropped 15 points in the last five years among Americans 30 and under.

Addicting Info: Americans becoming less religious – In the last ten years, coincidentally when the Millenials were growing up, the conservative movement went all the way old timey religion and became explicitly about hate and prejudice. Essentially, the religious right showed its true face and the Millenials found it repulsive. This is another one of those demographic changes, like the “browning” of America that signals the eventual demise of the conservative movement as we know it. Sooner or later, the wedge issues of race, sexual orientation and gender all based on religious “beliefs” will simply lose their potency. This is one of the major reasons the GOP is pushing so hard to restrict voting rights and enact as many far right laws as possible; they can read the same charts we can an come to the same conclusion: consolidate power now or lose it forever. The next 20 years are going to be some of the most corrupt and tumultuous in our nation’s history as the failing right goes to its grave kicking and screaming.

The teagelicals are doing a great job! Part of the problem?

via: jsenum

Self-identified “religious” people cannot hide their hypocrisy — A recent study found that the less religious people are, the more compassionate towards others they will be, according to a report by NPR:

In three experiments, the social scientists found that the less religious were more generous when presented with situations that stimulated their compassion, which the scientists defined as “an emotion felt when people see the suffering of others which then motivates them to help, often at a personal risk or cost.” [...] ‘The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns.’”

Philadelphia Priest Trial: A Roman Catholic church official was convicted of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy Friday in a landmark clergy-abuse trial, making him the first U.S. church official branded a felon for covering up abuse claims. Monsignor William Lynn helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches, prosecutors said. Lynn, 61, served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, mostly under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Churches are getting political, but they still want their tax-exempt status – Reuters:  Pastor Jim Garlow will stand before congregants at his 2,000-seat Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, on Sunday, October 7, just weeks before the U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and urge his flock to vote for or against particular candidates. He knows such pulpit pleading could endanger his church’s tax-exempt status by violating IRS rules for a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. A charity can take a position on policy issues but cannot act “on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” To cross that line puts the $7 million mega-church’s tax break at risk. Even so, Garlow not only intends to break the rules, he also plans to spend the next four months recruiting other pastors to do the same as part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday. On that day each year since 2008, ministers intentionally try to provoke the IRS. Some even send DVD recordings of their sermons to the agency. Last year, 539 pastors participated. This year organizers expect far more. Participants want to force the matter to court as a freedom of speech and religion issue. (via: azspot)

Churches, as an organization, can’t endorse political figures as a condition of their tax-exempt status, but 539 ministers challenged the IRS last year by endorsing or opposing a candidate for office.  This Reuters graphic takes a look at where churches are endorsing or opposing candidates the most.

Amen.