Showing posts with label Bain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bain. Show all posts

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Usain comes up golden and Mitt cries foul.

Let me start this post by saying congrats to my yawdie family for going 1-2-3- in the men's 200 meters earlier today. Usain, you are the truth.

Staying with the Olympics, I have to rip my man Yohan Blake, --the world's second fastest man-- just a little bit.

Yohan, WTF were you doing wearing a $500,000 watch? Do you know how many families in Jamaica that kind of money could feed for a year? Look, I know it was an endorsement, and you probably didn't pay a dime for it, but next time tell Richard Mille and the Tourbillion folks to donate the cost of that watch to a needy charity on the rock.

OK, so let's talk a little politics.

Mitt Romney's camp has been going crazy about an ad. that's set to run which seems to imply that he cost a woman to lose her fight with cancer. The wingnuts have been crying foul, and they claim that this is the lowest of the low. Even dumbocratic turncoat, Lanny Davis, has been critical of the ad.

"Davis says both Romney and Obama, and their supporters, have sponsored ads “that make us all want to take a shower.” But when it comes to the cancer ad, he said the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action has gone too far.
“Bill Burton needs to go back to ethics school,” Davis said of the group’s senior strategist, who is a former Obama White House spokesman. “He knows perfectly well that the ad is misleading and disgusting and he needs to apologize for it.” [Source]

Why should he? Maybe Lanny hasn't been hearing some of the stuff coming from Mitt and his supporters, lately. I have some news for you Lanny, politics is dirty business, so you and the wingnuts crying a river better get used to it.

Anyway, maybe Mitt Romney didn't cause that woman in the ad. to lose her life, but is there any doubt that he did business with people who caused the death of others?

"When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.
Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globe reporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.

It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients.

"Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital," Strachan wrote in his memoir in 2008. Strachan declined to be interviewed for this story.

When Romney launched another venture that needed funding -- his first presidential campaign -- he returned to Miami.

"I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent," he said at a dinner in Miami in 2007. "When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira." [Read more.]

Mitt, there is one little problem; your partners were also financing death squads in El Salvador.

Of course you probably won't hear anymore about this story, because the PACS supporting Obama are probably now afraid of folks like Lanny Davis condemning them for playing dirty politics. But is it dirty politics if it's the truth? Shouldn't the American people know everything about Mitt? He won't show us his tax returns, so let's keep digging about his past business practices.

Finally, speaking of dirty politics, I am glad to see that a former republican came out and admitted that they were trying to suppress minority votes down there in Florida. He should know, he was in the room when they were plotting to do it.

Jim Greer was a republican party chairman in Florida and is always the case with these types of situations; he started singing like Aretha Franklin when he found himself in some hot water.

"In the deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He also said party officials discussed how “minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party,” according to the AP."

Yes Mitt, politics is a dirty business, but I am sure that you and your peeps already knew that.


   
 









  

Thursday, July 12, 2012

The "new Iraq."

"Tupac back, I'm 2 glocks strapped
Rolling down in Philly this the new IraqSoon as I hit the the hood they screaming who got wacked It's a recession on the work, I'm screaming who got crack.."


Sorry Meek Mill, I have to start this post by saying that we have another "new Iraq" here in America. (16 kids under 15 murdered so far this year?!! WTF??!!) It is no longer my hometown of Killadelphia. We have 189 murders so far this year, and in the "new Iraq they have over 255 and counting. Young men are being slaughtered in the streets of America's second largest city, and it is about time some of us start giving a damn. (President Obama this means you as well.) Murders are up 38% so far this year and Mayor Rham Emanuel has no answers.

"More beat officers are now on the streets and staying in specific areas, replacing the large, specialized units that would temporarily drop into crime-ridden areas. Emanuel and McCarthy said they have no plans to change that strategy, and the mayor announced Monday that he's devoting another $4 million to tear down vacant buildings where gang members live and store guns and drugs.

The old tactic of flooding high-crime areas with teams of hundreds of officers for a short period of time, then moving the teams to other areas, was "like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound," McCarthy said. "We're not repairing anything by doing that."

Emanuel, who has made attacking the city's street gangs a cornerstone of his administration, was equally dismissive of the effectiveness of those citywide units.

"I don't think coming in, swatting something down and letting it come back in two weeks is strengthening a community," he said. "What it does is build up cynicism."

Honestly, I really don't give a damn about the cynicism or the feelings of the people in certain communities. Kids are dying.

The silence of the black press and some of our leaders on this issue has been shameful. With the exception of a few online news outlets, (shout out to Politic 365) no one seems to want to talk about this issue or how we can tackle it.
And, if I am going to be honest, I don't have much room to point fingers. Here in my hometown more kids have Glocks than bicycles and they are killing each other at an alarming rate as well.

I could give you some ideas on how I think we could tackle this problem, but I suspect that it wouldn't do any good. The parents of these urban terrorist are the ones who have to be called out, but some smart mouth lawyer on a blog from Philly isn't going to make them listen. The people they elected to lead them better start stepping up to the plate and being accountable to the people they serve. If it means telling them some uncomfortable truths about themselves and passing some tough laws along the way, well then so be it.

Some other folks who have to face some tough and uncomfortable truths today are the people up in "white hat" nation.  Now that we know that a Catholic church style cover up took place up in "Happy Valley" for at least the past fourteen years, it's time for the folks who worshiped at the altar of Joe Pa to take a serious look at themselves and an even more serious look at the icon who they worshiped for all these years.

Let this be a lesson to all those people who value the power of institutions and money over real people: The truth always comes out in the end.

Finally, I am sure that the main stream media will leave this story alone, but it looks like our guy Flipper might have some splaining to do:

"Republican candidate Mitt Romney was listed as the chairman and CEO of Bain Capital on government documents years after he says he gave up control of the private equity firm, The Boston Globe revealed Thursday in a report that intensified a war of words between the rival campaigns.

Romney has said he left the firm in February 1999 to take charge of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and has repeatedly used that as a defense when asked about bankruptcies and worker layoffs at Bain-controlled companies after that date.

The Globe, however, said it found nine SEC filings that describe Romney as running the company after that point. The report said some indicate he had control of five Bain Capital entities formed in January 2002.

In addition, the newspaper said Massachusetts disclosure forms indicate that Romney made at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, apart from his investment earnings. They also show he was paid as a Bain executive while he was directing the Olympics, the Globe reported." [Source]

Move along folks, there is nothing to see here. Just another politician who likes to play fast and loose with the truth on his way to "Etch A Sketching" his way to 1600 Pennsylvania, Avenue.