Cheney and Lockheed CEO Try to Keep Automatic Cuts from Happening in DoD

NOTE:  This post is being updated (7/18, 11:43 am) to share the email from the CEO of Lockheed to his employees about sequestering and possible layoffs which is now added at the end of this article.  The contacts my husband made over the years have come in handy!

******

Don't know whether to laugh or get disgusted about the President of Lockheed who makes $26 million a year as of 2011 and received a raise for 2012, whose company has the F-22 with an oxygen problem where pilots refuse to fly and an F-35 which is over budget and behind schedule, saying there shouldn't be cuts at defense.  That doesn't even count the problems that still exist that it is too heavy to land on a carrier along with some other problems.  Did they ever get the wiring fixed in the bomb bay so it doesn't fry the electrical wiring?

For months test pilots had the privilege of piloting the plane to the tarmack but spending a lot of time on the simulators.  Why did the Air Force go down this path with Lockheed that is costing billions and at the end of the day the F-16 will still perform better in the combat role of today because its skin and plane is not a maintenance nightmare.  Navy and Marines don't want the F-35 -- they want upgrades to what they have.  Lockheed is set to go in the hole on the F-35 but some Congressional people who are in their hip pocket they hope will bail them out.  That's probably the real reason the Lockheed CEO met up with Cheney.

We would bet that the head of the House Armed Services McKeon (R-CA) is in the hip pockets of Northrup-Grumman and Lockheed -- doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.  If members of Congress were not so bought and paid for by Defense contractors, they would take a look at what these weapon systems like the F-35 are really costing.  Any major weapon system program like the F-35 that is this far behind schedule and still has major problems, it going to end up costing a lot more then was budgeted but Lockheed gave their CEO a raise for 2012.  Lockheed has been known over the years for being behind schedule and over budget on major weapon systems but yet the people at DoD continue to award them contracts and look the other way.  F-16 should have been fully upgraded but that doesn't fit the shiny and new of some of the Air Force generals.

Our family has been around DoD for well over 30 years and my husband longer.  He has been on both sides of source selection -- on the side that awards the contract and after retiring from Civil Service on the side of the contractor waiting for the award.  Anyone who says there is not a lot of waste in the Defense Department is either bought and paid for or is very naive and not around contracting.  He was the System Control Officer for the C-141 for Logistics/Materiel Command when it went through the stretch and he made numerous trips in and out of Marietta, GA, to the Lockheed plant.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing -- it was so bad that he took a job in the Air Force Contract Maintenance Center to travel overseas rather than deal with Lockheed where he was expected to turn his head and not see how bad it was but instead giving glowing reports after being wined and dined and trying to add on a  few extra dollars for him to use.  My husband was the wrong person to try and influence as those who know him well will tell you.  He was a pain in the neck to contractors but had the Air Force's best interest at heart.  Put it this way, contractors couldn't shove him around.  I used to type up his reports and would ask him if he was sure he wanted to say that and sure enough he was -- he told it like it was.

After our daughter was born, he decided he had enough of overseas travel and transferred to the F-16 heading support equipment and automatic test which were his areas of expertise.  The people at General Dynamics in Fort Worth who built the F-16 he considered the best people he had worked with but unfortunately that part of General Dynamics was bought out by Lockheed to add to Martin Marietta which my husband worked with when we were at Norton AFB, CA, on the MX and Minuteman missiles.  He called them honest.  When Lockheed bought out both companies, he said it was a sad day for the Air Force because he was convinced that Lockheed would bring its suspect practices to those two companies.  Sure enough they did so that companies who were respected for delivering on time and budget now were part of an atmosphere where delivering on time and on budget was foreign.

Ask a Martin or General Dynamics person what they think about working for Lockheed and most likely it is not printable.  Yet we have the President of Lockheed threatening pink slips to his employees if the Defense budget is cut (see email to employees at the end of this post).  The man should have been fired when former Secretary of Defense Gates found out that the F-35 was way behind schedule, had major problems, and was over budget.  In fact they were so over budget they started taking money from other parts of Lockheed which left the new innovative  It was the automated logistics information system (ALIS) that took the biggest hit for F35 when money was pulled from Logistics.  Lockheed needed the money allocated to the Logistics to throw away on aero and its incompetence.  Now he gets to retire with one of those golden parachutes paid for by the Defense Department and there is no savings can be made in the DoD?  Give me a break!

Put a group of long time civil service in a room who have to deal with these greedy aerospace contractors and bet they can come up with a lot of savings starting with the F-35 that is being forced on the Navy and Marine Corps.  I still remember getting a 2" thick document telling everyone how to do paperwork management to reduce the amount of paper being used in the 70's.  If you added all those documents in a stack, we didn't turn out that much paperwork in six months.  My boss at the time sent a letter back with the suggestion they quit sending out a page every time they wanted to change a few words in a regulation and he got back a 3-page reply why it was necessary.  We decided it was to keep some people employed because it was a waste.  From that day forward our office used to send in fraud, waste, and abuse comments to save the Government money.  My boss was transferred after three months to a base in northern part of the Country that handled missiles.  Imagine that!

Everyone I know in the DoD has stories of waste.  The latest for me is VDATS at Warner Robins meant to replace all the Automatic Test Systems that was approved by the DoD as the tester of choice before it was built.  Wonder if they ever got their security certificate for the system.  It was a boondoggle to save and add jobs at Warner Robins AFB.  Heard it is not going to be budgeted much longer after the F-16 group was able to get a waiver so they do not have to use the flawed system.  The F-16 which is the largest weapon system in the Air Force gets a waiver thanks to tenacious civil servant(s) who refused to take the word "no" as the final answer.  Should pretty much tank VDATS for use by major weapons systems.  Right there you have millions of savings where the people at Warner Robins wanted weapon systems to throw out perfectly good automatic test systems that needed upgraded for $10M to buy the new system (VDATS)_for over $100M that couldn't do the job.  There is a cost savings of at least $90M on each weapon system.  We are starting to talk some real savings.

That is a microcosm of savings that can be taken out of Defense.  Can it reach $50B a year?  I think it can because I can get to $1B in cuts today starting with the salaries of the leaders of the aerospace companies and go from there to how much they charge the DoD per manhour which is atrocious.  Threatening to lay off workers with notices days before the election is nothing short of blackmail -- call the CEO of Lockheed's bluff by having Lockheed hand over every piece of paperwork on the F-35 to see how the plane got so far behind schedule and over budget.  See how fast he backs off.  The CEO is also saying along with the cuts to employees they are going to jettison some real estate/facilities (tax write off if they donate a facility to a university?).

Cheney and the CEO of Lockheed can stop with the crocodile tears and be honest about the cuts that can be made that will not hurt the military.  It should not be a sacred cow but should have to explain its boondoggles of wasted tax dollars since 2000.  That is my opinion and I am sticking to it after years of seeing first hand the fraud, waste, and abuse in the DoD.

IMHO House Republicans helped put us in this mess of sequestering when the agreement was reached.  Their stubbornness in not compromising almost made the US go off a cliff.  I would tell both parties to grow up and stop the whine.  Work together for what is best for all Americans and put America before Party.

Cheney, Lockheed CEO deliver dire warnings of impact of automatic cuts
By Jeremy Herb and Carlo Munoz - 07/17/12 08:42 PM ET

Former Vice President Cheney made a rare trip to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to give House and Senate Republicans a dire assessment of what $500 billion in cuts to the Pentagon budget would mean for national security. 

Cheney’s appearance came amid a concerted lobbying push from the defense industry, which is trying to persuade Congress to act now on the sequester by warning the cuts will lead to massive job losses. 

Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens, who will testify before a House panel on Wednesday, has threatened to issue layoff notices to all of his company’s 123,000 employees just before the November election. And the Aerospace Industries Association unveiled a new study Tuesday that claimed 2 million jobs could be lost due to the automatic cuts that are scheduled for both the defense and domestic sectors. 

Defense hawks hope that the flurry of activity will put the issue in the public eye and convince Congress to act. 

Cheney, who served as Defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, told the Senate GOP conference that sequestration could have a damaging long-term impact on the military by killing major weapons programs, according to senators at the meeting. 

