As has become painfully clear of late, Mitt Romney doesn't want any responsibility for the activities of his private-equity firm, Bain Capital, after February 1999. He was still the CEO, president, chairman, and sole stockholder of Bain for years after that point, and still received a six-figure salary, but the Republican and his defenders say those facts don't count.
Yesterday, one of Romney's senior adviser, Republican strategist Ed Gillespie, made a new argument on "Meet the Press."
For those who can't watch clips online, Gillespie's new defense is that Romney "actually retired retroactively." This wasn't a verbal slip-up -- Gillespie used the same phrase on CNN.
In other words, as far as the Romney campaign is concerned, the candidate is absolved of responsibility for his company's investments, layoffs, and bankruptcies because Romney "retroactively" erased those years from his business record, perhaps taking advantage of some kind of loophole in the space-time continuum. I suspect Gillespie at this point wishes he could retroactively come up with a new talking point.
Meanwhile, additional details continue to come to light. The Huffington Post reported over the weekend on a corporate document filed with Massachusetts in December 2002, soon after Romney's election as governor, that identified 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."
The Boston Globe also reported on Saturday that Romney's version of events has "evolved" over time, and some of his accounts contradict one another. That's never a good sign.
And finally, Chris Hayes had a very interesting discussion yesterday with Ed Conard, a former Romney colleague and former partner at Bain Capital, who conceded that Romney was "legally" the chief executive officer and sole owner of Bain Capital until 2002, not 1999.
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All this Bain nonsense is immaterial: Romney is Tall, Rich- and White.
What more do you need to know?
So what? So is John Kerry. And he has lots more money.
Sure Kerry does! And Kerry released 20 YEARS of tax returns.
Wonder why Robme won't do the same?
I mean, he released 23 years of tax returns to McCain's camp and McCain chose Palin!!! Wonder what's in those returns for McCain to pick such a train wreck over Robme?
And Kerry released 20 years of Tax returns .
Watcha hidin' Willard?
Payments from Bain and offshore accounts?
The years where you didn't even hit 10% ?
The obscene amounts you have funneled to the LDS?
We're waiting you sleazy weasel
Romney may very well have years he paid nothing. That's not his problem, it's yours. If you want to change the system talk to Congress.
It's cool to resign retroactively. Just think of anything you did in the past you don't want to take responsibility for. Resign retroactively from it, and presto!!!, you're home free!!!
Way cool if you can take advantage of the rules that way, and a supine press shrugs.
"Romney may very well have years he paid nothing. That's not his problem, it's yours. "
Not quite true at all, blanks.
It is Robme's problem. Which is why he doesn't want to release them.
Your congress argument doesn't hold water either.
Robme is dodging paying taxes on a really big scale. So much so that he takes his money offshore so as to avoid paying taxes. Robme doesn't want the details to be come public because it will sink his all ready slim chances of getting elected.
Robme submitted 23 years of returns to McCain. And McCain picked Palin. Robme's returns must be an absolute nightmare.
That he is liar, a bully and a hugger-mugger!
And he's a Ken doll! You forgot that one!
@Shooter Unfortunately, unless you have money like Romney and his friends, you can't get an audience with Congress. The whole "I am not doing anything wrong. Everything I am doing is within the law" is really a crap defense when you have influence over the law.
Compared to Obama's view that the law is what HE says it is, I can live with Romney's reluctance to reveal his returns. Come to think of it, doesn't Obama pay less than his secretary too?
"Compared to Obama's view that the law is what HE says it is, I can live with it."
Okay blanks, you have officially jumped the shark with your latest comment.
Come on now, blanks, try to find what little mind you have left and pull yourself together. Act like a troll that has some sense. Geez.
I am not sure if Obama pays less in taxes than his secretary, because I am guessing his secretary has released his/her taxes. It would be easy enough to find out how much Obama has paid in taxes, however, because unlike Romney, Obama has released his taxes.
Romney's name is on the SEC filings as owner...he's an owner and is responsible for the actions of that business until his name is removed.
If I lend my car to a friend and they park it illegally and the car gets ticketed...I am legally responsible to pay that ticket (NOT the person driving it).
It's no different in Romney's case.
If I own an apartment building and rent out the units and someone trips on the jagged sidewalk in front of the building --- I am the one legally responsible if the person decides to sue (NOT the renters living in the units)....
Same holds true for Romney.
If you live with someone for 2 years and then finally decide to get married... you cant tell the department of marriage licenses to make the date retroactive.
Could you imagine the chaos the world would be in if everyone was able to avoid the consequences of their actions just by using Mitt Romney's retroactive defense?
Very well explained, even a child can understand. And this is an important issue when trying to discern what kind of leader he will be, and how he will deal with international issues as well. He doesn't sound trustworthy to me.
