CapitalistImperialistPig

Romney has been saying - for months, apparently - that Syria is Iran's road to the sea. WTF??? Syria does border the Mediterranean, but it shares no border with Iran, which does border on the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean. Romney might be cutting funds for Geography education.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justices sake... Charles M. Blow in the NYT on why this isn't just about what happened forty odd years ago: In an interview with Fox Radio on Thursday, Romney laughed as he said that he didn’t remember the incident, although he acknowledged that “back in high school, you know, I, I did some dumb things. And if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize.” He continued, “I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far. And, for that, I apologize.” There is so much wrong with Romney’s response that I hardly know where to start. But let’s start here: If the haircutting incident happened as described, it’s not a prank or hijinks or even simple bullying. It’s an assault. Second, honorable men don’t chuckle at cruelty. Third, if it happened, Romney’s explanation that he doesn’t remember it doesn’t ring true. It is a searing account in the telling and would have been eve...

Some of Romney's "hi-jinks," like tormenting the two effeminate kids, seem motivated by his desire to force everyone to fit his image of what a student at his elite school ought to be. Others, like running the blind teacher into glass doors seem more purely mean spirited. Andrew Sullivan is eloquently incensed: ...there remains something raw about the violence of Romney's assault on a gay kid and his humiliation of a blind man that goes beyond pranks against teachers. One of the key tests for me of anyone's character is their response to cruelty. Cruelty I would describe as the punishment of the weak by the strong. At Cranbrook, Romney had everything: the father who was a former the sitting governor of the state, a sharp intellect, a classic handsome face, charming, and to the manor born. And yet when he saw a younger effeminate kid with a non-conformist look, he felt no compunction in assaulting him with a pair of scissors, cutting off clumps of his hair. He ...

An awful lot of people, including some of his oldest colleagues, seem to think that the real Mitt Romney is either elusive or non-existent. Frank Rich looks for the soul of the mystery man but doesn't find much: Back in the thick of the 2008 Republican presidential race, I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he ­responded without missing a beat. Then came the CEO’s one footnote, delivered with bemusement, not pique: “Still, whenever the rest of us would go out at the end of the day, we’d always find ourselves having the same conversation: None of us had any idea who this guy was." ... He can come across like an android who’s been computer-­generated to be the perfect genial candidate. When forced to interact with actual people, he tries hard, but his small talk famously takes the form of guessing a voter’s age or...

From Andrew Sullivan, more Bain adventures : Here's the New York Post, for Pete's sake, making the case last year against the shifty Wall Street games of Bain: Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, bought companies and often increased short-term earnings so those businesses could then borrow enormous amounts of money. That borrowed money was used to pay Bain dividends. Then those businesses needed to maintain that high level of earnings to pay their debts... * Bain in 1988 put $5 million down to buy Stage Stores, and in the mid-'90s took it public, collecting $100 million from stock offerings. Stage filed for bankruptcy in 2000. * Bain in 1992 bought American Pad & Paper (AMPAD), investing $5 million, and collected $100 million from dividends. The business filed for bankruptcy in 2000. * Bain in 1993 invested $60 million when buying GS Industries, and received $65 million from dividends. GS filed for bankruptcy in 2001. * Bain in 1997 invested $46 m...

Kevin Drum and Reuters tell the story of one of Mitt's adventures in vulture capitalism. The CLiff Notes version: Bain buys company pretty cheap. Has company borrow a potful of money, and uses the money to pay Bain a gigantic dividend. Company now owes so much it can't pay or continue in business. Bankruptcy declared, workers are laid off, creditors, including the workers pension funds, are stiffed. All made possible by that miracle of modern capitalism, the limited liability corporation. Details at link above.