Did Young Romney Impersonate a Police Officer?
Another witness steps forward
According to Robin Madden, who had also just arrived as a freshman, the startling incident began when Romney called him and two or three other residents into his room, saying, "Come up, I want to show you something." When they entered Romney's room, " laid out on his bed was a Michigan State Trooper's uniform," Madden said.
Madden, a native Texan who graduated from Stanford in 1970 and went on to become a successful television producer and writer, has never forgotten that strange moment, which he has recounted to friends over the years as he observed his former classmate's political ascent. The National Memo learned of the incident from a longtime Madden friend to whom he had mentioned it years ago.
Said Madden in a recent interview, "[Romney] told us that he had gotten the uniform from his father," George Romney, then the governor of Michigan, whose security detail was staffed by uniformed troopers. "He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler."
In Madden's recollection, confirmed by his wife, Susan, who also attended Stanford during those years, "We thought it was all pretty weird. We all thought, 'Wow, that's pretty creepy.' And after that, we didn't have much interaction with him," although both Madden and Romney were prep school boys living in the same dorm, called Rinconada.
Other eyewitnesses have previously recalled Romney's alleged use of a police or trooper uniform in pranks during his high school years at the exclusive Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
Phillip Maxwell, a prep school buddy, told The New Republic in 2008 that Romney had pulled over students from a girls' school next door to Cranbrook while wearing a police uniform as a prank. Other former classmates described Mitt as a "happy-go-lucky guy known less for his achievements and more for his pranks."
'A Terrible Thing to Do'
In The Real Romney, a biography published by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman this year, another former friend recalled how Romney had "put a siren on top of his car and chased two of his friends who were driving around with their dates." The two friends were in on the scheme, but the girls were not. There was beer in the car trunk, according to a prearranged plan. Mitt told his two counterparts to get out of their vehicle and into his car. Then they drove off, leaving the girls behind.
"It was a terrible thing to do," said one of his accomplices, a Cranbrook classmate named Graham McDonald.
To some observers, Romney's alleged masquerading as a cop to intimidate innocent drivers shows a character defect that is also revealed by other bullying incidents during his youth. When those incidents were disclosed in The Washington Post earlier this year, Romney issued an apology of sorts, stating that he had done "stupid" things and was sorry if he had harmed anyone.
While he may have believed that his cop antics were harmless, Romney may well have been breaking the law merely by donning a police uniform—committing a crime if he pretended to be a cop and committing a felony if he did so more than once. In both California and Michigan, any person convicted of fraudulently impersonating a police officer may be sentenced to up to one year in prison.
The Romney campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Following his sophomore year at Stanford, young Mitt left and never went back. For more than two years, he served as a Mormon missionary in France—thus avoiding the obligation to wear a very different uniform in Vietnam.
With reporting by Kyle Roerink.
© 2012 Creators.com
Wonder if Mitt ever used a fake ID to buy beer? Or heaven forbit - inhaled!!! Obviously Joe Conason didn't go to college.
Imagine that, Romney, once a normal college freshman. Wow.
Like women who want a man who is a "Gentleman"... Define "Gentleman" when we have establishments known as "Gentlemen's Clubs". In other words, a "Gentleman" is a man wealthy enough to buy his way out of his indiscretions... kind of like what you see celebrities doing. (stretch that to being a "Lady", and the likes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and such). Is that the world you as a taxpaying, law-abiding voter really wants? Of course, so long as it is your kind getting that privilege... such as simply by being white and having an establishment haircut and clothing.
And you will let Mitt slide, but will constantly call out Obama's birth certificate and his work as a "Community Activist" as something bad advocating for those who do not have money, or put down "Loop-hole Louie" for doing his job as a defense attorney?
The EIC AFDC types pull pranks all the time. They choose the poor lifestyle and fake being stupid so they can retire on welfare. They have a big laugh at taxpayer expense. They are laughing all the way to the checkout counter in the supermarket with their cart full steaks and lobster. Then go load them in their big luxary cars. Then laugh into their cell phones on the way home. Then watch cable TV and watch porn on the internet, smoking Newports and drinking tall-boys.
Listen to what you are saying...
SO these deadbeats are laughing... but what else are they doing? That luxury car was profit for some private cvar-maker. Those steaks and lobsters is profit for your private Pick N Save. The cigs and drinks is profit for other local small-businesses. The cell-phones and cabel-porn is profit for some private communication company. That is money for those who DO work. That is money that is then taxed and paid to the government.
The ones who are laughing are the ones you see, the quiet ones are not laughing, not living large. there is lots more of them than the ones who laugh. But, you would cut off all the truly needy just to get those visible scammers. (And there are aslo plenty of scammers in the monied ranks as well, the ones you want to preserve).