“He just talked about the stupidity of the sequester, where you cut everything the same,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). 

Cheney’s appearance underscored the effort Republicans are making to apply pressure to Democrats, who are threatening to walk away from the negotiating table on sequestration unless the GOP agrees to tax increases. 

“It was just really a very sensible presentation about how sequester is a blunt object,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said of Cheney’s talk. “He did talk about his time as Defense secretary in the ’90s and how he benefited from investments made the decade before.” 

Cheney did not discuss potential fixes for the cuts, GOP senators said, or other foreign-policy issues such as Syria. 

Democrats were decidedly unimpressed. White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said it was “odd” that Republicans “would be taking budget advice from somebody who famously declared that ‘deficits don’t matter.’ ” 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) questioned Cheney’s motives, noting his ties to the military contractor and oil giant Halliburton. 

“We know that before he became vice president, he worked for Halliburton,” Reid told reporters. “Halliburton did extremely well during his time as vice president, and I assume there’s going to be some concern about Halliburton again in this conversation they’re going to have today.” 

The sequestration debate is likely to dominate Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when defense executives will testify before the House Armed Services Committee and the House takes up the Sequestration Transparency Act, which requires reports from the Obama administration on the impact of the cuts. 

Stevens, one of four executives scheduled to testify before the panel, has led the charge in the defense industry to warn about job losses from sequestration. 

(snip)

Democrats have been adamant that any compromise on sequestration must include revenue increases or the elimination of tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans. 

“You can’t get there without revenue [increases] on the table,” Shaheen said, reiterating her party’s line. 

Republican lawmakers, however, have been opposed to any effort allowing the Bush-era tax rates to expire. 

At a media event last month, Stevens said he thought all options had to be included in a deficit-reduction deal, including discretionary spending, mandatory spending and new revenues.
The Lockheed CEO, who is retiring at the end of the year, is expected to urge Congress on Wednesday to find a solution now in order to give the industry some certainty. 

Stevens has said that his company would be required to put out layoff notices just days before the election due to federal 60-day reporting requirements. 

Republicans have supported Stevens’s threat, saying the layoff notices will help the public understand the impact of sequestration. 

“I’d just as soon they did it tomorrow,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he would understand if the companies decided to issue pink slips before the election, but doubts it would have much impact at the polls. 

“I think by then probably most people will have made up their minds,” Levin said. “That’s my hunch.” 

Excerpt:  Read More at The Hill

******

DATE: July 18, 2012

TO: All Lockheed Martin U.S. Employees

FROM: Bob Stevens, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Chris Kubasik, Vice Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer

SUBJECT: Straight Talk On Sequestration

Over the past several months, you may have seen news coverage about our position on a federal law passed last year and the negative effects it will have on our nation and our industry. And in the weeks ahead, you will hear more from us on this subject. It’s called sequestration.

Under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, the Department of Defense committed to reduce spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years, with $47 billion of that occurring in this year’s budget.

Like every company in our industry, we feel the effects of those reductions, but we understand the fiscal pressures our nation faces and we are doing our part.

However, there is a provision in the BCA known as sequestration, which was originally designed as a mechanism to force bipartisan cooperation on deficit spending and debt reduction – a process that failed. As a result, sequestration now requires $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts in U.S. government discretionary spending beginning January 2, 2013. Half that total is expected to come from defense spending; the rest from other domestic spending, including education and infrastructure. This would result in $492 billion in reductions for defense over the next nine years in addition to the $487 billion mentioned above.

We believe sequestration is the single greatest challenge facing our company and our industry. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said sequestration will have catastrophic consequences for our nation’s defense because it was developed without consideration for national security strategy, force structure, technology needs or operational reality. We agree, and we have candidly and publicly voiced our concerns with our government customers, members of Congress, and our industry partners.

With little guidance from the government on the specifics of sequestration, it is difficult to determine the impact of these cuts on our employees, programs and suppliers. We do know, however, that we have responsibilities under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act to provide 60 days’ notice to employees of a facility closure or major layoff. New York law requires 90 days’ notice. As we continue our analysis, we see that these laws could result in the need to issue conditional WARN notices to a substantial number of our employees, starting late in the third quarter.

We know this is unsettling information and you are probably asking, “Will I be affected?” Our very rough estimate of the number of employees who could be affected, based on the limited information available to us from the government, is about 10,000. We’d prefer to give you more clarity and details, and we will, just as soon as we get specific guidance from the government.

Until then, we ask that you remain focused on our global security mission. We know that you care deeply about the work you do in support of our nation and our customers, and we ask that you continue to help us meet our commitments to our customers as the sequestration debate plays out. At the same time, we will continue doing everything we can to encourage government leaders to find a better solution to the nation’s fiscal challenges than sequestration.

At Lockheed Martin, we have a seasoned leadership team and a strong strategy focused on growing our company in core, adjacent and international markets that is reliant on our continued strong performance. And we have you, the best employees in the business. As we embark on our second century as a successful enterprise supporting the U.S. government and our allies, we are committed to making sure our company, our industry, and our nation remain strong and vital.

One way we’ll do that is by continuing to voice our concerns about sequestration at every opportunity. If you would like to find out more about the effort to stop sequestration, visit the Aerospace Industries Association's Stop Sequestration website here.

Thank you, as always, for your commitment to Lockheed Martin, our customers and our nation.

Even with the challenges we face, our customers need us to focus with the full concentration and complete dedication that have been hallmarks of your work. We have great confidence in our future success because of our confidence in you.

Editor’s Note: Bob Stevens is testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee today on the impact of sequestration. You can see Bob’s statement for the record here.

Why McCain and Others Voted Against Disclosure?

I am going to do a little speculating here today -- call it a hunch.  The amount of $10,000 is not that high to be worried about labor unions like McCain has stated.  Plus it wouldn't go into affect until January 2013 after this election has been bought and paid for by the Republican big donors.  In fact the bill didn't say donations were cut off at $10,000, it was to disclose the names of anyone donating over $10,000 to a 501c4 or a 501c6 group which seems legitimate to me.  When I read the bill, these comments make no sense unless ...

But Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., once the leading Republican on campaign disclosure and donor limits, said in a statement he opposed the bill because it was designed to give an advantage to the Democrats and their labor union allies. 

“By conveniently setting high thresholds for reporting requirements, the DISCLOSE Act forces some entities to inform the public about the origins of their financial support, while allowing others – most notably those affiliated with organized labor – to fly below the Federal Election Commission’s regulatory radar,” he said in a statement. 

Sen McCain is already on the record saying there are going to be problems with the amount of foreign money in this election.  Adelson is the perfect example of what McCain is saying with his (Adelson's) McCau gambling operation where he is under investigation for bribes in order to get the gambling operation set up and keep all the venues.  Doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is something there when you read the facts.  That money he makes in McCau is allowing him to donate as many millions as necessary to win this election.  What is his point?  Romney wins and the investigation goes away with a new Attorney General?  Is that why Cong Issa and the House voted to hold Eric Holder in contempt when he was working with Issa to release documents?  Was it to harm his credibility and stop further investigations by the DOJ?

Then there is the NRA threatening Senators who vote for the disclose act.  There are Republican Senators who could care less what the NRA says but there are also some in their hip pocket which I would assume would start with the Minority Leader McConnell.

What if others like McCain voted against this bill so that next January the outcry against the 17 wealthy white men donors who are remaining in the shadows as huge donors except for the Koch Brothers and Adelson is so great that we get complete Campaign Finance Reform (CFR)?   When you have over 80% of donations coming from a group of wealthy people, you have a major problem on your hands.  Is that what this vote against the bill by McCain, Coburn, Lindsey Graham and others is all about so that public gets so mad that both parties agree in January that excessive dollars like we are seeing this year need out of politics for good and a Constitutional CFR comes out of the mix?   Do I think McCain and people like Coburn would do that?  Absolutely!

Obama started this when he decided not to take federal matching dollars in 2008 and Soros dollars flooded the campaign which Republicans called out as being wrong, unethical, and wondered if they were illegal donations.  Now Republicans have taken it to a new low in 2012 thanks in part to the SCOTUS bad ruling making a business a person and opening up unlimited donations to Super PACS.  People don't give these kind of millions unless they want something in return.  Adelson is not the most honest guy and neither are the Koch Brothers.