No Kim, you're wrong. If you retroactively sell your car, you can (apparently) claim you had nothing to do with the car, or any of the tickets placed on it. Those become someone else' responsibilities.
(/sarc)
Legally, Obama was at Harvard, but we have no documentation he received actual grades. Heh.
Yeah!! And that Kenyan dude doesn't have a real birth certificate either!
Is he asking the American people to re-elect him based on his grades at Harvard?
Yeah, because the grade transcripts from a clearly very intelligent man -- just ask Laurence Tribe who has seen no shortage of bright students and says Obama was the best -- is clearly as important and what Americans need to see more than the hard-core evidence of what the rich can get away with using the rules put in place for the rich.
Careful, Maddow blog ladies! This is just our little troll trying to pick up chicks early in the day in the only way he knows how: playing the dumb he-man he never got a chance to play in high school. Still your hearts, ladies or he'll steal them for you!!!
well back 'atcha with Mitt! 'LEGALLY' we know he went to Harvard but grades??? Oh wait, he was a rich white dude...we don't NEED no stinkin' paper trail...
My goodness the stupid runs deep with you.
Right. Clearly the proper quid pro quo for releasing tax returns is the release of college transcripts. Because those two things are totally related.
Oh, wait, they're not. You know what the proper quid pro quo for releasing tax returns? Releasing tax returns. Which Obama has already done.
See how that works? Having already released twelve years worth of returns, by any reasonable standard Obama has already the conditions for having the right to demand that Romney release more than the single "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake" prettied up for public consumption return he's released.
If Romney wants to see Obama's transcripts--and so far, only Trump and Uncle Jim and his fellow email afterbirthers seem to think this is somehow vitally important information, despite the fact that no presidential candidate in history has ever been called upon to release them before (Bush and Kerry's were leaked, not released)--he should release his own.
For that matter, if Trump wants to see Obama's transcript, he should release his own.
You don't get to be president of the Harvard Review with poor grades, and Harvard released a statement a while back!
What is Mitt hiding? His presidential campaign is unraveling before our very eyes, badly damaged and leaking oil because of Mitt's devotion to secrecy and his inability to simply explain his own personal and financial history. Romney would want the American people to vote him no questions asked, without knowing anything about his time at Bain or where he keeps his money or how he got half a billion dollars How are Americans supposed to vote for this guy to be the leader of the free world? Now more than ever, America cannot afford a surprise from what is essentially an invisible man once he is in the White House. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
And don't forget those Hard drives he purchased and took with him when he left the Maine Governorship. Watch hidin' Willard?
Everything he does say duplicitous, conniving, lying sack of ShMitt
Wow. He must've retroactively retired as Gov of MAINE, too! ;)
No, but he is LEGALLY ALLOWED to take those hard drives, so he didn't break any laws!
But it makes one wonder why he needed to take the drives, doesn't it?
Wah WaH WAAAAHHHHH, Oh the humanity !
Gather the pearl clutching, fainting couch crowd . Those nasty nasty democrats are fighting back and won't apologize and make nice when we ask them.
The democrats are playing hardball politics, just like Rove and co used to do when Democrats would sit on their hands
Can dish it out but can't take it .
Where were all your principles in '04 when Kerry was being swift boated.
Where are you now when your superpacs continue to blanket the airwaves with lies .
We ain't going to be pushed around any more
Please go have intimate relationships with yourself .
What a story, retroactive retirement, space-time continuum, quantum entanglements, and a cover of Carly Simon's classic called "Your So Bain." Politics doesn't get any better than this. I wonder if Mitt will survive the week.
Shooter, what Mitt is asking us to do is totally suspend our common sense. We are being asked to believe that somebody just walks away from a $200,000,000 investment firm he has spent his career building for a part time job with the Olympics. More likely he is the guy that green lighted burning aborted fetuses and robbing pension funds for fun and profit.
Oh please, Romney signed on with the Olympics, discovered it was a full time job, and retroactively decided to go into politics. Of course he wasn't going to sever himself from Bain, as you point out there was a lot of money involved.
Meanwhile, Obama is touted as the philosopher-king won't release his bona fides. Rumor has it he made worse grades than Bush '43. Maybe Obama has been mislabeled.
Now the troll is hitting on the men, too.
Well I guess Robme shouldn't have retroactively signed documents with the SEC that shows that he was CEO of Bain.
Or I guess that Bain shouldn't have retroactively paid Robme over 100,000 per year(2001 and 2002) either.
And I guess Robme shouldn't have retroactively lied on his financial disclosure forms either.
And the last time I checked Obama wasn't running on his Harvard experience, but Robme sure as h3ll is running on his Bain experience.
You got nothing else to argue with, shooter. Which makes you look, well, even more pathetic than usual.
