Category: Mitt Romney Corrupt Politician

Mitt Romney A Pathological Liar | A Danger to Democracy | 800+ Vetoes as Mass. Governor

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney Birthers, Mitt Romney Bullshitter, Mitt Romney Conspiracy Theorist, Mitt Romney Corrupt Politician, Mitt Romney Crazy Prophecy, Mitt Romney Cultist, Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges, Mitt Romney Impedes Disaster Relief, Mitt Romney Liar, Mitt Romney Lies, Mitt Romney Pathalogical Liar, Mitt Romney Scandal, Mitt Romney Sham

Democracy Danger Signs: Mitt Romney’s 800+ Vetoes as Mass. Governor
Romney’s blocks were overridden over 95% of the time.

Mitt Romney’s “closing argument” redefines chutzpah. “You know that if the President is re-elected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress,” Romney said on Friday. He warned of a government shut-down, or another debt-ceiling crisis – two examples of Congressional Republicans taking the economy hostage for partisan gain – if Barack Obama emerges victorious next week. If elected, Romney promised not to “pass partisan legislation.”

It’s a dubious assertion. Romney has made one claim on the campaign trail that is undeniably true. He did bring bipartisanship to Massachusetts – by the time he left the governor’s mansion in 2006, many Republicans in the Bay State, like their Democratic counterparts, couldn’t stand him.

That’s probably not what he meant. In his first debate with Barack Obama, as he shook his Etch-a-sketch, Romney said of his time in Massachusetts, “I had the great experience — it didn’t seem like it at the time — of being elected in a state where my legislature was 87 percent Democrat. And that meant I figured out from day one I had to get along and I had to work across the aisle to get anything done.”

The reality of his time as Governor was quite different. Mitt Romney had the dubious distinction of vetoing over 800 measures passed by that Democrat-controlled legislature. According to the Boston Globe, in a television ad for his 2008 presidential campaign, Romney even gloated about it. ”I know how to veto,” he said in the ad. “I like vetoes. I’ve vetoed hundreds of spending appropriations as governor.” This endeared him to neither Democrats nor Republicans, according to the Globe:

What he doesn’t say is the Legislature overrode those vetoes almost at will. When the House decided to challenge him, Romney was overridden 99.6 percent of the time: 775 to 3, according to the House minority leader’s office. In the Senate, Romney was overridden every time, often unanimously.

In other words, the six Republicans in the state senate often joined their Democratic colleagues to kill Romney’s vetoes. That’s because he was aloof and, after a failed attempt to build up the Republican brand in his state, he withdrew, refusing to work with legislators – even Republicans.

According to NPR, “apart from health care, Romney defined success not with big-picture legislative accomplishments but with confrontation.”

Democrat Ellen Story recalls a Gov. Romney who had a policeman screen visitors and who did not allow lawmakers to use the bank of elevators just outside his office: “He was aloof; he was not approachable,” Story says. “He was very much an outsider, the whole time he was here.”

And Story remembers something else about the former governor: “The Republican reps would grumble that he didn’t even know their names.”

George Peterson was one of those Republicans; he does not take issue with his colleague’s characterization of Romney: “It took him a little bit to get used to dealing with elected officials, let’s put it that way,” he says.

“The first year was, I’d say, a struggle,” Peterson says. “He was used to being a top executive, ‘and this is where we’re going, and this is how we’re going to do it.’ And this animal [the state Legislature] doesn’t work that way. Not at all. Especially when it’s overwhelmingly ruled by one party.”

Frustrated by not being able to manage the state like he did Bain Capital, Romney spent most of his final year outside Massachusetts, laying the groundwork for a national campaign. According to Think Progress, “Romney spent 212 days out of state — more than four days each week, on average” in 2006. He then left office with a 34 percent approval rating. Today, his approval rating in Massachusetts is just 40 percent. In his final year, his unfavorable ratings among Massachusetts Republicans bounced between the mid-20s and the mid-30s.

If Romney wins on Tuesday, we can only expect more of the same inability to work with Congress – people whom Romney apparently views as “the help.” He’ll be forced to adhere to a severely conservative agenda by House Republicans, and he’ll get little help from Democrats given the hard-right policies he’s proposed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said on Friday, “Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his ‘severely conservative’ agenda is laughable.”

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Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges For Profiteering From Auto Bailout

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Mitt Romney Corrupt Politician, Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges

Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges For Profiteering From Auto Bailout
By Kirsten West Savali

mitt romney

GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, will likely face charges for ethics violations on Monday for profiteering from the 2009 auto bailout initiated by the Obama Administration, reports AllVoices.com.

According to an in-depth report by The Nation.com,  Romney and his wife, Ann, “personally gained at least $15.3 million from the bailout—and a few of Romney’s most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romney’s, were astronomical—more than 3,000 percent on their investment.”

This, even though Romney has consistently criticized the president for the bailout; in fact, writing a 2008 “New York Times” op-ed titled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” that has haunted him politically throughout the campaign.

All Voices reports:

“A coalition of community, labor and good government organizations is calling on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate presidential candidate Mitt Romney for noncompliance with the Ethics in Government Act and compel him to either disclose his investments or divest them,” according to the United Auto Workers Union, who requested the charges.

The Romney profits came from Adelphi, a former parts supplier of the Delco division of General Motors. Adelphi was not technically supposed to be included in the federal bailout money given to the auto industry. But since neither GM nor Chrysler could survive without parts from Adelphi, $12.9 million in federal bailout money was demanded by investors and eventually diverted to hedge funds that Mitt and Ann Romney bought into.

Romney did not disclose his windfall profits from Delphi in his June 1, 2012, Public Financial Disclosure Report to the office of Government Ethics, “because he did not disclose the underlying holdings of his private equity and limited partnership funds,” according to the UAW.

With the UAW charges coming to light, the reason for Mitt Romney’s hiden tax returns becomes more apparent and more important as he seeks the presidency.

This comes on the heels of the news that Senator Harry Reid was right to accuse Romney of avoiding paying his taxes.

As NewsOne reported, Mitt Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints– to avoid paying taxes for over 15 years. He “rented” tax-exempt status from them, setting up a Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT), that paid him yearly dividends, while donating a miniscule amount to the church. The trade-off is at his death, the balance of the trust is gifted to the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints.

Congress aggressively cracked down on this rich man scheme in 1997, but according to Bloomberg’s Jesse Rucker, Romney was grandfathered in because he established the tax shelter in 1996 while he was an executive at Bain Capital.

With only two days to go until the 2012 presidential election, it may or may not have any effect on the outcome. But, if the sky falls in and Romney wins, then is found guilty of ethics charges due to auto bailout profiteering, it may be slightly awkward to face criminal charges while in the White House.

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