Have some Republican members of Congress sold out to the big donors this time?  Adelson just gave Young Guns PAC run by Eric Cantor $5 million.  Now the question is if Cantor is going to use that money for HIS campaign since he is in trouble in Virginia?  He used other donations in that PAC to give to other organizations wanting incumbents out including Republicans.  He is running the Young Guns PAC as his slush fund which is not what most donors thought when they donated to his PAC -- they thought it was for new candidates not for Cantor to use at will.

Ten years ago Republicans wanted full disclosure of every penny, but today they vote together against this bill requiring transparency of donations over $10,000?  Yet the leadership wonders why a lot of Republicans like me have had it with the hostile takeover of the Republican Party where some are acting like the little kid in the candy store with the huge donors and the massive dollars they are donating.  This is one Republican who has not changed her beliefs but has taken off the blinders that Republicans are always right.  Started in 2008 with the opposition research on Romney as a candidate.  I couldn't believe that he ran this time knowing full well the research was there but his arrogance and his wife's urging got in the way of common sense.  Is he doing this to fulfill a Mormon prophecy about a Mormon in the White House.

What are Republicans hiding about the big donors?  I cannot believe I am not typing Democrats but the Party I considered ethical is no more.  The Party of Reagan has been shoved under the bus to make way for the Party of Greed led by Mitt Romney who has trouble telling the truth.  Fox News yesterday morning edited a portion of Obama's speech to make him look bad,  Limbaugh wants Romney to throw every racial stereotype he can find at Obama, House and Senate stall bills that would add jobs, and now the Republican Senators vote against transparency.

What has happened to a Party I grew up with who now could care less about the Middle Class?  All Republican leadership seems to care about today is ousting Obama and will lie, cheat, and steal to get him out of the White House as we are witnessing.  Thirty-three times the House has passed repeal bills for the Affordable Care Act without having a replacement when they call for Repeal and Replace.  When you do the opposition research and discover the lies being told by Republicans and their pundits to foster hate, it stops you dead in the tracks and you start asking "Why am I a Republican Today?"

I am one of those people when the Democrats do something that is unethical I get mad, but when my Party does the same thing and takes to a new low level, it makes me even madder as I expect more out of Republicans.  Now I have learned my lesson -- I expect nothing out of this unethical group that leads Republicans today who don't have the best interests of America at heart or they would have told Romney to get lost when he declared that if people saw his plans for America that he never would get elected.

Now the Republicans in the Senate vote against transparency?  WHY?

Senate blocks action on disclosure of hidden donorsBy Tom Curry, NBCPolitics.com National Affairs Writer 

In a mostly symbolic vote that split along party lines, the Senate on Monday night blocked consideration of a Democratic-sponsored bill to force disclosure of contributions to tax-exempt groups, corporations and unions which engage in political spending. 

The bill fell nine votes short of the 60 it needed to move ahead to debate and final passage.
Donors to tax-exempt 501c4 and 501c6 groups aren’t required to be identified publicly; this cloak of secrecy has encouraged some contributors who might fear publicity to invest heavily in trying to influence voters through TV ads. 

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D- R.I., would require any donor who gave $10,000 or more to a 501c4 group that spent money on political advertising to be identified and disclosed. 

It would not have taken effect until after the 2012 election. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D - Ore., a co-sponsor of the bill said in an interview right before the vote, “We did that deliberately to take this campaign season out of it. We tried to take every objection we heard and strip this down to pure disclosure: any donation over $10,000, you disclose, straight and simple, no matter where it comes from.” 

He said, “If it passed, even though it wouldn’t take effect until January, people would say, ‘well at least the principle is broadly supported.' If it doesn’t pass, it may mobilize folks on the issue and say, ‘well let’s make it a campaign issue, let's see where people stand.’” 

(snip)

According to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity, 501c4s spent nearly $95 million in the 2010 campaign. 

Monday night’s vote was formal confirmation that Congress won’t rein in donors to such tax-exempt groups, at least until 2013 and perhaps not even then. Democratic leaders must now hope that Democratic donors step up and try to match Republicans in their giving to Democratic tax-exempt groups. 

The 501c4 and 501c6 groups were given new freedom to run ads by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 and by FEC rulings. 

Lisa Rosenberg, a government affairs consultant with the Sunlight Foundation, a group that supports fuller disclosure of campaign spending, said, “It may take until after the election to see the real damage that was done and to see the corrupting influence of this money on the political process -- and perhaps that will reinvigorate the debate for the next time.”

This is the GOP Presumed Nominee Who Won't Release His Taxes

Thanks to my son for the picture.  When you hear the saying 'a picture is worth 1,000 words,' believe this is one that fits that saying.

Nice to know you can own a horse your wife rides and take it off the income tax but then most of America cannot afford to own a horse so that doesn't apply to us.  How many more tax credits has he taken over the years and is the 'real' reason he does not want us to see his income taxes?  It was good enough for his Father to show taxes but not for the son?  Obviously Mr. Romney is not a chip off the old block because I don't remember anyone ever using the word 'arrogant' when referring to George Romney.

Republicans went after John Kerry in 2004 for not releasing more than two years of his taxes but lo and behold he had released many more years as a US Senator.  Talk about feeling dumb that was one of those OOPS moments.  Now Romney wonders why the Democrats and FINALLY a few Republicans want him to release his tax returns?

Are Republicans going to wake up that they have a very flawed candidate or is all the money for the campaign going to win out?

Romney Advisor Ed Gillespie defends Romney by using the word "Retroactive" for his Retirement from Bain

In the past, I thought Ed Gillespie was a pretty smart guy -- not any more.  To go on national TV and give that 'retroactive' bunch of Bravo Sierra about when Romney retired from Bain which means he had nothing to do with Bain from 1999 to 2002 defies the belief of anyone with common sense.  

My son sent me a comment that was sent from a friend of his that sums it up nicely:

"Reasonable from someone who believes you can be baptized in absentia after you die."

How do you answer that?  You don't.  I remember when I read his wife's Dad was an atheist but a year after his death, the Romney family had him baptized into the Mormon which gave me the creeps but not as much as when the Mormon Church made Anne Frank a Mormon.  What kind of religion does things like that?  Like I said creepy!

How did Romney convince the Republican hierarchy that he was the best man for the job?  Was it because they were broke and had no money for a convention and campaign which has been rectified by Romney and his other millionaire/billionaire pals and their Super PACs.  Everything about this election shows that the powers at be of the Republican Party are bought and paid for by the wealthy.  They made sure they sufficiently demonized Obama even if they had to lie so the base would vote for Romney without questions being asked.  Could be a fatal mistake because I am not the only one who has taken the blinders off.

When you realize that members of Congress who take an oath are holding up legislation to keep jobs from being created to make Obama look bad, you get a bad feeling that a lot these people you thought were honest and honorable are not.  They are bought and paid for by lobbyists and the big donors like the Koch Brothers.

Sunday night on the net you are starting to see comments about Romney needs to pull out of the race and Republicans need an open convention.  I cannot imagine Romney doing that but his lies on Friday night followed up by the bizarre Gillespie interviews should disqualify him and his team from ever being part of a Republican campaign.  They are dishonest and must think we are a bunch of idiots to swallow what Romney is selling.  There are more documents coming forward like the one from Bain in 2002 that named him the head that was filed in MA.  I resent that they would try to pull the wool over our eyes and expect us to swallow what Romney has to say when he went on TV to five networks and LIED or he LIED to the MA Ethics Commission in 2002 and to the SEC.  Take your pick because whichever it is he LIED.

Believe Romney is so used to getting his way he never considered the fact that when he told people that Bain was not a subject for discussion that they would listen to him.   That is the same arrogance that sent Romney to the networks on Friday night lying on the air thinking he could shut the door but it opened it wider as Michael Steele said.

