Posted on 08/16/2012 8:56:18 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
Equal Protection for Posterity
Baldwin: “Disclose your tax returns and everything else about Stericycle.”
Bain investment “would make Herod blush”
TAMPA, FL (Thursday, August 16, 2012) – Republican spokesmen for a rising “DUMP ROMNEY” rebellion today charged that Mitt Romney is “hiding Bain abortion profits in his tax returns” from investments that “would make Herod blush.”
Steve Baldwin, former Republican Whip of the California State Assembly, said recent journalism about the actual date of Romney’s departure from Bain Capital “has almost certainly revealed the real reason Romney refuses to release any more than two years of personal IRS data: Bain’s craven investment in Stericycle corporation – a vendor to Planned Parenthood – lined Romney’s pockets with profits from the incineration of aborted human fetuses. Mitt, it’s time to disclose your tax returns and everything else about Stericycle.”
Baldwin, also former Executive Director of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential conservative organization in Washington, said, “Tampa’s GOP delegates will shame themselves if they don’t conscientiously abstain from Romney on the first ballot to derail the worst nominee in our party’s history. We’re convinced Mitt Romney is hiding Bain abortion profits in his tax returns.” Baldwin cited the following facts and sources to back up his charges:
· Despite claiming to have quit Bain in early 1999, Romney evidently controlled Stericycle via Bain for years thereafter: In July, The Boston Globe reported evidence that Romney maintained control of Bain and its investments for years after the date he claimed to have relinquished it. The Globe cited a June, 2012 federal filing by Romney’s campaign which said, “Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way.’’ That, however, contradicted the findings of a July 2, 2012 Mother Jones investigation: “Citing SEC documents, the magazine said Romney had control of Bain Capital’s shares in Stericycle, a medical waste company, in November 1999. Talking Points Memo reported this week on additional SEC filings listing Romney’s position with Bain in July 2000 and February 2001.”
· Bain joined a $75 million investment in Stericycle: The Mother Jones story cited prior reporting by Huffington Post during the early 2012 presidential primaries to show that Romney “had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics….But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to do with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue. But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission—and obtained by Mother Jones—list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also contradict the official account of Romney's exit from Bain.”
Stericycle was handling fetal remains years before Bain and Romney took control: Two days after the Mother Jones story (entitled “Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show”), the pro-life website LifeNews.com oddly defended Romney by arguing that because a 2011-12 pro-life Campaign to Stop Stericycle documented no Stericycle waste disposal contracts with abortion clinics prior to 2003, Romney therefore could not have profited from Stericycle’s abortion-related activities. The Mother Jones story itself, however, cited public OSHA violations by Stericycle from 1991 – well before the Bain investment – which included improperly keeping “body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk.”
· Romney personally signed for “voting and dispositive” control over Stericycle, the abortion disposal firm: According to the Mother Jones investigation,
Here's what happened with Stericycle. In November 1999, Bain Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, filed with the SEC a Schedule 13D, which lists owners of publicly traded companies, noting that they had jointly purchased $75 million worth of shares in Stericycle, a fast-growing player in the medical-waste industry. (That April, Stericycle had announced plans to buy the medical-waste businesses of Browning Ferris Industries and Allied Waste Industries.) The SEC filing lists assorted Bain-related entities that were part of the deal, including Bain Capital (BCI), Bain Capital Partners VI (BCP VI), Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors (a Bermuda-based Bain affiliate), and Brookside Capital Investors (a Bain offshoot). And it notes that Romney was the "sole shareholder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of BCI, BCP VI Inc., Brookside Inc. and Sankaty Ltd."
The document also states that Romney "may be deemed to share voting and dispositive power with respect to" 2,116,588 shares of common stock in Stericycle "in his capacity as sole shareholder" of the Bain entities that invested in the company. That was about 11 percent of the outstanding shares of common stock. (The whole $75 million investment won Bain, Romney, and their partners 22.64 percent of the firm's stock—the largest bloc among the firm's owners.) The original copy of the filing was signed by Romney. Another SEC document filed November 30, 1999, by Stericycle also names Romney as an individual who holds "voting and dispositive power" with respect to the stock owned by Bain. If Romney had fully retired from the private equity firm he founded, why would he be the only Bain executive named as the person in control of this large amount of Stericycle stock?
