July 13, 2012

"...when I was governor a couple of years, around 2004..."

when I was governor a couple of years, around 2004,"


WTF, Mittens.. can't you remember that far back?


very interesting article.


Run, Little Mitt, Run!
Yes, it seems that Mitt Romney has been running for president forever. But we did some digging, and you don't know the half of it. As Robert Draper discovered, Romney has been driven by a force larger than himself for a very long time



by Robert Draper
April 1, 2012


"I never imagined that I would be running for president of the United States.... I spent my life in business. I sort of backed into getting involved in politics."—Mitt Romney, Council Bluffs, Iowa, January 2012

On July 4, 1962, 15-year-old Mitt Romney delivered his first-ever stump speech. The venue was a high school football stadium in Lansing, Michigan, where his father, George, was campaigning for governor. Someone informed the candidate that he was way behind schedule and needed to depart for another event. But, campaign staffers fretted, who would speak to the crowd in George Romney's place?



See a Young Romney's Article in Read

"I wasn't nervous—just panicky," young Mitt later wrote for Read, a biweekly youth magazine. "Luckily I had about five minutes during another person's speech to try to think of something to say.... Naturally, the minute I stood up at the microphones, everything I'd thought of dropped out of my mind.... But once I got the first words out, it wasn't bad at all. I talked about ten minutes on what the Fourth of July meant to me, and the people seemed to like it. One thing is sure; I never realized before how tough it is to be a candidate."

snip

The more Mitt Romney has immersed himself in politics, the more vigorously he has peddled the narrative—what Newt Gingrich has termed "pious baloney"—that politics was just something that the life-long businessman stumbled into, more or less in the manner of a fellow who strolls into his local diner for a cup of coffee in the middle of a stickup and is thereupon transformed, albeit reluctantly, into a civic hero. Romney's selective elucidation of his own biography seems of a piece with his fuzzy ideology. As one of his former senior advisers admits, "Mitt's flaw is authenticity. Someone who changes his mind can be effective as a business leader or running the Olympics. But when you change your mind on such core issues as abortion, then what? Where's the authenticity?"

Romney's story line has undergone a few crucial revisions. As recently as February, he told supporters in Nevada, "I never imagined I would one day run for president of the United States," but back in December 2007 he had a different recollection when I asked him when he first thought about taking up residency in the White House. "It was probably, oh, back when I was with Senator [Bob] Bennett of Utah after the Olympics, when I was governor a couple of years, around 2004," he replied. "He just said to me, 'Y'know, you don't have to decide if you want to be president. But you do have to decide if you want the option to become president.'

snip

Read More http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201204/mitt-romney-republican-primary-gq-april-2012#ixzz20WbDhS4i

July 13, 2012

"Turn Off When Done" (diptycs from MSNBC photoblog)

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/01/10947017-telling-campaign-stories-one-diptych-at-a-time?lite


In this diptych, TOP: Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appears on a television monitor while conducting a Google+ "hangout" town hall at the Google Chicago headquarters March 20, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois. BOTTOM: During Romney's "hangout," the traveling pool of journalists who follow Romney were sequestered in a meeting room called "Adventures in Babysitting," where handwriting on the wall told people to turn off an Xbox game when finished.

July 13, 2012

Is this "THE" Bain co?

How about some help digging into all the links here?

Might be some interesting facts

Their profit graph looks Madoff-ish



http://www.bain.com/about/what-we-do/index.aspx

July 13, 2012

More Black Men are in Prison Today than Enslaved in 1850

http://www.laprogressive.com/black-men-prison-system/


More Black Men are in Prison Today than Enslaved in 1850
By Dick Price


“More Black men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library, the first of many jarring points she made in a riveting presentation.

Alexander, currently a law professor at Ohio State, had been brought in to discuss her bestseller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Interest ran so high beforehand that the organizers had to move the event to a location that could accommodate the eager attendees. That evening, more than 200 people braved the pouring rain and inevitable traffic jams to crowd into the library’s main room, with dozens more shuffled into an overflow room, and even more latecomers turned away altogether. Alexander and her topic had struck a nerve.

Growing crime rates over the past 30 years don’t explain the skyrocketing numbers of black — and increasingly brown — men caught in America’s prison system, according to Alexander, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun after attending Stanford Law. “In fact, crime rates have fluctuated over the years and are now at historical lows.” “Most of that increase is due to the War on Drugs, a war waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color,” she said, even though studies have shown that whites use and sell illegal drugs at rates equal to or above blacks. In some black inner-city communities, four of five black youth can expect to be caught up in the criminal justice system during their lifetimes.

As a consequence, a great many black men are disenfranchised, said Alexander — prevented because of their felony convictions from voting and from living in public housing, discriminated in hiring, excluded from juries, and denied educational opportunities. “What do we expect them to do?” she asked, who researched her ground-breaking book while serving as Director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California. “Well, seventy percent return to prison within two years, that’s what they do.”


sni[p

July 13, 2012

Millions & tens of thousands of Bain shares to the LDS chruch..(via foreign stash)

this from ABC in January ( primary nonsense made it disappear)


must watch..


http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romney-millions-mormon-church/story?id=15380149#.UAA8yJGG5ae



By MATTHEW MOSK (@mattmosk) and BRIAN ROSS (@brianross)
Jan. 18, 2012

Underscoring the prominent, if little discussed role that Mitt Romney played as a Mormon leader, the private equity giant once run by the GOP presidential frontrunner carved his church a slice of several of its most lucrative business deals, securities records show, providing it with millions of dollars worth of stock in some of Bain Capital's most well-known holdings. Romney has always been a major donor to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which requires that members "tithe," or give 10 percent of their income to the church. His family charity, called the Tyler Foundation, has given more than $4 million to the church in the past five years, including $1.8 million in 2008 and $600,000 in 2009. But because Romney, whose fortune has been estimated at $250 million, has never released his personal tax returns, the full extent of his giving has never been public.