Remember the old joke about the college kid who phoned home and said "Dad, I need $600 to buy a set of encyclopedias". The kid was whining to his drinking buds "I don't have the money to party with you, he sent me the Encyclopedias instead of the $600."
Want to fix the problem? Then do an Israeli type draft. They require all men AND WOMEN to do 1 year of government service when they turn 18 (only military in Israel). Suppose we required that mandatory 1-year of service, but gave a choice... military, or social-support. Put in place that 1-year of service in an army of social-support workers that deliver the actual goods and services to the truly needy, not cash to both the needy and the scammers. Bring food to their homes, provide babysitting and child sick care so the needy can work their W2 jobs without making the employers regret hiring them. Provide transportation to the schools and W2 jobs, not to their johns and mistresses. Have them watch over the neighborhoods to make sure the black market dealers aren't providing the booze, cigs, and weed in exchange for bottles of liquid Tide. And make sure the steaks are not being fed to any Pit Bulls.
It's going to take the vigilance of us all to make sure that public charity is properly applied.
The first thing I would do is cancel all welfare and food stamps. Provide rice and beans only. Then set up a public works program. If you want your welfare you must work at least 16 hours a day servicing the taxpayers. And thats only if you pass a drug test first. Druggies get zero. Then I'd work those welfare types hard. Harder than they ever imagined. I'd have them on their hands and knees scrubbing the streets clean and picking up litter. Wading in the rivers and cleaning them up. I'd get the National Guard, the police, and sheriff's officer zipping up and down the streets like Rat Patrol rounding up all those collecting welfare and unemployment. If you want to avoid getting picked up, then I suggest gettingoff those wefare rolls and get job ASAP. In no time at all people would either get jobs or move away. Problem solved.
And in about 2 days, the machine gun on the back of your Rat Patrol jeep would be shooting them all dead, plus any do-gooders nearby as collateral damage. Then the assets of that collateral damage will then be available to your fellow "good citizens" to swoop in and steal. Yeah, nice visual!
Remember Ron Johnson, using prisoners in his factory? Hiring these government subsidized convicts was also denying jobs for other law-abiding Americans!... so "we need more businessmen in government"?
The real problem of having all "them" working 16 hours a day to do tasks that should be done by gainfully employable 8-hour a day workers is that the value of the work for the non-welfare workers would also drop, and they would end up on welfare too. To raise pay, got to limit the amount of workers (or limit the amount of hours worked per person). Increasing the amount of hours worked will reduce pay for all of them... simple Supply and Demand.
What you say makes no sense. So we should have people in prison and on welfare to limit the labor force? I disagree. Everybody works, thats my plan. People could get by on less money because they pay less taxes that were being used as welfare checks.
Our cities should be spotless. 35th and North should be the garden spot of the state. We should have chain gains of prisoners and welfare types, violently working as fast as they can, rapidly scrubbing the streets and sidewalks.
Back when I was a kid just about everyone I knew had a black lady working for them, cleaning, shopping, babysitting. You know what, I don't know danm person today with a black maid. Hell even my maid is Polish, and immigrant. Not much for work. Earns most of her pay on back. Then skyping mom back home the rest of the time. But what ever happened to having good minority domestic help?
Well we raised taxes so no one could afford a maid, and then paid out those taxes to the women who would have been our maids.
Trust me. Dropping taxes to zero, dropping the minimum wage to whatever a hungry person can negotiate, that still won't yield enough money to hire a maid. Even if an unpaid "slave" was given to the working household, they still would not be able to feed and shelter that slave.
The real honest truth of why T-Publicans are so angry, private workers are pissed at the public workers, and marxist everyone else no longer has the energy to even get out and vote is because the private sector (where it is NEVER "make-work" by your definition) has not been able to keep up with the rising cost of living life. Because private business works so well these days, always paying less than what the work is worth, and charging more than what the product is worth, just running it long enough will eventually move all the wealth to the top.
The constant change of outsourcing, businesses using the power of scale and organization against the divided and segregated consumer/worker, just leaves more money moving toward the top 1% than what comes back down through taxes or private spending. "Obama wants to redistribute your wealth" totally ignored the fact the the crony capitalism system that was lobbied for and built is already "Redistributing your wealth to the top 1%".
Obama can raise the tax raties to 75%, it won't affect me much. Most of my income is from double tax free municipal bonds. I have several million and I hardly pay any tax at all. I'm sick of the press whining that millionaires don't pay taxes. Well, if I invested in taxable 8% bonds I would be. But I choose to help build schools, roads, and hospitals and accept a 4% tax free rate.