September 17, 2012, 6:51 PM Romney Calls 47% of Voters Dependent in Leaked Video By MICHAEL D. SHEAR AND MICHAEL BARBARO 12:26 a.m., Sept. 18 | Updated
WASHINGTON — During a private reception with wealthy donors this year, Mitt Romney described almost half of Americans as “people who pay no income tax” and are “dependent upon government.” Those voters, he said, would probably support President Obama because they believe they are “victims” who are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
In a brief and hastily called news conference Monday just after 10 p.m., Mr. Romney acknowledged having made the blunt political and cultural assessment, saying it was “not elegantly stated,” but he stood by the substance of the remarks, insisting that he had made similar observations in public without generating controversy.
The video of Mr. Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, was made in May, offering a rare glimpse of his personal views. Mr. Romney told reporters that he had been “speaking off the cuff in response to a question” at the fund-raiser, and said he wanted “to help all Americans — all Americans — have a bright, prosperous future.”
Who is Romney referring to in this speech? Who are the "freeloaders"?
The poor? ~ Romney is talking about the disabled Iraq War veteran, going to the VA for yet another operation. ~ Romney is talking about your gram when she cashes her Social Security Check. ~ Romney is talking about our sons and daughters when they apply for a student loan or grant for college.
Never in my lifetime has any presidential candidate been so out of touch with the values of our Middle Class.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Who is Romney referring to in this speech? Who are the "freeloaders"?
The poor? ~ Romney is talking about the disabled Iraq War veteran, going to the VA for yet another operation. ~ Romney is talking about your gram when she cashes her Social Security Check. ~ Romney is talking about our sons and daughters when they apply for a student loan or grant for college.
Never in my lifetime has any presidential candidate been so out of touch with the values of our Middle Class.
Who is Romney referring to in this speech? Who are the "freeloaders"?
The poor? ~ Romney is talking about the disabled Iraq War veteran, going to the VA for yet another operation. ~ Romney is talking about your gram when she cashes her Social Security Check. ~ Romney is talking about our sons and daughters when they apply for a student loan or grant for college.
Never in my lifetime has any presidential candidate been so out of touch with the values of our Middle Class.
you mean never in your short lifetime on earth has any presidential candidate actually voiced what they are all groomed to know.....
his statement ISN'T wrong....making some groups more equal than others via government programs leads to a paradox....
why aren't I on the list? why does gram/vet/kid get more attention in their plight of this life?
when one group DEM/REP picks a group of folks out for 'special treatment/feeling' it gives them power to decide who gets to be on that list....and if you are that old Box the next generation may 'toss you away' as not being so 'special' or shall I say not as dependent as you think you are......
NEVER hand that much power over to a small group of leadership that doesn't dine with you on a daily basis.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
The redistribution was done by Republicans who cut the tax rate for the wealthy, thereby causing the national debt and the deficit. Putting things back the way they were, isn't redistribution of wealth, it is correcting a wrongful redistribution of wealth made in the past.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The biggest cause of our countries debt is entitlements, Medicare/Medicaid, SS, and Obamacare and the party responsible for all 3 and who refuses to do any kind of reform to keep them solvent is who?
The biggest cause of our countries debt is entitlements, Medicare/Medicaid, SS, and Obamacare and the party responsible for all 3 and who refuses to do any kind of reform to keep them solvent is who?
Corporate entitlements.
55% of all corporations paid no corporate income tax from 1998 to 2005.
The debt was caused by tax cuts for the rich.
I have posted the data.
Every Republican President that cut taxes for the wealthy accumulated massive debt and passed it onto the next administration to deal with.
Obama was handed 10 trillion in debt and the nation was ready for bankruptcy.
Restore the tax rates to before the Republican redistribution of wealth and the debt will correct itself.
Social entitlement programs were instituted by the government by forced taxation.
The government needs to take responsibility for it's promised entitlements.
The government needs to stop trying to force the entitled victims to pay themselves off.
Restore the tax rates to before trickle down thievery.
Stopping thievery by restoring the success of the past is not a redistribution of wealth.
It is putting an end to the redistribution of wealth to the wealthy.
Mother Jones, the left-wing magazine that released a controversial video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's remarks to a fundraiser in May, now admits that it has no full tape of what Romney said, and that its video is missing "one to two minutes" at the most important moment.
