When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government, my thinking is maybe you haven't gotten around a lot ~ Barack Obama (b. 8/4/1961) 44th president of the United States, responding to a question about Romney's bogus and insulting claim that 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax and believe they are victims and entitled to an array of federal benefits at a Univision town hall-style forum on 9/20/2012.
On 9/22/2012 self-described "Moderate" blogger Willis Hart asked the question, "still don't think that MSNBC lies like Fox?". The title of the post was a link to Youtube video of some remarks by Mitt Romney that were supposedly deceptively edited by NBC's Andrea Mitchell to enforce the Left's narrative that Mitt is a rich out-of-touch douche (Youtube video title: "MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Caught Blatantly Lying & Distorting The Truth About Mitt Romney").
My response, which I cannot make on his blog because he recently banned me, would have been that I don't think Andrea Mitchell lied. Primarily because lying to make Mittens look bad isn't necessary. Yes, the video was edited, and yes the edit did make it appear he was confused by the "amazing" technology he witnessed at a sandwich making business he had recently visited (Wawas of PA). After airing the edited video on her MSNBC program Andrea Mitchell Reports, Mitchell "suggested this might be Romney's supermarket scanner moment". The point he was actually making was that government is behind in using technology to improve it's efficiency because government has no competition.
So, the video WAS edited, and those edits did make it appear that Romney's comments are an example of him being rich and "out of touch" with the common man. However, when viewed in their full context, it is clear his comments are not an example of this. So, why do I doubt Andrea Mitchell lied? Because there are numerous other Romney quotes that the Left can use to "make Romney look bad". There is NO NEED for them to fabricate any. I suspect someone else edited the video and handed it off to someone at MSNBC. Andrea Mitchell did not lie... although an argument can be made that this is an example of poor reporting. Whoever put the story together (not necessarily Andrea Mitchell) did a bad job of confirming if the (out of context) quote was what it really appeared to be.
Regarding those quotes that actually do make Romney look bad (and make it completely unnecessary for the Left to have to fabricate any), two examples that recently were reported on include Romney making it clear he has no idea what a dirty bomb is, and that Romney thinks it would be a good idea for people to be able to open windows in airplanes (in case of a fire). The first comment I've transcribed from the 9/18/2012 broadcast of Rachel Maddow Show and is as follows (it is IN CONTEXT, BTW)...
(The quote is from the same video in which Romney disparages the 47 percent of people who refuse to take personal responsibility... according to him.)
Mitt Romney: I mean, if I were Iran and a crazed fanatic, I'd say, "Let's get a little fissile material to Hezbollah and have them carry it to Chicago or some other place. And then if anything goes wrong or America starts acting up, we'll say, guess what? Unless you stand down, why, we're gonna let off a dirty bomb.
Rachel Maddow: OK... Mitt Romney doesn't know what a dirty bomb is. A dirty bomb is not a nuclear explosion... you do not need to have a nuclear program in order to make a dirty bomb possible. You do not need fissile material from somebody's nuclear weapons program in order to put together a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb is just a regular bomb that explodes the regular way - except that it's been packed with radioactive material - and that radioactive material can come from anywhere. From medical waste, from a nuclear power plant (which Iran has)... Every country in the world has access to the radioactive material necessary to make a dirty bomb. By singling out a nuclear armed Iran as a threat to the US in terms of what it would take to make a dirty bomb, Mitt Romney has just display profound ignorance on a really important subject.
Back to my commentary: As has been pointed out, these 47 percent of people who don't pay income taxes include a lot of likely Romney voters (who may not be Romney voters anymore after hearing these remarks). Senior citizens, military personal, and voters who live in southern states (states that receive more in federal money than they pay in, as opposed to northern states that tend to vote democratic and pay in more than they get back). On the other hand, these people probably aren't paying attention (or seen this reported on Fox Nooz) so they'll probably still vote for Romney despite the utter contempt Romney clearly has for these people.
Now, on to my second example of Romney saying something dumb that makes it unnecessary for the Left to fabricate anything to support their "narrative" that Romney is out-of-touch, makes dumb gaffes, and is otherwise not qualified to be president.
As reported by the Huffington Post (and numerous other "less biased" news sources), a fire broke out on a private plane carrying Mitt Romney's wife Anne (which was then forced to make an emergency landing). Speaking about the incident, Romney said, "the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous". According to Romney, it's "dangerous" because "you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft...".
