Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Mitt Round Up

After yesterdays video's were released( if you have not seen these yet you must) , here are some more stories about Mitt giving more context!

Then of course, there is Mitt on Film!  

First off, as Ezra Klein notes,  when Mitt says "47%  pay no taxes" he is just not being honest!


For what it’s worth, this division of “makers” and “takers” isn’t true. Among the Americans who paid no federal income taxes in 2011, 61 percent paid payroll taxes — which means they have jobs and, when you account for both sides of the payroll tax, they paid 15.3 percent of their income in taxes, which is higher than the 13.9 percent that Romney paid. Another 22 percent were elderly.

So 83 percent of those not paying federal income taxes are either working and paying payroll taxes or they’re elderly and Romney is promising to protect their benefits because they’ve earned them. The remainder, by and large, aren’t paying federal income or payroll taxes because they’re unemployed. But that’s a small fraction of the country.
 The $50,000/plate party was  held at fellow Vulture Capitalist and Hedge fund manager's Marc Leder's house.  Leder is semi famous for holding sex parties at his house:

Leder is notorious for his Caligula-esque parties. From the New York Post's description of his "wild end-of-the-summer bash":
At the Bridgehampton home that Leder rented for a whopping $500,000 a month, guests cavorted nude in a pool and performed sex acts, while scantily clad Russian women danced on platforms. Dancers at the party also twirled flaming torches to booming beats.
So to review, people who want housing, food, and healthcare: entitled freeloaders. People who want to get HJs in the pool while they watch semi-nude Russian dancers: campaign supporters.
 I wonder what Thomas Munson & the Mormon Church's stand is on sex parties?  

It has gotten so bad that even the rats(David Brooks) are abandoning ship!!

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.

No wonder the whole Romney/Ryan campaign is in shambles!  They have had a few very bad weeks!

Many political reporters thought the 2008 McCain-Palin campaign set some kind of a low bar for worst-run presidential campaigns. Well, in today’s lightning-speed news cycle and instant pundit judgments, it appears the Romney campaign is heading toward that record and might win that race.
Finally let's end it with Mitt's quote of the Day!

 “My job is not to worry about those people,” Mitt Romney said of the 47 percent of Americans who are likely to vote for Barack Obama. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
 


11 comments:

  1. And Mitt is also wrong about the make-up of Obama supporters.

    If you look at 2008 exit polling, you can see the Obama vs McCain splits by income level, and see that Obama got at least 48% at each level, and that McCain got over 40% at all levels above $30K.

    That is, lots of "makers" voting for Obama, and lots of "takers" voting for McCain (ignoring for the moment that that construct is also total BS)

    http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1

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  2. Willard last night:

    Romney earlier dismissed reports, fanned by a story on the Politico website, of campaign infighting.

    “I’ve got a terrific campaign,” he said in an interview with Spanish language network Telemundo.

    “My senior campaign people work extraordinarily well together. I work well with them. Our campaign is doing well.”
    link

    Well I guess that depends on what your definition of is is.

    Today:

    The chart below from the Tax Policy Center shows the distribution of federal income taxes paid by income level in 2011.

    It contains a number of interesting data points, including the following:

    7,000 people made more than $1 million but paid no income tax
    link

    Well I guess that depends on what your definition of "Forty seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect So he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich." tax cuts is.

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  3. was diane hendricks there? this is romney's version of walker's "divide and conquer" talk.

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  4. Jeff,

    Is the Walker Emanuel story true?

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    Replies
    1. By Walker Emanuel story are you referring to "the secret meeting before the strike story" that is making the rounds?

      ATTENTION! One of the labels on the story is "POLITICAL SATIRE."

      Well one version of this "story" is here: My browser warned of possible malware at the original site, that's why the link to a cached version: webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kqxAnQMDDMgJ:.rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/2012/09/exclusive-in-secret-meeting-scott.html+scott+walker+rahm+emanuel



      This has a certain believability to it, only because of Rahm's shares some of Scott Walker's personality and political traits.

      I think this is probably an entertaining attack on Rahm disguised as humor.

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    2. Yes that is the story and yes it fooled me last night. Agreed on the believability between rahms personality traits and the way scott walker loves to spend taxpayer money it was very believable.

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  5. A1- are you asking eas Hendricks at the fundraiser or the sex parties?

    A2. No that was a satire WebsitesEtc that fooled me.

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  6. @Anon 8:30 & Jeff

    Thanks for clearing that up for me. Jeff and gang keep up the good work!

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  7. In the end it will be Willard Milton Romney's own words that that will bring down his seven year run for the presidency. I thank you Romney for speaking your real mind, sure its ugly but it just confirms my feeling that you act more like a Corporation than a person with compassion who realizes that a majority of my country is suffering. Hey the empty chair was a great hit, thanks for the laughs.

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    Replies
    1. OH NO Seamus is boning Mitt in revengeSeptember 19, 2012 at 2:42 AM

      He's been speaking his mind all his life. It's just this recording getting out that has him shitting his magic underwear!

      Compare the voice and speaking style between the fundraiser and Mitt's 10 Pm press clusterfuck on Monday. It is obvious we aren't really allowed to see the real Mitt very often.

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