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Sunday, January 26, 2014

News conference: Is the Chicago Tribune hiding corporate murder by Bruce Rauner?



Corruption fighter Andy Martin accuses the Chicago Tribune and Illinois media of trying to cover-up “corporate murder” by Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner. Andy calls Rauner “The Wolf of LaSalle Street,” and questions whether Rauner’s media spending is causing local media to soft-pedal evidence of Rauner’s misdeeds.


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Attention Illinois daybook/assignment editors

Announcement of Chicago telephone news conference Monday

Andy Martin accuses the Chicago Tribune of trying to “insulate” and “immunize” Bruce Rauner from Rauner’s history of corporate murder

Andy questions why Chicago media are trying to soft-pedal corporate murder by gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner – Part One of an Eight-part series

(Editor’s note: Andy Martin now lives in New Hampshire where he is a U. S. Senate candidate. But Andy continues his nationwide political and judicial corruption fighting; his Chicago crime-fighting efforts remain active. If you have hard evidence of political or judicial corruption anywhere in the United States, please let us know.)

(Chicago) (January 26, 2014)  Andy Martin will hold a telephone news conference Monday, January 27th to discuss whether the Chicago Tribune is trying to soft-pedal corporate murder by Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner.

“I believe the charge of ‘corporate murderer’ can legitimately be made against Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner,” Andy says. “I have had a series of articles on Rauner in preparation for several months; but a story which was issued by Republican News Watch (link below) caught my attention. The Chicago Tribune’s soft-pedal response to the Republican News Watch story confirmed my suspicions: Illinois media are ignoring serious evidence of ‘corporate murder’ by Bruce Rauner and his financial cronies (see Tribune story link below).

1. Corporate murder during the 2012 presidential campaign

“During the 2012 presidential campaign Barack Obama’s mudslingers accused Mitt Romney of corporate murder. Obama’s minions alleged, in a powerful TV ad and relentless cable TV appearances, that Romney's closure of a plant had led to the death of a worker’s wife and that Romney was guilty of her murder.

“The murder charge was totally bogus. The wife had died long after the plant closed, and the wife had access to ongoing health insurance through her own job. Nevertheless, Romney never really rebutted Obama’s malignant accusations; the false impression that Mitt Romney's greed was killing his employees lingered to Election Day.

“While the corporate murder charges against Romney were both false and unfair, I believe that a fair-minded review of the evidence confirms that accusations of corporate murder against Bruce Rauner have a legitimate basis.

2. The basis for accusing Rauner of corporate murder

A. Why accusations of murder against Rauner’s murder are different

“In Mitt Romney’s case, the accusation of corporate murder was based on indirect causation. Democrats charged that a plant closure had led to cancellation of health insurance, and the loss of insurance had precipitated a death many years later. The facts did not support the claims against Romney.

B. Rauner was personally responsible for the operation of his business

“Public figures and politicians who take ‘personal reasonability’ for their incompetence, from Hillary Clinton all the way down to local jerks, have become a colossal bore. When they take ‘personal responsibility’ they are usually trying to evade actual responsibility. Rauner’s case of corporate murder represents a classic situation where the corporate murderer tries to shift blame for his greed to third parties.

“In business, when you are an owner or execute of a business you are legally responsible for all aspects of your business. As the Tribune admits, ‘Rauner, however, was GTCR’s chairman when it moved into the nursing home business…as well as when the health care firm put itself into receivership 11 years later…’ He was a chief executive and owner of the nursing home firm’s parent company.

3. How Rauner ran his nursing home business

A. The day-to-day operations of Rauner’s nursing homes

“Any business needs workers and supplies to operate properly. In the case of manufacturing businesses, lack of adequate safety precautions on the plant floor that lead to employee deaths can support charges of criminal negligence. If employees are deprived of the proper tools and proper supplies to perform their duties, management is guilty.

“Rauner’s culpability is much more serious than that of an ordinary business executive. Most businesses produce goods or services that a customer can accept or reject. No one has to go into a dirty place of business or purchase a defective product. But nursing home residents are often helpless senior citizens who can’t care for their basic needs (which is why they are in a nursing home); they are extremely vulnerable to abuse and neglect. Nursing home patients can’t simply pick up and walk out. Increasingly today, many patients are held in locked areas because of their progressive Alzheimer’s deterioration.

“By demanding excessive profits and depriving his employees of the essential resources – supplies and employees – to properly run his business, Rauner created conditions where care was denied and where it was inevitable that patients would eventually die from neglect and abuse. The consequences of Rauner’s greed were completely foreseeable and predictable: patient deaths.

