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?”

Although media have suggested that Romney’s alleged early 1999 Bain departure was mainly to avoid being tied to the outsourcings and bankruptcies of firms in which Bain invested thereafter, Baldwin of the “DUMP ROMNEY” campaign argues that personal profiting from Bain’s later stake in Stericycle – the nation’s leading incinerator of aborted fetuses and other medical waste – is by far the most explosive reason for Romney to want to keep his tax returns secret from voters and especially, from delegates to the August 27 Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Baldwin said, “Sure, lying on federal SEC or FEC forms is a felony, but that overlooks the elephant in the room and undoubtedly hiding inside Romney’s tax returns:  Through Bain, Romney bought shares in the leading immolator of aborted babies.”

Delegates to the GOP Convention began receiving a strategy memo last week entitled, “DUMP ROMNEY: Why Tampa’s Republican Delegates must Dump Romney to Defeat Obama.” It contends that no delegates are actually “bound” by law or GOP rules to vote for Romney and that, to win the White House and toss-up Senate seats, delegates must exercise their right to “conscientiously abstain” from Romney on the crucial first ballot, aiming for a stronger ticket leader in subsequent convention voting rounds.  Also the title and core of a hard-hitting new 80,000 word book, the entire 9-page “DUMP ROMNEY” memo to GOP delegates can be read free online via Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader.

Dr. Gary Cass, a Presbyterian minister and Baldwin’s co-spokesman in the “DUMP ROMNEY” push said, “It seems the Republican Party is on the very brink of nominating a man who’s hiding a bloody record of such Biblical proportions, it would make Herod blush. We fear that Mitt Romney’s secret tax returns will show that he has financed and profited, like some ancient priest of Moloch or Baal, from the burning of human babies, from child sacrifice. If that’s so, could the GOP sink any lower than to nominate this man?” 

#

[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].
 
 

bound4life.com

Susan Michelle Tyrrell

As presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney surged in fundraising after the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, new questions have arisen about the candidates potential ties to a company known for its disposal of aborted fetuses.

Mother Jones reports the reality of Romney’s downplayed connection with Stericycle who provides what is, perhaps, one of the most despicable business services in our nation. A medical waste company, Stericycle is infamous for its willingness to go to various abortion centers and pick up the remains of aborted babies and dispose of them as medical waste. Federal documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission show the dates in which Romney reports being connected with his investment company don’t match up with the dates in which he was listed as being involved with a large investment in Stericycle, which leads us to ask if he was connected with Stericycle at times they were disposing of aborted fetuses.

Originally reported by the Huffington Post in January, Romney’s camp managed to avoid it as a campaign issue by insisting, as the news outlet reports:

“By the time Bain Capital [Romney’s investment firm] had made the investment in Stericycle, he had left the firm to run the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He maintained ownership in Bain and kept holdings in its private equity funds, which included Stericycle stock, but he had no say in the managerial or strategic decisions at the firm, according to Bain officials.”

However, recent documents from the Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commission filed by Romney’s firm show that the timing wasn’t quite how Romney portrayed it. The document from November 22, 1999, reports, “W. Mitt Romney (“Mr. Romney”) is the sole stockholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director and President of BCI VI Inc,” (SEC FORM SC 13D) in the Stericycle investment.

That means Romney was an active member of the firm when the $75 million investment was made in Stericycle. Stericylce isn’t just a medical waste business that is above board.  As recently as last year, Stericylce was cited for improper disposal of fetuses in Texas. For a quick rundown of some news articles about Stericycle’s seedy history, click here. You will find a list of fines, truck leasing companies breaking contracts with them because of their fetus disposal business, and other serious controversies that the pro-life candidate must distance himself from by addressing these issues and either showing us proof there was no abortion activity back then or publicly addressing the wrongdoing and breaking his tie with them in keeping with his pro-life conversion, rather than simply misleading the American people about the dates he was there.

