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The Sunday morning bobbleheads turn on Mittens
July 15, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
It looks like the Friday news dump by Willard "Mittens" Romney to try to push back against his record at Bain Capital after February 1999 has failed. The conservative Sunday morning bobbleheads turned on Mittens today, insisting that he come clean by releasing his tax records.
George Will said on ABC's This Week that Mitt Romney is hiding something bad in his tax returns:
WILL: Look, what Mitt Romney has said is he has released, and I quote, "all that's necessary for people to understand something about my finances." Now, the something is a pregnant word. And people are going to say there's — the cost of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.
* * *
WILL: [Responding to Mary Matalin] But Mary, is it not what you call a "real fact" that Mitt Romney gave to the McCain campaign, when it was considering him as a running mate, 23 years of tax returns?
In this same program, former Bush-Cheney 2004 chief strategist Matthew Dowd agreed:
DOWD: Mary, you know — you know — you know, if — if that was — that if you — I said that's truth serum in that cup, and you were advising a candidate like Mitt Romney in this instance, you would say, "We've got to get this out there." You would say, "We've got to get this out there to deal with this."
They were responding to Democratic strategist Donna Brazile's earlier statement:
In Defense of Mitt’s Retroactive Retirement
July 15, 2012
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Posted by Bob Lord The latest on Mitt, from his campaign advisor Ed Gillespie, is that he "retroactively retired" from Bain. OK, laugh if you want, but I'm going to give credit where credit is due. "Retroactively retiring" is absolutely, positively, 100% consistent with being the Etch-a-Sketch candidate. So stop picking on my buddy Mitt … Read more
Romney caught in a ‘Mittstorm’ of lies
July 15, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Huffington Post has more evidence today contradicting Mitt Romney's continued insistence that he ended his active role with Bain Capital in early 1999. Mitt Romney Bain Capital Document Lists Him As 'Managing Member' In 2002:
A corporate document filed with the state of Massachusetts in December 2002 — a month after Romney was elected governor — lists him as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors, LLC "authorized to execute, acknowledge, deliver and record any recordable instrument purporting to affect an interest in real property, whether to be recorded with a Registry of Deeds or with a District Office of the Land Court."
In August 2011, Romney told federal authorities, [in a public financial disclosure form], that he "retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee [for the 2002 Winter Olympics]. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way."
Bain Capital Investors is a Bain Capital entity.
Previously reported evidence shows that Romney was listed as the CEO, chairman and president of the company after 1999 in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission; took a six-figure salary; signed corporate documents related to major and minor deals and attended board meetings for at least two Bain-affiliated companies. The state document was filed two and a half years after Romney now says he retired from the company, demonstrating his deep and ongoing connection to the firm.
The mountain of evidence that Romney had a connection to the firm after 1999 leaves him with two possible explanations, neither of them politically appealing: Either Romney was officially in charge of the company but took no actual responsibility for it, or he was involved then and is either lying or shading the truth now.
As the documentary evidence makes clear, Mittens Romney was at Bain Capital until 2002. He testified under oath at trial in 2002 that he was still active in business in Massachusetts in order to maintain that he had remained a resident of Massachusetts to meet the seven year residency requirement to run for governor. Old Romney Testimony Undermines Today's Bain Claims.
Obama campaign ad: ‘Firms’
July 15, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This new Obama campaign ad, "Firms," is running in nine swing states. The ad ties together the offshoring jobs charges to Mitt Romney’s offshore bank accounts. It is set to Mittens singing "America the Beautiful." Well-done, devastating ad. Video below the fold.
Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio’s racial profiling trial begins this week
July 15, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio's racial profiling trial will begin as scheduled on Thursday, July 19. Profiling lawsuit against Arpaio set for July 19 | Arizona Capitol Times: The lawsuit alleges that officers based some traffic stops on the race of people in the vehicles and made the stops so they could inquire … Read more
St. Louis Public Schools rent Imagine building for 1/3 the original rate
July 14, 2012
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by David Safier NOTE: This is the ninth in a series of recent posts examining Imagine Schools. (Here are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) If you have ideas or information to add, please leave comments at the end of the post or email me at safier@schooltales.net. I keep all email correspondence … Read more
Saturday Editor’s Notes
July 14, 2012
By Michael Bryan
In the flurry of news and opinion gusting out of our computer screens and smart phones, it is easy to become 'news blind' – so focused on the flakes and flurries that we forget where we are headed. We stumble confusedly ahead with no map to our destination. It's easy to get lost in the storm.
I personally read almost every news source in Arizona – and keep up with national reaction to our politics, as well – in bringing to readers of BlogForArizona the Arizona Donkey Feed, which appears on our right-hand sidebar every day (you may also have the Feed emailed to you daily). So I, too, often find myself in that blizzard without a map.
I decided I might like to sit down once a week and take some time to look around, and identify what I think are the most significant landmarks around where we stand now. It might not be a map that will tell us where we are headed, but maybe I can get some idea of where we are. Over time, perhaps it will become a map of sorts.
I would also like to let you all know that Jim Nintzel of Tucson Weekly and AZPM's Roundtable fame will be guest-host at Drinking Liberally in Tucson. Come down to the Shanty of 4th Avenue this Wednesday at 6pm and experience the Nintz first-hand.
So, here are some thoughts on what I think are the most important, or just most interesting, developments in the past week in Arizona's politics.
The media villagers rally round Romney
July 14, 2012
Posted by AzblueMeanie:
The pretty boys and girls who populate the corporate television media today are unworthy of the title of journalist. They demean the giants who preceded them like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and many others.
On a Friday night news dump, Willard "Mittens" Romney scheduled interviews with five television networks to essentially repeat his campaign's talking point that he had no operational control of Bain Capital or any other Bain entity after February 1999. Romney dismissed numerous SEC filings bearing his name and signature up until 2002, when he was on a leave of absence from Bain Capital, as mere "legal technicalities." Pishaw.
Not one of these reproters came prepared for their interview with Romney. Not one of these reporters had a copy of the trial transcript from the Massachusetts ballot challenge in 2002. Old Romney Testimony Undermines Today's Bain Claims:
Instead of leaving in 1999, Romney suggested in his testimony that he only left Bain after the Olympics in 2002: “I left on the basis of a leave of absence indicating that I, by virtue of that title, would return at the end of the Olympics to my employment at Bain Capital, but subsequently decided not to do so and entered into a departure agreement with my former partners. I use that in the colloquial sense, not legal sense, but my former partners."
The opening statement delivered by Romney's lawyer in that 2002 hearing said Romney "continued to serve on the board of directors of a significant Massachusetts company and to return here for most of its board meetings."
Not one of these reporters had a copy of Romney's 2011 public financial disclosure form, sworn under pain of perjury, that stated:
“Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way.”
Not one of these reporters presented the documentary evidence and asked Romney the key question: "In your 2002 trial testimony, you indicated that you left Bain Capital in 2002, but in your 2011 public financial disclosure form, under penalty of perjury, you state that you left Bain Capital in February 1999. Both sworn statements cannot be true. Were you lying to qualify for the Massachusetts ballot in 2002, or are you lying now?" (Lawyers love this question).