B. The massive financial corruption of Rauner’s business

“Rauner is part of a class of business people today that are little more than ‘white collar’ criminals. Rauner & Co. call themselves ‘private equity’ operators. In most instances ‘private equity’ does not amount to building and investing in a business. ‘Private equity’ involves stealing value from public stockholders and then cutting costs to the point of running the business into the ground. That was Rauner’s method.

“Rauner not only stole from his nursing home patients he also stole from employees and other suppliers by putting his businesses into receivership and bankruptcy. Why would anyone, least of all a ‘conservative’ Republican, vote for a corporate scam artist as a gubernatorial candidate?

“Rauner’s creation of corporate shell entities to insulate his assets and personal wealth from his creditors represents a pattern of fraudulent conveyances which are illegal under federal law and can lead to criminal charges (we’ll be working to see Rauner is indicted). The Tribune story slides right over the impact of Rauner’s Mafia-style mismanagement. The Tribune’s reporters had no concept of fraudulent conveyances and did not consult a newspaper lawyer wile preparing their story.

4. Rauner’s excuses as presented by the Chicago Tribune

“Rauner’s mouthpiece Mike Schrimf makes two very predictable defenses. First, Schrimf says Rauner ‘had nothing to do with the management of the nursing home company…’ when Rauner was the chief executive of the corporate parent. That’s nonsense. A privately-owned corporate parent is almost always liable for the misdeeds of its subsidiaries, particularly in cases such as Rauner’s where debt is used to create a pyramid scheme.

“Second, Schrimf rolls out the typical Republican response that ‘trial lawyers’ are behind Rauner’s problems. No, Mr. Rauner, like Benghazi, real people died in your nursing homes.

“Mr. Rauner, your corruption and mismanagement led to real deaths. Senior citizens were slaughtered through the abuse and neglect of your employees while you were the corporate chief. “Mr. Rauner used his business enterprises to enrich himself; he brought about the deaths of helpless senior citizens in the process.

“The Tribune tries to suggest that a Rauner opponent, State Senator Kirk Dillard, ‘cribbed’ the nursing home story from an ‘anti-Rauner blogger.’ The original blog story was based on facts, evidence, court records and links to local news stories in the areas where the helpless patients of Mr. Rauner had been butchered by Rauner’s employees. Senator Dillard did not ‘crib’ anything. Dillard merely commented on the facts and the evidence. The Tribune’s attempt to use derisive language towards Dillard, and to minimize Rauner’s corruption and greed, is a despicable media cover-up.

“Just as Hillary Clinton continues to be dogged by evidence of corruption and mismanagement because of her State Department’s response to Benghazi, Mr. Rauner cannot escape liability and responsibility for the blood on his hands from the dead patients who were butchered under his corporate leadership and management.

“Unlike Mitt Romney, Mr. Rauner is a genuine corporate murderer,” Andy says. “Rauner did not stick a poison needle in his patients, but he deprived them of medical care and allowed them to die horrible deaths from neglect and abuse. Many prosecutors would agree that Rauner’s egregious level of negligence and greed, and Rauner’s gross mismanagement of human beings under his care, amount to criminal negligence. Rauner is criminally liable for the deaths of his patients. Mr. Rauner used his corporate entities as instruments of death,” Andy charges.

Stay tuned for Part Two: Who is Bruce Rauner and why won’t Chicago media tell the truth about him?

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January 27th [TELEPHONE] News Conference Details:

WHO:
         
Corruption fighter and New Hampshire U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin

WHAT:
    
Andy Martin asks whether the Chicago Tribune is trying to cover-up corporate murder by candidate Bruce Rauner

WHERE:

Telephone news conference:

Dial-in Number: 1-800-466-8543

Conference Code: 510518

WHEN:

Monday, January 27th – 11:00 A.M. CST (Noon EST)
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MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639; CELL (917) 664-9329; E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com

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LINKS TO THIS STORY (cut and paste the entire link below and not just the underlined portion):

http://republicannewswatch.com/wp/?p=13297


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ABOUT ANDY:

Andy is a legendary New Hampshire, New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, talk television pioneer, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Andy’s family immigrated to Manchester 100 years ago; today his home overlooks the Merrimack River and he lives around the corner from where he played as a small boy. He has forty-five years of background in radio and television. He is the author of “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” [www.OrangeStatePress.com] and he produced the Internet film "Obama: The Hawaii’ Years” [www.BoycottHawaii.com]. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” www.ContrarianCommentary.com. He comments on New Hampshire, national and international events with more than four decades of investigative and analytical experience both in the USA and around the world. For more, go to: www.AndyMartin.com

Andy has also been a leading corruption fighter in American politics and courts for over forty-five years and he is executive director of the National Anti-Corruption Policy Institute. He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com. See also www.FirstRespondersOnline.us; www.EnglishforAmerica.org

He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).

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