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Want More Jobs Outsourced Overseas? Romney’s Your Man!
Mitt Romney Waves Goodbye To American Jobs
Last week The Washington Post published an article about Mitt Romney’s years at Bain Capital. In short, it destroyed Romney’s oft repeated claim that, as the result of his private sector business experience, he knows how to create jobs. Indeed, the article shows that while running Bain Capital, Mitt Romney invested in companies which contributed to a vast outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries.
The article spotlighted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing of six companies and reported that Computer Software, Inc. outsourced its call centers to Europe and Japan, Stream International Inc. shipped its call center operations to Asia and Europe, Modus Media Inc. outsourced jobs to Australia, Europe and Asia, GT Bicycle Inc. shifted manufacturing to China, SMTC moved jobs to Ireland and Mexico and McKinsey Global Institute reported that it shifted about $20 billion of its information technology work out of the United States.
This revelation of the extent to which Romney’s Bain Capital contributed to American job losses is very bad news for the campaign which states that his private sector experience proves he knows how to create jobs in America (or as Romney says, “Amercia“). On the contrary, it reinforces the undeniable fact that during his only stint as an elected executive in the public sector (as Governor of Massachusetts) his state was ranked a lowly 47th in the nation in job creation during an economic boom.
The Romney campaign is now in “full damage control” mode. It unsuccessfully attempted to counter the job outsourcing news last weekend. First, spokesperson Andrea Saul said, “This is a fundamentally flawed story that does not differentiate between domestic outsourcing versus offshoring nor versus work done overseas to support U.S. exports. Mitt Romney spent 25 years in the real world economy so he understands why jobs come and they go.” The campaign also sent spokesperson Ed Gillespie out to the Sunday morning talking head shows. While appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union”, Gillespie referred to The Washington Post articles as “a breathless headline over a baseless story.” Gillespie also unsuccessfully attempted to imply that Bain Capital did not “offshore” jobs overseas, but “outsourced” them to other places within the United States. He said, “I think the reporter confused the notion of outsourcing — which happens all the time when you don’t do all of your services in house, you go outside — to moving jobs offshore.”
Neither Saul nor Gillespie however, explicitly stated that Bain Capital did not control or invest in companies which sent jobs overseas. Indeed, The Waashington Post article specifically states that the 6 companies which were the subject of the article shipped jobs to China, Australia, Ireland and India.
Looks like the Romney campaign still has a lot of “splainin’ to do!
Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song parody.
“Baby, You’re A Rich Man” song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ZnI-ZO8Eo
ROMNEY, YOU’RE A RICH MAN
(sung to the Beatles song “Baby, You’re A Rich Man”)
How does Mitt feel to be
One of the “beautiful people”?
Now we all know just who you are
Privileged and G.O.P.
And now you are Donald Trump’s star
That’s some stupidity
How does Mitt feel to be
One of the “beautiful people”?
So striking with perfect hair
Rolling in lots of dough
Mitt loves tax codes that are not fair
His tax rate is so low
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man too
Mitt keeps all your money in an offshore bank, that’s what you do
What a thing to do
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man too
How does Mitt feel to be
One of the “beautiful people”?
Inheritance from Daddy
Nothing to do with gays
Layoffs with jobs sent overseas
Happy it is that way
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man too
Mitt keeps all his money in an offshore bank, that’s what you do
What a thing to do
Romney
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man
Romney, you’re a rich man too…
Republicans Eating Their Own: Gingrich v. Romney
Is there anything more pleasing than to watch the wacky Republican Presidential candidates publicly expose each others’ fatal flaws and thereby provide President Obama with a GOP-approved line of attack in the 2012 general election? This week’s episode of “Republicans Eating Their Own” features Newt Gingrich v. Mitt Romney.
During the weeks leading up to the New Hampshire primary, Newt “3 Wives” Gingrich was under constant attack from both Mitt “Flip-Flop” Romney and Ron “Racist” Paul. Romney did most of the heavy lifting (and spending) by airing countless hours of anti-Gingrich negative advertising. Gingrich appeared defenseless at the time. In a calculated move, he chose not to unload on Romney until the South Carolina (winner take all) primary in which he had a better chance of beating Romney.