Thanks Shooter, that brings to mind Schrödinger's cat and quantum entanglement. Romney won't let us look in the box. At what point in the three years after he took the Olympics gig did Romney decide to retroactively retire? What steps did he take? The only facts we have are the SEC filings and his public utterances.
As a lawyer the last 38 years I can tell you President of the Harvard Law Review isn't an affirmative action gig. Only the top students are considered. The competition is fierce. Anyway, we know that Obama is smart. He has been a very effective President for 3 plus years.
It doesn't MATTER if he wasn't "in charge" from 1999-2002. It doesn't matter if he didn't personally decide to go into businesses that outsourced jobs or ran sweat-shops in Indonesia.
He profited from Bain in those years, and to this day. Bain outsourced, and Mitt Romney profited.
When you the CEO, President, Chairman of the Board, and sole owner, it's cool to be able to say you're not responsible for direction, leadership, and actions of the company. You know, just WAY cool.
You know, like the captains of Wall Street who just didn't know anything about all those complicated derivatives, CDO's, blah, blah, blah. They shouldn't be responsible for leading their industry to cause a world-wide Great Recession because well, how could they know? Ruin millions of lives, destroy trillions of wealth, and diminish billions of people's hopes in the world, and that calls for the taxpayers to bail you out for your (purported) ignorance and ensure your bonuses increase.
But take a candy bar from a grocery store, and you're looking at six months.
He profited from Bain in those years, and to this day. Bain outsourced, and Mitt Romney profited.
So what? Good for him.
Addicted to stupid, heh?
"He profited from Bain in those years, and to this day. Bain outsourced, and Mitt Romney profited.
So what? Good for him."
So: Robme was responsible for many many Americans loosing their jobs. Not a great position for someone running for President on the "jobs creator" platform.
So: Robme is a business man, whose sole job is to create a profit for its owners. Even if it means firing American workers. Running a business is not like running a government.
So:
"He profited from Bain in those years, and to this day. Bain outsourced, and Mitt Romney profited.
So what? Good for him."
Yeah, good for Robme. Not good for the workers he fired. Not good for America either.
"He profited from Bain in those years, and to this day. Bain outsourced, and Mitt Romney profited.
So what? Good for him."
I suppose that gives Romney a good Employment Rate record... in CHINA.
My expectation is even with release of Romney's tax returns all will be found legal and proper. It isn't what Romney did, it's what the law written by business influence purposely allows to benefit the very business being "regulated". To me, that is the iceberg under this tip.
So when did romney release his college transcripts , that uncle jim is all up set about? lol
Have you not noticed the fact that AMERICANS are having trouble finding work? Are you not aware that outsourcing jobs leaves Americans unemployed? Or do you not care?
Romney want's credit for job's created by Staples etal after he left Bain, but wo'nt take credit for shipping job's overseas.Another example of Romney's two face's
Governor Etch-A-Sketch!
With the fact that Romney doesn’t want to talk about his tenure as governor, and has so far has only released one year of tax returns, and only wants to talk about part of the time he was with Bain (but not the part-time part), we certainly know where the “buck” doesn’t stop – that is at the desk of the president, C.E.O., chairman of the board and 100 percent owner of a company’s of Bain Capital.
So much for transparency.
Reporters, stop asking Romney directly whether he had anything to do with Bain after 1999 and ask him whether he had anything to do with Bain, or any of its entities, after 1999.
Gov. Romney is a bit like Vizzini: "What's so funny?" "I'll tell you later -- first, elect me!"
Romney was an 'active' employee of BAIN in 2002 because he was running for GUV for Pete's sake...and NOW he 'retroactively retired' from BAIN back to 1999 because he's running for President for Pete's sake. C'mon.
"Resigned retroactively" sounds almost as ridiculous as "I voted for it before I voted against it." I can see the attack ads already...
I like to see someone try that out in court. "I couldn't have committed that murder because I was retroactively sailing around the world at the time." That'd work, I'm sure.
RoMoney is asking We, the People to elect him based on his business acumen. So here's a perfect example of his acumen - Whether he likes it or not, on paper he is listed as President and Sole Owner as well as Chairman of Board and CEO of Bain and that makes him the responsible party under the law. RoMoney says that was just inconsequential paperwork and the fact is that he no longer had anything to do with the company after he left to save the Olympics (by having the USA taxpayers bail it out).
So, RoMoney, if you convince me that while continuing to be the named "responsible" party under the law you totally left all decisions up to some as yet un-named management committee and knew nothing about the company's deals, then you have convinced me that your business acumen is deplorable!!
I cannot imagine anyone having legal responsibility for a company's dealings paying no attention to what he was responsible for and I call that a BAD BUSINESS MAN.
Retroactively Retired?!? What's that old line about "you can't make this stuff up"?!?
