President Obama Re-Elected - Page 256

"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 Martí 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 1999 Salt 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," the Tribune 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.

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.

"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.

"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.”

On August 08 2012 22:56 Vega62a wrote:


Did you really just respond to a news article with a 30 second campaign ad?

You do understand that the former is journalism, even if it's left-leaning, and the latter is basically a 30 second bumper sticker, right?

On August 09 2012 01:24 Defacer wrote:


http://youtu.be/Nj70XqOxptU

What is so cunning about this Super PAC add is that it ties in Romney's record at Bain Capital with a tragic story about a family without health care ... an increasingly weak spot for the Romney campaign.

While Romney and he's surrogates can deny any direct responsibility Romney may have had in closing down this particular plant, the man's story is just a back-handed reminder that Romney does not a healthcare proposal on the table that would prevent this story from happening.

BLITZER: A new attack ad by a Super PAC backing President Obama basically blames Mitt Romney for a woman's death from cancer after his company, Bain Capital, shut down the steel mill where the woman's husband worked. Let's go to our White House correspondent, Brianna Keilar. She's watching the story for us.

Brianna, on the surface, it seems pretty outrageous to blame Mitt Romney for the death of this woman. That's a pretty outrageous claim, but what's going on here?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It does when you dig deeper here, Wolf, because this ad makes it sound like this woman passed away shortly after Bain Capital closed down the steel plant where her husband worked. But in reality, she passed away five years after it closed.

And the former steel worker in this ad, I spoke to him on the phone today, and he said that during some of that time, his wife had insurance through her employer. So, Wolf, this is a heart-wrenching story, but it's not accurate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR (voice-over): Joe Soptic (ph) worked at GST steel in Missouri for almost 30 years. He was laid of after Bain Capital acquired the plant, eventually closing it down. Now, Soptic is featured in a new ad by Priorities USA Action, the Super PAC supporting President Obama's re-election.

JOE SOPTIC, FORMER STEELWORKER & OBAMA SUPPORTER: When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my healthcare. And my family lost their healthcare. And a short time after that, my wife became ill. And then, I took her up to the Jackson County Hospital and admitted her for pneumonia. That's when they found the cancer. And by then, it was stage 4. There was nothing they could do for her.

KEILAR: It's a heartbreaking story, but the ad does not tell all of it. In 1999, Mitt Romney leaves Bain for the Salt Lake Olympics, stopping day-to-day oversight of the company but remaining CEO. In 2001, Joe Soptic (ph) loses his job when Bain closes the plant. His wife still has insurance, though, from her employer, Savers Thrift Store (ph).

A year later, Romney formerly leaves Bain, and it's that year, 2002 or perhaps 2003, Soptic tells CNN that his wife leaves her job because of an injury. That's when he became uninsured without fallback insurance from her husband. A few years later, in 2006, she goes to the hospital, is diagnosed with cancer, and dies just days later.

Soptic, an Obama supporter, who has appeared in another ad back in May for the Obama campaign blames Romney for the loss of his job and his insurance.

SOPTIC: That's the way that I feel. I mean, Mitt Romney, he's a very rich man. I mean, it's obvious if you watch him on television that he's completely out of touch with the average family, or you know, middle income people. I don't think he has any concept as to how when you close a big company like that how it affects families, the community. You know, it affects everyone.

KEILAR: The Romney campaign is blasting the ad. A spokeswoman saying President Obama's allies continue to use discredited and dishonest attacks in a contemptible effort to conceal the administration's deplorable economic record. The Obama campaign and the White House are keeping their distance from the debate. White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said he has yet to see the ad.

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I'm simply saying that I have not seen this. So, how could I possibly assess it without –

KEILAR: Will you assess it later?

CARNEY: If you ask me tomorrow, sure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR (on-camera): Now, Wolf, I followed up with Carney after the briefing, and he told me that he may look at the ad, but if I ask about it, quote, "my assessment will be, I have no assessment." This is kind of a case of a Super PAC being able to do the dirty work and the campaign and the candidate, and in this case, the White House trying to keep its hands clean, Wolf.

BLITZER: So, the White House at least now not touching this commercial. The Obama campaign, I take it, isn't saying anything about it either, is that right? What about the Super PAC, itself? What are they saying?

KEILAR: That's right. Everything is being referred to the Super PAC. I spoke with Bill Burton, a founder of Priorities USA Action. And I pressed him on this, are you drawing this link between Mitt Romney and this woman's death? And he said, no, we're not doing that. But Wolf, I think a lot of people who looked at that ad, certainly you, certainly I, did not walk away from it with that impression.

On August 09 2012 01:35 xDaunt wrote:

There's nothing cunning about the ad. It is disgusting and bottomfeeding, which is why even CNN and Wolf Blitzer turned against it:

On the broader issue of people's tenuous health care, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul offered up an excellent suggestion this morning on Fox: The people in the ad should have moved to Massachusetts! According to a tweet from a Boston Globe reporter, Saul said: "If people had been in Massachusetts under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care."

On August 09 2012 01:41 Defacer wrote:


There's the brilliance, sucker. Free air time and publicity for an ad that essentially claims Romney is a heartless peice of shit!

Here's a Romney spokewomans' response on Fox news this morning.



