Posted on 11/25/2014 10:25:00 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Past and perhaps future presidential hopeful Mitt Romney came to Chicago last night and, in blunt and sometimes surprisingly candid comments, acted like someone who probably won't run again but is leaving the door open in the apparent hope that his party might call.
In a speech and question-and-answer session with the Chicago/Midwest chapter of the Turnaround Management Association, the man who lost to Chicago's Barack Obama in 2012 says he's "not planning" to seek the 2016 nomination—language that politicians frequently use to suggest they haven't decided but are keeping their options open.
The former Massachusetts governor declined to elaborate, under questioning by Crain's Publisher David Snyder, who moderated the event. But he did have some sharp thoughts about other potential contenders.
For example: 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "She's not running," Romney said with a poker face, drawing a big laugh.
Or Democrat Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state. She's the "prohibitive favorite" for the Democratic nomination and will be in position to hoard her cash for the general election, Mr. Romney said. But she'll also have to accept some responsibility for Obama's foreign policy failures.
Romney was neutral to flattering on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and Govs. Scot Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio.
OBAMA'S IMMIGRATION ORDER
But Romney took a shot at conservative Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, describing him as a tea party favorite who "made a mistake" in pushing for the 2013 shutdown of the federal government amid a budget standoff. Romney went out of his way to praise New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom Romney aides blasted during the 2012 election after he made nice with Obama after Hurricane Sandy. Romney described Christie as a "strong, forceful, get-the-job-done" type who might run a successful presidency much like Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson did in the 1960s.
Overall, perhaps because he was speaking to an audience of attorneys and other professionals who work with troubled corporations, Romney was quite negative about America's current standing. He said "almost no progress" has been made in recent decades on big issues like rising debt, global warming, cutting the poverty rate and challenges from countries such as China.
But he raised eyebrows when he said that, while immigration reform should be handled by Congress rather than through an executive order, Obama's recent move to suspend the deportation of five million undocumented immigrants "may well work out for him" politically. Romney, of course, got whacked during the 2012 campaign when he suggested 11 million immigrants here illegally would "self-deport" if the country ignored their plight.
I thought Romney's best moment of the event came after the founder of Bain Capital explained some of the virtues of the private-equity business. He would have done himself some good to have done just that two years ago. It would have been good for Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner, too, whose record as an investor came under intense attack without much defense from him about what his life's work was about.
Now....before we tie the noose around MR’s neck and drop him through the trap door can you please answer these three questions:
1) When did Bain invest in Stericycle?
2) When did MR depart from Bain?
3) When did Stericycle begin disposing human fetuses and how was MR involved in that decision?
Again, why didn’t you read my posts to you way back at the beginning of this conversation. All the answers were provided to you from the get go.
- Despite claiming to have quit Bain in early 1999, Romney evidently controlled Stericycle via Bain for years thereafter: In July, The Boston Globe reported evidence that Romney maintained control of Bain and its investments for years after the date he claimed to have relinquished it. The Globe cited a June, 2012 federal filing by Romney’s campaign which said, “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.’’ That, however, contradicted the findings of a July 2, 2012 Mother Jones investigation: “Citing SEC documents, the magazine said Romney had control of Bain Capital’s shares in Stericycle, a medical waste company, in November 1999. Talking Points Memo reported this week on additional SEC filings listing Romney’s position with Bain in July 2000 and February 2001.”
- Bain joined a $75 million investment in Stericycle: The Mother Jones story (entitled “Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show”),cited prior reporting by Huffington Post during the early 2012 presidential primaries to show that Romney “had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics....But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to do with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue. But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission — and obtained by Mother Jones — list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents — one of which was signed by Romney — also contradict the official account of Romney’s exit from Bain.”
- Stericycle was handling fetal remains years before Bain and Romney took control: Two days after the Mother Jones story, the pro-life website LifeNews.com oddly defended Romney by arguing that because a 2011-12 pro-life “Campaign to Stop Stericycle” documented no Stericycle waste disposal contracts with abortion clinics prior to 2003, Romney therefore could not have profited from Stericycle’s abortion-related activities. The Mother Jones story itself, however, cited public OSHA violations by Stericycle from 1991 — well before the Bain investment — which included improperly keeping “body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk.”