Republicans have a choice.  They can continue down the path nominating a liar or they can wake up and tell him to take a hike because Romney has done himself in with his aversion to the truth but like he said if he told the truth on what he wants to do he never would be elected.  Maybe you could also add that if he told the truth about Bain, he never would have been nominated.  Gingrich and Perry tried to tell the truth about Romney and in the process got taken out by the far right who are aligned with Romney which frankly makes no sense unless it is true they are controlled by the Koch Brothers.

I still cannot believe Gillespie did this.  Pretty bad when you have to go to a liberal site to get the truth.  It is like the roles have been reversed and as a conservative I resent the conservative media covering for Romney and his pals when they know the truth:

Romney Adviser: Romney Not Responsible For Bain Because He ‘Retired Retroactively’By Adam Peck 

on Jul 15, 2012 at 10:20 am

Romney and Gillespie

Ed Gillespie, a senior campaign advisor for Mitt Romney, appeared on Meet the Press this morning to answer questions about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, and unveiled a new excuse for why Romney should not be held responsible for the company’s actions during a time in which he remained CEO and president: 

GREGORY: He was still financially linked to Bain. And of course, a lot his fortune is due to his time with Bain. Even when he was on leave, does he stand by the business decisions that were made by the firm he created?  

GILLESPIE: He actually retired retroactively at that point. He ended up not going back to the firm after his time in Salt Lake City. So he was actually retired from Bain. 

Throughout the primary season until just last week, the Romney campaign stood forcefully by their assertion that Romney “retired” from Bain Capital in February of 1999. But with the release of previously unreported SEC documents last week which suggest that Romney in fact retained the titles of CEO and chairman well into the new century, the Romney campaign has struggled to adequately answer voters’ questions.

Gillespie was also questioned about whether Romney supports the business practice of outsourcing jobs overseas, a favorite tactic of Bain Capital. Gillespie was noncommittal, instead stating that Romney believes businesses should be free to do as they see fit. 

Gillespie also tried to paint Romney’s decision to release just two years of tax returns as transparent. “The fact is, Governor Romney has put out already 2010, and will put out 2011 before this election. So, very transparent,” he told Gregory. 

Update

Watch video of Ed Gillespie’s remark: 

Update 

Gillespie made a similar claim on CNN: “He took a leave of absence and in fact, ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February 1999 as a result.”

Mitt Bain Capital Document Lists Mitt Romney As 'Managing Member' In 2002

How are Romney and his Romneybots going to spin this one?  Romney has backed himself into a corner and frankly couldn't happen to a better person.

Are the leaders of the Republican Party going to be dumb enough to nominate Romney after the evidence is piling up that Romney's visit to the five networks on Friday night to say he had nothing to do with Bain after 1999 was an outright LIE?  One of the anchors Friday night said they believed that Romney doing his act Friday night on Bain along with not releasing tax returns was going to cause more investigation and that is exactly what has happened.  Michael Steele said basically the same thing.

Was Michael Steele undermined at the RNC so he could be taken out and put a Romney loyalists in his place to make sure Romney got the nomination?  That would go along with the modus operandi of this group of Romney people who have completed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party with the help of the Koch Brothers and others.  Don't recognize today's Republican Party who could care less about the middle class or poor as they pander to the wealthy donors and hold up legislation that would help the economy.

Had to wonder when I saw he had his retirement from Bain backdated to 1999 if there wasn't something suspicious.  But people like me didn't have a clue about Romney who I said he was unethical as I have been told many times.  There is only one problem -- opposition research from 2008 when a lot of us worked for other candidates.  I am proud to say that I was member of the Rudy team before he was taken out by the far right -- same far right who has now teamed up with Romney who was as a liberal for MA Governor in 2002.  He is the perfect chameleon candidate who changes depending on the audience.  That same Romney who in 2001 was head of Bain when they invested in a company that disposed of  'aborted fetuses' per Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Beast.  The usual comeback is that Sullivan is a liberal but he has the evidence and unlike some Republican journalists this time around, he is not making it up.  It has been out there waiting for the media to investigate.

What has happened to honesty and integrity in the Republican Party this election and looks like back in 2010?  From the Congressional Republicans holding up bills that might make Obama look good, to lying that they were working with the President, and turning into pretzels to support Romney for President early on which made no sense, it makes you wonder about anything the GOP is saying today.  What happened to the GOP backbones?  Are they so entrenched with the wealthy that when a member of leadership, Cantor, bets against the US Treasury to make money that he doesn't get a reprimand.  What kind of Majority Leader bets against the US?  But then he is the same one who donated money to an organization trying to take out incumbents including some TX Republicans who won big.  This is a microcosm of today's Republican leaders who put party and big donors ahead of the American people.  Why should any of us be shocked that they refuse to take action on Romney?

Republicans are going into the fall election most likely with an outright liar heading the ticket which brings back memories of John Kerry who Republicans savaged for lying which they should have and I was one who was thoroughly disgusted with his lies.  He couldn't tell the truth about his time in Vietnam and Romney cannot tell the truth about his time at Bain.  Why?  We can go for a trifecta and ask what is in the drinking water in MA that causes their politicians to lie because Sen Scott Brown (R-MA) keeps talking all these imaginary phone calls he gets from Democrats and world leaders.  He was poised to keep his seat before his foot in mouth took over -- now it is toss up.

The Alabama Governor, Robert Bently, along with NRCC Chair Pete Sessions have called for Romney to release his tax returns.  Michael Steele did the same on Friday night, Bill Kristol has joined the chorus, and we expect that chorus to get louder.  What is Romney hiding that he was so arrogant to say only two years of tax returns was enough when his Father released many more?

Huffington Post authors have discovered one more piece of evidence to add to the pile -- this one from Bain itself in 2002 -- is that going to be another lie according to Romney and his surrogates?

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." 

Yet Romney told the Feds in August 2011 in his federal disclosure that he retired from Bain on Feb 11, 1999, but we know that retirement was backdated to 1999 AFTER he won the Governorship of MA in 2002.  That was confirmed this morning by a Romney spokesman saying that it was a retroactive retirement to 1999 and Romney didn't have anything to do with Bain.  Lies keep mounting up because he told the MA Ethics Commissions when trying to get on the ballot for Governor that he had taken a leave of absence from Bain to work for the Olympics but has been reported he took numerous trips back to MA to participate in Board Meetings, Thanksgiving, etc.  Yet Romney goes on TV Friday night and says he had nothing to do with Bain after he left for the Olympics in 1999.  Is he lying now or did he lie on documents earlier.  Going out on a limb here and say he is lying now.  Doesn't have to be a big limb to support that one.

How many of you would like to take a retroactive retirement and get paid for it?  Bet most would but you see we are not wealthy so those rules don't apply to all of us.

If he thinks any of this is going away, he needs to think again.  For the good of the Republican Party he could come clean with his lies, pull out of the race, and allow the Republican Party to have an Open Convention but that would take honesty and integrity along with ethics which are missing with Mitt Romney.  In the meantime the Chairman of the RNC Priebus and others who orchestrated this crooked primary process need to resign immediately.  They have disgraced the Republican Party with choosing Romney as the nominee.  Anyone who thinks the primaries were fair haven't been reading where one state was proportioned and another wasn't, or missing ballot boxes, dead voters, multi-state voters, turning people away from voting in caucuses or running a shadow GOP in NV for starters when they didn't like the person who was elected to head the GOP at the Convention for starters.  How about the debates where the RNC Chair scheduled and picked the moderators and kept people out of the debates that might show up Romney like former Gov of NM Gary Johnson.

Only hope for the Republican Party in November is to have an Open Convention IMHO!  If they go down the road with Romney and his lies and arrogance, expect collateral damage to the GOP Congressional races in November.  I am not enjoying seeing what Romney and his supporters have done to the Republican Party along with the Koch Brothers and their meddling, but I am enjoying the mess Romney has gotten himself in after what he has done to candidate after candidate to fulfill the Mormon prophecy of becoming President.  He didn't even follow his Father's lead who I believe was an honorable person who did release tax returns.  Doesn't phase his son as he is always right and the anyone who questions him is called names by his surrogates like socialist, communists, traitor, and the list goes on.

I put my principles over my Party so no way do I support or vote for the MA liberal Romney who has a problem with the truth and if people don't like it, don't talk to me because I could less.  I will not vote for a candidate who I know to be unethical who has no integrity just because there is an (R) behind their name.  Not happening.

