Halloween action at Bainport, where the workers from the Sensata manufacturing plant in Freeport, Illinois continue to protest their jobs being sent to China by Bain Capital, a move that Mitt Romney will profit from.

Finally, a bit of good news. On Thursday, according to a press release from the former employees of Sensata, representatives from California-based Turbo Coil toured Freeport as the company considers opening a plant in Freeport, IL. The company’s CEO has previously indicated that he would like to hire some of the Sensata workers currently facing the loss of their jobs to outsourcing by Bain Capital.

The Sensata workers have been tirelessly calling on former Bain CEO Mitt Romney to come to Freeport and help keep their jobs in the U.S. They have petitioned, protested, and even taken arrests, drawing national attention to their struggle. The workers are continuing to fight for a full year’s severance at Bainport, their encampment outside the Sensata plant.

Turbo Coil’s CEO has indicated that he learned about the situation in Freeport when he saw the workers on MSNBC.

“Unfortunately, Romney has ignored our plea,” said Sensata worker Tom Gaulrapp. “But because of our fight, we’ve gotten the attention of a company that may set up shop here in Freeport. If we had not taken a stand for our jobs, this would never have happened. This small victory is the direct result of workers and the Freeport community standing together in the fight against outsourcing.”

Kudos to the employees of Sensata for taking a stand and not giving up. While it may not have been the outcome you were all hoping for, this really is a huge accomplishment. I hope it works out wonderfully for all involved.

The Democratic research super PAC American Bridge is going up with its first ads of the cycle, buying time in the Toledo area -- the Northwestern area of Ohio where the auto bailout has benefited President Obama -- to hit Mitt Romney with an ad based on the Monopoly board game.

The ad follows the game to hit Romney over the "let Detroit go bankrupt" headline, layoffs at Bain Capital, and his policy plans, with voiceovers from the candidate and some testimonials from Bain workers.

Yes, if there's a tax loophole, Mitt Romney has found it and is using it. During the Clinton administration, Congress cracked down on a favorite tax shelter of the rich and powerful, but allowed those who already had them established to keep them. Thus Mitt Romney was grandfathered into a tax shelter that appears to be a charitable contribution to the Mormon Church that won't actually contribute much to the church, and instead pays the Romney's "a stream of yearly cash" much like an IRA account. As Bloomberg News explains, it's rather like "renting" your favorite charity's tax exemption.

Bloomberg News:

In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.

Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney, then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, who had just established such an arrangement in June 1996.

The charitable remainder unitrust, as it is known, is one of several strategies Romney has adopted over his career to reduce his tax bill. While Romney’s tax avoidance is legal and common among high-net-worth individuals, it has become an issue in the campaign. President Barack Obama attacked him in their second debate for paying “lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less.”

In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity -- the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing -- to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.
...
“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said. Despite the name, giving a gift or getting a charitable deduction “is just a throwaway,” he said. “I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero.”

When individuals fund a charitable remainder unitrust, or “CRUT,” they defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of yearly cash payments. Like an individual retirement account, the trust allows money to grow tax deferred, while like an annuity it also pays Romney a steady income. After the funder’s death, the trust’s remaining assets go to a designated charity.

So Romney pays no taxes on any growth his "CRUT" account earns, but if you and I earn a nickel in interest on a small savings account...we do pay taxes. Go figure.

And as always, the Romney campaign declined to answer written questions about the trust.

“The trust has operated in accordance with the law,” Michele Davis, a campaign spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has been arrested in a group of protesting northern Illinois workers during an act of civil disobedience in Freeport.

Jackson was taken into custody Wednesday with about a dozen workers. He is expected to be released later in the day.

Sensata Technologies is owned by Bain Capital and in the process of moving its Freeport manufacturing operations to China. That'll cost Freeport 170 jobs.

WIFR:

Jackson spent most of the afternoon in "Bainport”, the make-shift campsite that's been home to Sensata employees and their supporters for the last 40 days. Things took a turn around 4:00 p.m. when Jackson and about a dozen workers decided to march onto company property, before being arrested by police.

You may remember the plant is scheduled to close the day before the election, because around 170 jobs are being relocated to China. Today, Jackson said workers were humiliated because they've had to rain their Chinese replacements. He says he hopes his arrest will get Sensata management to the negotiating table. He hoped to convince them to keep the plant open.

“When these workers lose their jobs, they lose their homes, they lose their cars. Their kids cannot stay in school, they lose their hope. We are fighting for the integrity of the American worker, we're fighting for an even playing field,” said Jackson.

Sensata emerged as a flashpoint in the controversy over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s ties to Bain this summer, with the company’s employees pleading publicly with Romney to help save their jobs from being outsourced to China. Not only does Romney stand to profit from the outsourcing of these jobs to China through the stock he still owns in the company, his 2011 tax returns show that he got a huge tax break by moving Sensata stock to a charity organization he controls -- and that he continues to profit from Bain’s offshore holdings and tax avoidance strategies.

A caravan of about 50 former workers and supporters headed to the fire department where the people who were arrested are to be released.

Epic Guest Host Michael Shure talks to Dave Johnson from the Campaign for America’s Future about Sensata Technologies, a Bain Capital-owned Illinois auto parts factory that scheduled to shut down at the end of the year when its work is being exported to China. But workers are fighting back with sit-ins, truck blockages and other protests.

Johnson says, “These people are asking Mitt Romney, will you please come here and show us that you mean what you say?”

(Though Romney is no longer an owner of Bain, he does still benefit from his stock ownership.)

For more from the workers, go to BainPort.com.

CNN reports: Six people were arrested Wednesday morning at a north central Illinois plant run by Bain Capital-owned Sensata Technologies, where 170 workers are set to lose their jobs by the end of the year.

