Well this is an ugly story… imagine if Willard was elected president. He wouldn’t need the Secret Service with his Mormon Church Protective and Interrogation Service.
After writing negative articles about the Republican candidate, the managing editor of MormonThink.com says he faces excommunication. Is the Church on a witch hunt? Jamie Reno reports.
[...] A Mormon in good standing, Twede has never been disciplined by Latter Day Saints leadership. But it now appears his days as a Mormon may be numbered because of a series of articles he wrote this past week that were critical of Mitt Romney.
On Sunday, Twede says his bishop, stake president, and two church executives brought him into Florida Mormon church offices in Orlando and interrogated him for nearly an hour about his writings, telling him, “Cease and desist, Brother Twede.”
On Tuesday I wondered out loud whether the Mormon Church would ever take Mitt to task for his Ayn Randian economic policies, like some Catholic Church leaders have with Paul Ryan. I concluded no, because of the steady river of money that the Romneys tithe to the LDS Church. It looks like I was right.
“My heritage… my dad, as you probably know, was the governor of Michigan and was the head of a car company. But he was born in Mexico … and, uh, had he been born of, uh, Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this. But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico…. He lived there for a number of years. I mean, I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino.“
Between Latina women, 74% support Obama vs. Romney’s 21%
Between Latino men, 61% support Obama vs. Romney’s 32%
[h/t on video: reader John Roach]
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Sidenote: WHY WAS Romney’s father born in Mexico? George Romney was born in Mexico and was 5 years old when a revolution forced his family members in 1912 to flee their Mormon colony and seek refuge in the United States. The Mormon exiles lost their homes, farms, and most of their belongings, were welcomed by the United States, and benefited from a $100,000 refugee fund established by Congress. But there are other elements to the Romney story that may explain why he doesn’t tell the full tale on the campaign trail. The reason that George was born in Mexico is that his grandfather – Mitt’s great-grandfather – had taken refuge there in order to escape US laws against polygamy. It was this family patriarch, Miles Park Romney, who established the colony and lived there with four wives. Mitt Romney has decried what he has called the “awful’’ practice of polygamy and has never visited the colony, even though several dozen of his cousins continue to live there.
“I think the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren’t true. I’ve looked at prior debates. And in that kind of case, it’s difficult to say, ‘Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren’t quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?” — Mitt Romney to George Stephanopolis.
Related and FYI:
Steve Benen is now on the 34th installment of his weekly series Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity. Benen said about Mitt’s comment above: “There’s no sense of shame and no sense of irony.”
It was a Romney pollster who infamously said, rather recently: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”
Unsurprisingly the Mormon Bishop Mitt Romney, who has been described as generous, helpful and kind by his past congregation, is a completely different person from the Mitt Romney dealing with non-Mormons and people he has no use for in the political and/or business realm. From Think Progress:
David Wilson and Julie Goodridge, two of the plaintiffs whose case led to the legalization of marriage equality in Massachusetts, described meeting with Romney to discuss their experiences. According to Wilson, “it was like talking to a robot. No expression, no feeling.” At one point, Romney remarked, “I didn’t know you had families.” Goodridge recalls her final exchange with the governor, which proved to her that he had “no capacity for empathy”:
GOODRIDGE: Governor Romney, tell me — what would you suggest I say to my 8 year-old daughter about why her mommy and her ma can’t get married because you, the governor of her state, are going to block our marriage?
ROMNEY: I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.
Romney described the meeting to the press as “pleasant,” as Goodridge cried.
Because if you really are a human being, there are far different ways to disagree with someone or tell them “no,” than insulting their very existence and humanity. But to Romney, some people are more equal than others.
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Mormon Christus commands you to insult people who are different! Richard Cummins/Corbis - A sculpture in the visitors’ center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.
…that doesn’t speak well of his faith or heritage or background. Just saying.
“I’m convinced that my background, and my heritage and my faith have made me the person I am to a great degree. The Judeo-Christian ethics that I was brought up with, the sense of obligation to one’s fellow man, and an absolute conviction that we are all sons and daughters of the same God and therefore, in a human family, is one of the reasons I’m doing what I’m doing. I’m sure a number of members of my faith are proud of the fact that someone of my faith – our faith – is able to run for president.” — Mitt Romney: ‘My heritage and my faith have made me the person I am’
WILLARD ROMNEY: MAN OF GOD!
…
Weirdly, the “Judeo-Christian ethics” with which Romney claims to have been brought up has 10 Commandments, and bearing false witness is NUMBER NINE. Let’s just say that suggesting your political opponent is going to take God off the nation’s currency, just to make that opponent look bad to your supporters, would be a transgression of Judeo-Christian ethics, hypocrite.
