Tenaj's Blog

Mitt Romney touts his role in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics as proof that he knows how to lead. To vouch for his “turnaround,” Romney promised to deliver a public archive—“billed as an unvarnished documentary of the Salt Lake City Olympics—from bid scandal to closing ceremony.” And yet, 10 years later, the records have still not been made available.

In fact, according to a report from the Boston Globe, “archivists now say most key records about the Games’ internal workings were destroyed under the supervision of a staff member shortly after the flame was extinguished at Olympic Cauldron Park.”

It is not the least bit surprising that Romney’s pledges ring hollow. He is currently the first nominee in more than 30 years to release only one full year of tax returns—defying even his own father’s rule on the importance of being open with the public. As Obama for America Senior Strategist David Axelrod noted, Romney may be the most secretive candidate America’s seen since Richard Nixon.

A quick survey of Romney’s pattern of secrecy reveals the many ways Romney has failed to live up to an acceptable standard of transparency for a presidential candidate:

• Refuses to release more of his tax returns, having released only one full tax return “after facing pressure to do so.” And the tax return he chose to release is “from a year in which he was running for president for a second time.”

• Failed to disclose his Swiss bank account on his personal financial disclosure form, an account that held $3 million until he closed it before launching his bid for the presidency.

• Failed to disclose the Bermuda corporation he owned for nearly 15 years, depriving the public of “an accurate depiction of his wealth and a clear understanding of how his assets are handled and taxed.”

• Removed computer hard drives from the Massachusetts governor’s office, spending $100,000 in taxpayer money to replace the computers in his office as “part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret.”

• Refuses to list any of the names of his campaign bundlers—a move that “prevents voters from knowing who wields influence inside the GOP frontrunner’s campaign and how their interests might benefit if he is elected.“Yet Romney himself said in his book that “contributions do in fact play an even greater role in influencing policy.” [Source: Romney, No Apology]

• Declined to reveal details about his continuing ties to his buyout firm, leaving voters with no way of knowing how much money Romney has received from Bain Capital, or how much he may receive in the future.

• Refused to disclose his underlying Bain Capital assets, some of which are Chinese firms. Ethics attorneys from both parties have said “Romney’s refusal to provide information on his federal disclosure forms is unprecedented.”

Romney’s “keep-it-under-wraps approach” is “a hallmark of his campaign”—a characteristic that compelled the Washington Post to describe the candidate this way:

“Mitt Romney’s contemptuous attitude toward the importance of public disclosure is increasingly troubling. Whether it involves the details of his personal finances or the identity of his big fundraisers, the presumptive Republican is setting a new, low bar for transparency—one that does not augur well for how the Romney White House would conduct itself if he were elected.”

America’s small businesses are the engines of job creation, and in the last four years, President Obama has aggressively pursued policies to support and invest in their growth. Intent on distorting the President’s record, Mitt Romney is ripping the President’s words out of context to manufacture a false attack on his commitment to helping small businesses.

But Romney’s manipulative attacks cannot distract from his record and economic policies that undermine the ability for American business owners to expand and hire. In fact, when it comes the support of small business, the contrast between President Obama’s and Romney’s records is stark:

What they’ve done

President Obama:

• Signed 18 tax cuts to support small businesses

• Supported a record volume of small business loans last year, and more than 150,000 loans since he took office, allowing business owners to expand and hire more workers

• Created the new Small Business Lending Fund, which has invested in 332 banks and community development loan funds to help Main Street banks provide loans to small businesses

• Invested $2 billion in Small Business Administration funding for early-stage businesses and businesses in under-served communities or emerging business sectors

Governor Romney

• Watched as the number of new businesses created in Massachusetts fell by 10 percent over his term. In 2006, that number hit its lowest level since 1993.

• Vetoed or cut more than $100 million in economic development investments, including job training, high-tech manufacturing, and support for Massachusetts entrepreneurs.

• Created or raised over 1,000 taxes and fees on the middle class and small businesses that came to $750 million a year.

• Failed to support and encourage Bay State entrepreneurs so that, by his last year in office, more small businesses were shutting down rather than starting up in the state.

What they want to do

President Obama:

• Extend middle class tax cuts for the next year to stop taxes from going up on 97 percent of all small business owners.

• Encourage Congress to pass a new 10 percent income tax credit for small businesses that hire new workers or increase wages in 2012.

