You can’t miss the whiff as you drive along the 10 freeway in California heading to or from Arizona, a strange and horrifying stench, the Salton Sea. Chris Metzler–who visited us last year with Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone–co-directed Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea, an occasionally whimsical and deeply sad look at a man-made lake; the hopes, dreams and disasters that sprung from it; and the people who try to stay afloat on its shores.

Unlike the Dead Sea, the Salton Sea was folly that came to be, wrought out of man’s desire for water and arable land. Throughout the ages, as the rain fell, the basin would fill and then evaporate during drier times. But it was during the years of 1905 to 1907 when heavy rainfall and agricultural runoff caused the basin to fill, that the Salton Sea, was birthed.

The lake quickly became a regular stop for migrating birds, and by the 1920s was a tourist destination. Marine fish were introduced and thrived, drawing fishermen and boating enthusiasts. The post-World War II economic boom and a desire for vacation getaways proved lucrative for the Salton Sea fueling a land boom. (Sadly though, many plots were sold to speculators.)  A marina and boat club were built, and people moved to Salton City, Bombay Beach and other seaside enclaves.

But the Salton Sea is a closed system, water flows in but not out.

Mitt - The Paris Years

I hope you realize that by pointing out that Mitt Romney made his fortune by buying companies, running up enormous debt, looting their pension funds, taking huge consulting fees, and then bankrupting the companies leaving thousands unemployed, their lives and families and communities shattered …. you are blood-libeling his One True Religion and it’s not the one with extra wives and the magic underwear:

Mitt Romney said his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination are turning the 2012 primary into a “trial” on free enterprise by attacking his record at Bain Capital, the private equity group he helped start.

“Free enterprise will be on trial. I though(sic) it was going to come from the president and the Democrats and the left,” Mr. Romney told reporters here. “Instead it’s coming from Speaker Gingrich and apparently others.”

And if you attack Mitt Romney for taking a few liberties with people’s livelihoods and pensions, well isn’t that an attack on free enterprise? And if you attack free enterprise, isn’t that really an attack on America itself?

I finally got around to watching the trailer for the Winning Our Future PAC mini-documentary on Mitt Romney’s days at Bain Capital. Man, that’s tough stuff. The ad, which is actually a half-hour long (this is a trailer) will get massive airtime in South Carolina between now and their primary on January 21. And it paints the private equity business at Bain as a predatory capitalist scheme, making millions for investors while workers suffered, in ways that you would expect out of a Democratic PAC during the general election.

The huge ad campaign by Winning Our Future plays off a movie, King of Bain: When Mitt Romney Came to Town. The group recently purchased the movie, which is described on the film’s website as being about “one raider and his firm and how they destroyed” the dreams of “thousands of Americans and their families.” [...]

Gingrich, speaking this morning on NBC’s Today show, said he has not seen the film. But he contends Romney needs to give a complete account of his Bain stewardship, arguing that his rival did not engage in “traditional capitalism.”

“They apparently looted the companies, left people unemployed and walked off with millions of dollars,” Gingrich told NBC.

There is some poetic justice in how Romney, whose Super PAC destroyed Gingrich in Iowa, is getting a comeuppance in South Carolina. It’s not like there’s much upside for Gingrich: this is a scorched-earth strategy that will not help his Presidential chances. Basically, a bruised Gingrich wanted to destroy Romney, and his buddy Sheldon Adelson bankrolled the SuperPAC, giving them the means to do it. [cont'd.]