Five Facts You Didn’t Know about the Inspiring Ida B. Wells

Happy 153rd birthday of teacher, journalist, civil-rights activist, Republican, and gun advocate Ida B. Wells!

Google has a “Doodle” today (see below) in honor of this remarkable and courageous woman.  You may know she was born a slave before the Civil War and helped found the NAACP in 1909, but here are five interesting things you may not have heard:

1.  Ida Wells was the original Rosa Parks.

She refused to move to the back of the train, “71 years before the activist Rosa Parks showed similar resistance on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus.”

Mitt Romney Secretly Donated Milk for Homeless Veterans

Did you know that Mitt Romney anonymously donated half the cost of 7,000 pints of milk for homeless veterans every week for two years?  Watch the interview with the man who has personal knowledge of these events.  Glenn Beck.com describes roughly what happened:

As it was pointed out by a few at the RNC and became evident after Glenn’s staff began telling him the stories they were finding, Romney isn’t the kind of guy that likes to talk about the things he has done to help others. . . .

After he spent forty minutes going through their books, he told them, “You run a very good place, very tight.  Very good.” Romney asked to go on another tour of the hospital, and after spending an hour and forty minutes there, the last question he asked was, “So what… what do you — what are you lacking?  What do you need help with?”

Mitt Romney Dropped Everything and Used His Whole Company to Find and Save Missing Girl

Did you know that Mitt Romney once turned his company and its business partners into a huge operation to find a missing girl?  The story has been reported in several places (below), and even Politifact admits it’s true, as does Snopes.  Deroy Murdock describes what happened:

Melissa Gay, Bain Capital partner Robert Gay’s daughter, vanished while visiting New York City in July 1996. Then-CEO Romney closed Bain’s Boston headquarters and jetted to Gotham to find the 14-year-old. Romney flew in his private-equity company’s 50 employees and transformed a Marriott Hotel into a command post. He consulted the NYPD and recruited private eyes. He dispatched staffers to enlist Bain’s business associates. Bain’s printer, R. R. Donnelly, produced 300,000 missing-person fliers. Bain’s CPAs at Price Waterhouse placed the handbills all over town. Duane Reade, a Bain-portfolio company, stuck leaflets in shopping bags at 52 local outlets.

Ryan’s Widowed Mother Started Small Business UPDATE BELOW

Bonus Paul Ryan fact:  Did you know that Paul Ryan’s mother, after the death of her husband, went back to school and started a small business, all while caring for Ryan’s aging grandmother?

Click for video.  Transcript:

When my dad died, my mom went back to school.  She went back to college, got a new skill or new trade, and then she started a small business.  My mom had three or four employees at that small business that she started.  We were taking care of my grandma at the time, she was going to school, and then she started this small business.

Romney Donated Inheritance

Did you know that Mitt Romney gave away his inheritance?

Even the New York Times, trying to give him no quarter, admits it.  The Times and Politifact try to say that if Romney’s parents helped him pay for college or his first house (more than twenty years before his father died), that somehow makes his statement only partially true, but it clearly doesn’t.  Politifact admits that Romney made his fortune himself, by doing an excellent job at Bain Capital.

Mitt Romney Has Wife, Children

Did you know that Mitt Romney has a wife and children?  He and Mrs. Romney have been married for more than forty years.

Mitt married his wife, Ann, in 1969. They first met in elementary school when he was a Cub Scout; he remembers tossing pebbles at her when she rode by on a horse. When they met again years later at a friend’s house, he was smitten. Between them, they have five sons and eighteen grandchildren, who are the center of their lives.