27-07-2012, 12:49 AM (This post was last modified: 28-07-2012, 04:49 AM by Adele Edisen.)
Thu, July 26, 2012 5:53:20 PM
Romney needs to draw the line somewhere
From: "Josh and Matt, unPAC.org" <info@unPAC.org>
United Republic, Purpose, and Rootstrikers have partnered to launch unPAC.org, an initiative to fight big money's influence on the 2012 elections by mobilizing a massive movement. From social networks to town halls to blogs, unPAC will amplify your voice to shed light on big special interests and the politicians they corrupt.
Tonight in London, Mitt Romney is throwing a fundraiser and top banking executives have forked over $75,000 a piece to attend. These are not your average millionaires. They are leaders of Barclays and 15 other banks that were involved in the biggest banking scam in recent history manipulating the LIBOR interest rate. By illegally setting this rate for their own gain, they affected pensions and consumer interest rates.
These scandal-ridden execs know that if they buy politicians, they won't have to trade their pin stripe suits for jailbird jumpsuits. They're hedging their bets and writing huge checks to both Romney and Obama. We need to speak out and tell both Presidential candidates that, by taking money from bankers who stole from American pensions, they have crossed the line.
We're going to track each dollar they accept from banking executives tied to the scandal. If we get 50,000 people to support our effort by September 15, we'll publish our message in a major newspaper.
Sign this letter to tell both Romney and Obama to reject campaign cash from corporate criminals.
The biggest losers from the LIBOR scandal are grandma and grandpa. Since LIBOR manipulation began in 2007, foreclosures for elderly retirees have skyrocketedover 1.5 million homeowners over 50 have lost their homes and the foreclosure rate for the over-75 crowd has increased by 867 percent.
The UK Parliament fined Barclays $450 million, and last week 11 members of Parliament signed a resolution urging Barclays' executives to keep their hands out of American political campaigns and focus their efforts on building consumer confidence. The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file criminal charges this year, not to mention thousands of class-action lawsuits.
Scandals like LIBOR will keep happening as long as politicians continue to accept money from rule-bending bankers who think they can get away with anything as long as they write a big enough check. This election, we have a chance to tell presidential candidate that we won't stand for it anymore.
Sign this letter to tell both Romney and Obama to reject campaign cash from corporate criminals.
Thanks,
Alberto, Galit, Matt and the entire unPAC team
Sources:
6 Ways Big Banks Screwed Grandma in the Price-Fixing Scandal That's Rocking the World
A Week in the Life of Libor
Banking execs tied to the LIBOR scandal are forking over $960,000 at Romney's fundraiser in London.
Sign our open letter to both presidential candidates asking them not to accept dirty money from scandal-ridden bankers. Help us get to 50,000 signatures and we'll publish our message in a national newspaper.
He's not going over at all well there either. Down like a lead balloon. The Twitterverse is ring with derogatory comments about him.
Here is one:
Quote:
RT @Pawelmorski: Americans: This Mitt person is some sort of American Borat, right? #romneyshambles
Quote:The British reaction to Mitt Romney has gone from openness, to skepticism, to mocking, to concluding that Mitt Romney is worse than Sarah Palin.Daily Mail Political Editor James Chapman has been providing the world a play by play of Romney's British implosion via his Twitter account. Romney started things off by criticizing London's preparedness for the Olympics. He then forgot the name of British Labour Leader Ed Miliband, and then he admitted that he had been given a secret briefing by MI6. This led the British to ask aloud if they have another George W. Bush on their hands, "Romney blunders again by revealing he's had (supposedly) top secret briefing by John Sawers, MI6 boss. Do we have a new Dubya on our hands?"After his visit to Whitehall, Chapman offered two of the kinder reviews of Mitt Romney, "Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. Worse than Sarah Palin.' Total car crash'. Two of the kinder verdicts." Chapman also reported another verdict from British meet and greet with Mitt, "Another verdict from one Romney meeting: Apparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity'"
Getting compared to Sarah Palin is one thing, but being called worse than Palin is an indication of the epic display of fail that Romney is putting on in London.If you thought things couldn't possibly get worse for Mitt Romney, you were wrong. How does one top being unfavorably compared to Sarah Palin? If you're Mitt Romney, you get mocked in front of 60,000 people.
[URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/london-2012-olympics-live/9428081/Olympics-live.html"]
The Telegraph [/URL]is reporting that London Mayor Boris Johnson mocked Romney's readiness comment, "Quite a moment from the Mayor of London Boris Johnson. Shortly after Rix had lit the flame he really went for it in Hyde Park. He referenced Mitt Romney's London isn't ready' quip and shot back in style. "Are we ready?" he called and the crowd went wild. There may even have been a hint of the Obama-friendly "Yes we can!" in there he may have jumped into a winning scenario but I've not heard a politician get that reaction before."For their part, the White House rubbed salt in Romney's wounds by pointing out that President Obama has full confidence in Britain's ability to provide a secure Olympics. White House Spokesman Jay Carney said, "In keeping with our special relationship, the president also made it clear that he has the utmost confidence in our close friend and ally, the United Kingdom, as they finalize preparations to host the London Olympics."That special relationship is being put in jeopardy by a Republican nominee who can't stop insulting the British people while making an ass out of himself. Instead of proving that he is Commander in Chief material, Romney is justifying John McCain's 2008 selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. To think, that the Romney campaign actually agreed to foreign policy being the the topic of the third presidential debate.The British opinion of Romney has gone from he might be another Bush to oh my God, he makes Sarah Palin seem prepared.Not since World War II has London seen a bombing as thorough as Mitt Romney's.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"Mitt Romney is perhaps the only politician who could start a trip that was supposed to be a charm offensive by being utterly devoid of charm and mildly offensive,"
the Daily Telegraph
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Quote:This Mitt person is some sort of American Borat, right?
:rofl:
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
My TV screen is filled with some Creature that just Clambered out of a Neocon Lagoon.
Some stiff-limbed Crazie out of a Zombie Living Dead movie.
Yes, Tony Blair is standing in front of Buckingham Palace, having spent the weekend declaring that he'd like to be PM again.
Next thing you know, They'll be reanimating the corpse of Ronnie The Raygun as Right Wing Saviour.
Reagan, the Perfect Frontman, who'd remember his lines even after getting shot:
Quote:"I hope you're all Republicans." -speaking to surgeons as he entered the operating room following a 1981 assassination attempt
"Honey, I forgot to duck." -to his wife, Nancy, after surviving the assassination attempt
Both lines were allegedly pre-scripted for the Raygun in case he ever survived an assassination attempt...
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Late last night, the mysterious group of hackers known as Anonymous successfully hacked the main database for the Internal Revenue Service. The group appeared to have a singular target- Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney has been criticized by both parties for his failure to produce more than one past tax return. According to Ann Romney on ABC's "Good Morning America" they had no intention of ever disclosing the contents on those returns: "We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life". Anonymous however, seems to have thought that we "the people" might want to know a little more about the man who seeks the White House.
The Anonymous attack successfully retrieved 25-years worth of Romney's tax returns and published them without permission on major websites throughout the Internet. The majority of these websites removed the returns within minutes, however it was too late to completely protect the candidate's already tainted image. We at Free Wood Post were able to examine Romney's 2008 tax return and found that he had good reason to fear its release. The 2008 return paints a picture of an extraordinarily wealthy man, whose low tax rate and bizarre itemized deductions will surely raise many questions as to his suitability to be President.
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul stated last week that "there has been no year in which Romney paid zero taxes". In 2008, this was true. He earned $23,425,316 and paid $412.18 in federal income taxes. This calculates to a federal tax rate of 0.0018%. How did Romney get his tax burden so low? According to his return, he had approximately $23,407,000 in itemized deductions. These deductions ranged from $78,923 for "Toupee Creators Unlimited" and $41,826 for "Spray-on tan services" to a $3.8 million dollar write-off for a trip to Las Vegas with potential campaign donors. The Romney family also paid salaries to their numerous employees including, two yacht captains, three pilots for their private jets, two professional dog walkers, one toupee stylist and a "live-in contortionist". What someone does with a live-in contortionist, one can only speculate. However, the $891,064 Romney spent on an "EWS Donor Party at the Pennsylvania Mansion" might give us a clue. While the return does not indicate what "EWS" stands for, given that the deducted supplies for the party included "Venetian masks, alcohol, lubricant and various Egyptian leather accessories" it was most likely an "Eyes Wide Shut" party.