· Stericycle is just one more immoral Bain/Romney investment: “Rusty Leonard, president of Stewardship Partners, says Romney … - who is aggressively courting “religious right” voters - owns stock in at least a dozen companies with active ties to abortion… and pornography.” (http://www.danburrell.com/?p=442)
· Additional Rescources:
o “Mitt Romney’s Abortion Business Made Him $50M”
o National Catholic Reporter, August 10, 2012, on Romney and Stericycle
o YouTube: “Romney Invested in Abortion Cleanup Company Stericycle”
o “Stericycle’s Burning of Aborted Babies at North Carolina Incineration Plant Exposed”
o “Stericycle Slammed with Fines for Illegally Dumping Aborted Babies”
o Mother Jones follow-up: “What about the various SEC documents—some of which Romney signed—that identify him as controlling assorted Bain entities and large blocs of shares in firms in which Bain invested after February 1999? The Obama campaign letter cited at least 63 SEC filings after March 1, 1999, that describe Bain entities as "wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney." [The pro-Romney] rebuttals did not take into account all the evidence…. — such as this May 10, 2001, document—that describe Romney as a member of the "management committee" of Bain funds. The Romney campaign and Bain insist that Romney had not a thing to do with Bain after February 1999, though he signed filings and pocketed millions. But they won't answer specific questions about Romney and Bain during this period—just as Romney won't come clean on his tax returns.”( http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mystery-mitt-romney-exit-bain-stericycle).
o YouTube: Stericycle Servicing Visit Planned Parenthood Denver Stapleton ...
o YouTube: Stericycle Servicing the Second Largest Planned Parenthood ...
o Slate: “The Conversion: How, when, and why Mitt Romney changed his mind on abortion”
o Slate Video: “Romney’s Abortion Record: Spin vs. Truth”
o “RomneyCare Now Funding FREE Abortions: A Disqualifier for Mitt Romney's Candidacy
,”
o National Review: “Coming Obama Attack Coming Down the Road: Stericycle?”
#[NOTE: For interviews with Mr. Baldwin, Dr. Cass or another contributor, researcher or GOP activist behind the book “DUMP ROMNEY: Why Tampa’s Republican Delegates must Dump Romney to Defeat Obama,” please contact Rod Mitchell at (281) 350-5506 or by email: mediarod@aol.com].
I really don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter. Abortion is wrong. Defining an aborted baby as “medical waste” is wrong. Disposing of medical waste is not wrong.
Killing a man is wrong. Desposing of him in a dumpster is wrong. Picking up the dumpster and taking it to the landfill is not.
I do care about Romney’s record. But ... this isn’t his record. This is tangential guilt five times removed, at best.
An aboritonist legally murders a baby. A hospital desposes of that baby as required by law. A medical waste company takes profit from picking up all the medical waste from the hospital, a small fraction of which is abortion-related. A holding company owns the medical waste company in its portfolio ... and thus takes a small fraction of its profit from the waste company that takes a small fraction of its profit from abortion-related waste. Romney ran the holding company for a while.
You’re asking me to hold him personally responsible for the action of the abortionist. Its just too far removed. Romney is far from perfect ... but this is a stretch.
SnakeDoc
Well said. I have still not decided if Romney will get my vote but bs like in this thread shows me that I cannot support Tom Hoefling.
This is not from a news site. I’m surprised the mods let you get away with posting it in news and on the sidebar. Oh well. It’s not really my business, but you’ve been here long enough to know better.
Steve Baldwin, former Republican Whip of the California State Assembly or Maria Shrivers’ whipping boy. (sorry for the ugly picture imprinted in your mind.)
California Republican Party is pathetic and has been for years.
Disposing of medical waste, regardless of what is involved, is essential to prevention of mass contagion. The sort of specious reasoning that would demonize cleanup, because it incidentally sometimes involves cleanup from something that is repugnant, is truly cutting off your nose to spite your face.
As one opposed to Roe vs. Wade, I sincerely wish that some of those equally opposed would step back & recognize when their approach is absolutely counter-productive to the reform that they seek.
The best way to fight the abortionists, if we ever want to win: Abortion Debate. This is another piece from the 2000 Campaign, using Al Gore as a foil to make a valid point: "A Woman's Right To Choose".
William Flax
I’d hate to think what I’m investing in with the mutual funds in my 401(k)....
VERY good!!
Point is since they are the same on that issue you have to look at other things.
Obama is an America hating dog eating communist. Romney is not.
Makes the choice very easy.
The libs are getting more and more desparate.
And I love it.
Consequently, everyone else is holding it together fairly
well considering
Well said! McCain stunk but we could at least vote for Palin, so vote for Ryan people!
That's the point...it's not true.
This is all based on Mother Jones' effort at Pro-Life voter suppression for Romney. There is no direct connection between Romney and the activities of the medical waste company. Period. But they are hoping to muddy the water enough to create the impression that there is one. And the insane ABR cheerleaders are helping advance the ball. Purely out of self interest.
This is no different than conservatives helping Green Party candidates get ballot access. They know there are environmentalists dumb enough to fall for it, even though it means that voting Green Party will, in fact, undermine their efforts at advancing their favorite cause. (See Ralph Nader)
Get a clue, pal. My 1st (and 2nd) choice also lost but I despise Obama and want the POS OUT of the WH.
Your article attempts to make up in volume what it lacks in veracity. Romney's campaign never said “he had nothing to do with Bain after he left in 1999” as you claim. What they said was he is “not involved in the day to day operations after he left.
You hate Romney, we get it. He will be the nominee and you ought to get THAT. Like someone else here said, stay home or vote for Obama (same thing) and see how that works out for you.
Nessie from Loch Ness in Scotland
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