And what kind of “faith” makes you attack someone else’s for political points? Is Romney’s Mormonism, his heritage and family’s history in Mexico, still going to be off-limits if he keeps taking digs at the President’s birthplace and religious faith to make the extremist nutjobs froth and shriek with approval (and votes)?
As part of just one Bain transaction in 2008, involving its investment in Burger King Holdings, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal thatan unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holdings then worth nearly $1.9 million. And there were numerous others, giving the church a stake in other Bain properties, such as Domino’s Pizza, the electronics manufacturerDDi, the phosphates company Innophos Holdings, and Marquee Holdings, the parent to AMC Theaters.
[...] In a 2008 stock sale involving Innophos Holdings, the church’s 50,301 shares were worth nearly $1.4 million. SEC filings for Marquee Holdings note that “certain members and other employees of Bain and its affiliates may make a contribution of shares to one or more charities prior to this offering, including … The Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
This isn’t 1930 and the intention of “off-limits” isn’t just for the white guy’s comfort and convenience.
Charles P. Pierce discusses how Romney-Ryan each have a problem with their respective religions:
“Much will be made of the fact that the Republican party, with its Bible-banging sectarian political base, has nominated a presidential ticket that includes both a Mormon and a Roman Catholic, which would have been unthinkable, oh, eight months ago, and still would be unthinkable, had the Mormon not possessed more money than anyone’s God, and had the Papist not been the poster child for magical-thinking conservative economics. This will be seen by the more gullible of the people out there as proof that the party is “moving beyond” the influence of the Dixiecrat snake-handlers… In reality, however, it is more a vivid demonstration that the Republican party’s One True Faith is in its desire to shove even more of the nation’s wealth upwards in the general direction of Willard Romney and, thence, in the general direction of Switzerland or the Cayman islands. To that end, the party eagerly would line up behind Asmodeus/Nero ’12 for the upcoming stretch drive…”
Rosalind S. Helderman at The Washington Post asks, because “…Romney seemed to suggest that he might think so last week, when he responded to questions about how much he pays in taxes by suggesting that people should take into account his total contributions to the government and charities.”
The comment was a quick one — a by-golly insistence that despite paying a relatively low tax rate on his vast income, the millions he has given to charity show that he’s not a greedy guy.
But experts who research public attitudes on philanthropy on both sides of the political spectrum said it was an inadvertently revealing moment, a brief window into the deep philosophical differences between how liberals and conservatives view government and society.
Another question raised here earlier is why are donations to the Mormon Church considered ‘charity’ and are therefore tax deductible — especially when such tithing is required by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? We know the Romneys tithe the required 10% to the Church, so you’d presume that if their 2010 return says they gave 13% to charity, then 10% of that was to the LDS Church. In January (not followed up, ever heard about this?) ABC News found there may be even more contributions to the Church from the Romney family through Bain Capital (one wonders, with the associated tax deductions?):
Newly uncovered stock contributions made during Romney’s Bain days suggest there is another dimension to Romney’s support for the church — one that could involve millions more than has been previously disclosed.
As part of just one Bain transaction in 2008, involving its investment in Burger King Holdings, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that an unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holdings then worth nearly $1.9 million. And there were numerous others, giving the church a stake in other Bain properties, such as Domino’s Pizza, the electronics manufacturer DDi, the phosphates company Innophos Holdings, and Marquee Holdings, the parent to AMC Theaters.
The Republican presidential candidate’s campaign staff confirmed that some of the stock transactions were at Romney’s direction, but they would not say which ones.
[...] In some cases the filings are vague about the way stocks are apportioned to the different recipients. In others, such as the 2000 stock sale involving DDi Corporation, the records show the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held 27,016 shares, worth $754,827 at the time of the sale. In a 2008 stock sale involving Innophos Holdings, the church’s 50,301 shares were worth nearly $1.4 million. SEC filings for Marquee Holdings note that “certain members and other employees of Bain and its affiliates may make a contribution of shares to one or more charities prior to this offering, including … The Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Charitable donations! You know what would actually be wonderfully karmic? If at some point, Bain Capital had given Stericycle stock to “The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Mitt Romney’s fortune combined with all the associated business dealings through Bain Capital — which can now be connected in unknown numerous ways with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – is like traveling down the rabbit hole without hope of returning anytime soon.
What Mitt Romney has on his side is American media: they don’t like to research such information or follow the money — it could get ‘uncomfortable’ with their pre-programmed formula of “both sides do it,” the GOP loves America, and Democrats are socialist hippies. Of course now the question becomes: how much of our mainstream media might be owned (by a one- to six-degree separation) by Kolob or the billionaires who are working behind the scenes to buy the White House?