In addition to his wild nights, Romney also deducted health related expenses. These included $127,000 for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for a condition termed "Pseudologia fantastica" also known as Compulsive Liar Syndrome. This may explain why the Republican nominee's views seem to change dramatically depending on his audience. In fact, his recent string of political gaffes may be the direct result of his inability to keep up with the many competing "truths" he has spoken over the past year. According to noted Psychiatrist Bryan King, "Pathological liars seem utterly sincere about their lies, but if confronted with facts to the contrary, will often just as sincerely reverse their story." According to Politifact, a news organization that researches the veracity of politician's statements, only 16% of Romney's examined statements were found to be completely true.
While the 2008 tax return only gives us a brief glimpse into the life of Mitt Romney, it is unlikely that the other 24 years would have given us his complete financial picture. Given that Romney has severalsecret tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and until recently Switzerland, we will likely never know the extent of his holdings or of the other unorthodox appetites he quenches with that money. However, the Anonymous hack did succeed in giving Americans a better understanding of the Republican candidate. http://www.freewoodpost.com/2012/07/28/a...x-returns/
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Oscar-winning actor and director Clint Eastwood has endorsed Mitt Romney in the race for the White House.
The Dirty Harry star endorsed the Republican presidential candidate on Friday night during a Sun Valley fundraiser.
"I think the country needs a boost," Eastwood told the Associated Press as he joined other Romney supporters for the private campaign event.
In February, Eastwood told Fox News that he wasn't supporting any politician at that time. Some saw the halftime in America ad he made for the Super Bowl as a nod toward President Barack Obama. Eastwood responded then by saying he was not "politically affiliated" with the president.
"Now more than ever do we need Governor Romney. I'm going to be voting for him," Eastwood told Romney supporters Friday night.
"He just made my day," Romney said. "What a guy."
Standing at Romney's side, Eastwood said he was filming Mystic River in Massachusetts almost a decade ago when he first saw political advertisements featuring Romney, who was running for governor at the time.
"I said, God, this guy, he's too handsome to be governor, but he does look like he could be president," Eastwood joked. "As the years have gone by I began to think even more so about that."
Eastwood, 82, said he hoped Romney would restore "a decent tax system that we need badly ... so that there's a fairness and people are not pitted against one another as who's paying taxes and who isn't."
The actor and director became Romney's highest-profile celebrity supporter. Romney has also earned the endorsement of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and rock star Kid Rock.
A campaign spokesman could not immediately say whether Eastwood would play an active role in the campaign.
About 325 people paid as much as $25,000 apiece to attend the event. Eastwood is a part-time resident of Sun Valley.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War." Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Late last night, the mysterious group of hackers known as Anonymous successfully hacked the main database for the Internal Revenue Service. The group appeared to have a singular target- Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney has been criticized by both parties for his failure to produce more than one past tax return. According to Ann Romney on ABC's "Good Morning America" they had no intention of ever disclosing the contents on those returns: "We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life". Anonymous however, seems to have thought that we "the people" might want to know a little more about the man who seeks the White House.
The Anonymous attack successfully retrieved 25-years worth of Romney's tax returns and published them without permission on major websites throughout the Internet. The majority of these websites removed the returns within minutes, however it was too late to completely protect the candidate's already tainted image. We at Free Wood Post were able to examine Romney's 2008 tax return and found that he had good reason to fear its release. The 2008 return paints a picture of an extraordinarily wealthy man, whose low tax rate and bizarre itemized deductions will surely raise many questions as to his suitability to be President.
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul stated last week that "there has been no year in which Romney paid zero taxes". In 2008, this was true. He earned $23,425,316 and paid $412.18 in federal income taxes. This calculates to a federal tax rate of 0.0018%. How did Romney get his tax burden so low? According to his return, he had approximately $23,407,000 in itemized deductions. These deductions ranged from $78,923 for "Toupee Creators Unlimited" and $41,826 for "Spray-on tan services" to a $3.8 million dollar write-off for a trip to Las Vegas with potential campaign donors. The Romney family also paid salaries to their numerous employees including, two yacht captains, three pilots for their private jets, two professional dog walkers, one toupee stylist and a "live-in contortionist". What someone does with a live-in contortionist, one can only speculate. However, the $891,064 Romney spent on an "EWS Donor Party at the Pennsylvania Mansion" might give us a clue. While the return does not indicate what "EWS" stands for, given that the deducted supplies for the party included "Venetian masks, alcohol, lubricant and various Egyptian leather accessories" it was most likely an "Eyes Wide Shut" party.