• Extend 100 percent expensing through 2012 so owners can immediately write off the costs of updating and expanding their businesses this year.

Mitt Romney:

• Gut investments small businesses depend on—like education, training, and innovation—to help pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

• Change the tax code to eliminate taxes on corporations’ overseas profits, putting small businesses that can’t shift their profits to foreign subsidiaries at a competitive disadvantage.

• Spend $1 trillion on a corporate tax cut that would give over 90 percent of its benefits to the largest 0.6 percent of corporations.

• Champion a budget that, if cuts are made across the board, would slash the Small Businesses Administration budget by 19 percent, thereby reducing the number of small business loans for entrepreneurs hoping to expand, invest, and hire workers.

The difference between the candidates’ visions could not be more clear: President Obama believes in putting small businesses and the middle class before politics. Mitt Romney is convinced that cutting taxes for the wealthy and large corporations, slashing public support for credit availability, and gutting investments in the middle class will help small businesses, and he’s willing to say anything to bring those policies to the White House.

The Truth Team Obama Biden

10 Lies Republicans Tell, over and over and over

 

 

 

Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda said, "The most brilliant propagandist technique… must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over and over. “ 

He exploited the lowest instincts of people – anger, fear, racism, xenophobia, and class envy. Aided by the effects of the Depression and with sober psychological calculation he led the masses wherever he wanted them to go.  And that’s exactly what Republicans do.

Lying and deception is the basis of Republican techniques including personal attacks, defamation, half-truths, name-calling or any other technique that is based on dishonesty or deception.   A simple slogan is repeated until it is taken as truth… “death panels” or asking “where are the jobs”, as if they themselves have no obligation to create employment policy.  Remember when Senator McCain railed about immigration, “the federal government has failed to protect this nation’s borders.”  He IS the federal government.

Republicans take elements of truth and false generalizations and merge them to supplant the accurate perception.  In other words...REPUBLICANS LIE!

1. REPUBLICANS LIE about healthcare:

Republicans told too many lies about healthcare to repeat.  They convinced people that the new measures would boot them out of their private insurance into a government-run program; that it was really being established in order to give"reparations" to African Americans and to create "death panels" for old people.

Republican States Attorney’s across the country have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the mandate,  a Republican idea, supported in the past by Sen. Grassley and Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Our brave young men and women died and we gave the Iraqis universal healthcare, so why is it too expensive for Americans?

2.  REPUBLICANS  LIE about the effects of regulations on business:

In their ninth annual Doing Business" report which ranks 183 countries and determines how “business-friendly” they are,  The World Bank ranked the United States number four in the “ease of doing business category“, while 65 percent of respondents  to a recent Wall Street Journal survey of economists, concluded that a lack of demand, not government policy, was the main impediment to increased hiring.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

“McClatchy reached out to owners of small businesses to find out whether they indeed were being choked by regulations; whether uncertainty over taxes affected their hiring plans and whether the health care overhaul was helping or hurting their business.

None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it….”.  Many of the businesses pointed to how the Stimulus kept them afloat.

3.  REPUBLICANS LIE about the Stimulus

4.  REPUBLICANS LIE about drilling and the Keystone XL Pipeline:

Much to the chagrin of the “drill baby drill” crowd, the President has kept the oil industry out of ANWAR, and recently disallowed the XL-Pipeline.  To let Republicans tell it, the oil supply and employment in the industry have been stymied by this President.  It is a lie.

From The Los Angeles Times:

Oil imports down, domestic production highest since 2003

“.... the United States reduced net imports of crude oil last year by 10%, or 1 million barrels a day. The U.S. now imports 45% of its petroleum, down from 57% in 2008, and is on track to meet Obama’s long-term goal, the administration maintains.

Imports have fallen, in part, because the United States has increased domestic oil and gas production in recent years....Current production, about 5.6 million barrels a day, is the highest since 2003.

The U.S. has been the world’s largest producer of natural gas since 2009, the report says. Use of renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar, is still relatively small but has doubled since 2008.

The report credits administration policies for the improvements. It cites initiatives such as the higher fuel efficiency of passenger cars, the jump in renewable energy output, and improved weatherization of 1 million homes.

Boehner has significant investments in the Keystone XL Pipeline Project  so he has actively promoted an agenda that will benefit him financially.  If the Republicans were really interested in job creation, they would have passed the infrastructure bill. Construction workers could repair roads and bridges from now until eternity, but then again, I guess Boehner’s not invested in I-95.