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. "Mitt Romney has publicly stated that he regularly tithes to his church," said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, when asked about the Bain contributions. "Some of those church contributions have come through the Tyler Foundation. Others have been donations of stock through Bain. Any shares donated by Mitt Romney are personal shares owned by him

snip

July 13, 2012

"...seven consecutive years of residency prior to a run for office..."

This is a rule for running for office in Massachusetts..

Mitt's Bain-lies started because he wanted to be governor.

It must be especially galling to him now, because it is truly the "bain of his existence" now, in a race that commands a BUNCH more of scrutiny.

It's just another in his long daisy-chain of lies & flip-flops.

For decades now, anytime he has wanted something, there has been a magical way for him (maybe it's the undies) to wiggle out of a precarious position, and end up smelling like roses.

He NEEDED to "be in charge of Bain" in order to run for that office, so of course he played that up.

He was LYING then? now? both?

July 10, 2012

More creative sentencing .

Complete with a few oddities.. Larry Storch (F-Troop..not the same one) Ironside..and of course the girlfriend of 27 minutes


Column: Local man appeals ‘tea pot' sentence
July 10, 2012 12:00 AM

http://www.kinston.com/news/pot-83428-sentence-tea.html
Jon Dawson
Columnist

If you’ve ever had to sit in traffic listening to a nearby vehicle blast music at a volume capable of diverting the flight pattern of migrating fowl, you’re not alone. Chances are the La Grange man who was recently issued a bizarre penalty for noise pollution was the source of your involuntary ear wax removal. Larry Storch, 89, of 667 Calamity Lane, La Grange, was recently cited for misdemeanor noise pollution; it was his 17th citation since 2005.

“They’ve been giving me noise tickets for years,” Storch said. “I guess they thought their tickets would deter me, but every time I paid off a ticket I’d stop by the speaker place on the way home and add a little more boom to my zoom.” When Storch was brought before Lenoir County District Judge Robert T. Ironside for his latest infraction, the judge alluded to what he described as “wanton disregard for the public.”

“You’ve come before this court many times over the years Mr. Storch,” Judge Ironside said. “In the past I’ve fined you, sentenced you to community service, and at one point even forced you to watch the fourth hour of the ‘Today Show.’ Since none of those punishments have done anything to curb your jackassory behavior, I’ve decided to get medieval on where your butt — if you had one — would be.”

Storch - who drives a 1976 Aston Martin Lagonda — has been sentenced to blare the Teapot song (“I’m A Little Teapot”) out of his stereo for 45 days. A bailiff gave Storch a homemade CD featuring 37 different versions of the beloved children’s poem as he left the Lenoir County courthouse on Friday. “I think it’s kinda sweet, really,” said Storch’s girlfriend of 27 minutes, Paulette Burroughs of La Grange. “I’ve dated many a rapper in my day, and they all cite ‘I’m A Little Teapot’ as the joint that got them started in hip hop. 50 Cent was weaving ‘Tea Pot’ into his rhymes when he was still 16 Cent.”

snip////

July 9, 2012

Help.. this used to work & now does not.. what am I missing?

had to insert spaces

square bracket link : url | words square bracket

It used to sub for a long url or made a photo clickable

July 9, 2012

Mittens turned over tax records back to '85 for McCain

He was perfectly willing (over-eager?) to impress McCain & to be considered for veep or Treas sec, but to run for president, we only get the Cliff Notes for last year and some hints at the current year?


...................................................
http://namebrandketchup.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/in-2008-john-mccain-vetted-willard-mittens-romney-as-a-potential-vice-presidential-nominee/

July 9, 2012

More than you ever thought you wanted to know about the Koch Bros.

http://www.nwvcdemocrat.org/koch-brothers.htm

snip

In a 2002 memo, the Republican political consultant Frank Luntz wrote that so long as “voters believe there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community” the status quo would prevail. The key for opponents of environmental reform, he said, was to question the science—a public-relations strategy that the tobacco industry used effectively for years to forestall regulation. The Kochs have funded many sources of environmental skepticism, such as the Heritage Foundation, which has argued that “scientific facts gathered in the past 10 years do not support the notion of catastrophic human-made warming.” The brothers have given money to more obscure groups, too, such as the Independent Women’s Forum, which opposes the presentation of global warming as a scientific fact in American public schools. Until 2008, the group was run by Nancy Pfotenhauer, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. Mary Beth Jarvis, a vice-president of a Koch subsidiary, is on the group’s board.

Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego, is the co-author of “Merchants of Doubt,” a new book that chronicles various attempts by American industry to manipulate public opinion on science. She noted that the Kochs, as the heads of “a company with refineries and pipelines,” have “a lot at stake.” She added, “If the answer is to phase out fossil fuels, a different group of people are going to be making money, so we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re fighting tooth and nail.”

David Koch told New York that he was unconvinced that global warming has been caused by human activity. Even if it has been, he said, the heating of the planet will be beneficial, resulting in longer growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because far greater land area will be available to produce food,” he said.

In the mid-eighties, the Kochs provided millions of dollars to George Mason University, in Arlington, Virginia, to set up another think tank. Now known as the Mercatus Center, it promotes itself as “the world’s premier university source for market-oriented ideas—bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.” Financial records show that the Koch family foundations have contributed more than thirty million dollars to George Mason, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization. “It’s ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington,” Rob Stein, the Democratic strategist, said. It is an unusual arrangement. “George Mason is a public university, and receives public funds,” Stein noted. “Virginia is hosting an institution that the Kochs practically control.”


snip