In addition to his wild nights, Romney also deducted health related expenses. These included $127,000 for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for a condition termed "Pseudologia fantastica" also known as Compulsive Liar Syndrome. This may explain why the Republican nominee's views seem to change dramatically depending on his audience. In fact, his recent string of political gaffes may be the direct result of his inability to keep up with the many competing "truths" he has spoken over the past year. According to noted Psychiatrist Bryan King, "Pathological liars seem utterly sincere about their lies, but if confronted with facts to the contrary, will often just as sincerely reverse their story." According to Politifact, a news organization that researches the veracity of politician's statements, only 16% of Romney's examined statements were found to be completely true.
While the 2008 tax return only gives us a brief glimpse into the life of Mitt Romney, it is unlikely that the other 24 years would have given us his complete financial picture. Given that Romney has severalsecret tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and until recently Switzerland, we will likely never know the extent of his holdings or of the other unorthodox appetites he quenches with that money. However, the Anonymous hack did succeed in giving Americans a better understanding of the Republican candidate. http://www.freewoodpost.com/2012/07/28/a...x-returns/
Oh, Holy Cow! I hope this is an honest report, and not someone's crazy idea of a joke. A contortionist? Tax deduction? But I have no problem believing a $127,000 for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Pseudologia fantasica (pathologcal lying). He needs to go back for more treatment. Actually, this condition is not easily treatable. But it does explain his flip-flopping and pandering behavior. He has no principles to stand on and never did. I think the Republican Party actually deserves him. And a $412.18 tax bill on 23+ millions of income? No wonder he didn't want his tax returns to be seen - a tax rate of 0.0018%. Incredible! Harry Reid was not making up his accusation of Romney and his taxes.
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[TD="class: sh10"]Wayne MADSEN | 04.08.2012 | 12:20[/TD]
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[TD="align: left"]Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has assembled as the core of his national security and foreign policy advisory team some of the most right-wing and militaristic members of the Bush-Cheney administration. In many ways, the hawkish Romney advisers represent a virtualSturmabteiling (SS), or Nazi-like "Storm detachment" of the Republican Party, a vanguard that ensures neo-conservative doctrinal discipline throughout Republican ranks. In a case of regressive amnesia, a number of Romney's foreign policy advisers are stuck in the past and continue to speak of the danger posed by the "Soviet Union," which has not existed for over twenty years. A case in point is Romney foreign policy adviser Richard Williamson, a longtime neo-conservative fixture in the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations, including being named special envoy to Sudan in 2008. Williamson is also a member of the board of the International Republican Institute (IRI), an adjunct of the Republican Party that is partly funded by Central Intelligence Agency funds laundered through the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Williamson is also connected to "democracy" projects funded by hedge fund tycoon George Soros, particularly through Williamson's affiliation as a trustee with the Soros-funded Freedom House. Williamson, in recent criticism of the Obama administration's policy regarding Syria, stated that Syria is "strategically important to the Soviet Union."Williamson's stasis in a historical time warp becomes clearer when his participation in the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) examined. The original Committee was a Cold War era contrivance designed to propagandize the Soviet and communist "threat" to the United States. In 2004, the committee was re-launched after a hiatus of over a decade, but, instead of focusing on communism, the new committee targeted international terrorism. However, the new CPD could not leave its anti-communist baggage in the closet. One of the architects of the new CPD, Peter Hannaford, a former Reagan adviser, said the reason for restoring the CPD was renewed was that he and other leading neo-cons and pro-Israeli policymakers, including former CIA director James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Kenneth Adelman, Rabbi Dov Zakheim, Michael Rubin, Joseph Lieberman, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies' Clifford May, John McCain's 2008 campaign foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann (who also works closely with Soros themed revolution projects), and Newt Gingrich, saw a "parallel between the Soviet threat and the threat from terrorism." Hannaford's own background provides one of many ironic examples of leading Zionists cooperating with neo-Nazis. While a top lobbyist for the Washington, DC-based Carmen Group, a public relations firm, Hannaford represented the late