The Legal Insurrection blog's William Jacobson and The Blaze both raised questions on Tuesday about whether Mother Jones had, as promised, revealed the full video, given an apparent jump cut in the critical section of Romney's remarks.
"Something is missing. Romney’s 47% answer was cut off before completed, and is not picked up on the Part 2 audio video," Jacobson noted.
Late Tuesday evening, Jacobson obtained the following comment from David Corn of Mother Jones:
According to the source, the recording device inadvertently turned off. The source noticed this quickly and turned it back one [sic]. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed.
Corn was forced to update his original post, which promised the "full" video, to reflect the fact that a key portion of the video is, in fact, missing.
There is no way to know, without the missing footage, exactly what Romney said. On Monday evening, Romney called for a complete video of his remarks to be released.
That now turns out to be impossible, either because Romney's remarks were never recorded in full (as Mother Jones now claims), or because some of his remarks--perhaps mitigating some of the controversial effect of his statements--were selectively edited out of the tape by Mother Jones or its chain of sources (including former President Jimmy Carter's grandson).
Earlier on Tuesday, new media pioneer James O'Keefe pointed out the hypocrisy of the mainstream media in accepting, without question, a snippet of a video recording that aimed to portray a Republican in a bad light, while conservatives are still doubted even after providing full video or audio, as O'Keefe did with his famous ACORN tapes.
Whether Romney is right or wrong about the "47 percent" of Americans he says have become dependent on government--he stood by his May remarks on Monday evening--he may have been taken out of context.
Mother Jones has failed a basic test and broken its promise to its readers and the public. There is now reason to doubt that it provided Romney's full remarks--not just the context, but the remarks themselves. And there is new reason to suspect manipulation.
Corn promised the complete version of Romney's remarks. Instead, he provided a version that is missing a large portion of video at the critical moment.
Mother Jones's entire story now deserves to be treated with suspicion, if not contempt.
Obama promised to fix the fix the debt in his first term and if he didn't do it it would be a one term deal and I'm holding him to his promise. If Romney wins and doesn't deliver on his promises he'll be gone in 4 years as well.
Mother Jones's entire story now deserves to be treated with suspicion, if not contempt.
The source of this Right Wing Rant: Breitbart and even better... William Jacobson (yea I'm not kiddin') and, and... and... Yea it gets better... The Blaze!!!
So you have a Rabid Right Blogger, a discredited Breitbart propaganda machine and The Right Wing Crybaby Himself Glenn (tears on demand) Beck, saying what??? Oh yea... That a video of Romney shooting himself in the foot... deserves to be treated with suspicion, if not contempt.
Just too funny!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The source of this Right Wing Rant: Breitbart and even better... William Jacobson (yea I'm not kiddin') and, and... and... Yea it gets better... The Blaze!!!
So you have a Rabid Right Blogger, a discredited Breitbart propaganda machine and The Right Wing Crybaby Himself Glenn (tears on demand) Beck, saying what??? Oh yea... That a video of Romney shooting himself in the foot... deserves to be treated with suspicion, if not contempt.
Just too funny!
Mother Jones ADMITS to "missing" minutes of the conversation - so why is theirs any less "contemptious" than Breitbarts?
Despite the furor, Mitt Romney and his surrogates have doubled down on his remarks. A grinning Romney said in a late-night news conference Monday that he stands behind his comments because he was just making the same points he makes on the campaign trail.
Romney doesn't deny his views... he's proud of them and he stands behind his comments.
Romney is so out of touch with middle class Americans, he thinks he's said nothing offensive.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Despite the furor, Mitt Romney and his surrogates have doubled down on his remarks. A grinning Romney said in a late-night news conference Monday that he stands behind his comments because he was just making the same points he makes on the campaign trail.
Romney doesn't deny his views... he's proud of them and he stands behind his comments.
Romney is so out of touch with middle class Americans, he thinks he's said nothing offensive.
If you ask Romney if those were his true feelings or was he just telling potential donors what he thought they want to hear, he would say that those were his true feelings.
The government took everyone's tax money promising to use social programs to care for the needy.
Now after letting the rich get richer by cutting their share of the tax burden, they feel it necessary to belittle and demonize those who were promised help.
Romney is furious that people get food stamps.
These same jakkasses that preach personal responsibility want nothing to do with honoring their commitments to the needy.
They wish only to entitle the non-needy by virtue of taxation favoritism.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Logged
William Jacobson (yea I'm not kiddin') and, and...