5.  REPUBLICANS LIE about taxes and tax cuts.

6.  REPUBLICANS LIE about the “war against women” and the contraceptive mandate:

According to Guttmacher,  2011 saw unprecedented attention to issues related to reproductive health and rights at the state level. In all 50 states, legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions.

At least twenty-two states have laws or regulations that resemble, at least in part, the Obama administration's original rule.   In six states,  the contraceptive mandates were signed by GOP governors.

In 2000, Iowa became one of the first states to enact a contraceptive mandate. The Republican Legislature overwhelmingly backed the bill, which has NO EXEMPTION for religious employers.

In Arizona, a bipartisan coalition formed by pro-choice Republican state Rep. Linda Binder, promoted a bill, which exempted churches but not other church-affiliated institutions The bill cleared the Republican-controlled Legislature and then-Gov. Jane Hull, a Republican and a Catholic, signed the measure into law.

In New York, a similar law won GOP support in the Legislature and was signed in 2001 by Republican Gov. George E. Pataki.  Catholic groups sued and lost in the state’s highest court.

With help from Republican lawmakers, a law, which included two GOP cosponsors,  easily cleared Arkansas’  Legislature and then Governor Huckabee signed it in April 2005.  Now the former Arkansas governor accuses President Obama of "a direct violation of the 1st Amendment”.

In 2006, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney signed a healthcare overhaul that kept in place a contraceptive mandate signed by his Republican predecessor. Now he is calling President Obama’s rule an "assault on religion."  He’s a liar too;  fit for his own chronology.


7.  REPUBLICANS LIE about voter fraud.

8.  REPUBLICANS LIE about job legislation they’ve proposed:

The so-called jobs bills that House leaders claim are being stalled by the Senate or nothing more than regulatory bills; none of which guarantee a single job will be created.  Unless, of course, you believe eliminating regulations on pesticides will create jobs.

If Republicans really cared about putting Americans to work, would it matter who wrote the bill?  Would it really matter if the work was for repairing roads and bridges or digging a pipeline?

From The Washington Post:

The GOP’s ludicrous claim about their jobs bill

Republicans  love to make claims about how many jobs their proposals will create. As a practical matter, readers should immediately discount such assertions, since they are often based on guesstimates that are then extrapolated beyond reality.

9.  REPUBLICANS LIE about the debt and deficit:

They love to say, President Obama controlled the Congress and got everything he wanted for the first two years of his term.  President Obama had a majority in the Senate for only 4 months, at the end of his first year.  Besides, what’s their excuse, Republicans had the House, Senate and Presidency (Bush) from 2001 to 2007....6 years!

10.  REPUBLICANS LIE  about Ronald Reagan

Reagan policies contributed to the Savings and Loan crisis

He increased the size of the federal government by 7%. So much for small government.

The federal deficit ballooned to the largest peacetime deficit in history

Reagan was the largest borrower and spender in American history until George Bush

Under Reagan, the debt ceiling was raised 17 times

He was the first president in history to lower taxes for the rich while he raised them for the poor

He signed the largest tax increase in the history of the nation; He raised taxes 11 times

Reagan turned the U.S. from a creditor nation to a debtor nation

He campaigned against the enactment of Medicare

Reagan signed a measure to allow pregnant women to terminate pregnancies that endangered their “physical or mental health.” (Therapeutic Abortion Bill)

Reagan signed a bill that made immigrants who'd entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty.

He had the largest federal workforce in history.

I’m always prepared to listen to any fair and balanced arguments...no matter what party it is because everyone has a good idea sometimes. but I just can’t stomach the Republicans.  They’ve ceased being patriots and become, lying, bait-n-switch carnival barkers.  And they’re Stepford counterparts are a disgrace to womanhood.

Aren’t they the people who argue so vigorously for religious values?  Isn’t one of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not Lie”?  Yet, that’s all they do...is Lie!   But go ahead...vote for them and all of America will go straight to Hell with the Republicans.

(The Associated Press)

American businessman Sheldon Adelson, who has said he will donate millions to Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign, is seated before Romney delivers a speech in Jerusalem, Sunday, July 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who suggested his comments were racist and out of touch with the realities of the Middle East. His campaign later said his remarks were mischaracterized.

