YOU are Invited to the 2012
Convention Watch Party
Join us on September 6th! We will be gathering with friends and neighbors at the Elston Conference Center (Sweet Briar) at 7:00pm to begin the festivities!
Our Special Guest will be 6th District Congressional Candidate, Andy Schmookler
Then we'll begin to watch (on TWO GIANT screens) President Obama accept the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Why watch this historic event at home alone? We'll serve free snacks, soft drinks, and a cash bar will be open from 7:00 - 10:00.
We will also discuss plans for the "Weekend of Action" on September 8th and 9th
Everyone is welcome!!!
Time: Thursday, September 6, 2012 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Host: Sweet Briar College Young Democrats
Contact Phone:
434-316-4220
Location: Elston Inn & Conference Center (Sweet Briar, VA)
450 Sweet Briar Road
Sweet Briar, VA 24595
Directions: 29 Business to Amherst/Sweet Briar. Go Through Main Entrance (watch speed bump!). After the Gate House, Elston Inn will be on the right. Watch for BIG SIGNS and lots of excited people! Can't miss it! Don't Miss It!!!
'AMHERST COUNTY - BEST.
PARTY. EVER.'
Click to RSVP:
https://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gsjydh
Join SBC students and Amherst County Democrats for
one of the most exciting nights of the year
ANDY SCHMOOKLER
PRESS CONFERENCE
Thursday, September 6 - 4:00PM - Andy Schmookler will hold a press conference in Lynchburg City Council Chambers.
City Hall Council Chamber
900 Church Street
Lynchburg, VA
Bob Goodlatte has in this instance behaved as he always does. Goodlatte has run and hid in an attempt to run out the clock and deny the voters a debate. The correct sounding for Bob's last name is Good-and -Late which is what he is on his promise to debate.
Voters in the 6th are due a proper Televised Debate held in the three largest population centers of the district and that would be Lynchburg, Roanoke and Harrisonburg. The Voters of the 6th District should demand no less from those who wish to represent them in Congress. This cowardly Good-and-Late behavior by a sitting Congressman is unacceptable.
Stop in and show support for Andy on your way to
the Convention Party in Amherst.
Perception in the press makes a BIG difference!
Phone Bank for KAINE, SCMOOKLER, OBAMA
Every MONDAY, 5:00pm
Organized by Sarah Beth Helsel, VA Victory '12
Law Offices of Steve Martin
222 South Main Street
Town of Amherst
For more info, call Sarah Beth at 540-817-8835, or
sbhelsel@vavictory12.org
Drop by if you need signs, stickers, literature...
Visit Andy On-Line at
TRUTH. FOR A CHANGE.
facebook.com/AndySchmookler
Campaign Materials - The Lynchburg Democratic Committee office has bumper stickers and other items supporting the re-election of President Obama, the election of Tim Kaine for Senate and Andy Schmookler for Congress. The office is open from 10 AM to 2 PM, Monday through Friday. It is on the 3rd floor of the Galleria, 915 Main St, between 9th and 10th Streets. Phone 434-845-1400
Romney Screws the Government
and Tax Payers
Government documents prove the candidate's mythology is just that.
By Tim Dickinson
Mitt Romney likes to say he won't "apologize" for his success in business. But what he never says is "thank you" – to the American people – for the federal bailout of Bain & Company that made so much of his outsize wealth possible.
According to the candidate's mythology, Romney took leave of his duties at the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1990 and rode in on a white horse to lead a swift restructuring of Bain & Company, preventing the collapse of the consulting firm where his career began. When The Boston Globe reported on the rescue at the time of his Senate run against Ted Kennedy, campaign aides spun Romney as the wizard behind a "long-shot miracle," bragging
that he had "saved bank depositors all over the country $30 million when he saved Bain & Company."
In fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concern." Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.
With his selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, Romney has made fiscal stewardship the centerpiece of his campaign. A banner at MittRomney.com declared, "We have a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in." Romney also opposed the federal bailout for Detroit automakers, famously arguing that the industry should be forced into bankruptcy. Government bailouts, he insists, are "the wrong way to go."
More: Romney Is Lying. Again.