That's right. A Romney spokewoman basically offered government mandated health insurance as a solution to this man's problems.

BWAHAHAHHAAHAHAAHH!!!!!

On August 09 2012 01:52 farvacola wrote:

Sorta like looking at Romney's economic plan and seeing positives? Indeed, some things are simply unworthy of any praise.

On August 09 2012 01:15 Savio wrote:


Political blogs that have the purpose of supporting 1 party and hurting the other party are the equivalent of propaganda themselves in todays political environment. + Show Spoiler +

But even just picking out any random anti-Romney or pro-Obama news article from any source and just throwing it in here without saying anything yourself is just like throwing in a campaign ad. Either way, the intent is so increase negative exposure for the other candidate or increase positive coverage of yours. The intent and effect are the same.

Posting something and then actually participating in the discussion would be really nice.

On Wednesday the progressive group Credo Action called on Obama to take down the ad, launching a web petition pressuring the president’s campaign to drop the coal attacks on Romney.

“Drop your cynical pro-coal ad,” the petition reads. “Is the Obama campaign actually misguided enough to think that anyone whose number one issue is promoting dirty coal would also be misguided enough to vote for Obama instead of Romney?”

The group praises the Obama administration for doing “some very good things” on coal, including using the Clean Air Act to “limit, for the first time, toxic mercury pollution from coal plants” and instituting a “Carbon Standard.”

Credo believes Obama is actually anti-coal, but is attacking Romney to score political points. That would put Obama, ironically, on the same side as pro-coal Republicans who attacked the Obama campaign earlier this year for not including “clean coal” in its published list of energy priorities. The Obama campaign added the term to the list (dumping “fuel efficiency” for “clean coal” on the campaign’s seven-bullet energy priority list).

And that fight was reminiscent of one from 2008, when the Obama campaign was forced to publicly amp up its support for “clean coal technology” after Joe Biden said he and Obama were against it.

Harry Reid recently sallied forth with a series of attacks on Mitt Romney that had the desired effect. It created headlines. It stirred up the anti-Romney base of the Democratic Party. And it really irritated the Romney camp.

It has produced waves of condemnation because of the unsubstantiated assertions that Romney didn't pay taxes for a decade. Reince Preibus, head of the Republican National Committee, called Reid "a dirty liar." Democrats responded that this was a problem Romney brought on himself. All he would have to do is release his tax returns to end the dust-up.

But of course, this is one dust-up that will never end. Because in modern politics it seems the goal is to constantly find ways to smear the opposition, facts and decency be damned. That's the reason the birther lie endures.

Support his policies or oppose them, no one is for one minute suggesting that Mitt Romney did anything other than obey the tax laws of the United States. The reason that Democrats want to see the tax returns is not because they think he did something wrong but because he did something that might look unseemly. Like he was a rich guy taking advantage of loopholes. That virtually anyone in his position would do so is irrelevant. It's all about the smear.

The same is true with the attacks on Romney's tenure at Bain Capital. Romney is not being attacked for breaking the law (except by a few semanticists, who seem to be naïvely, yet deliberately, suggesting it was not possible for him to be chairman on paper but to be taking a leave of absence from daily operating responsibilities).

He is being attacked because it might look bad that companies he was involved with actually outsourced jobs or fired people. That he was fulfilling his responsibility to his shareholders in doing so and that the record of Bain was fairly good in terms of value creation is irrelevant when the objective is creating a negative narrative at all costs.

I have voted Democrat all my life. I served in the Clinton administration and worked for a Democratic congressman on Capitol Hill. I will vote for President Obama. But I deplore these tactics.

When Harry Reid goes on the floor of the Senate and makes assertions like he did, he demeans the institution. Which is saying something about an institution that is as dysfunctional as the U.S. Senate.

When the Obama team systematically goes after Romney for his business background, it makes sense as a political tactic, but it reveals deep insecurity about his case for re-election and it alienates the business community unnecessarily. As my old boss, the late Ron Brown, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, used to say, "You can't be for jobs and against the people who create them."

On August 09 2012 03:04 coverpunch wrote:
CNN editorial deplores the administration's tactics




We should be using this election to have a serious and profound discussion about the role of the state and how to pay for it. Instead Obama seems intent on just smearing Romney with all the maturity of a dirty middle school campaign. For his part, Romney doesn't seem prepared to have that kind of discussion either, simply resting on the idea that Obama hasn't done good enough (which nobody has denied yet).

On August 09 2012 03:12 Denzil wrote:
So who's actually more likely to win?

This Romney guy seems terrible

On August 09 2012 01:48 xDaunt wrote:

Sorry, but only a very sick person can look at the ad this way. Some things are just plain indecent and not worthy of any praise.

On August 09 2012 01:57 Savio wrote:
Apparently, Romney left Bain in 1999 and that plant was closed in 2001 (someone else made the decision to close). The woman died 6 years later.



Its a pretty sick ad claiming that Romney is responsible for her death. If Obama doesn't condemn the ad quickly and harshly, then it will reflect very poorly on him.

On August 09 2012 03:47 Defacer wrote:


There's plenty of very, very irresponsible anti-Obama ads that are equally disgusting that Romney hasn't said boo about.

Theses are the rules of the game that Republicans helped create. No use crying about them now.

Check out this disgusting ad.