Mitt Romney, high school bully?

[Politico]

BTW, anybody remember the fake Bush AWOL letter?

No, but I remember the REAL Bush AWOL letter.

The one that was printed off MS Word in 1970-something, before Microsoft even existed? LOL

[Politico]

I'll add that AIDS did probably kill most *openly* gay men - the reason being is that getting AIDS was essentially a forced outing...

True. Maybe this aspect is clouding my judgment. Things were more closeted back then, and most openly gay men ended up being outed by the disease. I probably know gay men who are older than 50 and still alive, but just do not know they are gay.

Politico's '50% of sexually active gays died of AIDS' claim is quite fun.

There were 76,546,000 people born between 1940 and 1962 (18 years before 1980), of which 39,038,000 were men and approx 35,000,000 survived to 1980. At least 7% of men have sex with men (MSM) which gives us 2,450,000 sexually active gay men (and regardless of what shams some of them were living in, you can be damned sure they were having sex)

So we are looking, if Politico isn't talking out of his ass (which of course he is) at some 1.225million gay deaths from AIDS; that's excluding those born before 1940 and after 1962.

A total of 600,000 people in the USA have died from HIV/AIDS related complications, of which 300,000 involved MSM. Based on figures from 2007, that includes those born as late as say 1989. So if we add all them into the mix we have a potential adult population of 20.1 million MSM of all ages, all born before, during and after HIV/AIDS was first identified set against deaths of 600,000.

Deaths from HIV/AIDS related complications - 0.29%. Even if you take just 1% rather than 7% of the population, you still have deaths at about 2%.

That's actually more dubious than Politico's claim, since he is correct that HIV deaths were highly concentrated among men born between those years, and also in the period when the disease was most deadly (late 70s to late 80s) cause of death was very frequently misdiagnosed.  AIDS did kill a *massive* amount of gay men, although claiming a figure as high as 50 or 60% is pretty unlikely.

Maybe giving a range of 45-75% was wrong. But I am almost certain the number is not lower than 33%.

[Politico]

The winning argument here is that Mittens was in F'ing High School, and we all did stuff there to one degree or another, and folks grow up. After you "win," you let go. It's really easy.

Yes. Let's get back to this. The whole AIDS thing is what it is, and there's no point talking about it anymore. I've said my part.

[IDS Legislator Alfred F. Jones]

And you needed five posts why...?

Back on topic: Bullying isn't cool, but it's not like Mitt's going to forcibly cut peoples' hair on the campaign trail.

[Progressive Realist]

but it's not like Mitt's going to forcibly cut peoples' hair on the campaign trail.

Well with Mitt's tendency for gaffes, nothing will surprise me.

[Diabolical Minds Think Alike]

This thread, in 12 pages, describes my hatred for the 2012 board.

[wildfood]

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Mitt Romney reminds me so much of my high school principal that it's not even funny.

[HardRCafé]

(e.g., even Elton John wasn't having sex with men before 1980).

Elton John was open about gay sex as early as a 1976 Rolling Stone interview.  Not that you got anything else right either.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

I apologize for any misunderstanding, but you said that "recreational cocaine use" is "unlikely to directly affect others." I am sorry, but you do realize how cocaine is bought and sold, right (i.e., how the market currently works)?...

Yes.  Do you understand what "unlikely" means?

Every time someone buys cocaine, the cost of the cocaine they bought reflects the costs involved in getting the cocaine to them (along with a profit margin, of course). Part of those costs include extreme violence among warring drug producers (e.g., gangsters like Pablo Escobar in Obama's era, and the Mexican drug cartels today). There are few cocaine producers who are NOT involved in violence, and there are few recreational cocaine users who did not pay for their cocaine. In other words, recreational cocaine use is LIKELY to directly affect others in a violent, harmful way. Of course, the only remedy to ending the violence is by ending the black market via legalization. But that will not happen anytime soon.

Yes, but these are big piles of cocaine we are talking about.  Purchasing cocaine certainly has a marginal effect on all these negative consequences of the drug trade, but my statement was that any individual, discrete cocaine purchase is unlikely to itself have a direct effect.  You're right that it contributes to the overall effect on the margins, but is the effect of its overall portion of the contribution obviously greater than the negative effect of tormenting someone socially?  That's not necessarily evident to me.

The winning argument here is that Mittens was in F'ing High School, and we all did stuff there to one degree or another, and folks grow up. After you "win," you let go. It's really easy.

Yes. Let's get back to this. The whole AIDS thing is what it is, and there's no point talking about it anymore. I've said my part.

not really...even at your pre-revised figure of 60%, your original assertion still stands as really bizarre

[Fuzzy]

I approve of this meme.

[pbrower2a]

So if someone illegally downloaded Beyonce's music because they'd rather not pay a black girl, that's a hate crime? All right, pal. You stick with that.

That would be as much a copyright violation as would be illegally downloading a recording of a Wagner opera conducted by Herbert von Karajan because one hates Germans.