Mitt Romney Bain Capital Document Lists Him As 'Managing Member' In 2002
Ryan Grim and Jason Cherkis
Posted: 07/15/2012 9:36 am Updated: 07/15/2012 10:40 am

WASHINGTON -- Add another document to the pile of evidence contradicting Mitt Romney's continued insistence that he ended his active role with Bain Capital in early 1999, part of his long-running effort to avoid responsibility for the company's activity, related to outsourcing and bankruptcies, during the years that followed. 

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, as part of the financial disclosure process, 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 political 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. 

The latter has its obvious drawbacks, and the former doesn't paint Romney as a portrait of stand-up leadership. President Barack Obama over the weekend seized on Romney's attempt to shed responsibility for the company he officially ran, arguing that a U.S. president doesn't have the luxury of picking and choosing when he's responsible for what happens on his watch.
"Ultimately, I think, Mr. Romney is going to have to answer those questions because if he aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is you're ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations," Obama said in an interview with the District of Columbia's WJLA-TV. 

It's a line of attack Obama employed with deftness against his Republican opponent in 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suspended his presidential campaign to address the financial meltdown. 

"Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time," Obama said then, rejecting McCain's request to postpone debates. "It’s not necessary for us to think that we can do only one thing, and suspend everything else." 

On Friday evening, Romney responded to the barrage of Bain reporting and attacks by the Obama camp by scheduling a raft of interviews with major media outlets, during which he repeated his claim that he had had nothing to do with Bain after 1999. 

Source:  Huffington Post

Sullivan: He's Drowning Not Waving (Pro-Lifers will not be Happy!)

Update 07/13 6:56pm: Was in financial control through 2002.

Official documents have revealed that Mitt Romney remained in control of Bain Capital until 2002, three years longer than he has previously claimed. Romney has said that he left the firm in 1999 in order to be chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. However, his signature remains on documents through 2002, when he finalized a 10-year severance deal with Bain that was retroactive to 1999. Despite Romney's focus on his Olympic activities during those three years, he has been shown to have had managerial control over five new investments during that time. He also remained in control of 100 percent of the company and earned money as a Bain "executive" during that time. 

*******

Today as I have been visiting various websites about the problem with Romney's story when he left Bain, found Sullivan's piece with links to other comments the most complete. Is Romney's whole premise for not detailing that he was at Bain through 2002 when he actually did head Bain because of the following:

he (Romney) was responsible for investing in a company that disposes of aborted fetuses, and signed a filing for that particular company, you can see why he doesn't want to defend 1999 to 2001 in practice. It would destroy him with the pro-life base.

Is this the fact he has been hiding from 2001 and doesn't want the base of the Republican Party to find out.  Too late now as it is out in the open but will it make any difference to those Republicans with blinders on who will vote for any Republican candidate no matter who it is.  Today is the perfect example of his pandering and not understanding the pro-life community by saying Condi Rice who is pro-choice is a finalist for Vice President that was leaked to Drudge.  Now does it mean Rice is being used to take Bain off the front pages on the internet which is not working, or he is trying to play up to blacks who are not buying anything he says after his visit to the NAACP.  I have emails from the pro-life community saying if Rice is the VP nominee, don't vote for Romney.

Is the Republican Party which has maintained a very pro-life stance set to nominate a candidate that was responsible for investing in a company that disposes of aborted fetuses?  Sure looks like it but that is okay as he is wealthy and the RNC won't have to put out as much money for the candidate.  Question is if the RNC Chairman is really pro-life or gives lip service?

I said months ago I couldn't believe the GOP was poised to nominate a pro-choice person who now is considering another pro-choice person, Condi Rice, to be his VP.  I don't want to hear anything about Romney's pro-life stance because it is pandering pure and simple but unfortunately the pro-life community bought into it saying the stance he took as MA Governor doesn't pertain today.  The fact this his campaign would even consider a pro-choice person says all any thinking person needs to know.


Is Rick Santorum going to campaign for Romney in PA after this and the question would be "WHY" as he really is pro-life? 


All the Romney lies are starting to catch up with him on Bain, and he is not even the nominee.  There is plenty more waiting because the Democrats probably have more on Romney now then the other candidates did in 2008.  The big question is whether the GOP can survive a Romney candidacy.

If I was a Democrat consultant, I would be salivating at this news that Romney as head of Bain invested in a company that disposed of aborted fetuses.  Shows he was never really pro-life IMHO!  I cannot fathom investing in a company that did that.  Makes me ill and I admit that I am not an ardent pro-lifer.  I am one of those people who doesn't believe I have a right to make a decision for someone else just myself.  I don't walk in their shoes and definitely do not want to see the days of the backroom abortions come back.  This company invested in by Romney while he owned Bain really does creep me out.

How many more lies is Romney going to tell because it just keeps going and going?  He may be the most dishonest Presidential candidate to run which says a lot.  The lies are stacking up and the ones about Bain are huge because he either lied to the SEC he was in charge, lied to the Ethics Commission of MA to get on the ballot to run for Governor, or he is lying now.  Throw a dart!

Still cannot get over that he owned Bain 100% and appointed himself as the CEO, Chairman of the Board and President of Bain because we had been led to believe it was formed by a group of partners from other companies.  Who is telling the truth?  One thing for sure is that it is not Mitt Romney who has trouble with the facts and the truth.  This is why so many of us have called him Democrat-lite -- he acts like one.  This is also another reason that Gingrich and Santorum went after Romney so hard but the RNC and others made sure their voices did not drown out the chosen one of the establishment Republicans -- Mitt Romney.

Bain: He's Drowning Not Waving, Ctd

Andrew Sullivan

July 13, 2012

My take on this morning's developments here and here. But even the WaPo concedes that Romney cited his active Bain business ties from 1999 on in 2002 under oath to help establish residential eligibility to run for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. And Kessler admits that Romney's sworn testimony on this contradicts his legal SEC filing, and several filings Romney made as CEO in the period in question. Steve Kornacki tries to glean what Romney was thinking by keeping his ties to Bain and Bain acquisitions while off in Utah:

[I]t makes all the sense in the world that he would have held on to his leadership titles at Bain and planned to return after the games. For most of the time he was in Utah, politics was not a realistic option for Romney’s immediate post-Olympic career. And because of this, it makes all the sense in the world that Romney would have remained apprised of Bain’s activities while in Utah and maintained some level of engagement, even if he wasn’t directly involved in the company’s day-to-day activities.

How Kevin Roose frames the story:

Romney, during his leave of absence, looks to have been a Potemkin CEO, in charge without actually being in charge. Does that mean, per the Obama campaign, that Romney can be "blamed for bankruptcies and layoffs from Bain investments" until he formally left Bain in 2002? In a legal and political sense, certainly. By keeping his titles and Bain shares during his leave of absence (probably in the hopes that he would return to Bain after the Olympics), he allowed himself to be kept on the hook for anything, good or bad, that the firm did while he was off in Salt Lake City.

Seems pretty clear to me - unless Romney wants to argue that being the CEO of a company doesn't mean you have any actual responsibility for it, which is a little troubling for a potential president's future accountability, don't you think? In fact, it sounds like Rumsfeld's view of being defense secretary. Weigel's take:

Sure, Romney's name appeared on Bain's SEC filings. But he didn't make Bain's decisions. He only benefited financially from them. Now you see why the Obama campaign thinks it can drag this out over weeks and months. Explaining why Romney himself wasn't really CEO during his leave of absence (when he was trying to save the American Olympics, for Pete's sake!) involves explaining some complicated corporation-fu. In the meantime, the Obama campaign can use "outsource" in every other graf of its press releases, and ignore the Fact-Check squads.

Allahpundit yawns:

One of the ironies of this story is that Romney’s opponents already have a way to tie him to Bain’s post-1999 record, irrespective of whether he quit day-to-day operations at the time. Remember this NYT piece from last December describing how Romney’s retirement deal with Bain granted him a share of profits on deals made through 2009? He was still receiving some of those profits last year because some of the deals hadn’t wound down yet. If the touchstone here is Romney making money off of Bain’s work rather than Romney directing Bain’s operations, then Democrats don’t need the Globe story.