But the FDIC documents on the Bain deal – which were heavily redacted by the firm prior to release – show that as a wealthy businessman, Romney was willing to go to extremes to secure a federal bailout to serve his own interests. He had a lot at stake, both financially and politically. Had Bain & Company collapsed, insiders say, it would have dealt a grave setback to Bain Capital, where Romney went on to build a personal fortune valued at as much as $250 million. It would also have short-circuited his political career before it began, tagging Romney as a failed businessman unable to rescue his own firm.
"None of us wanted to see Bain be the laughingstock of the business world," recalls a longtime Romney lieutenant who asked not to be identified. "But Mitt's reputation was on the line."
Mitt Romney's Federal Bailout: The Documents
The trouble began in 1984, when Bain & Company spun off Bain Capital to engage in leveraged buyouts and put Romney in charge of the new operation. To free up money to invest in the new business, founder Bill Bain and his partners cashed out much of their stock in the consulting firm – leaving it saddled with about $200 million in debt. (Romney, though not a founder, reportedly profited from the deal.) "People will tell you that Bill raped the place clean, was greedy, didn't know when to stop," a former Bain consultant later conceded. "Did they take too much out of the firm? You bet."
The FDIC documents make clear what happened next: "Soon after the founders sold their equity," analysts reported, "business began to drop off." First came scandal: In the late 1980s, a Bain consultant became a key figure in an illegal stock manipulation scheme in London. The firm's reputation took a hit, and it fired 10 percent of its consulting force. By the time the 1989 recession began, Bain & Company found itself going broke fast. Cash flows weren't enough to service the debt imposed by the founders, and the firm could barely make payroll. In a panic, Bill Bain tapped Romney, his longtime protégé, to take the reins.
In Romney's own retelling, he casts himself as a selfless and loyal company man. "There was no upside," he told his cheer leading biographer Hugh Hewitt in 2007. "There was no particular reason to do it other than a sense of obligation and duty to an organization that had done great things for me."
In fact, Romney had a direct stake in the survival of Bain & Company: He had been working to build the Bain brand his entire career, and felt he had to save the firm at all costs. After all, Bain sold top-dollar strategic advice to big businesses about how to protect themselves from going bust. If Bain & Company went
bankrupt, recalls the Romney deputy, "anyone associated with them would have looked clownish." Indeed, when a banker from Goldman Sachs urged Bain to consider bankruptcy as the obvious solution to the firm's woes, Romney's desperation began to show. He flatly refused to discuss it – and in the ensuing argument, one witness says, Romney almost ended up in a brawl when the Goldman banker advised him to "go fuck yourself." For the sake
of Romney's career and fortune, bankruptcy was simply not an option – no matter who got screwed in the process.
According to the government records obtained by Rolling Stone, Bain & Company "defaulted on its debt obligations" at nearly the same time that "W. Mitt Romney . . . stepped in as managing director (and later chief executive) in 1990 and led the financial restructuring intended to get the firm back on track."
Romney moved decisively, and his early efforts appeared promising. He persuaded the founders to return $25 million of the cash they had raided from Bain & Company and forgive $75 million in debt, in return for protection from most future liabilities. Romney then consolidated Bain's massive debts into a single, binding loan agreement with four banks, which received liens on Bain's assets and agreed to delay repayments on the firm's debts for two years. The federal government also signed off on the deal, since the FDIC had recently taken control of a bank that was owed $30.6 million by Bain. Romney assured creditors that the restructuring would enable Bain to "operate normally, compensate its professionals competitively" and, ultimately, pay off its debts.
Almost as soon as the FDIC agreed to the loan restructuring, however, Romney's rescue plan began to fall apart.
"The company realized early on that it would be unable to hit its revenue targets or manage the debt structure," the documents reveal. By the spring of 1992, Bain's decline was perilous: "If Bain goes into default," one analyst warned the FDIC, "the bank group will need to decide whether to force Bain into bankruptcy."
With his rescue plan a bust, Romney was forced to slink back to the banks to negotiate a new round of debt relief. There was only one catch: Even though Bain & Company was deep in debt and sinking fast, the firm was actually flush with cash – most of it from the looted money that Bill Bain and other partners had given back.
