Northwest Indiana Discussion

The Obama campaign’s latest attack tells the story of workers at an Indiana office supply company who lost their jobs after a Bain-owned company named American Pad & Paper (Ampad) took over their company and drove it out of business.

Here’s what the Obama Web video doesn’t mention: A top Obama donor and fundraiser had a much more direct tie to the controversy and actually served on the board of directors at Richardson, Texas-based Ampad, which makes office paper products.

Jonathan Lavine is a long-time Bain Capital executive and co-owner of the Boston Celtics. He is also one of President Obama’s most prolific fundraisers. He has already raised more than $200,000 for the Obama campaign this election, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Lavine started working for Bain in 1993. He was one of three Bain executives who served on the board of directors of Ampad for several years, a post he held until 1999. Here’s a news release announcing his departure from the company in April 1999.

Lavine’s placement on the board of Ampad suggests he had a more direct role than Romney in the series of events surrounding the layoffs, labor disputes and eventual bankruptcy of the Marion, Ind., factory featured in the Obama campaign video.

UPDATE: Alex Stanton, a spokesperson for Bain Capitol, does not dispute that Lavine was on the board of Ampad, but insists that he had nothing to do with the workers being laid off in Marion, Indiana.

“Jonathan Lavine was not at Bain Capital when Ampad was acquired by the firm, and was not involved on the investment during the challenging situation at the Marion plant. The assertion he had any involvement with those events is totally false,” said Stanton in a statement.

Obama ducks calls to release
his collegiate transcripts
Washington Times, by Dave Boyer

When President Obama gave the commencement address last week at the Air Force Academy, he congratulated the cadets for excelling at one of the most demanding schools in the country.

But decades after Mr. Obama completed his own college course work, his academic performance is still a mystery. Before and after his election as president, Mr. Obama has refused to release his college transcripts from his days as an undergraduate and a law school student.

Most presidents’ academic records are made public by the time they reach the highest office in the land, either with their consent or by someone else digging them up.

“There’s no reason why people shouldn’t know,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who focuses on the presidency. “At this point, it’s pretty moot — perhaps amusing if it turned out that he didn’t do very well.”

But whenever Team Obama is asked about the president’s college performance, officials dodge the question, obviously with Mr. Obama’s blessing.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... te-transc/

President Barack Obama has said his administration is the most most transparent administration in the modern era.

But a new report by the Information Security Oversight Committee found that in 2011, the Obama Administration spent a record $12 billion to keep documents secret, a 12 percent increase over last year's classification costs. As Asawin Suebsaeng of the liberal Mother Jones publication puts it, "It's safe to say that it is long past due to officially declare the Obama era a transparency #fail."

President Barack Obama will accept unlimited corporate donations for his inauguration in January, reversing his position from his first inauguration, according to two sources close to the planning.

The legal maximum donation for an inauguration is $250,000, but four years ago, the president capped all contributions at $50,000 and barred companies from kicking in any money. Obama had also banned corporate money from the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

But the sources say the new decision is driven by pragmatism: the president and his team just wrapped up the most expensive campaign in history – with costs topping $1 billion – and they’ve determined that their donors are simply tapped out.

This isn’t the president’s first reversal from a previous stance on contributions. After nearly two years of blasting super PACs for their involvement in politics, as the election ramped up in February he announced he wouldn’t mind his supporters writing multi-million dollar checks to the groups.