But Romney was paid a salary as well - for a job he has said both that he didn't do in any way and subsequently that he did, while running the Olympics. That's the issue. Only one of Romney's stories can be true, and one of them was under oath. And if he really didn't do anything, then the issue is Romney's possible perjury in 2002 and 2011. The Republicans once impeached a president who committed perjury. Are they now going to nominate someone who did it as well - and insist it's no big deal? Or does it all hinge on what the meaning of CEO and "sole owner" is? Josh Barro looks at the bigger picture:

[R]eally, what Mitt Romney was doing in 2000 is beside the point. Romney founded one of America's leading private equity firms. What private equity does is take underperforming firms and make them more profitable, sometimes by closing facilities and sending operations overseas. If he can't defend Bain's 1999-2002 record on the merits, he can't defend its record from 1984 to 1999 either.

He can defend it in principle. But when it means he was responsible for investing in a company that disposes of aborted fetuses, and signed a filing for that particular company, you can see why he doesn't want to defend 1999 to 2001 in practice. It would destroy him with the pro-life base.

Here's a question worth asking, say, Kathryn Jean Lopez and the Catholic hierarchy: do you really support a candidate who invested in a company that disposed of the corpses of countless unborn children? Is that what your pro-life movement has really culminated in?

Bloomberg Business Week: How the Mormons Make Money

What is wrong with the Republican Party to have Mitt Romney as the nominee when he is/was a Bishop in the Mormon Church, donates millions to the Mormon Church and according to lifelong Mormons he is going to fulfill a prophecy of the Mormon Church by becoming President.

How does the Mormon Church afford to build this mega mall and still remain tax exempt?  Do they have their money buried in the Cayman's as well like Mitt Romney so not to pay tax?There is something about the Mormon Church and Romney being so attached that worries a lot of us if he became President.  When you read about the Mormon Church, you discover that Mormons first obligation is to the Mormon Church.  For such a small number of members how did they accumulate such wealth when they say none of the tithing goes to these projects.  They have spent double for the mall compared to what they have spent for charity purposes:

$1 billion to charitable causes in the 23 year time span between 1985 and 2008

The Mormon Church you learn has money invested around the world.  How did such a small Church in comparison to others get so much money?  We have not heard the end of this with more people starting to take notice and investigate just how a Church can build a mall overseen by the head of the Church and still remain tax exempt.  Talk about a pretzel, there should be a pretzel statue for how the leadership of the Church turns into pretzels while protecting their non-profit status.  Mitt Romney has opened up a can of worms with his candidacy.  Is he only running to fulfill the Mormon prophecy or something else?

Then we have this gem about how the Romney lies are not lies:

On June 13, psychoanalyst Dr. Justin Frank took to the Time Ideas blog to pen an article entitled, “The Root of Mitt Romney’s Comfort With Lying.” According to Frank, these supposed falsities can be blamed upon Mormonism. 

“But this pattern of lying and not acknowledging it, even when confronted directly, has persisted and led me to look for other sources of Romney’s behavior and of his clear comfort with continuing it,” Frank writes. “I think much of this comfort stems from his Mormon faith.” 

But it doesn’t end there, as he also points out Romney’s alleged lies and analyzes how Mormonism apparently allows for these infractions to take place. Frank goes on to claim that faith traditionally takes first seat with Mormons and that adherents allow it to, often times, trump fact. Here’s some more of his analysis:

I found myself discussing this situation with several colleagues, and we agreed that Romney doesn’t lie. Let me repeat: Mitt Romney doesn’t lie. He is telling the truth as he sees it — and truth it is, the facts notwithstanding. This is not simply a case of Hamlet arguing about point of view, saying, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” This is about a conflict between evidence and faith. There is a long tradition in the Mormon belief system in which evidence takes second place to faith. Examples abound, as when two Mormon elders who were questioned about the inconsistency in passages from the Book of Mormon said, “We know the Book of Mormon is true and that it contains the Word of God even in the face of evidence that appears contradictory,” according to The Mormon Missionaries by former Mormon Janice Hutchison. Thus there are no lies, only faith-based certainty that translates as truth for which no apology is needed, since what was said was not a lie.

If you are sufficiently confused that a lie to everyone else is not a lie to a Mormon, join the crowd.  Is this why he lies so much and he definitely does lie when you go back and check history of Mitt Romney.  In fact, he did this week when he said he didn't bring people to the NAACP Convention which was corrected by Lt Governor Carroll (R-FL) who was asked to attend with 200 other blacks at the request of Romney.  They also provided the standing ovation for Romney at the end of the speech not the members of the NAACP.  He also said he talked to black leaders at the NAACP but he only talked to his own supporters not leaders of the NAACP.  Might be easier to say when he tells the truth because he cannot even get the stories right about when he left Bain which is a company he owned 100% and was Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President in SEC filings until late 2002.  In a speech he said he was with Bain 25 years which would have him leaving in 2002 not 1999 he claims now.  More coverage on that in a separate article.  Don't want to confuse anyone too much.

My recommendation:  Don't buy a used car from a Mormon!

How the Mormons Make Money
By Caroline Winter on July 10, 2012 

Late last March the Mormon Church completed an ambitious project: a megamall. Built for roughly $2 billion, the City Creek Center stands directly across the street from the church’s iconic neo-Gothic temple in Salt Lake City. The mall includes a retractable glass roof, 5,000 underground parking spots, and nearly 100 stores and restaurants, ranging from Tiffany’s (TIF) to Forever 21. Walkways link the open-air emporium with the church’s perfectly manicured headquarters on Temple Square. Macy’s (M) is a stone’s throw from the offices of the church’s president, Thomas S. Monson, whom Mormons believe to be a living prophet. 

Mega Mall to the Right Built by the Mormon Church

On the morning of its grand opening, thousands of shoppers thronged downtown Salt Lake, eager to elbow their way into the stores. The national anthem played, and Henry B. Eyring, one of Monson’s top counselors, told the crowds, “Everything that we see around us is evidence of the long-standing commitment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City.” When it came time to cut the mall’s flouncy pink ribbon, Monson, flanked by Utah dignitaries, cheered, “One, two, three—let’s go shopping!” 

Watching a religious leader celebrate a mall may seem surreal, but City Creek reflects the spirit of enterprise that animates modern-day Mormonism. The mall is part of a sprawling church-owned corporate empire that the Mormon leadership says is helping spread its message, increasing economic self-reliance, and building the Kingdom of God on earth. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attends to the total needs of its members,” says Keith B. McMullin, who for 37 years served within the Mormon leadership and now heads a church-owned holding company, Deseret Management Corp. (DMC), an umbrella organization for many of the church’s for-profit businesses. “We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” 

McMullin explains that City Creek exists to combat urban blight, not to fill church coffers. “Will there be a return?” he asks rhetorically. “Yes, but so modest that you would never have made such an investment—the real return comes in folks moving back downtown and the revitalization of businesses.” Pausing briefly, he adds with deliberation, “It’s for furthering the aim of the church to make, if you will, bad men good, and good men better.” 

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are and that so little is known about its financial interests. Although a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and despite a recent public-relations campaign aimed at combating the perception that it is “secretive,” the LDS Church remains tight-lipped about its holdings. It offers little financial transparency even to its members, who are required to tithe 10 percent of their income to gain access to Mormon temples. 

The Mormon Church is hardly the only religious institution to be less than forthcoming about its wealth; the Catholic Church has been equally opaque throughout history. On the other hand, says historian D. Michael Quinn, who is working on a book about the LDS Church’s finances and businesses, “The Mormon Church is very different than any other church. … Traditional Christianity and Judaism make a clear distinction between what is spiritual and what is temporal, while Mormon theology specifically denies that there is such a distinction.” To Latter-day Saints, opening megamalls, operating a billion-dollar media and insurance conglomerate, and running a Polynesian theme park are all part of doing God’s work. Says Quinn: “In the Mormon [leadership’s] worldview, it’s as spiritual to give alms to the poor, as the old phrase goes in the Biblical sense, as it is to make a million dollars.” 

