Did Bain Capital Ever Do This To Factory Workers? I can think of one excellent side-effect of the argument over Mitt Romney’s work at Bain Capital. It reminds me of the fun and foolish days when I could still set foot on a rugby pitch and expect to walk off in one piece. A broken, old prop’s reminiscence begins below. It was a wet, cold, drizzly Saturday. However, the day was awesome. It was Rugby Day, I was young and better yet, I was stupid enough to suit up and hit the pitch. I was playing tight-head prop and over in the bad guys’ scrum was a loose forward who would make himself a total blight on my joy of competition. The game quickly degenerated into a wallow in the mud. The park that rented us the field would no doubt regret their decision as our cleats plowed grooves in the muddy ground. The backs were handling the ball about as well as I would handle having a red hot hunk of metal tossed into my lap. Another knock-on led to yet another (expletive-deleted) scrum down. And ten minutes into play things started getting chippy. I drew first blood, yet unfortunately made myself a marked number for the other side’s cheap-shot artiste cum hockey enforcer. The other side attempted to form a maul. Their ball carrier turned his back to me and his support took its sweet, relaxing time in arriving at the breakdown point. My eyes lit up like a lucky slot player on the Vegas Strip. I laid that dude out like he was next up for the autopsy table. It was one of the hardest and most aggressive tackles I ever remember getting off during a match. From then on, the rest of the first half of that match got a lot less gentlemanly and pleasant. The next time I hit a ruck, I ended up prone and near the bottom. My head got stomped and then raked. I looked up at the ref with my best WTF expression. Neither I nor the culprit who stomped my head and raked cleats got carded. The scene repeated itself when I carried the ball on a couple of phases of possession. Once I got my hand over my left ear just in time. I had a bloody, red welt on my wrist as a reward. The ref seemed to be enjoying his pleasant time in the park despite what Mel Gibson’s character in Braveheart once described as “Good Old Scottish Weather.” He didn’t seem to want to interrupt his pleasant reverie to blow his (expletive) whistle and prevent this guy from stomping on my head during rucks and breakdowns. Now a guy who deliberately stomps hands, heads and other appendages during rucks and mauls is a form of classless rugby scum. Whether he gets sin-binned or not is irrelevant to the question of his status among peers. I would have been well within my rights under the unwritten rules of rugby ethics to have hauled off and cold-cocked the son of a female canine any time during the first half. Finally, at half-time I had exhausted my patience with the head-stomping. I took my Gatorade bottle, slammed it like a post-match libation and threw it against a nearby chain-link fence. I stomped around a bit throwing an expletive-laden tantrum about getting my head stomped. At this point our 8-man, ARN (short for Argentinean Rugby Ninja) took me aside for some performance counseling and attitude adjustment. “What the (expletive), Dude?” He inquired. “We’ve gotta’ huddle!” “17’s been stomping me all (expletive) match!” I responded. “We’ve got him.” He explained. “You worry about your (expletive) job. You pay his sorry (expletive, expletive) back by winning!” We actually did manage to win the match. The weather was miserable; neither side could handle the ball. Our scrum was 150 lbs heavier than theirs and our fly-half could pick off a penalty kick even when his boot had five extra pounds of mud and water attached. (It seemed the ref did get around to calling things that weren’t at least somewhat carefully hidden.) Oh, and ARN totally had #17. He tackled him so that his opposing shoulder went down wrong and popped out of its joint. The enjoyable manliness ritual where two guys on the other team’s sideline pop the dislocated shoulder back into socket ensued on the other sideline. The only thing missing from a worthy Hollywood Movie Scene was the drunk, old country doctor telling #17 to have a shot “Wuskey” and bite down hard on a stick. But that old experience reminds me of Romney’s Bain Capital work because it raises a vexing issue of what is legal and what constitutes ethics. Romney, as far as we know, broke no laws. But did his actions lead to people getting fired who otherwise would have been able to earn an honest living? Is Bain Capital engaged in “Vulture Capitalism?” I tend to find that rhetorical turn of phrase distasteful, intemperate and an indirect contribution-in-kind to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. However, (maybe once or twice a decade) I’ve been known to be wrong. If this is one of those times, then I can totally understand Newt Gingrich going into ARN-mode here and doing everything in his mortal power to slam Mitt Romney’s shoulder hard into the sodden pitch. If this is one of those times, then Mitt Romney is absolutely legal but still morally wrong. In that case, the 2012 Presidential Election