Investing in a Firm That Disposes of Fetuses? Obama or Romney? Romney is Correct!

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when theHuffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate 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. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate's reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.

• Plus: The Mystery of Romney's Exit From Bain

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 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.

The Stericycle deal—the abortion connection aside—is relevant because of questions regarding the timing of Romney's departure from the private equity firm he founded. Responding to a recent Washington Post story reporting that Bain-acquired companies outsourced jobs, the Romney campaign insisted that Romney exited Bain in February 1999, a month or more before Bain took over two of the companies named in the Post's article. The SEC documents undercut that defense, indicating that Romney still played a role in Bain investments until at least the end of 1999.

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?

The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also call into question the account of Romney's exit from Bain that the company and the Romney campaign have provided.

Stericycle was a lucrative investment for Romney and Bain. The company had entered the medical-waste business a decade earlier, when it took over a food irradiation plant in Arkansas and began zapping medical waste, rather than strawberries, with radiation. The company subsequently replaced irradiation with a technology that used low-frequency radio waves to sterilize medical waste—gowns, masks, gloves, and other medical equipment—before it was transported to an incinerator. By mid-1997, Stericycle was the second-largest medical-waste disposal business in the nation. Two years later, it was the largest. With 240,000 customers, its operations spanned the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Fortune ranked it No. 10 on its list of the 100 fastest growing companies in the nation.

But the company had its woes, accumulating a troubling safety record along the way. In 1991, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited its Arkansas operation for 11 workplace safety violations. The facility had not provided employees with sufficient protective gear, and it had kept body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk. In 1995, Stericycle was fined $3.3 million—later decreased to $800,000—by Rhode Island for knowingly exposing workers to life-threatening diseases at its medical-waste treatment facility in Woonsocket. Two years later, workers at another of its medical-waste processing plants in Morton, Washington, wereexposed to tuberculosis. In 2002 and 2003—after Bain and its partners had bought their major interest in the firm—Stericycle reached settlements with the attorneys general in Arizona and Utah after it was accused of violating antitrust laws. It paid Arizona $320,000 in civil penalties and lawyers' fees, and paid Utah $580,000.

Despite the firm's regulatory run-ins, the deal worked out well for Bain. In 2001, the Bain-Madison Dearborn partnership that had invested in the company sold 40 percent of its holdings in Stericycle for about $88 million—marking a hefty profit on its original investment of $75 million. The Bain-related group sold the rest of its holdings by 2004. By that point it had earned $49.5 million. It was not until six years later that anti-abortion activists would target Stericycle for collecting medical waste at abortion clinics. This campaign has compared Stericycle to German firms that provided assistance to the Nazis during the Holocaust. A Stericycle official told Huffington Post that its abortion clinics business constitutes a "small" portion of its total operations. (Stericycle declined a request for comment from Mother Jones.)

In 1995, Stericycle was fined by Rhode Island for knowingly exposing workers to life-threatening diseases at its medical-waste treatment facility.

In response to questions from Mother Jones, a spokeswoman for Bain maintained that Romney was not involved in the Stericycle deal in 1999, saying that he had "resigned" months before the stock purchase was negotiated. The spokeswoman noted that following his resignation Romney remained only "a signatory on certain documents," until his separation agreement with Bain was finalized in 2002. And Bain issued this statement: "Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies since that time." (The Romney presidential campaign did not respond to requests for comment.)

But the document Romney signed related to the Stericycle deal did identify him as a participant in that particular deal and the person in charge of several Bain entities. (Did Bain and Romney file a document with the SEC that was not accurate?) Moreover, in 1999, Bain and Romney both described his departure from Bain not as a resignation and far from absolute. On February 12, 1999, the Boston Herald reported, "Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions." And a Bain press release issued on July 19, 1999, noted that Romney was "currently on a part-time leave of absence"—and quoted Romney speaking for Bain Capital. In 2001 and 2002, Romney filed Massachusetts state disclosure forms noting he was the 100 percent owner of Bain Capital NY, Inc.—a Bain outfit that was incorporated in Delaware on April 13, 1999—two months after Romney's supposed retirement from the firm. A May 2001 filing with the SEC identified Romney as "a member of the Management Committee" of two Bain entities. And in 2007, the Washington Post reported that R. Bradford Malt, a Bain lawyer, said Romney took a "leave of absence" when he assumed the Olympics post and retained sole ownership of the firm for two more years.