Maybe people ought to start paying more attention.
Until the wholesale rightwing nutjob attack on the President’s religion and birthplace stops influencing the mainstream opinion of average Americans, a discussion of Mitt Romney’s religion and beliefs should not be off limits. In fact, there should be more open discussion of Romney’s religion, since it’s been one of the most important parts of his entire life. Especially now with Romney’s new ad “Be Not Afraid” which questions President Obama’s ‘beliefs’ and the now familiar conservative theme of “us and him” separation — the dog-whistling racist implication of the “otherness” of Obama and how he doesn’t share “our values,” how Obama has declared a “war on religion” with health care reform. And how Mitt Romney believes “that’s wrong.” And that Romney is the one to choose when “religious freedom is threatened.” What. Total. Horseshit.
Let’s talk about a couple of things regarding Mitt Romney and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints:
The Dark Side of Mitt Romney | Vanity Fair – ”But a dichotomy exists within the Mormon Church, which holds that one is either in or out; there is little or no tolerance for those, like so-called cafeteria Catholics, who pick and choose what doctrines to follow. And in Mormonism, if one is in, a lot is expected, including tithing 10 percent of one’s income, participating regularly in church activities, meeting high moral expectations, and accepting Mormon doctrine—including many concepts, such as the belief that Jesus will rule from Missouri in his Second Coming, that run counter to those of other Christian faiths. That rigidity can be difficult to abide for those who love the faith but chafe at its strictures or question its teachings and cultural habits. For one, Mormonism is male-dominated—women can serve only in certain leadership roles and never as bishops or stake presidents. The church also makes a number of firm value judgments, typically prohibiting single or divorced men from leading wards and stakes, for example, and not looking kindly upon single parenthood.”
Romney served “as bishop of the ward (ecclesiastical and administrative head of his congregation) at Belmont, Massachusetts, from 1981 to 1986.”What’s a Mormon bishop?
“Bishop is the highest priesthood office of the Aaronic priesthood in the Latter Day Saint movement, and is leader of the Aaronic priesthood in a given ward or congregation. It is almost always held by one who already holds the Melchizedek Priesthood office of high priest and who serves as the leader of a local congregation of church members. The Latter Day Saint concept of the office differs significantly from the role of bishops in other Christian denominations, being in some respects more analogous to a pastor or parish priest. Each bishop serves with two counselors, which together form a bishopric.
“[...] In the largest Latter Day Saint denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), bishops are called from among the members of a local congregation, known as a ward, and traditionally serve, without pay, for four to seven years (the actual length of service can vary). A bishop must be a married high priest in the Melchizedek priesthood. The bishop acts as the Presiding High Priest of the ward. A bishop simultaneously serves as the president of the Aaronic priesthood and president of the Priests Quorum in the ward. [...] The calling of each bishop must be approved by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles…”
The question is: if elected, can Mitt Romney separate his religious beliefs from his secular duties in the office of President? Can he protect our country’s principle of ‘freedom of religion’ — meaning everyone has a right to their beliefs, even if their beliefs are not similar to Romney’s — meaning the government cannot tell you to worship God if you don’t or, if you do, how to worship God. The government cannot mandate you be a Sikh, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, or Mormon — the government cannot legislate you to believe that Jesus will return to rural Missouri, that you’ll get your own planet in the afterlife, or that wearing underwear marked with freemasonry symbols will protect you from the evils of the world (and the “others”).
If Romney wants to pretend that a mandate in the Affordable Care Act to include birth control in insurance plans (with the caveat that Churches in opposition do not have to pay for the mandate) is a “threat to religious freedom,” then I think it’s fair to wonder if that opinion is based in Republican political ideology or in Romney’s personal religious beliefs. And IF it’s based in his religious beliefs, what else might he impose on the rest of us from the Book of Mormon?
“The president’s campaign has put out a campaign that’s talking about me and attacking me. I think it’s just demeaning to the nature of the process, particularly when we face the kinds of challenges we face.” — Mitt Romney, in an interview on CBS News.
The shock of it all. You run for office and your opponent talks about you, your ideas and why he thinks you are wrong for the job. Most folks would think that this just comes with the territory when you run for President, but for Mitt it is an outrage. The idea that anybody might question him offends his sense of entitlement.