is over the second Mitt Romney wins the GOP nomination. The MSM is already down in SC interviewing people who got fired from manufacturing jobs as a result of Bain Capital’s acquisitions. They are actively searching out bloody, gushing head-wounds from Mitt Romney’s behavior on Private Equity’s savage rugby pitch. There is a valid argument that all sound-bytes aside, “Greed, is good.” Romney began to hit that rhetorical stride in his Primary Victory Speech last night. President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him. This is such a mistake for our Party and for our nation. This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We must offer an alternative vision. I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique — We are One Nation, Under God. Candidate Romney went on to frame this election in terms of being a values election; not just “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!” Our campaign is about more than replacing a President; it is about saving the soul of America. This election is a choice between two very different destinies. If what Governor Perry said about Bain Capital is truth; Mitt Romney has no business attempting to win a values-based election. If what Governor Perry said was inaccurate, but still serves as resonant propaganda, Mitt Romney’s job just got much harder. America will not elect a President who manipulates the rules to get away with stomping people’s heads on life’s rugby pitch out of spite. Candidate Romney will have to labor hard to vigorously refute this characterization of his tenure at Bain Capital.
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How Romney and Bain Capital Remind Me of An Old Rugby Story
Number of biohazards left behind by tea partiers, zero. OLYMPIA, Wash. — Occupy Olympia demonstrators have left the vacant building adjacent to their original Heritage Park encampment following requests from Olympia Police Department officers in conjunction with Washington State Patrol. Earlier this morning, WSP cleared Heritage Park, moving demonstrators to another area of the park
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Occupy Olympia Forced Out of Park Leaving Behind “Obvious Biohazards” Including Used Hypodermic Needles…
“The Palestinians are the global warming climate change of geopolitical conflict. They use deceptive parlance to advance their agenda.” Newt Gingrich hit it out of the park with his succinct assessment of the “Palestinian” cause . One of the most incorrigible fallacies pertaining to the Middle East is the notion that the Palestinians are entitled to a state of their own. This fallacy stems from the misconception that there is a nation of ‘Palestinians’, and to the extent that such a nation exists, this name is an accurate representation of the Arabs who live in modern Israel. This artful manipulation of the geopolitical lexicon was meant to bestow upon a group of random Arabs a false sense of geographical ties to the Holy Land. In 1977, during an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, PLO Executive Committee member Zuheir Mohsen described the stratagem as this: “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.” This delusion is no trivial matter. For years, the left wing foreign policy establishment has rapturously promoted the ‘Palestinians’ as the cause célèbre of our national security interests. Instead of focusing on the real threats to our national security (such as those who, incidentally, fund the so-called Palestinians), the foreign policy establishment has singularly focused on creating a state for the most virulently anti-American people on the face of the planet. Their maniacal fixation on the Palestinians has left them devoid of solutions regarding the broader turmoil in the Middle East. The first step in undoing this foreign policy mess is for the next president to deracinate the entire myth of a ‘Palestinian people’. Kudos to Newt Gingrich for finally telling the truth about the geopolitical cause célèbre of all the world’s imbeciles. In a TV interview with the Jewish Channel , Gingrich made the following basic observation: “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state — (it was) part of the Ottoman Empire. I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places for a variety of political reasons, we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s.” This is the type of fighting spirit that everyone on the right – both admirers and detractors – appreciates about Newt. All students of history, barring those who attended left-wing universities, know that the origin of the term Palestine comes from the Roman Empire. When they captured Judea during the first century, the Romans renamed the Jewish kingdom ‘Palestine’ after the ancient Philistines referenced in the Bible. After the British kicked out the Ottoman Turks from Transjordan (comprised of modern-day Israel and Jordan), they renamed it the British Mandate of Palestine, once again hearkening back to its ancient etymology. Although the original Balfour Declaration called for a Jewish homeland in the entirety of this territory, 78% of it was ultimately siphoned off for the modern state of Jordan in 1946. Unsatisfied with 78% of the territory, Jordan invaded the new Jewish state of Israel in 1948 and illegally occupied half of the remaining 22% of the territory for 18 years. In 1967, the Jordanians (not the so-called Palestinians), along with its Arab neighbors, invaded Israel once again in the hopes that they would wipe out the remaining Jewish presence. Israel won that war and kicked out the Jordanians from the land they illegally occupied, known as the West Bank. This land has nothing to do with a Palestinian people; it was illegally part of Jordan for 18 years. 