All of this undermines Bain's contention that Romney, though he maintained an ownership interest in the firm and its funds, had nothing to do with the firm's activities after February 1999. The Stericycle deal may raise red flags for anti-abortion activists. But it also raises questions about the true timing of Romney's departure from Bain and casts doubt on claims by the company and the Romney campaign that he had nothing to do with Bain business after February 1999

—By David Corn

motherjones.com/

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Counting What the Gay/Lesbian community Goes through Anderson’s Silence Was a Problem

• 
• • Brian Moylan
  • guardian.co.uk 

Anderson Cooper and Oscar the Grouch at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Congratulations, Anderson Cooper, on finally coming out of the closet. This is a big day for you, a day when you can finally leave the converted firehouse you share with your live-in boyfriend with your head held high and, for the first time, not worry about what people may be writing about your relationship.

It is also a great day for gay people around the world, a day when we get another successful gay man to combat negative stereotypes and ignorant bigotry. Even with his notorious giggle, who better than the "silver fox" to increase the visibility in the fight for gay civil rights. This guy is a walking, talking "It Gets Better" video.

Though Cooper's declaration of gayness may come as a revelation to some, it won't be much of a surprise to followers of celebrity gossip websites and gay magazines, which have written about Cooper's sexuality for some time. As a staff writer at Gawker, I was one of those who wrote most often about the subject. I once published a post titled Anderson Cooper Is a Giant Homosexual and Everyone Knows It. Even this was two years after Out magazine put Cooper on the cover of its "glass closet" issue and five years after Village Voice legend Michael Musto first published the fact of his homosexuality. My point was that Anderson Cooper's sexual orientation was something that many journalists already knew, and refused to report.

This is important because, according to the letter that Anderson sentdecreasingly conservative gay blogger Andrew Sullivan declaring, "The fact is, I'm gay," is centered all around his own career as a journalist.

"Since my early days as a reporter, I have worked hard to accurately and fairly portray gay and lesbian people in the media – and to fairly and accurately portray those who for whatever reason disapprove of them. It is not part of my job to push an agenda, but rather to be relentlessly honest in everything I see, say and do. I've never wanted to be any kind of reporter other than a good one, and I do not desire to promote any cause other than the truth," Cooper wrote.

Those are precisely the same reasons that fueled what I am happy to admit was my personal crusade to nudge Cooper slowly out of the closet, whether he wanted to come or not. Every gay New Yorker with a set of eyes and a membership to David Barton Gym could see the truth, and I thought it the height of hypocrisy not to report it. The same held for journalists who either refused to ask questions about Anderson's personal life or, even worse, those who knew or witnessed the answer and refused to put it down on the record out of some misguided quest of decency. They never would have done that to a straight news anchor they were profiling. Cooper did not keep this secret alone and I thought all his accomplices should be held accountable.

That's why I felt the need to tell everyone that Anderson brought his boyfriend to the Vanity Fair Oscar party and was even photographed with him. It's why I also pointed out that they were partying together on a float when Anderson was the grand marshal of a Mardi Gras parade. And I snickered with delight when gossip column Page Six upgraded his boyfriend's status from "friend" to "companion", still afraid to take that final plunge in print and call him a "partner". I must have written dozens of stories over the years pointing out Cooper's orientation, details of hisboyfriend's personal life and the gay bar he runs, and pointing out the hilarity that he continued to maintain his increasingly feeble charade.