Gingrich’s counter-attack has now come. A Gingrich-friendly Super Pac known as Winning Our Future has released a 27 minute long documentary/ad that chronicles the predatory tactics of the venture capital firm known as Bain Capital which Romney once ran. The film/ad titled, “When Mitt Romney Came To Town” reveals how Bain Capital routinely bought American businesses, fired employees, moved jobs overseas, raided employees’ pension funds and then bankrupted those companies all while Bain’s owners (including Mitt Romney) personally pocketed millions of dollars. Romney’s tactics are referred to as “vulture capitalism”. The Gingrich campaign of course, hopes that voters will realize that Romney’s business acumen lies only in the areas of destroying businesses and denying employees their pension funds while shipping jobs overseas. That certainly is not the type of “job creation” that most Americans are looking for.
Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song parody.
“The Brady Bunch” theme song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou-FeOoKDq4
THE ROMNEY BUNCH
(sung to the theme song of “The Brady Bunch”)
Here’s the story of a man named Romney
He was governor of Mass. but made us hurl
Now his story has been told, like no other
Jobs lost in a swirl
Here’s the story of a man who’s shady
He cannot hold one position of his own
Changes his mind just like the weather
Still, he seeks the throne
His convictions are as strong and firm as Jello
What he knew wasn’t much more than a hunch
Just like Newt, he is not very manly
Mitt Romney and his campaign are out to lunch
The Romney Bunch
The Romney Bunch
Yeas they are all so lame, the Romney Bunch
Mitt(wit) Romney’s Series Of Unfortunate Events
It is shaping up to be a very bad week for GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
First he faced the controversy surrounding the shady and potentially illegal $ 1 million donation to the Restore Our Future “super pac” formed by three of his former political aides for the express purpose of electing Romney in 2012. The pac received a $ 1 million donation from a corporation known as “W Spann LLC”. That is OK. The recent Citizens United case held that corporate donations are legal. But here is the catch. The Citizens United case did not alter federal elections law which makes it illegal to donate money in the name of someone else so as to hide the identity of the true donor. NBC News did some real investigative journalism and discovered that W Spann LLC was formed by a big Boston corporate law firm in March, made the donation in April, and then dissolved itself in July. Furthermore, the corporate documents did not identify the principal of the corporation but it did list a Manhattan address shared by the office of Bain Capital of which Romney himself was a former owner. The Boston Globe contacted Bain Capital for information but was told that “the entity in question is not affiliated with Bain Capital or any of our employees.”
The Bain Capital statement however, proved to be elusive at best. After it was speculated that an investigation would be conducted by the Justice Department, the true donor suddenly emerged from the shadows on his own volition. It turned out that the individual in question is a man known as Edward W. Conard. It was also revealed that Conard was employed by Bain Capital until 2007 and continued to list his affiliation with Bain Capital when making other sizeable campaign contributions to Romney and other Republicans in recent years thereafter. As the result of the investigation, Conard has now requested that his donation be publicly noted under his own name rather than the allegedly fictitious skeleton corporation. It is anybody’s guess as to why Conard wanted to hide his true identity in the first place. MSNBC however, reports that “campaign watchdog groups said Saturday that they will continue to press for a Justice Department investigation into the contribution, saying that unless such a probe is conducted, it will open the door for other donors to conceal their campaign contributions through shadowy “pop up” corporate fronts.”
That was not the only distressing news faced by Mitt Romney this week however. Politico reported that the Obama campaign is preparing an all out blitz of attacks against the Mitt(wit) if, as expected, he wins the GOP nomination. The report states that Obama’s campaign will unleash “a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background.”
Politico went on to state, “The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, ‘weird’.” And, “The second aspect of the campaign to define Romney is his record as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm that was responsible for both creating and eliminating jobs. Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession — a sort of political Gordon Gekko.”
“He was very, very good at making a profit for himself and his partners but not nearly as good [at] saving jobs for communities. His is very much the profile of what we’ve seen in the last decade on Wall Street. He was about making money. And that’s fine. But often times, he made it at the expense of jobs in communities.”
Of course Romney will also face much criticism for his policy flip-flops which seem to increase by the day. He was in favor of a woman’s right to choose before he was against it. He was in favor of strict hand-gun regulation before he was against it. He was in favor of a path to citizenship immigration policy before he was against it. Most striking of all, he was the author of the first comprehensive health care reform law which was spearheaded by a personal mandate to purchase health insurance before he was against the new national law which is a virtual clone.
Like Lucy Ricardo, Mitt Romney is going to have some ‘splainin’ to do!
Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s topical song parody.