"As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality," the Republican presidential candidate told about 40 wealthy donors who ate breakfast at the luxurious King David Hotel.

Romney said some economic histories have theorized that "culture makes all the difference."

"And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things," Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence." He said similar disparity exists between neighboring countries, like Mexico and the United States.

Palestinian reaction to Romney was swift and pointed.

"It is a racist statement and this man doesn't realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people," Erekat added. "He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority."

As criticism mounted while Romney traveled to Poland, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said: "His comments were grossly mischaracterized." The Republican's campaign contends Romney's comparison of countries that are close to each other and have wide income disparities — the U.S. and Mexico, Chile and Ecuador — shows his comments were broader than just the comparison between Israel and Palestine.

While speaking to U.S. audiences, Romney often highlights culture as a key to economic success and emphasizes the power of the American entrepreneurial spirit compared to the values of other countries. But his decision to highlight cultural differences in a region where such differences have helped fuel violence for generations raises new questions about the former businessman's diplomacy skills.

As he has at home, Romney in Jerusalem cited a book titled, "Guns, Germs and Steel," that suggests the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there.

"And you look at Israel and you say you have a hard time suggesting that all of the natural resources on the land could account for all the accomplishment of the people here," Romney said, before citing another book, "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations," by former Harvard professor David Landes.

This book, Romney said in Jerusalem, concludes that "if you could learn anything from the economic history of the world it's this: Culture makes all the difference. Culture makes all the difference."

The economic disparity between the Israelis and the Palestinians is actually much greater than Romney stated. Israel had a per capita gross domestic product of about $31,000 in 2011, while the West Bank and Gaza had a per capita GDP of just over $1,500, according to the World Bank.

Romney, seated next to billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson at the head of the table, told donors that he had read books and relied on his own business experience to understand why the difference is so great.

His comparison of the two economies did not take into account the stifling effect the Israeli occupation has had on the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — areas Israel captured in 1967 where the Palestinians hope to establish a state.

In the West Bank, Palestinians have only limited self-rule. Israel controls all border crossings in and out of the territory, and continues to restrict Palestinian trade and movement. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1967, but has invested much less heavily there than in Jewish west Jerusalem.

And although Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it continues to control access and has enforced a crippling border blockade since the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory in 2007.

It's true that Israel has logged tremendous achievements, said Abraham Diskin, a political science professor at the Inter-Disciplinary Center outside of Tel Aviv. But "you can understand this remark in several ways," he added. "You can say it's anti-Semitic. 'Jews and money.'"

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund repeatedly have said that the Palestinian economy can only grow if Israel lifts those restrictions.

"It's Israeli occupiers and Palestinians under occupation, and that's why Palestinians cannot realize their potential," Erekat said.

The breakfast with top donors — including Adelson, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and hedge fund manager Paul Singer — concluded Romney's visit to Israel, the second leg of a three-nation overseas tour designed to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

Standing on Israeli soil for the first time as the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and said the U.S. has promised never to "look away from our passion and commitment to Israel."

The status of Jerusalem is a critical issue in peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

In Israel, Romney did not meet with Abbas or visit the West Bank. He met briefly with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Romney's campaign says the trip, which began in England last week, is aimed at improving the former Massachusetts governor's foreign policy experience through a series of meetings with foreign leaders. The candidate has largely avoided direct criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama while on foreign soil.

The Jerusalem fundraiser, however, was a political event that raised more than $1 million for Romney's campaign. It marks at least the second finance event during his tour. The first, in London, attracted about 250 people to a $2,500-per-person fundraiser.

Both presidential candidates have aggressively courted American donors living abroad, a practice that is legal and has been used for decades.

Romney's declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital was in keeping with claims made by Israeli governments for decades, even though the United States, like other nations, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.

His remarks on the subject during a speech drew a standing ovation from the audience, which included Adelson, the American businessman who has promised to donate more than $100 million to help defeat Obama.

Adelson was among a several donors who flew to Israel for a day of sightseeing with Romney in addition to private meetings with top Israeli officials.

Romney flew to the Middle East from Britain, where he caused a stir by questioning whether officials there were fully prepared for the Olympic Games. A stop in Poland will complete his trip.

Four years ago, Obama visited Israel as a presidential candidate, part of a five-nation trip meant to establish his own foreign policy credentials.

