On 2012-05-11 11:39, Woland wrote:
Hi balducci, the original Wa Po story has been scrubbed and changed on the website. That's not the way they originally reported it.

On 2012-05-11 12:19, landmark wrote:
Romney = Ernest Morrow from Catcher in the Rye. Worth looking up the encounter Holden has with Morrow's mother, and Holden's description of Ernest.

Romney = Ernest Morrow from Catcher in the Rye. Worth looking up the encounter Holden has with Morrow's mother, and Holden's description of Ernest.

On 2012-05-11 14:15, Woland wrote:
Hi landmark,

Quote:

Romney = Ernest Morrow from Catcher in the Rye. Worth looking up the encounter Holden has with Morrow's mother, and Holden's description of Ernest.

You might find his adult character even worse. Details here.

On 2012-05-11 15:45, Woland wrote:
Who was watching then?

And of course he did more than that in point of fact for those "low-level employees" - he created and sustained enterprises which enabled them to earn a good and honest living without relying on charity or the monies the government has the power to confiscate from other people.

"100,000 new jobs." Romney has repeatedly claimed that during his tenure at Bain Capital, "net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs." His campaign defends the figure by tallying the current employment totals of some companies Bain aided. That's a stretch in and of itself, but it's also not a net figure. It lacks the balancing context of how many jobs were destroyed by Bain. As the Los Angeles Times reported in December, while Bain helped some companies grow, "Romney and his team also maximized returns by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits. Sometimes Bain investors gained even when companies slid into bankruptcy."

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal looked closely at Bain's record under Romney and found that 22 percent "either filed for bankruptcy or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses." Which is not really terribly surprising: Bain's raison d'etre is not job creation but wealth creation for its investors. As Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler noted in an article Monday calling Romney's "100,000 jobs" figure "untenable," Romney and Bain "never could have raised money from investors if the prospectus seeking $1-million investments from the super wealthy had said it would focus on creating jobs."

As a corollary, when Romney's record has been criticized, he has dismissed criticisms as an attempt to "put free enterprise on trial." It's not an attack on free enterprise. It's an attack on Romney's strained attempt to spin his successful record of wealth-creation into one of job-creation. It's also a recognition that while a net good, the free market has its destructive side—and it's a fair question to ask, whether voters consider experience in that sort of vulture capitalism as a good qualification for the presidency. Do they want government to be run more like that kind of business?

Here's what happens when the president of the United States publicly targets a private citizen for the crime of supporting his opponent.

Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.

Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, "Keeping GOP Honest," took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled "Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney's donors," the post accused the eight of being "wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records." Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being "litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot's divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.

Mr. Wolf sent a fax to the clerk's office—which I have obtained—listing four cases he was after. He would later send a second fax, asking for three further court cases dealing with either Melaleuca or Mr. VanderSloot. Mr. Wolf listed only his name and a private cellphone number.

Some digging revealed that Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He's found new work. The ID written out at the top of his faxes identified them as coming from "Glenn Simpson." That's the name of a former Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2009 founded a D.C. company that performs private investigative work.