“The Brady Bunch” theme song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou-FeOoKDq4
THE ROMNEY BUNCH
(sung to the theme song of “The Brady Bunch”)
Here’s the story of a man named Romney
He was governor of Mass. but made us hurl
Now his story has been told, like no other
Jobs lost in a swirl
Here’s the story of a man who’s shady
He cannot hold one position of his own
Changes his mind just like the weather
Still, he seeks the throne
His convictions are as strong and firm as Jello
What he knew wasn’t much more than a hunch
Just like Newt, he is not very manly
Mitt Romney and his campaign are out to lunch
The Romney Bunch
The Romney Bunch
Yeas they are all so lame, the Romney Bunch
Mitt Romney Pontificates Prematurely
I know this much about job creation.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed column in yesterday’s USA Today in which he criticized President Barack Obama over job creation. He went so far as to say that the president has made the recession worse and that high unempoyment will persist for years to come. He wrote,
“President Obama didn’t cause the recession, but he made it worse and caused it to last longer. From the outset, he inaugurated the most anti-investment, anti-business, anti-jobs policies we have seen since Jimmy Carter.”
Unfortunately for the Mitt(wit), he spoke a day too soon. Today the Labor Department released its jobs report for March 2011. It revealed that the job market improved once again last month as the result of strong business hiring which dropped the unemployment rate to its lowest level in two years. More specifically the report showed that the economy gained 216,000 jobs last month which was more than the 180,000 that was predicted and was also more than the 194,000 added in February. Additionally, the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.8% which is the lowest level since March of 2009. The rate has also dropped by a full percentage point over the last four months.
The official numbers also revealed that the unexpected job growth took place primarily within the private sector. Private businesses added 230,000 jobs. In fact, the private sector has added 1.8 million jobs since last year and a third of those were created in the last three months. In contrast, the public sector which Romney considers to be a bloated payroll which wastes taxpayer dollars lost 14,000 jobs last month. So let’s see, continued private sector job growth and continued taxpayer funded public payroll reduction seems to represent what Romney and other Republicans have been clamoring for all along.
These job figures by the way, are in sharp contrast to the numbers produced by the Mit(wit). You might recall that while running for Governor of Massachusetts, Romney promised Bay State voters that he would use his business savvy to create many new jobs. Did he fulfill his promise? Not exactly. During his full term in office, Massachusetts ranked 47th in the nation in terms of job creation according to the U.S. Labor Department. The only states that created fewer jobs were Ohio, Michigan and Louisiana. Also, when you examine Romney’s job creation ranking during the first two years of his administration (the period that Obama has now been in office), you will discover that Massachusetts ranked 50th. What makes those figures even worse is the fact that Romney governed during a time of national economic prosperity.
Romney’s job creation performance was not any better while he was in the private sector. Romney of course, was a primary partner of Bain Capital, which bought, sold, and merged dozens of companies. In the process, Romney slashed thousands of jobs and shipped thousands more oversees. The New York Post also revealed the following companies which Bain purchased and then led into bankruptcy:
* 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 million when buying Details, and made $93 million from stock offerings. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2003.
Those pesky little facts sure can get in the way of a good dose of Romney misinformation. The Democratic National Committee responded best to Romney’s misplaced criticism of the Obama administration by saying,
“Perhaps before attacking the President’s record – which has seen an increase of more than 1.5 million private sector jobs over 12 consecutive months – Romney should examine his own record, which the Boston Globe called ‘one of the worst in the country.'”
Should he decide to run for the presidency in 2012, Mitt Romney will be forced to defend his job creation numbers in the primary debates. His Republican opponents will surely enjoy watching him sweat as he tries to defend his poor performance. They might even enjoy it as much as they will revel in pointing to the fact that his RomneyCare was the blueprint for ObamaCare. I personally cannot wait to step into my favorite pair of flip-flops while watching the Mit(wit) contradict himself and change policy positions time and again during the televised debates.
Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more singing along with today’s topical, song parody. Please enjoy!
The Great Pretender song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1oJuwkXr0E
MITT IS THE GREAT PRETENDER
(sung to The Platters song “The Great Pretender”)
Oh yes, Mitt’s the great pretender
Pretending that he is so swell
His needs are such; he pretends too much
The truth he simply cannot tell
Oh yes, Mitt’s the great pretender
Romney’s true beliefs are unknown
Mitt plays the game; flip-flops without shame
With no firm beliefs of his own
He was pro-choice he had us all believe
But when he faced strife, he switched up to pro-life
Oh yes, Mitt’s the great pretender
His opinion changes by town
Mitt claims to be what he’s not; you see
He wears his deceit like a crown
Romney is a flip-flopping clown
In Mass., health reform was what he achieved
He now says he feels health reform needs repeal
Yes, Mitt’s the great pretender
Just switching positions around
Ol’ Mitt Romney is not what you see
He wears his deceit like a crown
Romney is a flip-flopping clown
Lynnrockets' Blast-Off 