- Romney personally signed for “voting and dispositive” control over Stericycle, the abortion disposal firm: According to the Mother Jones investigation:
Here’s what happened with Stericycle. In November 1999, Bain Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, filed with the SEC a Schedule 13D, which lists owners of publicly traded companies, noting that they had jointly purchased $75 million worth of shares in Stericycle, a fast-growing player in the medical-waste industry. (That April, Stericycle had announced plans to buy the medical-waste businesses of Browning Ferris Industries and Allied Waste Industries.) The SEC filing lists assorted Bain-related entities that were part of the deal, including Bain Capital (BCI), Bain Capital Partners VI (BCP VI), Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors (a Bermuda-based Bain affiliate), and Brookside Capital Investors (a Bain offshoot). And it notes that Romney was the “sole shareholder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of BCI, BCP VI Inc., Brookside Inc. and Sankaty Ltd.”
The document also states that Romney “may be deemed to share voting and dispositive power with respect to” 2,116,588 shares of common stock in Stericycle “in his capacity as sole shareholder” of the Bain entities that invested in the company. That was about 11 percent of the outstanding shares of common stock. (The whole $75 million investment won Bain, Romney, and their partners 22.64 percent of the firm’s stock — the largest bloc among the firm’s owners.) The original copy of the filing was signed by Romney. Another SEC document filed November 30, 1999, by Stericycle also names Romney as an individual who holds “voting and dispositive power” with respect to the stock owned by Bain. If Romney had fully retired from the private equity firm he founded, why would he be the only Bain executive named as the person in control of this large amount of Stericycle stock?
- Stericycle is just one more immoral Bain/Romney investment: “Rusty Leonard, president of Stewardship Partners, says Romney ... — who is aggressively courting “religious right” voters — owns stock in at least a dozen companies with active ties to abortion... and pornography.” (http://www.danburrell.com/?p=442)
http://www.renewamerica.com/article/120822
The answer to your question number 3:
- Stericycle was handling fetal remains years before Bain and Romney took control: Two days after the Mother Jones story, the pro-life website LifeNews.com oddly defended Romney by arguing that because a 2011-12 pro-life “Campaign to Stop Stericycle” documented no Stericycle waste disposal contracts with abortion clinics prior to 2003, Romney therefore could not have profited from Stericycle’s abortion-related activities. The Mother Jones story itself, however, cited public OSHA violations by Stericycle from 1991 — well before the Bain investment — which included improperly keeping “body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk.”
In your last post it does not say that MR made $75 million profit in Stericycle. That was the amount that was invested.
The answer to your question #2 is:
- Despite claiming to have quit Bain in early 1999, Romney evidently controlled Stericycle via Bain for years thereafter: In July, The Boston Globe reported evidence that Romney maintained control of Bain and its investments for years after the date he claimed to have relinquished it. The Globe cited a June, 2012 federal filing by Romney’s campaign which said, “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.’’ That, however, contradicted the findings of a July 2, 2012 Mother Jones investigation: “Citing SEC documents, the magazine said Romney had control of Bain Capital’s shares in Stericycle, a medical waste company, in November 1999. Talking Points Memo reported this week on additional SEC filings listing Romney’s position with Bain in July 2000 and February 2001.”
Go see how much he pulled down when the shares in Stericycle were sold.
The bottom line is that Romney will at least make a public showing of trying to avoid owning a movie studio that makes R-rated movies (probably to appease Mormons), but has no qualms whatsoever in having ownership in a company that plays a critical role in executing the American Holocaust. (Key executives involved in a manufacture of Zyclon B were executed for their role in the Holocaust even though it had been invented decades before.)
OK. I don’t deny that MR indirectly owned shares of Stericycle through his holdings in Bain Capital investment funds. We agree on this point and I won’t dispute it. I do not think, however, MR was that active in Bain’s investment decisions after a certain point.
This according to Wikipedia,org;
“Romney took a paid leave of absence from Bain Capital in February 1999 to serve as the president and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee...Romney remained the firm’s sole shareholder, managing director, CEO and president, signing corporate and legal documents (just like you say and which are in the SEC filings you refer to)...(HOWEVER)....He did not involve himself in the day to day operations of the firm or investment decisions for Bain Capital’s new private equity funds”.
