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Originally posted by Kwicko:
You seem to have left out what, to me at least, is the key point and the quote that's going to haunt Romney until Election Day:

Speaking of the bottom 47%, the poorest of Americans, Romney said "My job is to not worry about those people."

He doesn't want to be President of ALL Americans, just the richest half. As he said before, "I'm not concerned about the very poor."

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"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

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Wow. I didn't see that one. Wasn't in the collection of clips I found. Holy shit. I find I am continually amazed at how bad this candidate is. And then he gets even worse.

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The clips on MotherJones are visually clearer. I'd bet money (not $10k though ) that the camera was placed there by one of the waiters. It's right behind a coffeepot at the wait station. Way to strike back, 99%! I'd sure as hell be tempted to do that if I was waiting on these assholes.

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Ylena: What are we achieving here ?

Spider: Right then, girls.
Attack wombs to the ready.
This is about the journalism of attachment.
Monstering is, ultimately, about giving a shit.
It's about giving something back to these bastards, these people whom we somehow let run our goddamn lives for us.
Giving them a taste of what it means to be us.
Every law that curbs my basic human freedoms; every lie about the things I care for; every crime committed against me by their politics -- that's what makes me get up and hound these fuckers, and I'll do that till the day I die, or until my brain dries up or something.
THAT's what we achieve, we show them they're accountable.
We show them that just as they try to herd us back into cages of quiet mediocrity, we can chase them back to fucking hell with the TRUTH.
It's the JOURNALISM OF ATTACHMENT, CARING about the world you report on.
Some people say that's bad journalism, that there should be a detatched, cold, un-biased view of the world in our news media.
And if that's what you want, there are security cameras everywhere that you could watch tapes of.
I want to see humans talking about human life, personally.
I WANT to see people who give a shit about the world, I want...
I want to see POSSESSED journalists, YES!
I want to see people like ME, rising up with hate, laying about them with fiery eyes and steaming genetalia -- possessed by ancient volcano gods from the polynesian islands, waving vast breasts and improbable penises at the secret chiefs of the world -- NAKED GLOWING GOD-JOURNALISTS BROWN-TROUSERING THE NAUGHTY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY! A NEW PLANET EARTH --
WAITER! - FRESH UNDERWEAR, SEVEN BLANKETS AND A BUCKET OF MOIST TOWELETTES!!

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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not back down from comments published Monday in Mother Jones magazine, in which he dismissed supporters of President Obama as a “victims” who take no responsibility for their livelihoods and who think they are entitled to government handouts.
“It’s not elegantly stated…I’m speaking off the cuff in response to a question,” Romney told reporters Monday night in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Asked what assurances he could give to voters that he doesn’t say different things behind closed doors to his donors than he does at his public rallies, Romney said he gives “the same message” to all audiences.
“We have a very different approach, the president and I, between a government dominated society and a society driven by free people pursuing their dreams,” Romney said.
In the video, he said, he was “talking about the process of campaigns.”
“Typically I don’t talk about process in speeches because I think candidates are wiser to talk about policy and their vision than to talk about how they’re going to win a election,” Romney said. “At a fundraiser you have people say. ‘Governor how are you going to win this?’ And so I respond, ‘Well, the president has his group I have my group. I want to keep my team strong and motivated and I want to get those people in the middle.’ That’s something which fundraising people who are parting with their monies are very interested in knowing can you win or not and that’s what this was addressing.”
When a reporter asked what Romney meant by the words “victims” and “personal responsibility,” Romney said that he was “talking about the political process of drawing people into my own campaign.”

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Thurston Howell Romney

In 1980, about 30 percent of Americans received some form of government benefits. Today, as Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out, about 49 percent do.

In 1960, government transfers to individuals totaled $24 billion. By 2010, that total was 100 times as large. Even after adjusting for inflation, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown by more than 700 percent over the last 50 years. This spending surge, Eberstadt notes, has increased faster under Republican administrations than Democratic ones.

There are sensible conclusions to be drawn from these facts. You could say that the entitlement state is growing at an unsustainable rate and will bankrupt the country. You could also say that America is spending way too much on health care for the elderly and way too little on young families and investments in the future.

But these are not the sensible arguments that Mitt Romney made at a fund-raiser earlier this year. Romney, who criticizes President Obama for dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers. Forty-seven percent of the country, he said, are people “who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.

It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.

The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view — from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers. There’s no way the country will trust the Republican Party to reform the welfare state if that party doesn’t have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.

The final thing the comment suggests is that Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation. The formula he sketches is this: People who are forced to make it on their own have drive. People who receive benefits have dependency.

But, of course, no middle-class parent acts as if this is true. Middle-class parents don’t deprive their children of benefits so they can learn to struggle on their own. They shower benefits on their children to give them more opportunities — so they can play travel sports, go on foreign trips and develop more skills.

People are motivated when they feel competent. They are motivated when they have more opportunities. Ambition is fired by possibility, not by deprivation, as a tour through the world’s poorest regions makes clear.

Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. I’d put federal disability payments and unemployment insurance in this category. But, as a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.

Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?

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Originally posted by Storymark:
Don't forget the elderly - who of course paid into their programs, but apparently don't deserve any return.

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I'm so interested in how this, coupled with Romney's foreign relations fiasco, will affect the polls.

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Originally posted by kpo:

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I'm so interested in how this, coupled with Romney's foreign relations fiasco, will affect the polls.

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I'm not sure how much further Romney can drive down his own poll numbers... he must be approaching his floor? But this certainly makes his task of making up the ground harder.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
I know you didn't mean it that way, but what lept out at me from this post were things like "drive down... floor... making... the ground harder..."

And I picture Romney in a full-power dive towards the ground.

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
I know you didn't mean it that way, but what lept out at me from this post were things like "drive down... floor... making... the ground harder..."

And I picture Romney in a full-power dive towards the ground.

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He certainly seems to be trying for exactly that.

ETA: I notice that certain posters are silent about this. Waiting for Faux "news" to tell them how to spin it?

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I've been wondering exactly the same thing.

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:


ETA: I notice that certain posters are silent about this. Waiting for Faux "news" to tell them how to spin it?

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
I'd bet money (not $10k though ) that the camera was placed there by one of the waiters. It's right behind a coffeepot at the wait station. Way to strike back, 99%! I'd sure as hell be tempted to do that if I was waiting on these assholes.

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"This to us is something that we're not going to give up on, because we're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people."

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:

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"This to us is something that we're not going to give up on, because we're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people."

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He did not really say that, did he?

*facepalm*

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Abso-muthafuckin'-lutely, he did. Want video? To the cloud!

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Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
I keep seeing this thread pop up, and it keeps reminding me of this video, so I think I should share

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