Which is a bigger flip-flop "retroactive retirement" or "posthumous baptism"?
Flip-flop or oxymoron?
Aah! I wish I had thought of that!
Oxymoron? How about President Romney.
This whole thing is sillyI do agree Romney should release back tax returns just to get it behind him. Face it, he's rich. And Congress over the years has passed tax laws which allow people to shelter income. If all he did was take advantage of these, what's the big deal. He'd be foolish not to.
On outsourcing, companies do it for various reasons. Certainly, reducing costs is one reason. Others include obtaining specialized skills, closer proximity to markets, language skiull. etc. It is a legitimate practice.
Both candidates need to focus more on the future, like plans for debt, deficit, social security, medicare. Stop talking class warfare. Start talking comprehensive plans on tax policy, immigration policy, fiscal policies.
No, the whole thing isn't silly.
The "everyone is greedy and tries to avoid paying their fair share of taxes" meme doesn't work, is not a justifiable argument, and is why the country is in the shape that it is in right now.
There is one reason for outsourcing jobs: to increase that company's profits. Outsourcing hurts American jobs. And if Robme is going to run on his time at Bain, he is going to have to take the criticism that he was responsible for firing Americans and shipping those jobs overseas.
And you have not been listening to Obama: he has clearly laid out a plan.
Robme, not so much.
And class warfare does exist: Obama wants the very wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, wants to close corporate loopholes, wants to give the poor and the middle class assistance.
What does Robme want to do? Well he really won't say, but what we know of him is that he loves the Ryan budget plan which guts the social safety net, ends medicare as we know it, gives even more tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations, and decimates the pell grant program.
Robme also wants to take away a woman's right to choose, give companies the right to deny women contraceptives, and force immigrants to "self deport."
Class warfare exists. And to say it doesn't is to be ignorant of the fact.
Listen. Both candidates have put forth their vision for America Obama's vision is far more inclusive than Robme's.
Some people see it your way (hey, this is how the world works) and some don't (yes, this is how the world works but it doesn't work this way for people like me, so Romney can't possibly represent my interests). The best thing for Romney to do is be upfront about it. Retroactively retired? Please. My 7-year-old comes up with better excuses than that.
Maybe Romney's team thinks the conservative voter will mistake "retroactively" as fancy jargon for Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!.
One thing that Rmoney hasn't told us is who was running Bain during those three crucial years? And doing all those awful things in Rmoney's name? OK, that's two things.
Shorter Mitt: "I did not have fiduciary relations with that company!!!"
It should also be stressed that the new small gov. conservative, Mitt Romney, had the taxpayer pay off the pensions of a lot of the workers whose companies he drove into bankruptcy.
Maybe he was 'on leave'..he was still the sole owner of the company..no way he didn't have input into its dealings. You can bet if that company made millions of dollars creating thousands of jobs here, in the U.S. there would be no retroactive retirement, he would be touting it's success as his own.
You can also bet that his tax returns will reflect just how much he was not involved with the company.
What gets me most is the arrogance of Romney's campaign in demanding that voters just forget all about the legal implications of Romney insisting he had nothing to do with Bain after 1999. Since they're pushing the line that he had nothing to do wtih Bain after 1999 - does that then mean Romney was not eligible to run for governor in Massachusetts, since he had spent three years in Utah supposedly having nothing to do with Bain? (I don't think attending Thanksgiving dinners in MA meets the qualifications for state residency). What about the legal implications of Bain listing Romney with the SEC as heading the firm, and now insisting that Romney had nothing to do with them after 1999, even though he was still on their payroll? As I understand it, isn't that a clear violation of law?
It is not too late to dump this guy and fly Ron Paul as the candidate. Romney cant beat Obama and it seems the Republican Party see's Obama as the lesser evil compared to Ron Paul. I want to see criminal defenses claiming retroactive retirement from the dates of crimes for which defendants are charged, at least on Saturday Night Live, funny!
Perhaps Willard should start a theme park...He should call it Willards World...It's a place where fantasy becomes reality. You pay nothing to enter, but you sure as hell pay big time to leave...I for one never plan on entering!
Someone needs to make a Romeny/Doctor Who meme now to celebrate this revision of the space time continuum.
I want to know what Mitt Romney did in Utah, on a day to day basis, to "save" the Olympics? And I want to know how many companies made a profit off of the Olympics that were also Bain investments. Does anyone know?
I just read an article about that on Addicting Info... don't know how much accurate the info is, but it was interesting.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/14/more-questions-and-lies-about-romney-and-the-olympics/
Romney was CEO until 2002. Romney admits, and depends on, abandoning his responsibilities as CEO.
Why should he expect anyone to support him, when he can't even keep commitments to his own company?
That's it! That's the bumper sticker.
BAIN OUTSOURCED.
ROMNEY PROFITED.