What's the rebuttal to the "Bain offered Soptic a buy-out, but he wouldn't take it" meme?

[Ken Burch]

That's become the big right-wing counterattack to the Soptic ad...

What's the reality there?

And would taking the buy-out have made any difference?

[freshwest]

1. Not enough info. What's the source of this claim?

I think there is a thread about the latest manufactured lie by the Drudge Report, but I don't see it on the page now. Must have slipped off into obscurity.

[Ken Burch]

2. Here's one source...

it's from something close to a hate site, and I'm sorry to have to link to it, but here it is:

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/09/a-word-on-joe-soptic/

[freshwest]

4. His only source is some Freeper at Breitbart.com. No use in trying to refute. This is O'Keefe land.

[Ken Burch]

6. Just didn't want to leave the smear unanswered if possible.

Should've known it would be Breitbart.

[Yeah Its Spin]

3. from this interview

[freshwest]

8. That's good, although it's not all there, really. Breitbart took it and ran with it.

They are infamous for editing clips and putting their own spin on it. They've done it repeatedly at great harm to those they've targeted with malicious intentions. Thanks for the clip to see what they did with it.

[Ken Burch]

11. Here's the full transcript of Amy Goodman's interview of Soptic(from which that clip was excerpted)

(obviously, it gives a significantly DIFFERENT picture of Soptic's situation than that edited snippet did)



AMY GOODMAN: That was Mitt Romney answering Julie Kushner’s question, regional director of the UAW, in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Joining us now from Kansas City is Joe Soptic, former steelworker at Worldwide Grinding Systems, who has lost his job after a declared bankruptcy under Bain’s control. He’s speaking to us from Kansas City’s PBS station KCPT.

Joe, explain what happened.

JOE SOPTIC: Well, I guess the first thing I noticed after the company was bought out by GST, they became very union-non-friendly. I mean, they started looking for ways to eliminate jobs. In my case, in my department, they actually offered to buy our jobs out from underneath us. They cut back on safety equipment. You know, the working environment just wasn’t as good as
it should be.

AMY GOODMAN: You worked at the plant for 28 years? Explain how it changed.

JOE SOPTIC: Well, one of the big things that I noticed was they didn’t maintain the equipment. The electric arc furnaces, when they broke down, sometimes they would sit for two or three days or a week before they had parts. When AK Steel owned the company, everything was well maintained. The transportation department, all of the equipment that we had to use to haul things around the plant, a lot of it would break down, and so, you know, they would use that as an excuse to bring in outside contractors, non-union contractors. You know, they were after—they were constantly after our jobs.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened to your 401(k)?

JOE SOPTIC: The 401(k), well, I don’t think our 401(k) was affected. Our retirement was affected. When they went—when we had the—when we got the bankruptcy deal, I lost $400 off of my retirement, because the pension fund was underfunded.

AMY GOODMAN: Every month.

JOE SOPTIC: Yes, every month.

AMY GOODMAN: You lost $400. And what happened to your family?

JOE SOPTIC: Yeah. Well, basically, what happened, my wife had to quit working, and we didn’t have any health insurance on her. I went to work for a suburban school district, so I had health insurance, but I had to start out at substantially less money. I went from about $59,000 a year down to $24,800 a year. And I couldn’t afford health insurance on her. And she became ill, and we discovered that she had cancer. And, you know, we had no health insurance. So, the only recourse that I had was we took her to a county hospital. And unfortunately, she passed away from the cancer. And when she did, I had this big bill. And the only way that—the county had agreed that they would cover the bill, but I had to liquidate all of my 401(k)s. So I lost my 401(k)s.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Romney defended Bain Capital by saying that profits went to regular people’s 401(k)s. What message do you have, overall, for Mitt Romney, as he runs for president of the United States?

JOE SOPTIC: Well, I’ll tell you how I feel, is that if he would run the country the way that he ran our business, I wouldn’t want him in there as president—

AMY GOODMAN: And Andy Sullivan—

JOE SOPTIC: —because I don’t think he has any sympathy for the average working person.

(link to entire interview with Romney actualities here)

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/10/laid_off_steelworker_mitt_romney_and

[Ken Burch]

10. If anybody has a moment and wishes to do so

I'd recommend going to the YouTube comments section for that clip and posting something pro-Soptic. The clip was posted by a Romney apologist with the intent of discrediting Soptic and the current batch of comments is hard core reichwing.

[Kalidurga]

5. Doesn't matter....

Even with a buy out would he have had health insurance for his wife. If the ACA had been in place she would have had health insurance and would probably still be alive. Do we really want to sentence people to death because they make an iffy business decision?

[Ken Burch]

7. Also, if she wasn't sick when the buy-out was offered, than how can the offer be used against him?

It doesn't discredit the guy that he wasn't psychic.

Thanks, this all helps.

[freshwest]

9. You did good, KB.