Sensata employees themselves, had hoped the looming shutdown would pop up in Tuesday night's debate, particularly when Romney and Obama started trading jabs on the topic of offshoring.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney helped found Bain Capital, and several workers from Sensata have pleaded with the former Massachusetts governor to intervene at the private equity firm and prevent the offshoring of their jobs, so far without success.

These American workers all have one thing in common: Bain Capital laid them off and outsourced their jobs. They've traveled from all over the country to gather outside the debate tonight and demand that Mitt Romney answer their questions about how he ran Bain, and how he'll run the country.

Update: This is a statement directly from the now unemployed Sensata workers in Illinois:

"There seems to be some confusion about whether or not our Sensata plant took down our American flag and replaced it with the Chinese flag. Here is the truth. Sensata took down our American flag on the day they flew in our Chinese replacements that we were forced to train. They put our American flag back up after the Chinese workers left. They never flew the Chinese flag."

I've also been attempting to contact a spokesperson for the workers directly, with no response yet, but I think it's probably safe to say that if the plant owners had placed that small flag on the fence in the video, that would have been mentioned in this statement. My apologies for any confusion created by my statements about the Chinese flag.
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Right now in Freeport, Illinois, some 170 workers at an auto sensor plant are sleeping in tents to protest Bain-owned Sensata Technology’s decision to ship their jobs to China.

The company recently made factory officials take down the American flag when they were forced to train their Chinese replacement workers, according to Tom Gaulrapp, with the United Steelworkers Union.

That's un-American, my friends.

This is taking place as Mitt Romney tries to convince people to believe that he doesn’t know about Bain's shipping American jobs overseas. He is trying to distance himself from Bain Capital, a pioneer of outsourcing where Romney made a fortune as CEO.

Another employee losing her job, Mary Jo Kerr, is a young mom of three. She's heartbroken because she can’t afford dance lessons for her daughter. Another is Dot Turner, so close to retirement, but will not receive it. Instead Dot will get just 26 weeks’ severance for 43 years of work in the plant.

Listen to their stories in the video above, and be sure to note the Chinese flag flying in front of the plant at about 1:10 into the video...in Illinois.

More on the Bain-owned Illinois Sensata plant:

'When I Hear Mitt Romney Speak it Makes Me Sick to My Stomach'

Sensata Worker Outsourced by Bain Speaks Out

Occupy Tampa: Shut Down Bain Capital

Arrests at Bain-Owned Sensata Plant

Sensata Employees Ask Mitt Romney To Save Their Jobs

With Election Day on the horizon, a Bain-owned company in Freeport, IL, is moving out equipment as it shuts down operations in the U.S. to ship 170 jobs overseas. On Monday, workers and community members blocked the loading dock for a second time to prevent equipment from being removed from the plant. Three community members -- including the daughter of a Sensata worker -- were arrested when they refused to move after the company called the police.

The company -- Sensata -- emerged as a flashpoint in the controversy over Romney’s ties to Bain this summer, with the company’s employees pleading publicly with Romney to help save their jobs from being outsourced to China. Not only does Romney stand to profit from the outsourcing of these jobs to China through the stock he still owns in the company, his 2011 tax returns show that he got a huge tax break by moving Sensata stock to a charity organization he controls -- and that he continues to profit from Bain’s offshore holdings and tax avoidance strategies.

Sensata workers are certainly not alone watching their jobs sail off to China, or to have wealthy American businessmen profit by investing in those companies:

NYT:

The tale of Asimco Technologies, an auto parts manufacturer whose plants dot eastern China, would seem to underscore Mitt Romney’s campaign-trail complaint that China’s manufacturing juggernaut is costing America jobs.

Nine years ago, the company bought two camshaft factories that employed about 500 people in Michigan. By 2007 both were shut down. Now Asimco manufactures the same components in China on government-donated land in a coastal region that China has designated an export base, where companies are eligible for the sort of subsidies Mr. Romney says create an unfair trade imbalance.

But there is a twist to the Asimco story that would not fit neatly into a Romney stump speech: Since 2010, it has been owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mr. Romney, who has as much as $2.25 million invested in three Bain funds with large stakes in Asimco and at least seven other Chinese businesses, according to his 2012 candidate financial disclosure and other documents.

“How is it China’s been so successful in taking away our jobs?” he(Romney) asked recently. “Well, let me tell you how: by cheating.”

That was Mitt Romney the candidate for president. Mitt Romney the millionaire, or is it billionaire --trust him, you'll never know for certain -- that Mitt Romney is calling the American people "suckers."

Some day I would like to see people who do everything they can to avoid paying taxes ostracized as the unpatriotic, selfish, leeches they are.

"Corporations are people, my friends": In advance of Wednesday's presidential debate, Obama for America has released a new web video to lay out the facts about Mitt Romney's private sector experience. As Valerie Burton, who lost her job to Bain’s business practices explains, “I really feel in my heart people ought to know what Mitt Romney did.”

At Bain, Romney did not work to create jobs, but instead to create wealth for himself and his partners. As a corporate buyout specialist, Romney led Bain Capital to load companies up with debt, driving several into bankruptcy. Thousands of American workers lost their jobs while Mitt Romney and his investors walked away with millions.

It is these men and women, who lost their jobs because of Bain, who can best express what Mitt Romney is referring to when he talks about his business experience, and, just a few days out from the first presidential debate, why he must not be president.

As some Americans decide who to cast their vote for in November because some still mistakenly believe that because Mitt Romney is a wealthy businessman, that he would know how to create jobs and return us all to prosperity more rapidly. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Romney is a job destroyer who picks the wealth from prospering companies and leaves nothing behind.

Mitt Romney is what's wrong with America, and he must not become president.