[Purch]

Really? I thought Republican's were the party that's become really radical.

But the liberal media blowing things up from what a teenager did in high school and speaking about it like it' like it's fair game. Yet this is the same media who's completely trashed news sites that bring up Treyvon's martians suspension and marijuana use during that incident and speak about how what a kid does as a teen shouldn't be relevant to a scandal.

The problem with Republicans and Dems is you guys want to have it both ways.

How about people actually run a campaign without using retarded gimicks and things to sidetrack the people how about a campaign not run about someone's high school career, religion, race ext. How about people just run a campaign about their vision for America.

O wait I forgot this is what American politics has downgraded to.

[AmericanNation]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the family of the kid knocking down this whole thing and ripping the post.  Also, a "witness" wasn't there and the "long bothered by it" was he heard about it 3 weeks ago... classic hit piece collapse. 

[Secretary Polnut]

Well Romney apologised for it... so I think the issue as to whether it happened or not isn't really one...  HOWEVER, as I said before, Romney may have been a douchebag at school... who cares? It's a non-story as far as I'm concerned, much like whatever Obama did when he was 6....

[Grad Students are the Worst]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the family of the kid knocking down this whole thing and ripping the post.  Also, a "witness" wasn't there and the "long bothered by it" was he heard about it 3 weeks ago... classic hit piece collapse. 

?

[AmericanNation]

Mitt Romney?

[AmericanNation]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the family of the kid knocking down this whole thing and ripping the post.  Also, a "witness" wasn't there and the "long bothered by it" was he heard about it 3 weeks ago... classic hit piece collapse. 

?

Christine Lauber, the older sister of Romney’s classmate, John Lauber, claims she has no knowledge of the bullying incident involving her brother, who passed away from liver cancer in 2004. When ABC News showed Christine the story, she became agitated and somewhat emotional.

“Even if it did happen, John probably wouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story].”

Betsy, another sister, spoke up about the incident as well. Aside from stating that the portrayal of her brother is inaccurate, she said the family is frustrated that the story is being used to push a political agenda.

“The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda,” she said. “There will be no more comments from the family.”

...“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and said he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago, before being contacted by The Washington Post. “But I was not the brunt of any of his pranks.”  ...This, of course, calls into question the notion that White was bothered by the incident for a long time (after all, he just learned about it).

[AmericanNation]

I also didn't realize this was a prep school that the students lived at, which totally changes the dynamic.  A team/tribal situation for sure. 

[InsaneTrollLogic]

I'm not reading this thread, but from what I understand, it seems that I'm not surprised. Romney is definitely an Alpha. He's a dick and people love him because he brings certainty into people's lives, even if it is at their expense. Everyone will rant against this but bar chicks  and co-workers like this....and voters love this for that matter. This is the only reason why Mitt could be 45.

[Jayhawker]

http://news.yahoo.com/maxwell-brothers-tales-romney-hair-cutting-incident-differ-165926030--abc-news-politics.html

One of the Maxwell brothers has a different story of Romney's behavior.

"For Mitt to be a bully just shocks me. We grew up with him. He was the kind of a guy who would bend over backwards to do something for you and would go out of his way to help people and for him to be characterized as a bully would be the farthest thing from the truth," Maxwell said.

[Gravis Marketing]

What do Lauber's sisters' views have to do with anything? They weren't there, and it was otherwise corroborated. I'm sure they sincerely don't want their brother's bullying to be a point against Romney, and as senior citizens who went to prep school it's not hard to imagine they'll vote for him. But so what?

[Young Lawyer]

Barack Obama was snorting cocaine as an adult yet Mitt Romney is being attacked for something that may or may not have happened? And if this John Lauber was really a homosexual, he'd probably be dead by now given what happened to most homosexuals his age in the '80s and '90s (e.g., Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, etc.)

Because snorting cocaine in your bedroom is the equivalent of deliberately ganging up on and assaulting a kid because his hair-cut was too faggy.

[Torie]

Barack Obama was snorting cocaine as an adult yet Mitt Romney is being attacked for something that may or may not have happened? And if this John Lauber was really a homosexual, he'd probably be dead by now given what happened to most homosexuals his age in the '80s and '90s (e.g., Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, etc.)

Because snorting cocaine in your bedroom is the equivalent of deliberately ganging up on and assaulting a kid because his hair-cut was too faggy.

Another lawyer is on the premises? Soon we may have enough to form a Bar Association.

[Diabolical Minds Think Alike]

Barack Obama was snorting cocaine as an adult yet Mitt Romney is being attacked for something that may or may not have happened? And if this John Lauber was really a homosexual, he'd probably be dead by now given what happened to most homosexuals his age in the '80s and '90s (e.g., Freddie Mercury, Liberace, Rock Hudson, etc.)

Because snorting cocaine in your bedroom is the equivalent of deliberately ganging up on and assaulting a kid because his hair-cut was too faggy.

Another lawyer is on the premises? Soon we may have enough to form a Bar Association.

Indeed