A goal of Romney's overseas trip is to demonstrate his confidence on the world stage, but the stop in Israel also was designed to appeal to evangelical voters at home and cut into Obama's support among Jewish voters and donors. A Gallup survey of Jewish voters released Friday showed Obama with a 68-25 edge over Romney.

Romney and other Republicans have said Obama is insufficiently supportive of Israel.

___

Associated Press writers Amy Teibel in Jerusalem and Steve Peoples in Washington contributed to this report.

(The Associated Press)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to the VFW convention at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nev., Tuesday, July 24, 2012 before a major foreign policy address before he embarks on an international trip. (AP Photo/The Sacramento Bee, Jose Luis Villegas)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he had no active role in Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded, after he exited in February 1999 to take over Salt Lake City's Winter Olympics bid. But according to Bain associates and others familiar with Romney's actions at the time, he stayed in regular contact with his partners over the following months, tending to his partnership interests and negotiating his separation from the company.

Those familiar with Romney's discussions with his Bain partners said the contacts included several meetings in Boston, the company's home base, but were limited to matters that did not affect the firm's investments or other management decisions. Yet Romney continued to oversee his partnership stakes even as he disengaged from the firm, personally signing or approving a series of corporate and legal documents through the spring of 2001, according to financial reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The details of Romney's contacts with his Bain partners between his 1999 departure and his separation from the company in mid-2001 could show how involved he was — either as CEO or passive investor — in several multimillion-dollar investment deals, bankruptcies and a spate of layoffs and overseas job shifts at Bain-owned companies that reportedly occurred during that span. Romney's role became a campaign issue in recent weeks because corporate records from the time showed his interests in some of those deals — despite his insistence that he gave up any decision-making authority once he left Bain.

"When partners depart a private equity company and are no longer active, there are various ways that their interests may be affected," said Colin C. Blaydon, director of Dartmouth College's Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship. "In some cases it may not be affected at all, but they still own points in the funds and the carried interest that is paid as part of their partnership stake. It's entirely possible to step back from a previous management role, but that all depends on the arrangements they make and the management structure created to replace them."

A clear accounting of Romney's contacts with Bain has been hampered by his presidential campaign's reluctance to discuss the period in detail and complicated by conflicting accounts in some of Romney's comments and financial reports. Both the Romney campaign and Bain have declined to provide documentary materials that could shed light on Romney's role after 1999.

Romney's campaign says that once he agreed to head the Olympics bid, he was no longer "involved in the management of that business or the investment decisions that occurred." Campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul added that "it took some time to transfer his ownership to the other partners, which is not surprising given the growth and success of the firm."

Romney testified during a 2002 Massachusetts court case that he flew back and forth between Boston and Salt Lake City frequently in the first half of 1999, returning at least four times to attend board meetings of office supply giant Staples Inc., which had named him a director. Romney said nothing about his dealings with Bain during that testimony, which came during a legal challenge to his Massachusetts residency that was aimed at thwarting his campaign for governor.

Several associates now say Romney made repeated trips between Salt Lake City and Boston, where he met at times with his former partners, mostly to discuss his severance from the firm. The Boston Globe reported last week that Romney also met with his Bain partners at a 15th anniversary celebration in Palm Beach, Fla., in early 1999.

"Some were group conversations. Some were one on one," said a legal expert familiar with Romney's discussions with his Bain partners. This person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential business dealings, said that Romney did not relinquish his Bain ownership after taking the Olympics role but that Romney took care to avoid the day-to-day role of a corporate manager.

This person said that when Romney left, a five-partner management committee was already in place. That account echoed a similar version given by Edward Conard, a former Bain partner who donated $1 million last year to a political committee supporting Romney's presidential run.

"There was a management committee running Bain to transition from Mitt to a new structure," Conard said last week during an interview on MSNBC. At the same time, Conard said, Romney's exit was complicated by the fact that "Mitt's names were on the documents as chief executive and sole owner of the company."

Those documents, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, contain dozens of references to Romney and his holdings. An AP analysis of thousands of SEC filings in that three-year period found at least 39 documents in which Romney was listed as sole shareholder, president or director of investment funds that controlled large stakes in Bain-related companies.

Some legal experts said those records show that Romney remained the "controlling person," as some filings described him, in the deals that Bain struck in that span. "From a corporate law point of view, it would not be kosher to hold him out as president when he had no role in the company," said George Washington University law professor Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr.