I don't give a damn how much Bain invested or how much they made or lost.
They invested in a company that disposes of murdered infants, it doesn't matter if it was only a penny.
Do you recall what happened when companies began divesting of South African investments due to Apartheid in the 1980s? Companies willingly took losses and divested at times that were more costly for tax or contractual reasons just to be able to say they weren't doing business with the South Africans.
This is about right and wrong, something that Romney has never understood.
Worldmag:
“Massachusetts state disclosure forms in 2001 and 2002 list Romney as Bain’s 100 percent owner.”
They also said:
“In 2001, the investment group sold 40 percent of its stake in Stericycle for about $88 million. Bain and its partners sold the rest of its holdings in 2004, with total profits exceeding $45 million.”
http://www.worldmag.com/2012/09/untimely_disclosure
That’s all laughable, since he still owned 100% of the company.
But that’s exactly how Romney has always operated, behind a blizzard of lying lawyer talk.
Especially when they still own the whole damned thing.
OK so Bain and its partners made about $45 million.
Earlier you said MR made $75 million.
Question is when did MR stop making investment decisions at Bain? ( I agree he was a passive shareholder in Bain investments including Stericycle).
When did Bain invest in Stericycle?
When did Stericycle enter into the business of disposing aborted human remains and was MR involved in that part of the operation?
So, we are to believe that he signed the contracts and took personal responsibility for the decisions, but didn't have a clue what was going on? This brand of plausible deniability never stands up under any real scrutiny.
I'm more than inclined to accept that Romney wasn't involved in the day-to-day operations or in the routine stock transactions (firms like Bain routinely buy and sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock on any given day, traders often make these trades on split-second decisions and all traders have monetary caps up to which they need no approval) and Bain probably hadn't had much of a role in these routine matters for a long time. However, I can assure you that he was aware of taking a significant position in a company that was made in partnership with another firm.
Already answered all those questions.
You just don’t care for the answers.
You’re straining at gnats while swallowing camels.
Are you on his staff or something?
I will answer the questions for you:
1) According to Wikipedia.com MR stopped making investment decisions for Bain Capital in February 1999. According to Wikipedia.com: “ He did not involve himself in day-to-day operations of the firm or investment decisions for Bain Capital...”
2) When did Bain invest in Stericycle? According to the Huffingtonpost.com: “Bain’s $75 million investment in the company was announced in August and finalized in November of 1999.” The Huffingtonpost article further states:
“There is no publicly available data showing that either Romney or other officials at Bain knew of Stericycle’s work with Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics before the investment.”
3)When did Stericycle begin the practice of picking up aborted human remains? According to lifenews.com: “ The Stop Stericycle campaign lists documents showing contracts and other information linking the business with abortion clinics. The first document offered as proof comes in 2003”.
So there we have it the time line.
To summarize: MR took his leave of absence from Bain in February 1999 to head the Winter Olympics and played no role in its investment decisions from that point. Bain invested in Stericycle in August of that year. There is no documentation of Stericycle removing aborted human remains prior to 2003.
In your eagerness to implicate MR has being directly involved in the business of abortion you conveniently omitted many key facts as well as the timeline of events.
Sorry to annoy you with the facts.
Your “facts” are false.
Sophisticated Romney lying spin.
Just provide the dates and a brief explanation like I did without getting in the weeds.
1) When did MR stop making investment decisions at Bain?
2) When did Bain invest in Stericycle?
3) When did Stericycle begin operations disposing aborted remains?
Keep it simple.
1) He still owned the company. Any talk of him not being involved in decision-making is pure nonsense, only to be believed by the irretrievably naive. He was the responsible party, period.
2) The idea that he wasn’t aware of what a company he was investing $75 million dollars in did strains credibility far beyond the breaking point.
3) Again, LifeNews exists to provide cover for the compromised fake Republicans who work hard to pass themselves off as “pro-life” when they are nothing of the sort.
As I showed you far back up this thread, Stericycle was taken to task years before the times in question for “improperly” disposing of the remains of murdered babies.
“The Mother Jones story itself, however, cited public OSHA violations by Stericycle from 1991 — well before the Bain investment — which included improperly keeping ‘body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk.’”
Sorry to annoy you with facts.
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