Mitt has 3 stories nailing his ass tonight:Got rich firing people,Cant deal with tough Qs &is a diva

[Pirate Smile]

First, Romney & team maximized returns by firing workers, seeking govt subsidies & flipping companies quick.

The only thing missing from that article is this photo:

A closer look at Mitt Romney's job creation record
The Republican presidential contender says he learned about expanding employment during his time heading a private equity firm. But under his leadership, Bain Capital often maximized profits in part by firing workers.

By Tom Hamburger, Melanie Mason and Matea Gold, Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington—

-snip-
Bain expanded many of the companies it acquired. But like other leveraged-buyout firms, Romney and his team also maximized returns by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits. Sometimes Bain investors gained even when companies slid into bankruptcy.
Romney himself became wealthy at Bain. He is now worth between $190 million and $250 million, much of it derived from his time running the investment firm, his campaign staffers have said.

Bain managers said their mission was clear. "I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation," said Marc B. Walpow, a former managing partner at Bain who worked closely with Romney for nine years before forming his own firm. "The primary goal of private equity is to create wealth for your investors."

-snip-
That was true in the case of GS Industries, the 10th-biggest Bain investment in the Romney years. Bain formed GSI in the early 1990s by spending $24 million to acquire and merge steel companies with plants in Missouri, South Carolina and other states.
Company managers cut jobs and benefits almost immediately. Meanwhile, Bain and other investors received management fees from GSI and a $65-million dividend in the first years after the acquisition, according to interviews with company employees.
In 1999, as economic challenges mounted, GSI sought a federal loan guarantee intended to help steel companies compete internationally. The loan deal was approved, but in 2001, before it could be used, the company went bankrupt, two years after Romney left Bain.

More than 700 workers were fired, losing not only their jobs but health insurance, severance and a chunk of their pension benefits. GSI retirees also lost their health insurance and other benefits. Bain partners received about $50 million on their initial investment, a 100% gain."It makes me sick," said Steve Morrow, a retired GSI steelworker, recalling what happened to his fellow workers after the Kansas City shutdown. Some top managers received bonuses from Bain, he said. "But the salaried and hourly people ended up with the shaft."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-bain-20111204,0,1945560,full.story

The Diva - which goes along with not being able to answer tough questions:

Behind the Scenes at a Forum for Republican Candidates

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: December 05, 2011

Backstage can be something of an inner sanctum at a presidential debate: even though they are appearing on live television before millions of Americans, the candidates are used to having their clubhouse hermetically sealed from the public before and after they take the stage. That was not the case for the six major Republican candidates who participated in a Fox News Channel forum on Saturday night, when the network invited this reporter to roam behind the scenes as they took turns before a panel of conservative state attorneys general and the Fox News host Mike Huckabee. How each reacted offered an interesting reflex test of the candidates and their campaign organizations.

Mitt Romney's campaign stood out by going into defensive mode immediately, insisting that the reporter stay far away. The other candidates engaged to a varying degree in a little conversation as they left the stage - none more than Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who is now ahead of Mr. Romney in some polls.
Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was the last to arrive at the Fox News offices in Midtown Manhattan. He came in with his wife, Ann, and a smattering of aides and travel staff, and they quickly settled into a small conference room near the 12th-floor studio.

Spotting the reporter, Mr. Romney's aides sprang into action, asking where he worked and what he was doing there, and then insisting that he not physically approach Mr. Romney before or after he was questioned on television by the attorneys general and Mr. Huckabee.
The request was reiterated to executives at Fox News.

Mr. Romney's campaign has sought to carefully control his interactions with the news media this year as it has tried to keep a grip on front-runner status. Earlier last week, it faced days of criticism over Mr. Romney's interview with Bret Baier of Fox News, during which he grew testy as Mr. Baier pressed him on policy shifts he had made over the years. But aides pushed back against the notion that their reaction on Saturday night was related to that criticism, saying Mr. Romney had not planned to talk to the press after spending a day with reporters in New Hampshire, where he also held a question-and-answer session and gave two interviews.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=876013

No tough questions, please! What??? How could anyone think Romney is a flip-flopper! He's shocked, shocked! by such outrageous allegations.

Mitt's media blowback
By: Dylan Byers
December 4, 2011 07:08 PM EST

Mitt Romney’s vulnerabilities as a candidate are well known, yet a seemingly new one surfaced last week: his unusual brittleness in the face of media questions.
With one prickly interview with Fox’s Bret Baier on Tuesday — in which the candidate appeared uncomfortable and even angry fielding basic questions about his record — the former Massachusetts governor set off a round of speculation about his ability to operate outside hermetically sealed campaign events, reminding both his rivals and the media of the extreme lengths to which he has gone to evade the national press.

On a Fox panel that night, Juan Williams called the interview “disastrous;” Jonah Goldberg said Romney appeared “uncomfortable” and Baier himself said people thought Romney seemed “irritated and tense” — sentiments that were echoed across the other networks that night and in print the next morning.

For a candidate who has been in the national spotlight as long as Romney, his discomfort with Baier was telling. And it reflected a deliberate and long-standing strategy of dodging tough questions and questioners. Romney is inaccessible even by the tightly scripted standards of the contemporary campaign bubble: Not only is the candidate kept at arms length from reporters, the campaign typically responds to the news media only when it feel it is in its interest. Inconvenient questions are met with silence.

-snip-
On Fox, his party’s network of choice, Romney has put in fewer than 20 appearances in the past six months — far fewer than most other candidates, including Newt Gingrich, who has done more than 50. And while Romney has allowed himself to be questioned by the accommodating Sean Hannity, he has not agreed to cooperate with any potentially tough or uncomfortable mainstream-media stories about him. (For this story, Romney advisers Andrea Saul and Eric Fehrnstrom did not respond.)
Romney also avoids reporters’ questions on the trail. When confronted by a Times reporter about this, he countered that he had press avails “almost every day” — a preposterous stretch of the word “almost.” (In fact, the reporter noted, Romney’s most recent press avail had been nearly a week earlier.)

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=342200EA-9EAD-4DFC-9908-B6D8E3D19DB7

[Chipper Chat]

1. Mitt was pissed that he didn't get softballs from Brett Baier.

BRETT: Gov Romney, how do you respond to the charges that you are a flip-flopper?

ROMNEY (what he is thinking as he replies) "Listen you little prick. O'Reilly assured me you were going to ask me pablum stuff. When this is over I'm going right up and have a talk with Ailes."

[defendandprotect]

2. Thanks -- Romney's also worth $250 million - good start on working "for the people" -- !!!???

Meanwhile, the GOP was finished in '08 --

Obama resurredted them from the ashes.

Our entire political system is at the bottom of the barrel --

Corruption and deception is all we're being given!!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. I've heard a couple people in the media now calling him "Mr. 1%"

Perfect description.

[flamingdem]

3. He's looking like toast

... if only Newt had a few tons less baggage, ahhh rock meet hard place

[Pirate Smile]

4. Kick

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

5. Kick!! Kick!! Kick!! The M$M needs to stop licking Willard's ass and VET him!!!

:kick::kick::kick:

[politicasista]

6. delete n/t

:kick:

[steve2470]

8. kick nt