I got a lot of flak, from gays and straights alike, for talking about this issue at length before Cooper was ready to do it himself. I was told to give Anderson his privacy, that everyone always knew so he didn't have to make a statement, that straight newscasters don't come out so he doesn't have to either, and that coming out would put him in danger in certain parts of the world. I felt, and still feel, that all of that is bullshit.

I don't regret my onslaught at all, particularly now that it appears the press scrutiny (hopefully including my contributions) has played some part in his decision finally to knock the closet door off its hinges.

"It's become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something – something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true," Cooper wrote.

I'm glad that he acknowledged that, because it was the same argument I used against detractors of writing about his orientation – that being in the glass closet was even worse, because it shows people that being gay is something that should be hidden. In the last few years more and more media outlets have written about his sexuality to the point where Cooper's silence became absurd. Even the New York Times mentioned it, drawing only the most transparent of veils over the salient fact in a review of his his new talk show.

Journalism was at the center of this whole thing, and in the end, integrity won out. Cooper came to realize that, in the context of the greater struggles that gay men and women deal with in this country and around the world, sometimes we need to sacrifice a bit of our privacy for the greater good.

But today shouldn't be about finger pointing, credit claiming, or rehearsing the same old Anderson arguments we've been having for years. Today is a day that everyone who has ever had the courage to come out of the closet should be glad there is one more role model for all the gay children suffering through high school, that there is one more person to show all the mothers out there that having a gay child is a wonderful thing, that there is one more person to show that, no matter who you love, you can always have the courage to tell the truth.

Looks Like They found The Head of Lucas Magnotta’s Boyfriend

Police in Montreal announced on Sunday that they discovered what appears to be a human head in a city park and are now trying to determine whether it is the missing head of the Chinese student who was dismembered and cannibalized by a Canadian porn actor.

The suspect, 29-year-old Luka Magnotta, is accused of killing and chopping up his lover, 33-year-old Jun Lin, and then mailing the body parts to political parties and schools. Lin's head is the only remaining body part unaccounted for.

Last month, Magnotta pleaded not guilty to five charges against him, including first-degree murder. 

 

Search: Jun Lin's torso, hands and feet were discovered in several different locations shortly after his murder, and his missing head remains the only body part that is still unaccounted for

Montreal police spokesperson Anie Lemieux said investigators made their way to Park Angrignon on Sunday afternoon after the major crimes unit received a tip about a suspicious item spotted on the shore of a lake.

The park is located just a few miles south of Magnotta's apartment where the gruesome murder took place.

A large number of police officers and detectives were on the scene Sunday and a forensic identification truck was seen in the park, the Toronto Sun reported.

The entire area was closed to the public.

Lemieux said they must wait for tests results over the next few days to confirm if there is any link and whether it is in fact a body part.

Pleaded not guilty: Magnotta, 29, pleaded not guilty through his lawyer after arriving back in Montreal yesterday, where he was met with heavy security

 

No Way London’s Gay Pride Can Be Salvaged!

BY TRIS REID-SMITH

Global dating and radio company Gaydar have confirmed to Gay Star News that they tried to bail out the scaled-down World Pride event but were told it was too late.

Last week Pride London bosses, responsible for running World Pride in the British capital this year, had to pull floats out of the 7 July march and axe the street party in the gay district of Soho due to a ‘cash crisis’ which meant they didn’t have enough money for safety and security contractors.

Some reports have suggested that a meeting at City Hall may still salvage the event after extra cash was found. Others have said that meeting is just to confirm detailed arrangements for pride and nothing major can be expected.

Gaydar's new statement to GSN indicates the latter is the case.

Trevor Martin, CEO of Gaydar.co.uk, said: ‘Having learned last week that the organizers of World Pride were encountering financial difficulties which would significantly impact this year’s proceedings, QSoft Consulting, parent company of Gaydar.co.uk, immediately made the decision to offer considerable financial support to help rescue the event.