"Liquidity is strong based on the significant cash balance which Bain is carrying," one federal document reads.
Under normal circumstances, such ample reserves would have made liquidating Bain an attractive option:
Creditors could simply divvy up the stockpiled cash and be done with the troubled firm. But Bain had inserted a poison pill in its loan agreement with the banks: Instead of being required to use its cash to pay back the firm's creditors, the money could be pocketed by Bain executives in the form of fat bonuses – starting with VPs
making $200,000 and up. "The company can deplete its cash balances by making officer-bonus payments," the FDIC lamented, "and still be in compliance with the loan documents."
What's more, the bonus loophole gave Romney a perverse form of leverage: If the banks and the FDIC didn't give in to his demands and forgive much of Bain's debts, Romney would raid the firm's coffers, pushing it into the very bankruptcy that the loan agreement had been intended to avert. The losers in this game would not only be Bain's creditors – including the federal government – but the firm's nearly 1,000 employees worldwide.
In March 1992, according to the FDIC documents, Romney approached the banks and played the bonus card. Allow Bain to pay off its debt at a deep discount, he demanded – just 35 cents on the dollar. Otherwise, the "majority" of the firm's "excess cash" would "be available for the bonus pool to its officers at a vice
president level and above."
The next month, when the banks balked at the deal, Romney decided to prove he wasn't bluffing. "As the bank group did not accept the proposal from Bain," the records show, "Bain's senior management has decided to go forth with the distribution of bonuses." (Bain's lawyers redacted the amount of the executive payouts, and the Romney campaign refused to comment on whether Romney himself received a bonus.)
Romney's decision to place executive compensation over fiscal responsibility immediately put Bain on the ropes.
By that July, FDIC analysts reported, Bain had so little money left that "the company will actually run out of cash and default on the existing debt structure" as early as 1995. If that happened, Bain employees and American consumers would take the hit – an alternative that analysts considered "catastrophic."
But Romney didn't dole out all of Bain's cash as bonuses right away. According to a record from May 1992, he set aside some of the money to put one last squeeze on the firm's creditors. Romney now demanded that the banks and the government agree to a deal that was even less favorable than the last – to retire Bain's debts "at a
price up to but not exceeding 30 cents on the dollar."
The FDIC considered finding a buyer to take over its loans to Bain, but analysts concluded that "Bain has no value as a going concern." And the government wasn't likely to get much out of Bain if it allowed the firm to go bankrupt: The loan agreement engineered by Romney had left the FDIC "virtually unsecured" on the $30.6
million it was owed by Bain. "Once bonuses are paid," the analysts warned, "all members of the bank group believe this company will dissolve during 1993."
About the only assets left would be Bain's office equipment. The records show FDIC analysts pathetically attempting to assess the value of such items, including an HP LaserJet printer, before concluding that most of the gear was so old that the government's "portion of any liquidation proceeds would be negligible."
How had Romney scored such a favorable deal at the FDIC's expense? It didn't hurt that he had close ties to the agency – the kind of "crony capitalism" he now decries. A month before he closed the 1991 loan agreement, Romney promoted a former FDIC bank examiner to become a senior executive at Bain. He also had pull at the top:
FDIC chairman Bill Seidman, who had served as finance chair for Romney's father when he ran for president in 1968.
The federal documents also reveal that, contrary to Romney's claim that he returned full time to Bain Capital in 1992, he remained involved in bailout negotiations to the very end. In a letter dated March 23rd, 1993, Romney reassured creditors that his latest scheme would return Bain & Company to "long-term financial
stability." That same month, Romney once again threatened to "pay out maximum bonus distributions" to top executives unless much of Bain's debt was erased.
In the end, the government surrendered. At the time, The Boston Globe cited bankers dismissing the bailout as "relatively routine" – but the federal documents reveal it was anything but. The FDIC agreed to accept nearly $5 million in cash to retire $15 million in Bain's debt – an immediate government bailout of $10 million. All
told, the FDIC estimated it would recoup just $14 million of the $30 million that Romney's firm owed the government.