Austrian Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider, who once praised the "orderly employment policy" of the Adolf Hitler's Nazi government.Many CPD restorers were also members of the imperialistic Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which laid the policy groundwork for the disastrous U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.In the context of the neo-cons and Project for the New American Century (PNAC) crowd it was coincidence that Romney's jingoistic foreign and economic policy screed, which masquerades as a book, is titled "An American Century." And for Romney and his advisers, the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc continue to represent a "clear and present danger." Romney, himself, referred to the "Soviet Union" -- before he corrected himself to say Russia -- in criticizing Obama's nuclear weapons reduction agreements with Russia.Romney's defense policy adviser, former Navy Secretary John Lehman, warned that the Obama administration was not doing enough to stop a "Soviet" push into the Arctic.But perhaps the most crazed member of the Romney foreign policy team is the former (and unconfirmed) U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. Bolton, a virulent Islamophobe, managed to alienate almost every delegation to the United Nations except for that of Israel. Before being appointed ambassador to the UN, Bolton infamously said, "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories . . . If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." U.S. Senate Democrats managed to block Bolton's nomination but President Bush installed him as ambassador in a "recess appointment" while the Senate was not in session.One of Romney's chief defense and intelligence advisers is former National Security Agency and CIA director General Michael Hayden, who ushered forth in the United States warrantless electronic surveillance and massive domestic spying by the U.S. intelligence agencies. Hayden's career was made by the Cold War. A U.S. Air Force electronic warfare and signals intelligence officer, Hayden's varied commands were ultimately responsible for eavesdropping on Soviet and communist nations' military communications and signals, as well as diplomatic, government, and commercial communications, including those of the then-People's Republic of Bulgaria when Hayden was assigned to the NSA Special Collections Element at the U.S. embassy in Sofia. While stationed in South Korea and Guam, Hayden was responsible for the interception of signals not only from North Korea and China, but from U.S. allies, including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines, as well. There have been reports that while he was in charge of the U.S. European Command's intelligence directorate during the Bosnian civil war, Hayden sat on information that could have prevented the massacre by Bosnian Serbs of Muslims in Srebrenica. It would not be the first time that Hayden may have sat on critical intelligence in order to please his masters. Hayden's NSA intercepted two messages "The match is about to begin" and "tomorrow is zero hour" -- on the eve of the September 11, 2001 attacks but failed to translate them from Arabic in time to prevent the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in history. Hayden's explanation does not wash when it is well-known that NSA possessed real-time translation capabilities and, therefore, did not have to wait for translations on September 10, 2001. Considering the makeup of his foreign and defense policy team, Romney would turn back the clock and re-fight the Cold War, with Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua joining a mythical "Soviet bloc" that would justify a massive U.S. military build-up around the world -- even larger than that instituted by the Obama administration. Romney promises to increase U.S. troop strength by 100,000 and build more ships for the U.S. Navy. Romney has all but threatened to launch a war on Iran. Romney's foreign policy spokesperson is Dan Senor, the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority's mouthpiece in Baghdad and a noted pro-Israeli hawk. It was from information derived from Senor's racist anti-Arab screed, "Start-Up Nation," a book that praises Israel's economic policies, which Romney infuriated Palestinians by telling an audience in Israel that because Arabs are culturally inferior to Jews, it accounted for the Palestinians' poverty in comparison with the economic success enjoyed by Israel's Jews. Romney's comments came after two Israeli Jews set fire to themselves and died in protest over Israel's economic policies that favor a wealthy elite over the nation's working class and pensioners.Romney's father, Michigan Governor George P. Romney, a 1968 Republican presidential candidate, said, "When I came back from Viet Nam, I'd just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get." Romney, announcing his opposition to the failed U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, claimed that after he studied the situation on his own, he realized he had been led astray by Pentagon propagandists during his recent trip to South Vietnam. Today, his son, Mitt, cannot see that he has been brainwashed by a crew of professional propagandists who serve the interests of the Pentagon and Israel.
