Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
Stephan: Today I listened to the Romney-Ryan ticket, in the person of Ryan, come out for states to decide marijuana prohibition issues then, 18 hours later, this was reversed. That left me thinking that between the lying and the flip-flopping a very important trend is emerging -- one independent of any particular politician's political philosophy.
Politicians have always and often, to a certain degree, lied. But what we are seeing now is a campaign whose hallmark is lying. I find it very bizarre, quite apart from the politics, that a candidate for the most powerful position in the country, arguably the most powerful man in the world, cannot tell the truth. Not just occasionally but consistently.
How can it be that the dominant nation on the planet permits behavior in its Presidential candidates that a family would find unacceptable in its little children? If you had a son who constantly lied how would you deal with that? Would you and your spouse be o.k. with it? I certainly wouldn't have been tolerant of it if my daughters had acted out with such behavior. How can it be alright for a Presidential candidate? What does that say about the health of our government and social order?
Click through to see the actual records supporting this story.
On the eve of his speech at the Republican convention, Romney and his campaign have launched a new site touting Mitt’s private-sector experience: SterlingBusinessCareer.com.
Under a section called ‘Fixing Businesses,’ the campaign lays out the legend of Romney’s 1990 return to the consulting firm Bain & Company, describing his turnaround effort there as an ‘incredible success’ that returned the firm to profitability ‘in just a year.’
That is a lie.
Federal records obtained by Rolling Stone through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Bain & Company lost money in both 1991 and 1992 – with Romney at the helm.
This December 22, 1992 analysis for the FDIC lays out the truth about Bain & Company’s mounting losses (both ‘operating’ and ‘net’) in a section called ‘Historical Operating Performance.’ (FDIC was owed more than $30 million by Bain & Company after the 1991 failure of the Bank of New England.)
Here’s the hard truth: Romney’s turnaround effort at the consulting firm was a fiasco. In fact, Bain & Company was only rescued from the brink of collapse by the federal government. In 1993, the FDIC agreed to wipe away more than $10 million it was owed by Romney’s firm because it believed that ‘the […]