‘Following a number of conversations with the GLA, Pride London Board members both past and present, Westminster Council and local MP Jonathan Glanz we have sadly been informed that the licensing required to stage the event cannot be reinstated at this late stage and have been forced, therefore, to conclude that the World Pride event is beyond salvaging, regardless of cash investment.

‘I sincerely hope this situation can be avoided in future and that London can enjoy the pride event it deserves in 2013 and beyond.’

It again raises the question of whether the street party and parade could have been rescued if Pride London had notified potential backers in enough time that they were facing financial difficulties and needed more funds.

Pride insiders have also denied reports that the organization’s chair, Patrick Williams, has resigned. The whole board has faced calls to step down immediately.

Earlier today, Gay Star News reported that Pride London was suggesting people could use shopping trolleys in the parade after floats, cars and buses were taken out of the scaled-down event.

gaystarnews.com

Scientology's Role in the Tom Cruise’s Divorce

 

Holmes' fear that daughter Suri would be forced to join a demanding sect of the secretive church was reportedly the driving force behind the divorce petition

 

Tom Cruise and Scientology are a package deal, and because Katie Holmes reportedly never truly bought into it, the religion is believed to have played a big part in the divorce. Photo: REUTERS/Mario AnzuoniSEE ALL 9 PHOTOS

When Katie Holmes abruptlyfiled for divorce last week from Tom Cruise, her husband of five years, reports quickly began to surface linking the actress' decision to her increasing discomfort with the role of Scientology in the family's life. (Neither Cruise nor the church has publicly addressed the broader issues behind these reports.) The marriage "began with Cruise's leap onto Oprah's couch, and will end with a renewed public interest in Scientology, the controversial religion the pair shared," says Maura Judkis at The Washington Post. So what is it about Scientology that reportedly caused Holmes, who converted to the religion in 2005, to want out now? Here, a brief guide: 

Was Holmes ever into Scientology?Reportedly, yes. Cruise is one of most high-profile Scientologists in the country, and convinced Holmes to convert to the religion before their wedding in 2005. At first, reports The Daily Beast, Holmes was game, even allowing a church representative to accompany her to a W magazine shoot soon after her coupling with Cruise, and refusing to answer any question the representative didn't approve of. But she eventually became exasperated with the restrictive religion, and "reportedly hadn't been seen inside a Scientology Church for some time." She even enrolled her daughter, Suri, in a Catholic preschool. 

What role did religion play in the divorce?The truth is, "Katie has never been fully committed to Scientology," saysTMZ, and the divorce was likely spurred by arguments over how significant a part Scientology would play in Suri's life. Holmes was reportedly persuaded that Cruise would force Suri to enter the "ultrazealous Scientology group called Sea Org," says New York's Daily News. Perhaps cutting ties with Cruise was the only way to protect Suri from the religion,says The Washington Post. 

What is Sea Org?Sea Org stands for Sea Organization, a religious order within the Church of Scientology that former members describe as entailing an "odd mixture of military and corporate management styles," says Judith Welikala at TIME. The group is mostly populated by the church's most veteran members and their children, and kids as young as 5 join the group — sometimes without their parents' accompaniment. Members are reportedly obligated to sign a billion-year contract "to demonstrate their commitment to the organization." Holmes is expected to seek sole custody of Suri and remove her from the Scientology-linked New Village Leadership Academy, which she currently attends, to protect the girl from Sea Org. 

How is the church reacting?There have been numerous reports that members of the church were tailing Holmes in New York, driving the actress into a state of paranoia, says the New York Post. After several cars followed her all day, Holmes reportedly called the police out of fear that members of the religion were planning to abduct Suri. Church officials have denied that they were following her. Still, Holmes fired almost the entire team that worked for her while she was married to Cruise, including her former publicist and the security detail that was hired for her by her husband. 

Theweek.com

Tom Cruise, Time to Come Out?

This article originally appeared on The Weeklings.

Tom Cruise’s wife is leaving him.