In Romney’s view, he should be able to say anything he wants. Tell any lie. Mitt can attack Barack Obama as the ‘Great Other’, as an unAmerican usurper of power, as a man who hates the Country, as a man who doesn’t understand American values, as a man who wants to take the money from hard working white folks and give it to lazy brown people, as a man unfit for office, as a man who is incompetent, as a man who is a gangster thug and a thousand other insults and lies that Romney and the Wingnuts use to attack President Obama ALL the time. In Mitt’s view race-baiting is justified if it might help him win. He is fine with using code-talking to call Barack Obama an angry black man that all decent white folks should fear. It is OK for Team Mitt to lie and to promote policies that will destroy the middle class. It is OK for his side to bring all the crazy they want.
What is not OK—what Mitt thinks is out-of-bounds—is for anybody to notice and/or mention any of it.
If you call Mitt out for the ways that his policies will hurt the middle-class: that’s going over the line. If you notice that Mitt made his fortune through tax dodges and the destruction of American Jobs, well that is out-of-bounds. If you point out that Mitt is using memes about welfare and angry black men to appeal to white fear and anxiety, then you’re guilty of hate speech.
Mitt Romney wants to run for President with all aspects about him, his campaign, his record, his plans, his statements and his goals off-limits from any review or discussion.
I think we’ve all seen that Mitt can dish it out — but, wow, can he NOT take it. Not even a little bit. He’s a thin-skinned, whiny, spoiled aristocrat who can’t take criticism (he won’t release more tax returns for that reason!). He’s a guy who is used to telling people to jump and having them respond, “How high?” No one dares look directly at the King!
Dennis G. hits the nail on the head: Mitt’s sense of entitlement is massive — it may extend all the way to Kolob. Hopefully there are more of us who think Romney is not ”entitled” to anything, let alone the White House, just because he wants it. I hope after the election Romney can go spend some quality time with his money in the Caymans or Bermuda.
Timothy Egan attempts to define the boundary, shape or texture of Mitt in his opinion piece Romney the Unknowable:
The Republican National Convention will mark the fourth time in 18 years, dating to a losing Senate race in 1994, that a Team Romney has tried to construct a Brand Romney. This problem of who he is, Romney acknowledged last year, has plagued him ever since he became a public figure.
In focus groups, he’s described as a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous, a multimillionaire in mom jeans. And that’s from supporters.
At the convention, you can expect to hear high praise for a virtuous, disciplined, loyal person of family and faith. You will surely hear the words “turnaround” and “no apology” — both titles of platitudinous and unread books by Romney — in defense of his business acumen and unshakable view of American exceptionalism.
But I doubt you will hear anything of the real Romney because he is afraid of his own past. His life — even with prep school privilege in Bloomfield Hills, the draft-avoiding refuges of mission work in Paris and business school at Harvard, a founding role at Bain Capital from a mentor who guaranteed he would never fail financially or professionally — is not without drama… continue
Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, is a construct. Here’s what his supporters will be voting for:
Mitt Romney isn’t really a Mormon. He’s an atheist who only went along with his father’s faith so he could duck the Vietnam draft. He didn’t actually try to convert anyone when he was in France either. In reality, he spent all his time in Monte Carlo gambling and buying high-end hookers. When his daddy found out what he was doing, he made him come home and marry his high school sweetheart. Actually, he only made him marry her after the second time she got pregnant. The first time, they got an abortion. Then Romney started using some of the mafia connections he had made in Marseilles to import heroin. By the time he became governor, they were flying it straight into a secret airport they set up in the Berkshires. When one of the pilots started to talk, Romney had him killed.
Wait for it….
Now, if we started telling these stories to people, and a substantial percentage of the population started to actually believe these stories, and if congressmen humored and even encouraged the people who believed these stories, and if media figures talked about these stories, and if Congress actually had hearings about some of these stories, then Mitt Romney would know what it’s like to be treated like a Democrat.
Poor Mitt. Logic tells us that Reid couldn’t possibly have heard this from multiple sources, so he’s just blowing smoke. And yet, even if it’s a lie, Reid’s put Romney on the spot, because what he’s saying sounds plausible to a lot of people.
Y’know, it’s a bit like saying that the current president is a secret Muslim socialist who lied about his U.S. birth and has a fake Social Security number and is secretly plotting to take away all privately owned guns if he’s reelected, either before or after he finishes the job of deliberately destroying American capitalism. It’s also a bit like saying that the previous Democratic president was a drug dealing serial murderer and rapist whose lesbian wife had her male lover killed when she wasn’t hanging sex toys on the White House Christmas tree.
It’s almost like that. The difference is that Romney’s not facing an ever-expanding list of accusations, most of them truly grotesque and preposterous, many of them of a felonious or treasonous nature, spread by multiple prominent rumormongers over the course of years, and believed in every particular by roughly a third of the country…
Romney says Reid is lying. To make this ONE accusation disappear, all Mittens has to do is release his returns and *poof* problemo no mas. Right?