Mormons make up only 1.4 percent of the U.S. population, but the church’s holdings are vast. First among its for-profit enterprises is DMC, which reaps estimated annual revenue of $1.2 billion from six subsidiaries, according to the business information and analysis firm Hoover’s Company Records (DNB). Those subsidiaries run a newspaper, 11 radio stations, a TV station, a publishing and distribution company, a digital media company, a hospitality business, and an insurance business with assets worth $3.3 billion. 

AgReserves, another for-profit Mormon umbrella company, together with other church-run agricultural affiliates, reportedly owns about 1 million acres in the continental U.S., on which the church has farms, hunting preserves, orchards, and ranches. These include the $1 billion, 290,000-acre Deseret Ranches in Florida, which, in addition to keeping 44,000 cows and 1,300 bulls, also has citrus, sod, and timber operations. Outside the U.S., AgReserves operates in Britain, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. Its Australian property, valued at $61 million in 1997, has estimated annual sales of $276 million, according to Dun & Bradstreet. 

Read Much More at Bloomberg Business Week

Romney Speaks to NAACP and House Republicans Vote for the 33rd Time to Repeal "Obamacare"

Do you remember when the Republicans used to make fun of Clinton/Gore for busing supporters to their events and then Gore when he ran against George W. Bush?  It was a Democrat deal where their supporters would get a free lunch and be bused to the events.  Lo and behold, it is no longer a Democrat ONLY deal as Mitt Romney has co-opted the Democrats by:

Even Later Update, 10:58pm: And Roland Martin of TV One's Washington Watch, tweeted earlier today: "Romney bussed in about 200 supporters, including a number of African Americans, including Fla Lt Gov Jennifer Carroll."

Turns out those black leaders Romney touted he spoke with at the NAACP to Fox News were all people he brought in so he could get applause which is Democrat lite but then Romney has stacked his Town Halls including in 2008 with fellow Mormons and planted questions.  The people at the NAACP Convention were respectful of Romney for showing up but it looks like that respect was a one-way street.  Romney went on to say he knew he would be booed when he used 'Obamacare' instead of the real title 'Affordable Health Care Act' so why did he use that term which many blacks consider a slur against Obama?  Was it really so he could show the right how conservative he was to go into the NAACP and used Obamacare knowing he would get booed as has been alleged?  Sure looks like it after he had this to say at the fundraiser he attended after the event:

"If they are looking for free stuff, look to the other guy" (Mitt Romney, 7/11/2012)

With that statement, he is slandering blacks like they are all lazy who belong to the NAACP which is not the case.  It is the oldest Civil Rights organization in America -- don't always agree with some of their leaders and what they have to say or support, but also am not dumb enough to think they are all looking for free stuff.  Bet the Romney reception at the NAACP Convention after the facts have come out would not be close to the same as he received yesterday.

As a Republican and former party office holder, I find Romney and the people surrounding him an embarrassment and their tactics offensive and disgusting but then many of us have considered Romney Dem-lite from Day One.  The days of Ronald Reagan Republicans have come and gone when we could expect a large number of blacks to vote for the Party that gave them their civil rights.  That party has been replaced by a lot of former Democrats from the south and other places who decided to become Republican to get elected.  It is not a good fit for those of us who believed in working across the aisle for all Americans not just a select few rich donors and lobbyist we see today who have bought and paid for some Republican members of the Congress now.  Looks like a lot of this goes back to Abramoff and has gotten worse.  They are acting like Democrats.  When I see Republicans accusing Democrats of what they are doing, I cringe because that is an old Democrat tactic.

For more details on the Romney speech to the NAACP from the perspective of people who were there, please visit MSNBC

Did you know that Republicans in the House have voted 33 times to repeal and replace the Affordable Healthcare Law?  There is one slight problem -- there is no replacement.  Last night, the word came out that 1/3 of all major votes in the House since Republicans took over have been to repeal and replace the Affordable Healthcare Law so 33 times the Republicans in the House have lied since there is NO replacement?

I have to admit that I burst out laughing at the clip of Democrat Congressman Al Green from Texas last night on the floor of the House who said his district had demanded he read the original bill and the replacement bill before voting.  He went on to say he was now going to read half of the replacement bill -- silence -- then he was going to read the other half -- silence and then the whole replacement bill -- silence.  The look on his face was worth a 1,000 words:

Have to give it up to Cong Green for his comments. This is one of those it doesn't make a difference which party, it is just funny and humor always wins when it is showing the truth. Makes the House Republican leadership look stupid and inept.  We have some on our side like Mike Pence who I could see doing similar if the rolls were reversed.  

This would be even funnier if it wasn't highlighting on the floor of the House the total disregard by the Republican leadership for the truth about a replacement bill.  Integrity seem to be missing from a lot of people on both sides of the aisle in Congress today which many of us are finding despicable and frankly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind for members of Congress.  How did we get such unethical people elected that used to be honest before they started making their millions while members of Congress?  Doesn't anyone question where all that money comes from when some could barely rub two cents together when elected?  It is both sides of the aisle who are for sale to the highest bidder not just one side.  Maybe the calls for anyone tainted by the Abramoff scandal to resign should have been heeded.  There is an Ethics Committee in the House that has trouble actually going after members for being corrupt no matter who is in charge.  

In a conversation this week with other Republicans, we all came to the same conclusion that the honest members of Congress are vastly outnumbered by those in the hip pocket of lobbyists and big donors on both sides.  I got in a disagreement with someone earlier this year who said 'kick them all out and start over' because I have two honest Senators.  He was right for the most part and I told him so yesterday.  When you have a candidate running who has numerous offshore accounts along with many other wealthy people who cost the US Treasury a $100,000,000,000 (yes it is $100B in lost tax revenue a year) with their offshore accounts, it makes you wonder where are the ethical people in this Country?  It doesn't look to be in politics.

On the radio on the way back from Denver on Monday, heard someone suggest that a new bill be put into law that NO former members of Congress can be a lobbyist -- make them go HOME when their time is up.  That may be the best recommendation for a new law I have heard in years.  I would also extend it to the high ranking military and civil service who retire and go to work for major defense contractors who then lobby members of Congress.  

Then there was the guy who said that he was never for term limits for Congress but has changed his mind since so many members of Congress consider it a permanent job today.  Dr. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said when he was elected to the US Senate, he would voluntarily only serve two terms.  Wish we had more Dr. Coburns and less Harry Reid's or Orrin Hatch's who have been there way too long. 

Have a great day and my sympathies go out if you are in a battleground state and are getting bombarded with ads from both candidates.  Might make some people decide to get a DVR, record their shows, and watch later with NO commercials.  This could be a boon for the makers of the DVR which is optional with cable and satellite.  I would highly recommend you get one until after the election if you like to watch TV.

Robert Reich: The Truth About Obama's Tax Proposal (and the Lies the Regressives Are Telling About It)

Over the years I have not always agreed with Robert Reich but one thing I will say on his behalf is that he is not afraid to go after members of both parties.  When a Democrat steps out of bounds, he pounces on them the same as Republicans.  Didn't know who he was until Monicagate and then we all learned how honest he was.

When I read this, a lot of what I have been questioning began to make sense.  My comprehension level is pretty high but what the Romney Republicans were against the Obama Tax Proposal, it set off the BS meter.  Then it clicked.  We have been fed a narrative on Obama that the leaders of the Romney Republican Party wanted us to believe in order to vote for Romney over Obama.  Note that I said vote for not 'support' Romney.  This is not even close to being about voting for Romney but ousting Obama.  That is not how you win elections and is flat out stupid.  Many Republicans warned the RNC and other leaders in 2008 that it would be the last election they would vote for a candidate they didn't like.  Now that same leadership thinks those people are now going to vote for Romney in 2012 because they believe they have sufficiently demonized Obama?  My bet is that it is not going to happen.

When you take off the blinders you realize this is an honest proposal and the comments coming out of Romney Republican leaders that this will be a huge tax hike on small business is a LIE!  The only small business owners affected earn over $250,000 a year and anything over the $250,000 will be taxed at the Clinton tax level which Romney praised yesterday.  That amounts to 3.3% of small business owners a far cry from most small business will get a tax hike being touted by the Romney Republicans.  BTW someone forgot to tell him that Clinton raised taxes not lowered them.  Obama has signed laws that lowered taxes and fees 17 times during his Presidency.  You don't hear that out of the Romney Republicans that accuse him of being the biggest liberal tax and spend President ever.  It is simply not true.  When Obama has a plan to cut Government, the Republican House tosses it out right away.