It was a raw deal – but Romney's threat to loot his own firm had left the government with no other choice. If the FDIC had pushed Bain into bankruptcy, the records reveal, the agency would have recouped just $3.56 million from the firm.
The Romney campaign refused to respond to questions for this article; a spokeswoman said only that "Mitt Romney turned around Bain & Company by getting all parties to come to the table and make difficult decisions." But while taxpayers did not finance the bailout, the debt forgiven by the government was booked as a loss to the FDIC – and then recouped through higher insurance premiums from banks. And banks, of course, are notorious for finding ways to pass their costs along to customers, usually in the form of higher fees. Thanks to the nature of the market, in other words, the bailout negotiated by Romney ultimately wound up being paid by the American people.
Even as consumers took a loss, however, a small group of investors wound up getting a good deal in the bailout.
Bain Capital – the very firm that had triggered the crisis in the first place – walked away with $4 million.
That was the fee it charged Bain & Company for loaning the consulting firm the services of its chief executive – one Willard Mitt Romney.
This story, By Tim Dickinson, is from the September 13, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.
Paul Ryan Caught in Another Distortion of the Truth
Whenever Paul Ryan is speaking you had better listen closely because it is his job to deceive you. Romney has assigned Ryan to bend, distort, short sheet and obscure the truth so that the GOP can blame President Obama for everything. Its raining and you wanted a sunny day for a picnic, the GOP says blame Obama.
These distortions are harder to fact check than the outright lies that Ryan usually feeds the GOP sheep.
Paul Ryan is not only the GOP vice presidential nominee, he’s also the House Budget Chair, and obsessed with data and numbers, but despite his passion for math, some numbers he threw out with a new attack line today need some fact checking. This type of distortion is done with full knowledge that it misinforms the listener.
Let’s start at the beginning. In comparing President Obama to Jimmy Carter, Ryan said in July 1980 the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent and “for the past 42 months it’s been above 8 percent under Barack Obama’s failed leadership.”
Both parts of this sentence are true according to the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, but in July 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, unemployment was at 9.4 percent. In July 1982 it was higher at 9.8 percent.
In July 1992, when George H.W. Bush was president, unemployment was at 7.7 percent.
Is what Ryan said factually correct? Yes, but it leaves out and hides some important data.
The next statement Ryan made was that in 1980 “330,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy. Last year, under President Obama’s failed leadership, 1.4 million businesses field for bankruptcy.”
This is not true. According to American Bankruptcy Institute, under Carter 331,264 businesses and non-businesses filed for bankruptcy. That number includes not just businesses, but personal bankruptcies as well.
In 1980, there were 43,694 business bankruptcies and 287, 570 non-business bankruptcies.
Ryan also got it wrong (willfully distorted, played fast and loose with the truth, lied) with regard to the number of business bankruptcies last year. In 2011, there were 1, 410, 653 total bankruptcies. Of that number 47,806 were business bankruptcies and 1,362,847 were non-business bankruptcies.
So did he misspeak or purposefully manipulate the data to make it sound worse?
Lets be kind and say "He obviously misspoke, but it’s still an apples to oranges comparison,” Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said. “The point remains: bankruptcies are up dramatically under President Obama compared to the Carter years.” The Carter Presidency ended 32 years ago. Why don't these spokesmen use George W Bush as their example, he's the most recent Republican President?
Yes it’s important to note that bankruptcies are down dramatically under President Obama, compared to the Bush years.
Business bankruptcies hit a record 71,549 in 1991, when George H.W. Bush was president, second only to 1985, under Reagan, when 71,277 businesses filed.
A record number of Americans — more than 2 million — filed for personal bankruptcy in 2005 during the Bush Presidency.
Ryan’s next line looks to be correct: “Take a look at people who are having a hard time making their mortgage payments: 77,000 delinquent mortgages by the time Jimmy Carter left office; under President Obama, 3 million.” Once again comparing President Obama to 32 years ago when Carter was President.
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, in the third quarter of 1980 there were 76,885 delinquent mortgages, while in the second quarter of this year there were 3,107,247.