Other experts cautioned that while federal "beneficial ownership" rules require the listing of partners whose voting stakes exceed 5 percent of an investment in a public company, any partner with voting power in the same investment could also exercise authority. While Romney controlled the management entity running Bain, his partners controlled connected general partnerships that directed the investment funds. As a result, Romney was not the only Bain partner with lines of authority over the investments cited in the SEC filings.

"Anyone who has voting power over the shares could be the owner for reporting purposes," said Brian J. Lane, a partner at the Washington law firm of Gibson Dunn and former director of the SEC's Corporate Finance Division, which oversees corporate filings.

In addition to those SEC reports, other corporate documents obtained by the AP show Romney's personal signature at least 10 times on large stock transactions or ownership statements tied to Bain investment deals at the time. Those documents include Romney's signature on federal stock forms approving the sales of large stakes in circuit board manufacturer DDi Corp. The company went into bankruptcy in 2003.

SEC filings by Bain also showed that Romney's digital signature— a legal version of his personal script — appeared on at least 18 other stock ownership records between 1999 and 2001. The filings were part of Bain investments in Therma Wave, a heat testing company; Wesley Jessen Visioncare; and Staples Inc.

Romney's defenders argue that such signings reflected his limited role as a Bain partner and investor, but not as the firm's manager. One former senior Bain partner said that once Romney had accepted the Olympics position, he would "make suggestions but not decisions." The former partner added that Romney's extensive partnership stakes required him to respond to — and at times approve — a succession of ownership documents stemming from the company's continuing investment deals.

Documents reviewed by the AP also showed that Romney signed several power-of-attorney statements that were used repeatedly during the transition, allowing other senior Bain partners and several lawyers for Bain to represent his interests in the investment deals the company struck between 1999 and 2001.

Blaydon said such moves are common in private equity deals and also could have provided Romney with legal flexibility as he moved to disengage from Bain. "If he wanted to dial in by phone, he could have," Blaydon said. "There's no doubt he could have played a bigger role if he wanted, but if he wanted to have minimal involvement, he had that flexibility."

Other private equity experts questioned whether Romney's continuing financial stakes could be so easily separated from his longtime CEO role. Victor Fleischer, a University of Colorado law professor and private equity expert who urged corporate tax code reforms during congressional testimony last year, said Romney could not simply waive his duties as Bain's CEO and major shareholder.

Many of Bain's investment funds and several of Romney's own managing partnership entities were based in Delaware. Fleischer said the state's corporate code required that the fund manager "perform whatever partnership duties they have with the greatest attention. He was still president, CEO and sole shareholder of some of the management companies for some of these funds, and under Delaware law, owed fiduciary duties to his investors. If you can't fulfill your fiduciary duties as owner, you have to waive your partnerships."

Charles M. Elson, a University of Delaware finance professor and an authority on the state's corporate laws, countered that Delaware law "is flexible enough to give (Bain) leeway in their decision-making. The partnership law is enabling. They could make decisions without him."

Even Romney's explanation of his role at Bain after 1999 appears to have shifted in recent years, as shown in notes that his financial trustee provided in successive presidential candidate financial reports submitted in 2007 and in 2011 to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The lawyer administering Romney's finances, R. Bradford Malt, said in 2007 that Romney did not have "any active role with any Bain Capital entity" after 1999. In 2011, that explanation broadened, saying Romney had also "not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way."

Both explanations appear at odds with statements attributed to Romney in a corporate news release from July 1999, five months after he left to take over the Olympic bid. The news release, recently posted on the Daily Kos website, announced the departure that year from Bain of two of Romney's founding partners. The release also stated that Romney remained Bain's CEO while on a "part-time leave of absence" to head the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

D'Jamila Salem, a former Boston public relations executive who wrote the release, recalled recently that Bain officials provided the quotes and information about Romney at the time.

Salem was listed on the release as a press contact along with Joshua Bekenstein, a founding Bain partner. Bekenstein also substituted at times for Romney on SEC filings under power of attorney during that period. Bekenstein, still a Bain managing director, was one of several company executives who did not respond to calls from AP for comment.

___

Associated Press writers Charles Babington and Andrew Miga in Washington and Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report.

(The Associated Press)

President Barack Obama gestures at a campaign stop in Oakland, Calif., Monday, July 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday called for an independent investigation into claims the White House had leaked national security information for President Barack Obama's political gain, part of a searing speech that marked a wholesale indictment of the Democrat's foreign policy.