President Reagan worked with then Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill from MA to get bills passed that would help all Americans not just the wealthy.  Reagan was about helping those who needed help not some fat cat Wall Street types who could care less about anything but their bottom line and how much richer they can become who Romney favors who seem to all be wealthy white guys like the Koch Brothers.

It seems that the bought and paid for Romney along with some Republicans who are speaking out are more worried about the rich getting a tax hike when the vast majority of jobs are created by small business not the wealthy who for the most part have sent jobs overseas including Romney when he was head of Bain.   Guess he is now using the Democrat tactic of accusing your opponent of what you are doing even if it is not true.

When Rick Santorum said that Romney was the worst person in America to be the Republican nominee, he wasn't kidding.  He was 100% correct.  Everyday you understand even more how right he was.

The Truth About Obama's Tax Proposal (and the Lies the Regressives Are Telling About It)

Robert Reich 

Posted: 07/10/2012 11:19 am 

To hear the media report it, President Obama is proposing a tax increase on wealthy Americans. That's misleading at best. He's proposing that everyone receive a continuation of the Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of their incomes. Any dollars they earn in excess of $250,000 will be taxed at the old Clinton-era rates. 

Get it? Everyone is treated exactly the same. Everyone gets a one-year extension of the Bush tax cut on the first $250,000 of income. No "class warfare." 

Yet regressive Republicans want Americans to believe differently. The editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal say the president wants to extend the Bush tax cuts only "for some taxpayers." They urge House Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for "everyone" and thereby put Senate Democrats on the spot by "forcing them to choose between extending rates for everyone and accepting Mr. Obama's tax increase." 

Pure demagoguery. 

Regressives also want Americans to think the president's proposal would hurt "tens of thousands of job-creating businesses," as the Journal puts it. 

More baloney. 

A small business owner earning $251,000 would pay the Bush rate on the first $250,000 and the old Clinton rate on just $1,000. 

Congress's Joint Tax Committee estimates that in 2013 about 940,000 taxpayers would have enough business income to break through the $250,000 ceiling -- and, again, they'd pay additional taxes only on dollars earned above $250,000.  

All told, less than 3 percent of small business owners would even reach the $250,000 threshold. 

A third lie is Obama's proposal will "increase uncertainly and further retard investment and job creation," as the Journal puts it. 

Don't believe it. 

The real reason businesses aren't creating more jobs is American consumers -- whose purchases constitute 70 percent of U.S. economic activity -- don't have the money to buy more, and they can no longer borrow as before. Businesses won't invest and hire without consumers. Even as executive pay keeps rising, the median wage keeps dropping -- largely because businesses keep whacking payrolls. 

The only people who'd have to pay substantially more taxes under Obama's proposal are those earning far in excess of $250,000 -- and they aren't small businesses. They're the fattest of corpulent felines. Their spending will not be affected if their official tax rate rises from the Bush 35 percent to the Bill Clinton 39.6 percent. 

In fact, most of these people's income is unearned -- capital gains and dividends that are now taxed at only 15 percent. If the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, the capital gains rate would return to the same 20 percent it was under Bill Clinton (the Affordable Care Act would add a 3.8 percent surcharge).

Funny, I don't remember the economy suffering under Bill Clinton's taxes. I was in Clinton's cabinet, so perhaps my memory is self-serving. But I seem to recall that the economy generated 22 million net new jobs during those years, unemployment fell dramatically, almost everyone's income grew, poverty dropped, and the economy soared. In fact, it was the strongest and best economy we've had in anyone's memory. 

In sum: Don't fall for these big lies -- Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cut "only for some people," small businesses will be badly hit, businesses won't hire because of uncertainty this proposal would create, or the Clinton-era tax levels crippled the economy, 

A ton of corporate and billionaire money is behind these lies and others like them, as well as formidable mouthpieces of the regressive right such as Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial page. 

The truth is already a casualty of this election year. That's why it's so important for you to spread it. 

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Republican Candidate Mitt Romney to Fundraise in London during the Olympics

Olympic athletes have been training years to take center stage in London for the Olympics.  That same Olympics where politics is checked at the door for two weeks or so I thought.  I was wrong -- the anointed one of the Republican wealthy donors, Mitt Romney, has decided to fundraise in London during the Olympics. Must admit the words I would like to use are not words I would put on a website.

This is beyond tacky but is also an affront to the Olympic movement which is about the athletes not some politician who wants to raise money on the backs of the athletes by taking advantage of the Olympics to fundraise for his campaign.  Already thought he was an arrogant jerk who is all about himself -- this shows that to be true.  Have never been so sick and tired of a candidate and his campaign as I am with Romney.

Didn't help with all the campaign commercials for Romney in Colorado when I was there for over a week returning last night.  The number was way over the top funded by the Americans for Prosperity (Koch Brothers) and frankly in poor taste.  Colorado has had the worst wildfires in their history and then the storms brought flooding along with some mud/rock slides where the mountainsides have lost their vegetation due to the fires.  Who wants to watch the same negative Romney ad which seems to be the only thing he can do?  Rain was coming down in torrents at my daughter's with flooding on the street almost up to my bumper and the ad before the news was the negative Romney ad that had been running all day. Must admit I thought the Obama ads were much better but maybe it was because there were less.  At least not all his ads were negative like Romney's.  I am so happy that I do not live in a Battleground state.  If I NEVER see another Romney ad, it will be too soon.

How did Romney take over the Republican Party which seems to be a hostile takeover from people I have talked with who are furious at the powers at be in the GOP and especially Karl Rove who is rumored to be the mastermind?  This is the perfect example of why Romney should never have been the nominee.  The people from Great Britain and the Olympic Committee are not going to be happy that he is now fundraising during the Olympics and bringing politics right into the Olympics.

Read his list of people hosting this and ask yourself why is anyone supporting Romney?  If I hear one more Republican tell me that he is better than Obama, then they are refusing to see just how bad a President he would be as he was so secretive as the MA Governor shutting himself off from the legislature.  Do they honestly think that he would be different and that anyone but the Mormon Church and huge donors could control him?  Not happening -- he is bought and paid for by the Mormon Church and the huge donors who are going to want payback.  Look what happened when Obama went after Wall Street bigwigs -- they turned on him and went to the vulture capitalist Romney.

The people who are turning into pretzels to support Romney must be cringing about now when they find this out and look at the sponsors.

Romney to fundraise in London during Olympics 

By EMILY SCHULTHEIS |
7/10/12 9:53 PM EDT 

Via the Boston Globe, Mitt Romney will take advantage of his time across the pond for the Olympics with a pair of London fundraisers:

On the eve of the Olympic Games, Mitt Romney is planning two separate fundraising events in central London hosted by a variety of banking industry officials, according to copies of the invitations obtained by the Globe. 

The events involve a reception – at a cost of $2,500 per person – and a high-dollar “private dinner with Governor Mitt Romney” that will cost from $25,000 to $75,000 per person. Both events will be held at a location in “central London” that has not yet been named. 

The Globe reported last week that Bob Diamond, who resigned as chief executive of Barclays bank, was no longer co-hosting one of the fundraisers. 

But still among those hosting the events is Patrick Durkin, a registered lobbyist for Barclays, which has been at the heart of a rate-fixing scandal. Durkin, who has been a top Romney bundler, is one of seven chairs for the reception and among the 13 co-chairs for the dinner.  (my bold)

Others involved in hosting the events are Dwight Poler, managing director at the European branch of Bain Capital, the firm Romney founded; Raj Bhattacharyya, managing director at Deutsche Bank; and Dan Bricken, a managing director at Wells Fargo Securities. 

Among the others involved are Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets; Eric Varvel, the chief executive officer of Bank of Credit Suisse; and Gregg Lemkau, who is the Goldman Sachs head of mergers and acquisitions for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Source:  Politico