In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it. When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region. Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globereporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank. It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, [url=http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/19/nation/la-na-bain-creation-20120719]the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients. "Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital," Strachan wrote in his memoir in 2008. Strachan declined to be interviewed for this story. When Romney launched another venture that needed funding -- his first presidential campaign -- he returned to Miami. "I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent," he said at a dinner in Miami in 2007. "When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira."
Romney could also have thanked investors from two other wealthy and powerful Central American clans -- the de Sola and Salaverria families, who the Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe have reported were founding investors in Bain Capital. While they were on the lookout for investments in the United States, members of some of these prominent families -- including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas clans -- were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador. The ruling classes were deploying the death squads to beat back left-wing guerrillas and reformers during El Salvador's civil war. The death squads committed atrocities on such a mass scale for so small a country that their killing spree sparked international condemnation. From 1979 to 1992, some 75,000 people were killed in the Salvadoran civil war, according to the United Nations. In 1982, two years before Romney began raising money from the oligarchs, El Salvador's independent Human Rights Commission reported that, of the 35,000 civilians killed, "most" died at the hands of death squads. A United Nations truth commission concluded in 1993 that 85 percent of the acts of violence were perpetrated by the right, while the left-wing Farabundo Martà National Liberation Front, which was supported by the Cuban government, was responsible for 5 percent. When The Huffington Post asked the Romney campaign about Bain Capital accepting funds from families tied to death squads, a spokeswoman forwarded a 1999Salt Lake Tribune article to explain the campaign's position on the matter. She declined to comment further. "Romney confirms Bain had investors in El Salvador. But, as was Bain's policy with any big investor, they had the families checked out as diligently as possible," theTribune wrote. "They uncovered no unsavory links to drugs or other criminal activity." Nobody with a basic understanding of the region's history could believe that assertion. By 1984, the media had thoroughly exposed connections between the death squads and the Salvadoran oligarchy, including the families that invested with Romney. The sitting U.S. ambassador to El Salvador charged that several families, including at least one that invested with Bain, were living in Miami and directly funding death squads. Even by 1981, El Salvador's elite, largely relocated to Miami, were so angered by the public perception that they were financing death squads that they reached out to the media to make their case. The two men put forward to represent the oligarchs were both from families that would invest in Bain three years later. The most cursory review of their backgrounds would have turned up the ties. The connection between the families involved with Bain's founding and those who financed death squads was made by the Boston Globe in 1994 and the Salt Lake Tribune in 1999. This election cycle, Salon first raised the issue in January, and theLos Angeles Times filled out more of the record earlier this month. There is no shortage of unsavory links. Even the Tribune article referred to by the Romney campaign reports that "about $6.5 million of $37 million that established the company came from wealthy El Salvadoran families linked to right-wing death squads." The Salaverria family, whose fortune came from producing cotton and coffee, had deep connections to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), a political party that death-squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson founded in the fall of 1981. The year before, El Salvador's government had pushed through land reforms and nationalized the coffee trade, moves that threatened a ruling class whose financial and political dominance was built in large part on growing coffee. ARENA controlled and directed death squads during its early years. On March 24, 1980, Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador and an advocate of the poor, was celebrating Mass at a chapel in a small hospital when he was assassinated on D'Aubuisson's orders, according to a person involved in the murder who later came forward. The day before, Romero, an immensely popular figure, had called on the country's soldiers to refuse the government's orders to attack fellow Salvadorans. "Before another killing order is given," he advised in his sermon, "the law of God must prevail: Thou shalt not kill."