In a race that has so far focused almost entirely on the sluggish economy, Romney also criticized Obama over potential cuts in the defense budget and critiqued his handling of Iran's nuclear threat, the violence in Syria and relations with Israel during an appearance at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.

It was Romney's first foreign policy speech since he emerged as the likely Republican presidential nominee. He accused Obama of putting politics over national security, a serious charge that went straight at a policy area where national polls show the president with the edge.

The turn also was a reminder that the increasingly biting campaign, which paused over the weekend in deference to the deadly movie theater shooting in Colorado, was on again in earnest.

"This conduct is contemptible," Romney said of the leaks of classified information. "It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field. And it demands a full and prompt investigation by a special prosecutor, with explanation and consequence."

Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two federal prosecutors to get to the bottom of the leaks, but Romney suggested that wasn't good enough. The White House has rejected calls for a special prosecutor, saying there is no need for one.

Romney stopped short of accusing Obama specifically of leaking information that included details of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden last year. He made the charge as he prepared to embark later Tuesday on a trip to Great Britain, Israel and Poland and meetings with a host of foreign leaders.

Obama has strongly rejected the leak accusations that, until Tuesday, had been contained to Republicans in Congress. During a news conference last month, the president called the accusations "offensive" and "wrong."

White House spokesman Jay Carney responded Tuesday by saying Obama "feels extremely strongly about this" and noting Holder's appointment of the two federal prosecutors to investigate.

"The president has made abundantly clear that he has no tolerance for leaks and he thinks leaks are damaging to our national security interests," Carney said.

Romney also suggested that politics is behind Obama's push for defense cuts and warned that the spending reductions would weaken the military. "Strategy is not driving President Obama's massive defense cuts," Romney said.

The automatic, across-the-board cuts of $1.2 trillion to defense and domestic programs are slated to begin on Jan. 2 unless Congress comes up with a plan to avoid them. They were set in motion after a bipartisan congressional "supercommittee" failed to come up with an equivalent amount in cuts.

Republicans have tried to pin the looming defense cuts on Obama, but GOP members in the House and Senate voted for the reductions last August as part of a far-reaching bill that raised the nation's borrowing authority and implemented cuts to reduce the growing federal deficit.

Obama made that point in his VFW speech on Monday. "There are a number of Republicans in Congress who don't want you to know that most of them voted for these cuts," he said. "Now they're trying to wriggle out of what they agreed to."

Defense spending is a local campaign issue in Virginia and Florida, election battleground states with a large military civilian workforce. Romney faces scrutiny in such states for proposing a 10 percent cut in the federal workforce, which would affect military and defense jobs.

Reflecting the campaign's recent attention to veterans, Obama added a visit Tuesday with some of them to his fundraising schedule in Portland, Ore., before flying to an event in the Seattle area.

Obama slid into a blue vinyl booth with three middle-age veterans who were among the lunchtime crowd at Portland's Gateway Breakfast House. The conversation turned quickly to veterans care, including those who live in rural areas.

After the VFW speech, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Romney was resorting to "cheap attacks" on the president "that lack credibility."

To bolster his criticism over the leaks of classified information, Romney referenced comments from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said Monday that the White House appeared to be behind some of the leaks. The California Democrat, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she was convinced Obama himself did not didn't leak secret information.

It's been a simmering Republican complaint, quelled little by Holder's action, in response to leaks about the bin Laden raid, as well as U.S. involvement in cyberattacks on Iran and about an al-Qaida plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner.

Feinstein said Tuesday she was "disturbed by these leaks." In a statement she added: "I regret that my remarks are being used to impugn President Obama or his commitment to protecting national security secrets."

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor with a business background, has for months aggressively raked Obama's stewardship of the economy. Polls consistently have shown voters see Romney as better able to handle it.

But Romney has been unable to cut into Obama's edge on national security issues. The administration's counterterrorism fight against al-Qaida and especially the killing of bin Laden has undercut the label Republicans have long attached to Democrats as soft on defense.

Romney called for a total cessation of uranium enrichment in Iran, and proposed tying foreign aid to Egypt to peaceful relations between Egypt and Israel.

He called for strict enforcement of sanctions against Iran and pledged to use "every means necessary to protect ourselves and the region."

But the speech was more criticism than proposition.