There are several problems with this statement. First of all, there is less oxygen at high altitudes, oxygen feeds a fire, and the pressure outside the plane isn't the same as inside it. Although, regarding the oxygen issue, Romney was concerned about the occupants of the plane being able to breath (I guess it didn't occur to him that fire needs oxygen to burn). The cabin pressure issue, I think, really makes this a super dumb statement. Or, perhaps he was just joking, as, according to the NYT writer who first filed on the comments, "it was clear from the context that he was not being serious".
If a "joke" then I agree with the Telegraph reporter who said Romney has "[a] sense of humour that no one else quite gets". In any case, we still have two examples of Romney making stupid gaffes that make it completely unnecessary for the Left to have to fabricate any. He disparaged the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax, even though this number includes members of the Republican base, and his complete lack of understanding regarding what a dirty bomb is (and the fact that individuals in Iran could construct one absent Iran having a nuclear weapons program.
Andrea Mitchell lied? Why? There's no reason for her to lie; all the Left needs to do is tell the truth to make Romney look bad. Lie, and you can get caught, so why do it when it isn't necessary?
Also, who uses a link as the title of a blog post as Willis Hart of Contra O'Reilly does? Links are supposed to be embedded in your post. Try learning a little basic HTML. Failing that, don't use a frigging LINK as the TITLE of a blog post (put it in the body)! It just looks dumb.
Romney actually think the 47% are people on welfare who don’t want to work. He doesn’t know what he is talking about.
ReplyDeleteWho are the 47%. Fox Business did a breakdown here:
The 47 Percent by Category
28% are people with jobs, but who earn so little they are not taxed. It is the bottom marginal tax rate, which effectively comes out to be zero. Romney also pays 0.00 on this portion of his income. The bottom margin is not taxable and no one pays it, not the poor, not the middle class, not millionaires.
10.3% The next largest group is the elderly, who were already taxed when they were working.
The breakdown does not specifically mention it, a portion of the 47% are millionaires.
Romney rejects all of these people was useless drains on society, not out of meanness, I think, but out of pure ignorance. He simply does not understand taxation. He earns his wealth via long term capital gains, where the top marginal rate is 15%, the same top marginal rate for someone earning 34,000.00 per year.
Which of these people in the 47% should now pay taxes? Is it that the people who make 9k, for example, and end up paying nothing their first 9K, even though the rest of us end up paying no income tax on our first 9k? Or is it the retired community who paid in their whole life, whose money the government now holds? Is it the military personal, returning from service and now unemployed? Is it the impoverished, who currently have trouble feeding their children, and whose children would do without more basic needs as a result?
The notion that 47% of Americans want to be supported by the other 53% is a lie by most who tell it. In Romney’s case, I think he genuinely has no clue how taxation works (since almost all of his income in in the top margin and he does not care about those who have a different situation, which is most people).
I will admit this: it is unfair to say that Romney does not care what 47% of the people think, as they are a lost cause. The percentage of people he does not care about, is much higher than 47%, even though in private he only acknowledges that 47% of Americans are exempt from his area of concern. He can’t get the actual percentage right because he is blissfully saved by the fact that he does not know what he is talking about.
ReplyDeleteLies on his own site:
See the section called “The Jobless Recovery” here:
Mitt Romney Lies Collection
This makes it look as if Obama’s Recovery was disastrous for America, which is the claim he makes. The chart shows the state of jobs up to a few minutes after Obama sat down, where it mysteriously cuts off. To make it more hypocritical, he cites the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which actually has all the data, which refutes the exact point he is trying to make:
Hours and Earnings:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
This chart shows that Obama took office and there was no change (not worse, but the trend continued unaffected for several months before stabilizing. Then it flattened lower. The charge the GOP makes is that Obama caused an unprecedented rise in unemployment. They use this chart, less the last three years to “prove their point.” However, the chart refutes it. If unemployment is ascending the chart almost vertically before Obama takes office, and it continues in that direction, the same direction it was headed when he sat down, for several months and then stops dead it in tracks, this does not prove that Obama caused it. It proves he did not. He could not have caused a trend that happened before his time. It does offer evidence that he may have stopped it if one wanted to go there.
The site I reference here, calls this “unemployment” it is actually “number of jobs,” I believe:
http://reflectionsofarationalrepublican.com/2012/10/06/bush-vs-obama-unemployment-september-2012-jobs-data/
It shows a constant loss until Obama took office, where the trend quickly turned.
I do not give Obama credit for stopping the avalanche. I merely maintain that it started when the GOP held the office and it stopped shortly after they left. Therefore, it is utterly hypocritical to accuse Obama as the cause (and ridiculous). Additionally, Romney should not post on his website a graph that goes up to 2009 and call its damning numbers Obama’s Jobless Recovery. He is outright lying. If he is going to persist in telling this lie, he should not cite the exact source that refutes the lie as his “proof.”