The Book On Mitt Romney: Here Is John McCain’s Entire Opposition Research File

Is Ann Coulter saying that she never slept with Bill Mahre while she was dating him? Who would that make her? She is either the virgin queen or she lives in a glass house.

Professor, thanks for the NRO link to Bachman’s statement; I was wondering when/if she would speak out.

It’s no surprise that she objects to Newt’s lack of moral fiber. But lack of poise and experience?

You people are a bunch of political illiterates! You wouldn’t know a conservative if one bit you on the backside! A special place in hell is being prepared for you all! You all hated Perry from the beginning! Ah! Ahhhh!

[Covering for retire05, who is on break]

Re: Bain Capital, some might appreciate this explanation that I heard recently. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to post it and this is as good as any:

Too many people are defending Romney as just being a good little capitalist, when this isn’t really the case—rather, he was playing shell games and essentially committing fraud with investors. I think most agree that the government should probably punish somebody selling watered-down gas… so why not punish dishonest debt instruments? I think most agree that if a minority shareholder uses company money to issue himself a big paycheck, this is embezzlement from the other shareholders. When Romney does this with his multi-million dollar consulting fees, this isn’t different?

Now the crux of this problem is of course the government. Their corporate limited liability laws unfairly rip up contracts between creditors and debtors. Making debt financing tax deductible, but not equity financing, has seriously skewed the corporate structure. And lastly, the Federal Reserve issuing so much debt (largely indirectly) and then bailing out said debt (→ moral hazard) is a significant problem in aiding and abetting private equity craziness of reckless LBOs, etc.

Specifically how the system works: A bank overflowing with money they created from low Fed Reserve interest rates meets with a private equity firm to talk about taking over firm. The bank provides ~80/20 the money and they together purchase the take over target. The PE firm immediately loads up the acquired firm with debt for the bank to get their money. The debt is structured as a huge balloon payment set to self-destruct in about 5 years. The bank realizes this is ticking time bomb, so unloads this debt ASAP to other banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds. The smarter investors realize this is a hot potato and keep passing it around. Recently they’ve been hiding this bad debt in CLOs (almost identical in concept to real estate CDOs). Hidden amongst other debt, people have no idea the mess they purchased. The PE firm on the other hand wastes no time in borrowing HEAVILY again to finance corporate mergers (they don’t want to do it from the PE firm directly because they could be liable for the debt). They also borrow heavily to finance huge dividends that more than make up for what they paid for the firm. They justify the dividend legally by jacking up short term profits (price increases, job cuts, quality reductions) that threaten the long term health of the company, and by money saved from tax deductible interest as well. If possible, the PE firm tries to dump their acquired firm before the balloon payment comes up… but even if they’re stuck with the firm they usually do very well given all the consulting fees they charge and the huge dividends they give themselves.

As ZeroHedge also explains in a nutshell:

“Lately, Bain founder and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has found himself in a spirited defense of the private equity industry, doing all he can to spin decades of data which confirm, without failure, that PE Leveraged Buy Outs are nothing but “efficiency maximizing” transactions whose only goal is the “maximization” of EBITDA in the pursuit of dividend recap deals, IPOs or outright sales, while loading up the company with untenable amounts of leverage. All this with a 3-5 year investment horizon, which ignores the long-term viability of a company and seeks to streamline (read fire as many as possible) operations as quickly as possible in the goal of maximizing short-term returns. We wish him luck in his endeavor.”

Also note that Romney relied on corporate welfare. Take a walk down the list here:

A comparison of the 1999 Bain portfolio obtained by the Los Angeles Times to the information in the Subsidy Tracker database my colleagues and I at Good Jobs First created (as well as other sources), yields examples such as the following:
Steel Dynamics Inc. In 1994 this company, among whose financial backers at the time was Bain, got a $77 million subsidy package—including grants, property tax abatements, tax credits and reimbursement for training costs—for its steel mill in DeKalb County, Indiana (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, June 23, 1994).
GS Industries. In 1996 American Iron Reduction LLC, a joint venture of GS Industries (which had been taken private by Bain in 1993) and Birmingham Steel, sought some $20 million in tax breaks in connection with its plan to build a plant in Louisiana’s St. James Parish (Baton Rouge Advocate, April 6, 1996). As the United Steelworkers union noted recently, GS Industries later applied for a federal loan guarantee, but before the deal could be implemented the company went bankrupt.
Sealy. A year after the 1997 buyout of this leading mattress company by Bain and other private equity firms, Sealy received $600,000 from state and local authorities in North Carolina to move its corporate offices, a research center and a manufacturing plant from Ohio (Greensboro News & Record, March 31, 1998). In 2004 Bain and its partners sold Sealy to another private equity group.
GT Bicycles. In 1997 GT, then owned by Bain and other investors, decided to move its manufacturing operations to an enterprise zone in Santa Ana, California. Being in the zone gave the company, which was later purchased by Schwinn, special tax credits relating to hiring and the purchase of equipment (Orange County Register, July 9, 1999).