Politicians are known to both misspeak and fudge the data, but not all are as close to the numbers as Ryan, who in Congress studies them himself, instead of leaning on aides to do it for him. The mispeaking and fudging that Ryan does are on PURPOSE.
Paul Ryan lives on the low road and will tell any lie to be elected. He is the perfect partner for Mitt Romney, they are bookends.
Wrapping up Mitt Romney’s Convention Reinvention
Mitt Romney put the Republican National Convention to bed the other night with the biggest speech of his campaign—but he failed to outline any tangible ideas to move America forward.
Although his remarks were full of gauzy platitudes and false attacks, he didn’t offer any specifics about his record or his vision for the country he wants to lead.
Notably absent from Romney’s speech was any mention of immigration, Afghanistan, or how he’d pay for his massive tax cuts for the wealthy. He made sure to repeat the false, debunked claim that President Obama cut Medicare to fund Obamacare—but declined to explain his own plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system, a change that could raise retirees’ annual costs by up to $6,400 a year. He made sure to insult the scientific community by mocking President Obama’s efforts to address climate change, but he didn’t mention the war in Afghanistan once—and he failed to acknowledge our troops for fighting the longest war in American history.
And just like his running mate the night before, Romney played fast and loose with the facts, knowingly repeating lies that have been thoroughly debunked by independent fact checkers. Here are three of the biggest whoppers he served up last night:
Romney charged once again that President Obama began his presidency with an “apology tour,” a claim that Politifact called a “ridiculous charge” and rated as “Pants on Fire.” Yet, “despite earning Four Pinocchios for months, Romney keeps saying this.”
He said the President has thrown Israel “under the bus,” when in reality, President Obama has provided Israel with unshakeable support and unprecedented aid—in fact, “more than anything” Israeli leaders can remember.
Romney even claimed that President Obama has raised taxes on the middle class, a demonstrably false charge made even more hypocritical by the fact that Romney’s own plan would raise taxes on middle-class families with kids by an average of $2,000 in order to pay for a $5 trillion tax cut favoring millionaires and billionaires.
For all its fanfare and slick packaging, Mitt Romney’s convention reinvention couldn’t rewrite his long record of putting those at the very top above the middle class, or obscure his clear vision for taking us back to the failed top-down economic policies of the past. After all, there are some things you just can’t etch-a-sketch away.
Five ways Romney and Ryan would give
Women “Less Say”
In his speech at the Republican National Convention, Romney told Americans that his mother used to ask, “Why should women have any less say than men?” What he didn’t tell voters is that his vision for America is one in which women have a lot “less say” over their own reproductive health and their ability to stand up for equal
pay.
Here are five ways Romney and Ryan would give women “less say”:
Hand control over women’s health choices to their bosses. Romney supports the Blunt-Rubio amendment, which would let employers make decisions about which women’s health services they wanted to cover, which could limit women’s access to birth control, the HPV vaccine, and even cancer screenings. Ryan supported similar
legislation in Congress.
Backed a proposal to outlaw all abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Romney supported a proposal that would ban all abortions—even in cases of rape or incest. Ryan co-sponsored extreme “personhood” legislation that would ban all abortions and some common forms of birth control, and also co-sponsored legislation to
redefine rape. Romney and Ryan are way out of the mainstream on women’s health.
“Get rid of” federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood provides health services, like cancer screenings and well-woman exams, to millions of women every year, helping them take control of their health decisions. Romney and Ryan want to “get rid of” all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Won’t stand up for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The Lilly Ledbetter law makes sure women can fight back and go to court when they get paid less than their male colleagues for the same work. Romney refuses to say whether he would have signed it into law—and Ryan voted against it.
Won’t support the Paycheck Fairness Act. President Obama believes we need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to make sure women can discuss their salary with their co-workers, which makes pay discrimination harder to hide and, therefore, harder to commit. Romney won’t tell us whether or not he supports a law that would give women more “say” in discussions about pay equity.
Romney and Ryan have taken an extreme stand against women’s health and women’s rights. The only promise they offer American women is a pledge to severely restrict how much say they have over their own health and treatment in the workplace.
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