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.
Federal documents show Romney tied to company that disposes of aborted babies
Originally reported by the Huffington Post in January, Romney’s camp managed to avoid it as a campaign issue by insisting, as the news outlet reports:
“By the time Bain Capital [Romney’s investment firm] had made the investment in Stericycle, he had left the firm to run the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He maintained ownership in Bain and kept holdings in its private equity funds, which included Stericycle stock, but he had no say in the managerial or strategic decisions at the firm, according to Bain officials.”
However, recent documents from the Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commission filed by Romney’s firm show that the timing wasn’t quite how Romney portrayed it. The document from November 22, 1999, reports, “W. Mitt Romney (“Mr. Romney”) is the sole stockholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director and President of BCI VI Inc,” (SEC FORM SC 13D - https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/392937/stericycle-13d-1999.pdf) in the Stericycle investment.
That means Romney was an active member of the firm when the $75 million investment was made in Stericycle. Stericylce isn’t just a medical waste business that is above board. As recently as last year, Stericycle was cited for improper disposal of fetuses in Texas. For a quick rundown of some news articles about Stericycle’s seedy history, click here ( http://www.stopstericycle.com/in-the-news/ ). You will find a list of fines, truck leasing companies breaking contracts with them because of their fetus disposal business, and other serious controversies that the pro-life candidate must distance himself from by addressing these issues and either showing us proof there was no abortion activity back then or publicly addressing the wrongdoing and breaking his tie with them in keeping with his pro-life conversion, rather than simply misleading the American people about the dates he was there.
It’s a concern if Romney actually was the “sole shareholder” as the SEC documents say, unquestionably say he was. You can read the filings from the SEC documents here ( https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/392937/stericycle-13d-1999.pdf )and here ( https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/392936/stericycle-s4-1999.pdf ). (Simply do a search within them for the name “Romney” and it will show you the relevant shareholder information.)
Stop Stericycle.com reports:
Aside from the fact that we have recorded phone calls of Stericycle’s own representatives admitting that they accept fetal remains, many people are confused about Stericycle’s waste acceptance policy. The vaguely worded policy does not mention fetal remains, but rather craftily states that “complete human remains” are unacceptable. Stericycle has told the Campaign to Stop Stericycle (CSS) that it does not know when a fetus is considered to be human, and that the determination is up to the abortion mill and state law. Obviously, abortion mills never admit that aborted babies are human.
Additionally, during an undercover investigation, the Campaign to Stop Stericycle obtained a hypothetical contract for an abortion mill in which the pickup of fetal remains was included. CSS was also informed that the abortion mill would receive “incinerate only” stickers so that the fetal remains would be incinerated.
Furthermore, Stericycle is currently under government investigation in the state of Texas for illegally dumping aborted fetuses into a municipal landfill. During the initial investigation, Stericycle representatives told the government that “medical waste containing fetuses or tissue should be sent for incineration,” and that aborted fetuses in Texas should be transported to Stericycle’s plant in Apopka, Florida to be incinerated.
http://www.stopstericycle.com/faq/
Everything I’m posting is easily verifiable via Google search.
Unless you don’t want to know any more than “Yahoo Finance” or the Republican establishment is willing to tell you, that is.
Again, let me ask you, is this kind of “capitalism” okay with you?
This is guilt by association and pure BS. Something I would expect from OWS vermin. I don’t deny the possibility that some of Stericycle’s products may have wound up in the hands of Planned Parenthood other abortion providers. But to claim that this company promotes abortion is asinine. It is a medical services company and medical waste company. I did read the company website, plus additional information on Wikipedia and Yahoo Finance.
Suppose I own medical device manufacturing company. Suppose I manufacture bed pans, millions and millions of them which are sold all over the country and internationally. Suppose some of those bed pans wound up in an abortion clinic. Would that make me and my company complicit in the practice of abortion? I think that is quite a stretch. The fact that Bain was involved with Stericycle when MR was CEO does not make MR guilty of infanticide.
It is true that MR was once pro-abortion. That he later changed to pro-life. Something which should be encouraged. RR, too, was once pro-abortion and later became pro-life.