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In 1984, Robert White, the former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, named two Salaverria brothers -- Julio and Juan Ricardo -- as two of six Salvadoran exiles in Miami who had directly funded death squads, repeating in sworn congressional testimony a claim he'd made earlier as ambassador. The group became known as the "Miami Six." White testified that a source close to the Miami Six had notified the U.S. embassy of their activities in January 1981. White was pushed out of his job by the incoming Reagan administration in 1981; he was considered insufficiently supportive of the Salvadoran ruling class. (D'Aubuissonendorsed Ronald Reagan in 1984.) When contacted by phone recently, White reiterated his claim about the Salaverria brothers, but said he couldn't reveal his source's identity in order to protect the source. "The Salaverria family were very well-known as backers of D'Aubuisson," White told The Huffington Post. "These guys were big-money contributors. ... They were total backers of D'Aubuisson and the extremist solution, including death squads." Alfonso Salaverria was a close associate of Orlando de Sola, a leading death-squad figure, and, like him, supported D'Aubuisson. The Salaverria family also violently resisted land reform efforts. When the Salvadoran government seized about 140 of the country's largest farms in March 1980, 73-year-old Raul Salaverria was the only landowner to openly resist, the Washington Postreported at the time. A brief exchange of gunfire between government forces and Salaverria's people resulted in two injuries, and 1,500 weapons were allegedly found on the property. Eight years later, workers in an agrarian reform co-operative whose land once belonged to the Salaverrias barely escaped an assassination attempt. "Members of the co-op suspect the former owners, the Salaverria family, were behind the violence," a 1988 Human Rights Watch report said. The family denied involvement. [B]Francisco de Sola and his cousin, [B]Herbert Arturo de Sola, also invested early in Bain, according to the Los Angeles Times. Two other members of the de Sola family were "limited partners," according to the Boston Globe, but the Romney campaign declined to provide The Huffington Post with their names. The de Sola family was one of El Salvador's most powerful coffee growers and a financier of the ARENA party.[/B][/B] [B][B]Herbert's brother was the notorious Orlando de Sola, who resisted the peace negotiations toward the end of the civil war. The Romney campaign acknowledges Orlando de Sola's connection to death squads but insists he is not representative of the de Sola family investors. While Romney told the Tribune in 1999 that the backgrounds of the families had been checked diligently, he had explained to theBoston Globe in 1994 that Bain's due diligence included only the backgrounds of the individual investors, not their family members. "We investigated the individuals' integrity and looked for any obvious signs of illegal activity and problems in their background, and found none. We did not investigate in-laws and relatives." Deflecting the association with Orlando, Strachan, whom Romney had charged with vetting the investors, described him that same year to the Globe as "the black sheep of the family. ... He was kicked out of the family business."[/B][/B] [B][B]Yet there is strong evidence that Orlando was anything but a black sheep in the de Sola family. Indeed, he was a leading public face of the Salvadoran elites in Miami, speaking, for example, on behalf of the El Salvador Freedom Foundation, the organization which arranged a U.S. press conference for D'Aubuisson as part of its public relations activities on behalf of the oligarchs and ARENA. An Associated Press story from April 1981 includes Orlando de Sola and Alfonso Salaverria speaking on behalf of the oligarchs in exile. The story also makes reference to White's charges regarding the funding of death squads, indicating that the charges were already well known by that point.[/B][/B] [B][B]But the ties run deeper still. In 1990, Orlando de Sola, D'Aubuisson and founding Bain investor Francisco de Sola allegedly assassinated two left-wing activists then in Guatemala, according to a report by that country's government, which cited its intelligence sources. The activists had just held a meeting with then-Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who was attempting to broker a Salvadoran peace deal.[/B][/B] [B][B]Francisco de Sola later pleaded his and his cousin Orlando's innocence to the U.S. ambassador. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights looked further into the killings and concluded that elements of the Salvadoran right were indeed the mostly likely assassins, but said that it couldn't confirm the guilt of the de Solas or D'Aubuisson. It deemed the investigation incomplete and called for a deeper look. The three men were never charged.[/B][/B] [B][B]Francisco de Sola is now president of the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development. His assistant, Ada Chang, said that he was traveling and unavailable to comment, but she confirmed to HuffPost that he had been accused of murdering the two leftists in 1990. Whether he committed the crime or not, the fact that Guatemalan intelligence would associate him with Orlando de Sola and D'Aubuisson, and place them in Guatemala together, casts further doubt on Strachan's claim that Orlando de Sola was merely a "black sheep" who had been "kicked out of the family business."