Tag: Mitt Romney
Wrong As Usual, Mitt – Federal Spending Growth Is Radically Slower under Obama Than under Reagan, the Bushes or Clinton
Last week in Iowa, Mitt Romney criticized Pres. Obama for his purported runaway spending. “A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa and our nation,” Romney said, “and every day we fail to act we feed that fire with our own lack of resolve. This is not a Democratic or Republican problem. That fire could care less if you have a donkey or an elephant in your front lawn, it’s still coming for your house.”
But Romney’s basic assertion — that Obama administration economic policies have caused spending to grow faster than the policies of the last few presidents — is patently false:
This Smells Bad: Booker Took Campaign Money from Romney’s Company
For those trying to understand Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s tortured stance on whatever exactly he was trying to say that Pres. Obama should do in his campaign to defeat Mitt Romney, this sheds quite a bit of light.
Bain Capital was among Booker’s earliest and most generous backers
A ThinkProgress examination of New Jersey campaign finance records for Booker’s first run for Mayor — back in 2002 — suggests a possible reason for his unease with attacks on Bain Capital and venture capital. They were among his earliest and most generous backers.
Contributions to his 2002 campaign from venture capitalists, investors, and big Wall Street bankers brought him more than $115,000 for his 2002 campaign. Among those contributing to his campaign were John Connaughton ($2,000), Steve Pagliuca ($2,200), Jonathan Lavine ($1,000) — all of Bain Capital. While the forms are not totally clear, it appears the campaign raised less than $800,000 total, making this a significant percentage.
He and his slate also jointly raised funds for the “Booker Team for Newark” joint committee. They received more than $450,000 for the 2002 campaign from the sector — including a pair of $15,400 contributions from Bain Capital Managing Directors Joshua Bekenstein and Mark Nunnelly. It appears that for the initial campaign and runoff, the slate raised less than $4 million — again making this a sizable chunk.
In all — just in his first Mayoral run — Booker’s committees received more than $565,000 from the people he was defending. At least $36,000 of that came from folks at Romney’s old firm.
Mick Jagger Warns That Romney Isn’t So Nice After All
Among the many highlights of Mick Jagger’s recent performance on Saturday Night Live was this song, “Tea Party,” written by Jagger and accompanied by Jeff Beck. Our favorite part: “You know Mr. Romney, he’s a mensch,* he plays it straight and fair. Yeah, Mr. Romney, he’s a hard-working man…But don’t ever let him cut your hair.”
* “Mensch” is a Yiddish word that has come to mean a good person, a nice guy, or someone of reliable honor and character.
Even the Staples Guy Says Mitt Was Trying to Make Money, Not Jobs
The only one who doesn’t know what the goal of Bain Capital was when Mitt Romney ran it is, apparently, Mitt Romney. Tom Stemberg, the Staples guy himself, says Bain was not trying to create jobs but was instead trying to create wealth for its principals. Duh.
A top surrogate to Mitt Romney said making money — rather than creating jobs — was the primary goal of the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee when he was running Bain Capital LLC, saying he “acted responsibly” as chief executive officer of the private-equity firm.
“The role of private equity as fiduciaries is certainly to make money,” said Tom Stemberg, the founder of Staples Inc. (SPLS), in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital.” Bain also helped businesses grow, so “these things had redeeming social value, in addition to making Mitt and his investors a lot of money.”
Stemberg made the remarks to set the record straight in an ad perceived as negative toward Romney, which portrays Mitt as a corporate raider. While objecting to that spot, Stemberg gave $20,000 to the Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future to make negative ads about Obama.
Fox News ‘Breitbarts’ President’s Purported ‘Enemies List’ – Falsely Asserts ‘Smear’ of Romney Finance Co-Chair
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Andrew Breitbart may be dead but his practice of creating fake political scandals lives on at Fox News. The latest case involves Frank Vandersloot, the Romney campaign’s co-chair, who is apparently no relation to Joran Van Der Sloot, the accused murderer in the Natalie Holloway case. Rachel Maddow reported the facts beneath the fakery in the latest case last night. Here’s Media Matters’ take:
GOP Bullying Flashback: In 1967, George W. Bush’s Fraternity Admitted to Using Red-Hot Clothes Hangers to Brand Its Pledges
Republicans have reacted to the Washington Post’s story last week that revealed that when Mitt Romney was a senior in prep school he bullied boys he perceived to be gay by claiming that the incident was just a youthful indiscretion and, besides, stories of physical abuse by boys do not always predict the character of the men they will grow up to be.
On the other hand, sometimes the stories are determinative. Take for example, this scandal from 1967 — two years after the Romney bullying episode took place — that arose after students at Yale complained that a fraternity was torturing its pledges. The frat’s president was George W. Bush, who, 40 years later, single-handedly turned the United States into a torture state:
Mitt Romney Woos Evangelicals As Mormons Baptize Deceased Evangelicals
Jerry Falwell, Jr. explained his reason for extending an invitation to Romney this year was because of Romney’s success in his business career. Ignoring theological differences with Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, Falwell said his father often preached that “Christians should vote for the candidate whose positions on the political issues are most closely aligned with their own…”
Apparently, Jerry Falwell, Jr. does not fully understand the full-fledged doctrinal hostility the Mormon religion has toward all biblically based Christian faiths. With the uttermost secrecy behind the walls of Mormon temples—and without the permission of the closest living next of kin — Mormons are baptizing deceased evangelicals and their deceased family members by proxy.