You clearly are grasping at straws on this one. While MR’s track record as governor of MA is fair game as well as all of his policy positions as a political candidate for POTUS, he has an outstanding track record in terms of his business accomplishments, which would only be denounced by vile OWS vermin jealous of his successes in the private sector. I wish everyone could be as successful in business as MR including myself.
He has stated a million times he is not running for POTUS and I take his word at that. But there is no doubt in my mind that he would have made a vastly superior POTUS than the current clusterfoxtrot who no occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
That all said, have a happy gobble gobble. God bless!
What are you talking about? “Products”? They don’t provide products to Planned Parenthood murderers. They provide a service. They pick up the mangled bodies of the poor little innocent babies and then dispose of them in their crematoriums.
And it is absolutely clear that Romney made a minimum of $75 million dollars from the business and then lied about it to the public. You have to be willfully blind to miss the direct evidence in the FEC documents.
You make it sound as though it was central part of their business. Their medical waste disposes ALL forms of medical waste including blood, human waste, organs, tissue etc. and yes some of it is incinerated. You imply abortion is a central part of their business, which it is not.
What if I manufacture light bulbs. And one of my light bulbs wound up at a Planned Parenthood office. Does that make me complicit in the abortion?
Just because you are an investor in Stericycle, that does not mean you are guilty of practicing abortion. How many millions of people own shares in Stericycle directly or through mutual funds? Are they ALL guilty too?
Who cares is it’s the “central part of their business” or not? That’s a stupid straw man.
He wasn’t “just an investor.” He controlled the majority of the shares in the company. In other words, he controlled the company. He was the owner.
You haven’t thought this through, it’s obvious.
Or, alternatively, you’re simply an obfuscating liar like Romney.
Which is it?
You are blowing this way out proportion. You portray MR as a concentration camp worker tossing human bodies into an incinerator like something out of the Holocaust.
He invested in a company which develops systems to help dispose of medical waste that millions have others have invested in as well which sell billions of dollars worth of products and waste removal systems. The fact that a tiny number of these products and systems wound up in some abortion clinics does not make MR or any other Stericycle shareholders or investors guilty of practicing abortion IMHO.
“Products and systems”? Nice euphemism for taking huge sums of money to incinerate the bodies of millions of murdered babies.
What’s wrong with you?
Are you kidding? You think he would touch this task himself? Hah. He would no more do that than Hitler would. That's what underlings are for.
But, in any case, you bring up an important point:
Can you explain the moral difference between murdering millions of Jews in a concentration camp and burning their bodies, ie the evidence, and what Stericycle does with millions of the bodies of innocent American babies?
Come on, man up.
Ping...
Stericycle develops medical waste systems that help hospital, clinics, doctors offices, nursing homes, convalescent homes and other medical facilities to dispose of ALL human waste. Body parts, fluids, blood etc. Organs and tissues that were surgically removed. The fact that some of their equipment may have wound up in some abortion clinics does make that company or its shareholders and investors guilty of mass murder IMHO.
And why should anyone care what Mittens Romney thinks? You are nothing but the Alf Landon of your era.
Why are you working so hard to obfuscate the fact that what Stericycle does is dispose of the bodies of millions of aborted babies?
Why do you refuse to face up to the fact that Romney was the majority, controlling shareholder in this company, and then lied to conservatives, and to the whole country, about it?
I have said the medical waste disposal equipment manufactured by Stericycle can be used for multiple purposes. I do not deny the possibility that some abortions clinics including Planned Parenthood may have purchased some of their equipment and used it to dispose of aborted babies.
I happen to be a shareholder in General Electric. If Planned Parenthood purchased a light bulb manufactured by GE does that make me complicit in their activities as well?
Crematorium #3 at Birkenau
Stericycle's incinerating plant in Utah
My explanation: The medical waste and disposal systems manufactured by Stericycle have multiple purposes (just like a scalpel) and I do not deny the possibility that some of them may have been purchased and used in abortion clinics. Medical equipment can be used for multiple purposes.
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