A few days ago, Katie Holmes, the other half of TomKat, the mother of Tom’s only biological child, and the impetus of his notorious Oprah couch-jump, filed for divorce in New York. As Amy Argetsinger points out at the Washington Post, Holmes becomes the third Mrs. Cruise to jump ship at the age of 33 (which probably has some numerological-Scientological significance Beck would be able to explain).

About the only person surprised by this is Tom Cruise, who turns 50 today (he was born on the third of July).

Whatever went on behind closed doors, the Cruise-Holmes union seemed, to those of us following it obsessively at TMZ and Us Weekly, like a P.R. stunt. Holmes staggered through publicity appearances like a catatonic, while Cruise’s egregious and desperate determination to convince us that the relationship was legit comprised the worst performance of his acting career.

Let the record show that I’m a huge Tom Cruise fan. I love the guy. I became aware of him as an actor, as opposed to just a guy in the movies, when I went to see Interview with a Vampire. Anne Rice had been outspoken in her disappointment at the casting of Cruise as Lestat — and he wound up being the only thing in the movie worth watching. He killed in that flick. He kills in every flick. “Jerry Maguire,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Tropic Thunder,” “Magnolia,” “Collateral” — stand-out performances, all. Is he limited? Sure, but who isn’t? I may not like every movie he does (“Mission Impossible” is wretched, and “Vanilla Sky” is a train wreck), but I always like him. The guy is a movie star, plain and simple, and he’s been one for a staggeringly long period of time.

His personal life, however, is harder to get behind. It’s not so much what we know as what we don’t — or, rather, what we think we know. Yes, he’s a Scientologist … but what does that mean, exactly? Does he really believe all that stuff, or is Scientology just another high-profile acting job?

And then there’s the elephant in the room. The big, pink elephant.

The rumors have dogged him for decades now, since before he rocked out to Bob Seger in tighty-whities. That he wants to do it to for Johnny. That Mimi and Nicole and Katie were beautiful beards. That what he really desires is A Few Good Men.

If there is fire to be found in this great cloud of gay smoke, it would be remarkable. The guy’s been A-list famous since 1983, and there has been no public evidence at all, none, to support the rumors. Masseurs have not pressed charges against him; photographs of him kissing other men on the lips on a tarmac have not popped up on the Internet, unlike other movie-star Scientologists we can name. In this day and age, when so many celebrities rise and fall by virtue of a stray tweet, when everyone in greater Los Angeles has a camera phone and thus the capability to catch him in flagrante delicto, it’s almost inconceivable that he could be acting on these alleged homoerotic impulses. Either he’s straight, or he gives new meaning to the term Cruise control.

But if the rumors are true … if he does prefer the company of men … if his impossible mission is to be an openly gay action-movie star, his course of action now is clear: Tom Cruise needs to take a page from the Anderson Cooper playbook. He needs to come out, he needs to come out big-time, and when he gets hitched again, he should marry a guy.

It’s not like this sort of disclosure is unprecedented. Cary Grant confessed to bisexuality when he was an old man; so did Richard Burton. Why not Tom Cruise?

Yes, this would be incredibly brave — the sort of courage we come to expect from a man who so convincingly played Maverick and Ethan Hunt. It would also be admirable to the Nth degree. One press release would transform him from thrice-divorced Scientologist weirdo to civil rights hero and gay icon. He could live his life out in the open, and in so doing, make the world a better, more tolerant place. And instead of jumping on Oprah’s couch, he could jump on Ellen’s.

That’s if he’s gay. (Note to the attorneys for Mr. Cruise: I am merely repeating oft-repeated rumors, and this should not be read as an endorsement of them). If he’s not — if the real Tom Cruise is exactly what he’s shown us — then take note, Mila Kunis and Eliza Dushku and Amber Heard and every other hot Hollywood 20-something on the make: Mrs. Tom Cruise is a plum part, and auditions will be held soon.