It’s a concern if Romney actually was the “sole shareholder” as the SEC documents say, unquestionably say he was.  You can read the filings from the SEC documents here and here. (Simply do a search within them for the name “Romney” and it will show you the relevant shareholder information.)
This information clearly contradicts what the Romney camp reported publicly in January. That is unacceptable and raises a serious issue for pro-lifers who have embraced him as a pro-life candidate. There are too many unanswered questions to let this issue be a non-issue in this race. The man running on a pro-life platform actually was the “sole shareholder” in a company that made a $75 million investment in a company that has for an indeterminate amount of time profited directly from from the shedding of innocent blood. Their work helps polluted the land with bloodshed, putting fetuses in incinerators and waste areas. Stericycle is evasive in its responses to those who question its abortion business, claiming that abortion is only a “small portion” of its business, which is only true on a technicality. There are only a few hundred abortion centers in the nation and many more medical facilities that need waste services; however, Stericycle is the largest provider of disposing of fetal remains.  Stop Stericycle.com reports:

Aside from the fact that we have recorded phone calls of Stericycle’s own representatives admitting that they accept fetal remains, many people are confused about Stericycle’s waste acceptance policy. The vaguely worded policy does not mention fetal remains, but rather craftily states that “complete human remains” are unacceptable. Stericycle has told the Campaign to Stop Stericycle (CSS) that it does not know when a fetus is considered to be human, and that the determination is up to the abortion mill and state law. Obviously, abortion mills never admit that aborted babies are human.

Additionally, during an undercover investigation, the Campaign to Stop Stericycle obtained a hypothetical contract for an abortion mill in which the pickup of fetal remains was included. CSS was also informed that the abortion mill would receive “incinerate only” stickers so that the fetal remains would be incinerated.

Furthermore, Stericycle is currently under government investigation in the state of Texas for illegally dumping aborted fetuses into a municipal landfill. During the initial investigation, Stericycle representatives told the government that “medical waste containing fetuses or tissue should be sent for incineration,” and that aborted fetuses in Texas should be transported to Stericycle’s plant in Apopka, Florida to be incinerated.

Because of such a clear controversy of pro-life issues, and the reports which show that the Romney’s investment firm ultimately profited $49.5 million from the Stericycle investment. There are two important questions we must address:

First, we do not have any evidence that the aborted fetal remains pick-ups began after Romney left the firm. Records like this are not easily available unless one knows what he is seeking exactly. StopStericycle.com has records from 2003, which is after Romney left, but until Stericycle or Romney can provide evidence that Stericycle’s suddenly started its business with fetuses after Romney sold his investment, we can’t conclusively be satisfied that was the case.

Second, Romney claims a pro-life conversion, though he does allows for exceptions in certain cases. He must address his relationship with the abortion profiteer. Even if some evidence exists showing perhaps it was after he sold his investment, Stericycle began this practice, Romney needs to address this to pro-lifers because he is running on a pro-life platform but is tied in some ways to a business linked to abortion since clearly the dates of his involvement were not as he reported.

 We are a nation that endorses and sanctions the shedding of innocent blood, and we must draw a clear and bold line in the pro-life community that doesn’t allow for a blur that might have occurred in the name of business.

Romney cannot remain silent on this issue. After the inconsistencies about the dates, we know, it’s not enough to assume a conclusion that they didn’t pick up fetuses then.

According to Stericycle, “We became a publicly traded company in 1996, and emerged as North America’s largest provider of medical waste services in 2000.

So when did fetus pick up begin? How does the now pro-life Romney address this? The lines blur too much, and while we hope that some evidence may exist to show that Stericycle did not get involved in the abortion industry until after Romney left, we have not seen that. We’d like to.

Bound4LIFE is still pursuing information on this story and searching for documents and updates; we will bring you updates as we have them.
 
 
 
 
One of the primary planks of the Republican Platform is the party's commitment to recognizing the Fourteenth Amendment protection of unborn children. In this video clip, Mitt Romney states his opposition to that commitment.  Mitt Romney is not a prolife candidate.  Vote for life in 2012.  Vote for Tom Hoefling.  tomhoefling.com
 
 
LifeSiteNews.com

by Ben Johnson

MIAMI, FLORIDA, May 17, 2012 – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney scheduled a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at the home of Phil Frost, the executive of the company that makes the Morning After Pill, on Wednesday night. Plan B One-Step is produced by Teva Pharmaceuticals, Frost’s company.