I already have a special place in hell, but thanks anyway.

Apparently (according to Drudge) Democrats get more political campaign contributions from Bain than do Republicans. Not surprising but it’s going to complicate Mr. Axelrod’s plan to dirty up Romney over the whole Bain issue. I wouldn’t be astounded if the whole Bain Pain Game disappeared after a while.

Rush believes that ABC was part of a concerted effort to clear the Republican field because, “Obama, to win election, his opposition has to be neutralized or taken out. He doesn’t win straight-up-and-up elections.”

And then Drudge messed up their plans. “Drudge, on the 14th anniversary of posting the Lewinsky story, runs his story last night that ABC’s got this Marianne tape, and they’re in this big ethical debate over when to run it, which forced them to move it up.”

Drudge Screwed Up ABC’s Plans for the Marianne Gingrich Interview

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/19/drudge_screwed_up_abc_s_plans_for_the_marianne_gingrich_interview

Henry Hawkins | January 19, 2012 at 4:21 pm

I thought you had lost it.. What a relief!!

If Bobby Harrell has endorsed Newt, can William Jefferson be far behind?

Out of the 300+ Republicans who served either with Gingrich as House colleagues or under him as Speaker, how many have endorsed him?

I liked Bachmann in the beginning. I wouldn’t have voted for her because she lacked experience and name fame, but thought she was a nice person. As time went on, her vindictive nature came out. Really, I question whether she is such a devout Christian at all. If she is, the Golden Rule sure has changed. I really dislike people who are able to give you the shaft and smile while doing so. She just had to get in her last hurrah and extend her 15 minutes. I think she was put in the race as a cover for Romney. She sure went after everybody but him. We’ll see who she endorses. Bet it’s Mitt. I never understood why she was running at all.

Her saying Newt lacks experience is hilarious. A second term Minnoesota congresman taking to task a former Speaker of the House with years of fighting DC but lacks experience. Yet she thought she was capable of being the president. That’s rich. Can this woman make herself any more of a cortoon?

Can’t help but think that this is just Drudge revisiting history.. Instead of “Newsweek” killing a story (1/17/98)..now it’s ABC….supposedly debating ethics (1/18/2012) to release before or after the primary…

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2002/01/17/20020117_175502_ml.htm

As a reader I’m not impressed with this “journalistic trip” Drudge is on. I’m not impressed before the primary and I won’t be impressed after the primary, since story is based on reporting/interviewing that was already out there in print. The Drudge report should be roundly mocked for it. Nice try, no cigar.

Drudge has embraced the very journalistic sins of the MSM that prompted him to start up The Drudge Report in the first place.

I’m afraid that the blogosphere will end up not countering the MSM’s crimes, but expanding them across the internet. The list of sites I trust is certainly shrinking.

Here is the latest discovered dirt on Marianne Gingrich. It seems that she was conspiring with an arms dealer who was attempting to recover payment from Saddam Hussein for weapons supplied to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq. She was freely throwing Newt’s name around (from her own account), but there seems not to have been any Newt involvement.

Gad-fly. If I remember correctly, he was investigated and cleared.

Another example why I don’t like Hannity: 1. In this 3 minute “interview” he manages to talk for 2 minutes. It takes him :45 to ask a “question,” which is more a lump of half-baked statements. 2. He also manages to equate what’s happening to Gingrich to some illusory persecution of Romney.

What a motor-mouthed tool.

Never have I seen so much angst from the GOP/MSM establishment. They are throwing EVERYTHING but the kitchen sink (it was already thrown at Palin in 08) and they’re still in panic mode.

I’m expecting accusations that Newt is an Alien from Mars.

“Ann Coulter is sounding more and more like Marianne Gingrich.”
LOVE IT!

Al Gore/Keith Olbermann’s Current TV has contacted me for an interview about my 1975 one night stand with Ron Paul.

[...] Is it me, or does Drudge seem to be on an anti-Newt campaign?  The day-long banner he gave to Marianne Gingrich was as over the top as anything I’ve ever seen.  He [...]