Romney said Obama had alienated Israel and other key U.S. allies such as Poland and the Czech Republic.

He derided as politically motivated Obama's candid comment to the Russian president that he would have more flexibility to deal with Russia after the election.

Vice President Joe Biden hit Romney for "reflexively" criticizing Obama's policies without offering alternatives.

"When he does venture a position, it's a safe bet that he previously took exactly the opposite position and will probably change his mind again and land in the wrong place — far out of the mainstream," Biden said in a statement.

A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll published Tuesday showed Obama is seen as a better commander in chief, 45 percent to 35 percent. Last week, a CBS News/New York Times poll found 47 percent of voters said Obama would do a better job handling foreign policy, while 40 percent chose Romney.

___

Pace reported from Portland, Ore. Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Donna Cassata in Washington contributed to this report.

A comparison of Democratic and Republican bills to extend expiring tax cuts through 2013 being debated by the Senate:

—Income tax rates: Republicans would extend the current rates of 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 percent for another year. Democrats would do the same, but not for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually and couples making $250,000. Those households, who now pay top rates of 33 or 35 percent, would instead pay up to 36 or 39.6 percent. Democrats would limit itemized deductions and phase out the personal exemption that can be claimed by those highest-earning households; Republicans would not.

—Estate tax: Republicans would continue today's top 35 percent rate on inherited estates, with an exemption for the first $5.12 million in the estate's value. Democrats would let that expire, leaving in its place a top rate of 55 percent and an exemption for the first $1 million.

—Dividends: Dividends are currently taxed at a top rate of 15 percent. When the tax cuts expire next year, they would be taxed like regular income, at whatever rate a taxpayer faces. Republicans would continue the top rate at 15 percent next year, Democrats at 20 percent.

—Capital gains: The top rate for capital gains is 15 percent, which would rise to 20 percent if the tax cuts expire. Republicans would impose a top rate of 15 percent next year, Democrats 20 percent.

—Income support programs: Democrats would continue the American opportunity tax credit of up to $2,500 for college costs. They would also renew language making the earned income tax credit more generous for large working families and some married working couples, and other language boosting the tax refunds some families get under the child tax credit. Republicans would eliminate all of those extensions.

—Business tax write-offs: Under section 179 of the tax law, Democrats would let small businesses deduct 100 percent of their expenses for some equipment purchases next year up to $250,000. The deduction would phase out for companies earning at least $800,000. Republicans would raise the amount of purchases to a top of $500,000, with the deduction phasing out for companies making at least $2 million.

—Alternative minimum tax: Democrats would prevent millions of middle-class families from having to pay the alternative minimum tax for another year, shielding them from higher levies originally meant to prevent the rich from escaping taxes. Republicans would extend those protections for two years.

Washington Post 07/22/2012

Mitt Romney is not obligated to respond to Democratic demands that he release more than two years of his tax returns. He does, however, owe assurances to the delegates who will gather at the GOP convention in Tampa next month that their party nominee’s taxpaying history will not pull down Republicans in the fall.

True, there may nothing to hide in Romney’s tax returns, no questionable activities in the Swiss bank account he once held, no examples of gaming of the U.S. tax code, no politically embarrassing offshore investments.

But as Newt Gingrich said when asked during the debate in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary if Romney should release his tax returns, “Look, he’s got to decide and the people of South Carolina have to decide. But if there’s anything in there that is going to help us lose the election, we should know it before the nomination. And if there’s nothing in there — if there’s nothing in there, why not release it?”

Republicans have the most to lose if Romney is hiding something that is truly damaging. Finding out after the convention will be too late.

Fending off calls to release more tax records, Romney said, “I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort and lie about.”

Romney and his supporters are no political slouchers. With their vast campaign coffers, they should have no trouble shooting down distortions and lies.

The GOP, more than Democrats, should understand Romney’s finances. After all, they, not the opposition, will have to promote and defend their standard bearer.

The New York Times quoted Alvin Stephens, a marketing student in Bowling Green, who dismissed Romney’s argument that his tax matters and the source of his wealth are private.

“It’s his business, but it’s also our business, too, because we’re going to be trusting him with everything we are as a people,” Stephens said. “It would be nice to know why isn’t all his money in the United States. Why aren’t all of his investments staying in the United States paying for jobs in the United States?”

Republican conventioneers likely will want to know the same thing.