80% of the so-called Palestinians are Jordanian Arabs. Hence, there already is a ‘Palestinian state’ in Jordan. Not surprisingly, gas bag Michigan Senator Carl Levin decried Gingrich’s fact check as “cynical”, “divisive, and destructive,” even as he declined to challenge the veracity of the GOP hopeful’s statement: “the vast majority of American Jews — including this one — and the Israeli government … are committed to a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians live side-by-side as neighbors and in peace. “Gingrich’s cynical efforts to attract attention to himself with divisive and destructive statements will not help his presidential ambitions,” Levin said, “since they are aimed at putting the peace between Israel and the Palestinians that Americans yearn for even further out of reach than it is today.” Memo to dinosaur Senator Levin: No, this is not a cynical ploy to garner Jewish support because Gingrich (and every other GOP candidate for that matter) understands that he will not obtain a significant minority of the Jewish vote, let alone a majority. Believe it or not, Mr. Levin, there are those who actually understand history, and intuitively reject the notion that we should invest our time and treasure into a lie. If there is anything cynical, divisive, and destructive, it is your pathetic attempt to use your religious identity to shield Obama from the vices of being the most pro-’Palestinian’ president in American history. The Palestinians are the global warming climate change of geopolitical conflict. They use deceptive parlance to advance their agenda. Thankfully, Newt is speaking the truth, instead of worshiping at the altar of the pan-Islamists in the UN. Mitt Romney is accusing him of undercutting the Israelis, but Newt was wise to express the truth from the American perspective. There is no national interest for America in the creation of a state for a non-entity, irrespective of what the Israelis chose for their own interests. It’s these moments of straight talk from Gingrich that resonate with conservatives. Now, if only he would govern with the same conviction and audacity that is reflected in his rhetoric…..
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Newt Gingrich Tells the Truth About the Palestinian Non-Entity
Some news items to get you started: Police have mostly cleared out Occupy L.A. The city is officially “renovating” the park for the conceivable future. As of 30 minutes ago, there had been 104 arrests and 2 minor use-of-force incidents…. More here: Top Headline Comments 11-30-11
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Top Headline Comments 11-30-11
The ever absurd Ezra Klein of The Washington Post is at it again, refusing to remain silent and just be thought a fool rather than speak, or write, and have it confirmed. This turn on the idiot merry-go-round is his little defense of Occupy Wall Street and his breathless desire that the eviction save them. Not the women assaulted at the protests nor the people harmed by other actions of the protesters, mind you. No, no – it’s The Movement ™ that he glorifies and about which he’s concerned : The occupation of Zuccotti Park was always going to have a tough time enduring for much longer. As the initial excitement wore off and the cold crept in, only the diehards — and those with no place else to go — were likely to remain. The numbers in Zuccotti Park would thin, and so too would the media coverage. And in the event someone died of hypothermia, or there was some other disaster, that coverage could turn. What once looked like a powerful protest could come to be seen as a dangerous frivolity. After the excitement wore off? You mean all the super exciting rapes and assaults and tuberculosis outbreaks ? LOLZ rape – such a frivolity! But, hey, at least the Mayor spared them from raping and assaulting while at risk of catching a chill! And maybe some of those raped and assaulted were some of those ‘undesireable’ types who would have ended up costing us more money in the long run, right Ezra? Like babies of those who don’t have the means, according to you, to care for them ? Plus, it’s all about The Cause, as always, to you. What’s a little rape, assault , outbreak of disease and homicide ? It’s all about The Movement, baby! Everyone, including women and children, are disposable for ‘the greater good.’ In aggressively clearing them from the park, Bloomberg spared them that fate. Zuccotti Park wasn’t emptied by weather, or the insufficient commitment of protesters. It was cleared by pepper spray and tear gas. It was cleared by police and authority. It was cleared by a billionaire mayor from Wall Street and a request by one of America’s largest commercial real estate developers. It was cleared, in other words, in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next. First, they were in no way aggressively cleared from park. To the contrary; they were indulged and coddled at the expense of all around them. They were allowed to build what amounted to a squatter city for *months* to the detriment of the entire neighborhood and those trying to do an honest days work in said neighborhood. But who cares about people who are actually struggling , right? I mean, y’all had drum circles! And ‘income inequality’ chants – the irony of those who sit around on their arses all day, squatting in a park, screeching about ‘income inequality’ is lost on you, huh, Ezra? Kind of hard to complain about inequality when one refuses to even bother earning an income at all. Maybe if one bothered trying to earn an income or, you know, live in reality then one would realize that the whole ‘income inequality’ thing is a total myth anyway . Also a myth? Your entire grossly romanticized idea of the ‘Occupy movement’ – a movement the press has been trying to whitewash since its inception. The rampant examples of violence and degeneracy were spun as ‘fringe’. Well, guess what? If everyone is fringe, then no one is. At some point, fringe becomes the norm – and oh how it did . Not just at the original Zuccotti Park site, but at every major ‘Occupy’ site; the rap sheet is miles long. Funny how the opposite was true with the Tea Party. In that instance, the press desperately tried to demonize them and continues to try to do so. Two years of frantic attempts to paint the Tea Party with a villainous brush, but to no avail. You can’t invent things that aren’t there, toots, no matter how hard you try and hold your breath and stomp your feet and clench your little juicebox-laden fists. People saw with their own eyes that the Tea Parties were nothing like the Occupy protests. There were no acts of violence, no filth, no assaults, no law-breaking. Because, Conservatives aren’t cretins. Further, Tea Party ralliers played by the rules ; they applied for and obtained permits, they paid for them, they assembled peaceably, cleaned up after themselves and left peacefully, always. What squares, huh? Puritans! With the ‘Occupiers’ you can attempt to whitewash all you want, but contrary to your Oh So Much Smarter Than Us opinion, people aren’t stupid. They can see the difference between the Tea Party rallies and the Occupy degenerates. I would have not one smidgen of nervousness taking my 8 year old daughter to a Tea Party rally. I would never, ever take her within miles of an ‘occupy’ protest, however. They are not safe for grown women, let alone children. Sane and honest people can see through your spin and see things for what they are. No one’s rights are being squashed – in fact, the ‘Occupiers’ are the ones who seek to trample on the rights and peaceful existence of others. Most people who don’t live in their mom’s basement will understand how Governor Nikki Haley said it today : Nikki Haley We held a press conference at 4:00. I appreciate freedom of speech. I do not appreciate mattresses on the grounds, urinating in the bushes and damage of state property. Occupiers were given until 6:00 to move off the property. They are welcome to picket during daylight hours. We respect the Rule of Law in South Carolina. I know, that’s beyond your ken; ‘the rule of law’ existing for over 100 years old and all . The question is what, if anything, comes next for Occupy Wall Street. The movement has already scored some big wins. As this graph by Dylan Byers showed, they have changed the national conversation. Income inequality is now a top-tier issue. Before Occupy Wall Street, it wasn’t. And perhaps that will be the legacy of Occupy Wall Street. No, Ezra, their legacy is that they showed the Left for what it truly is. And it ain’t pretty. The world was watching and they didn’t like what they saw, even through the attempted white-washing spin of the press. They sealed their own fate and it wasn’t a fate of ‘dangerous frivolity’. It was plain old dangerous. You see, idjit, Zuccotti Park – and other ‘protest’ sites across the country – were cleared because the ‘protesters’ were violent, dangerous cretins. You are hoping the ‘movement’ has been saved? I’m more concerned with saving women from being raped and assaulted and saving innocent people from the actions of those in the movement. Silly me! But you’re right on one thing, Ezra; it’s not that they had insufficient commitment. It’s that they’ve been insufficiently committed – to jail cells, where they belong. ——- UPDATE: Verum Serum has sorted the “Occupy” rap sheet by type of crime – save this movement? I think not. Save the victims.
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Ezra Klein: Never Mind Stopping Occupy Rapes, Violence and Fetid Squalor, The Important Benefit of Eviction Is Helping The Movement!