[/B][/B] [B][B]Orlando de Sola, who is serving an unrelated prison sentence for fraud, told the Los Angeles Times that he did not personally benefit from the Bain investments. "I would say their relationship with Bain Capital was a step to diversify into foreign investments," he said of his family.[/B][/B] [B][B][B]Ricardo Poma was the first investor Romney thanked when he traveled to Miami in 2007. The head of the Poma Group, he became one of the three members of the Bain Capital investment committee, according to Strachan's memoir. The Poma family were financiers of D'Aubuisson's ARENA party.[/B][/B][/B] [B][B]The [B]Regalado-Dueñas family, like many of El Salvador's other powerful clans, amassed much of their wealth and political power through the coffee industry. Along with the Alvarez family, they also helped to found Banco Comercial, one of the biggest banks in El Salvador.[/B][/B][/B] [B][B]The Regalado-Dueñas and Alvarez families were leading supporters of ARENA. Arturo Dueñas "regularly supplied" the head of an ARENA-affiliated "paramilitary unit ... with a variety of official Salvadoran documents," according to a redacted 1984 CIA document, which uses the euphemism for death squad. (Salvadoran government documents were used by death squads to assemble lists of people to kill.)[/B][/B] [B][B]Miguel Dueñas and Ricardo Poma did not respond to requests for comment. The Salaverria brothers are dead, according to Ambassador White.[/B][/B] [B][B]Jeffery Paige, author of "Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America" and a professor at the University of Michigan, has studied the political economy of Central American oligarchies. Romney's claim to have checked out the backgrounds of the families and come away satisfied befuddles Paige.[/B][/B] [B][B]"These people benefited from one of the most exploitative and repressive agricultural systems in Latin America. That's why they had a revolution," Paige said. "This money, certainly there wasn't much concern where it came from and what these people had done to make that money."[/B][/B] [B][B]Sergio Bendixen, who now does polling for President Barack Obama, spent a significant amount of time in El Salvador in the early '80s, doing political polling for Univision. He said that he met D'Aubuisson on many occasions and found him to be one of the warmest, most charming and charismatic people he has ever met. But he said D'Aubuisson was also very upfront about what he saw as the justifiable use of death squads.[/B][/B] [B][B]"There were 10 or 30 bodies in the street every morning," Bendixen recalled of his time there. "D'Aubuisson said it was necessary. The message needed to be sent [that] if you were associated with the communists or socialists, you had to be killed. He said it was an instrument in keeping the violence down, because others would see the consequences."[/B][/B] [B][B]Bendixen suggested that a cursory look would have shown Romney what those families were involved with. "If anybody tries to tell you there was a line, a Chinese wall, between ARENA and the death squads, that's just not the way it was," he said.[/B][/B] [B][B]The Salvadoran elite in Miami talked openly at the time, he said, of supporting the death squads battling the rebels. It wasn't a source of shame, Bendixen recalled, but a source of pride. "They were proud of the fact that they were supporting their country against the communists," he said.[/B][/B] [B][B]As Romney now seeks support from the Latino community in his campaign for president, his knowledge of Bain's all-too-few degrees of separation from Salvadoran death squads may become a topic of interest.[/B][/B] [B][B]"Under Ronald Reagan, the U.S. sent billions of dollars to the murderous regime, which utilized that aid to fund the military and death squads in an effort to preserve the unjust privileges of the Salvadoran oligarchy," said Arturo J. Viscarra, an immigration lawyer, who, like many other Salvadorans, emigrated to the United States in order to escape the civil war. He said his family left the country in 1980 after his father began receiving death threats.[/B][/B] [B][B]"To now learn that a man that may become president of the U.S. deserves some of his success due to the incredible inequality that the U.S. helped to preserve in El Salvador is ironic," Viscarra said. "It's morbidly funny."[/B][/B] [B][B]The U.S. involvement in the bloodshed is now seen as a black mark on the nation's record. When President Obama visited Central America in March 2011, he made a symbolic stop at Romero's grave, lighting a candle for the archbishop.[/B][/B] [B][B]Romney, however, has shown no public remorse for signing up such investors, although the concept of culpability is not foreign to him. When he returned to Miami in 2007, he condemned those who had financed torture and other human rights abuses during the Salvadoran civil war -- just not those he was connected to.[/B][/B] [B][B]"These friends didn't just help me; they taught me," Romney said. "Ricardo's brother had been tortured and murdered by rebel terrorists in El Salvador. Miguel himself had been chained to a floor in Guatemala for weeks and tortured. And their torturers were financed by Fidel Castro. I learned from these friends about the human cost when Castro has money."
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