“At a campaign event in New Hampshire on Sunday, he gave a rare account of his two and a half years from July 1966 as a missionary in France, which he described as “not exactly a Third World country”. He was forced to live off $110 a month. “So, I lived in a way that people of lower-middle income in France lived,” he said. Explaining that he often had no working lavatory, Mr Romney said: “We had instead the little pads on the ground There was a chain behind you with a bucket”.
“There were also no baths or showers, said Mr Romney. “If we were lucky, we actually bought a hose and we stuck it on the sink … and wash ourselves that way,” he said. “Most of the apartments I lived in had no refrigerators,” Mr Romney added. He remembered saying to himself: “Wow, I sure am lucky to have been born in the United States of America”.”
“…the Republican presidential hopeful spent a significant portion of his 30-month mission in a Paris mansion described by fellow American missionaries to The Daily Telegraph as “palace”. It featured stained glass windows, chandeliers, and an extensive art collection. It was staffed by two servants – a Spanish chef and a houseboy. Although he spent time in other French cities, for most of 1968, Mr Romney lived in the Mission Home, a 19th century neoclassical building in the French capital’s chic 16th arrondissement. “It was a house built by and for rich people,” said Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president at the time of Mr Romney’s stay. “I would describe it as a palace”.
“[...] “They were very big rooms,” said Christian Euvrard, the 72-year-old director of the Mormon-run Institute of Religion in Paris, who knew Mr Romney. “Very comfortable. The building had beautiful gilded interiors, a magnificent staircase in cast iron, and an immense hall.” [...] Mr Anderson said that as well as a refrigerator, the mansion had “a Spanish chef called Pardo and a house boy, who prepared lunch and supper five days a week”.
“It was “well equipped” with all modern conveniences, including a combination washer-dryer machine, Mr Anderson said. “I never saw anything like it in another private home at that time.” [...] The mission home in Paris was fully plumbed and central heated. “All of the missionary rooms had something like a bath or a shower attached to it,” said Mr Anderson. “The home had several”. This was in stark contrast to lodgings in working class areas given to other missionaries in Paris at the same time. “It was much better than the other places,” said one, Alan Eastman. “Most of us stayed in rented apartments quite a way from luxurious”.
“[...] Regarding spending money, Mr Romney “would have been on the same amount of money as the rest of us, about $125 per month,” said Mr Eastman – about $813 per month in today’s money.”
He suffered, y’all. Big time! They had only ONE houseboy.
Newsweek and The Daily Beast: When asked by NEWSWEEK (in 2007) if he has done baptisms for the dead—in which Mormons find the names of dead people of all faiths and baptize them, as an LDS spokesperson says, to “open the door” to the highest heaven—he looked slightly startled and answered, “I have in my life, but I haven’t recently.” The awareness of how odd this will sound to many Americans is what makes Romney hesitant to elaborate on the Mormon question. (via azspot)
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Something else I think is interesting about Mormonism and baptism:
Do Mormons believe the baptism of little children is an evil abomination?
I was baptized as an infant, and so was my brother. The “evil abomination” language comes from the lds.org website, where the following verses from the Book of Mormon were found:
14 Behold I say unto you, that he that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; for he hath neither afaith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go down to hell.
15 For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must perish because he hath no baptism.
16 Wo be unto them that shall pervert the ways of the Lord after this manner, for they shall perish except they repent. Behold, I speak with boldness, having aauthority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for bperfect clove dcasteth out all fear.
I welcome any comments from Mormons, because I am curious and that’s pretty strong language. Who’s supposed to be an evil abomination — the priest / pastor performing the baptism or the child being baptized? Or just the act itself? Oy.
“Poland, of course, is one of the most Roman Catholic nations on earth, and, despite noble efforts at reconciliation, there have been historic tensions between Mormons and Roman Catholics. Most recently, there had been the bizarre and — to some — hideous practice of posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims — from Poland — and other countries into the Mormon faith, which the LDS leadership has stopped.
“In the practice of posthumous baptism, a living person is baptized on behalf of a dead person so that the dead person can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. These “proxy” baptisms are established practice in the Mormon faith, and they have been performed for a variety of famous and infamous people, including the founding fathers, Barack Obama’s mother, Adolf Hitler and possibly Anne Frank.
“When Catholic and Jewish organizations, among others, complained about proxy baptisms being performed when there was no Mormon genealogical tie with the deceased “beneficiary,” church leadership put a stop to this category of baptisms. But names are still being submitted by some church members.”
