Tag: NAACP

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Free Stuff

When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare they weren’t happy, I didn’t get the same response. That’s O.K, I want people to know what I stand for and if I don’t stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that’s just fine… But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff. Mitt Romney, July 14, 2012

As Rolling Stone Magazine pointed out, the day after giving his speech to the NAACP in which he was booed for declaring that he would rescind Obama’s health care legislation, Romney gave a speech to a more congenial crowd in Montana in which he made the comment about “free stuff”. Read it carefully.

Fox News rhapsodized about Romney’s “courage” in going to an audience known to be hostile to Republicans and laying it on the line.   Fox News can’t be serious– they don’t really like Romney.   He is way too moderate.  He practically invented Obamacare (check it out).

He allegedly gave them the same speech he gives to white audiences. That’s manly of him.

Except he did and he didn’t. That is, it would have been courageous if Romney had made a bold statement of his personal principles and then made a specific promise about things he was going to do as President which are necessary and right but which are politically unpopular, like increase taxes in order to pay down the deficit.

That is exactly what he did not do.

He basically told them that he would cut taxes to the richest people in the country, increase military spending to deal with the communist menace, and then magically make the deficit go away without having to cut any entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

His speech was nothing more than the usual clichés and conservative stock phrases and platitudes. And he clearly didn’t care what they thought about it: the speech was not meant for them. It was meant for those folks up in Montana waiting for the line about “free stuff”. They got it.

He wasn’t booed because he advocated unpopular political positions but because he acted as if he was completely oblivious to where he was. It was as if your smelly old aunt with bad breath suddenly leaned in on you one day and urged you to get a haircut and go to church and get a job and find some girl and get married.

And you already have a job.

But here’s the most important thing: Republicans love giving away free stuff.  The earned income deduction.  The oil depletion allowance.  The military industrial complex.  Sports stadiums.  9/11 Victims Compensation (compare to Hurricane Katrina victims compensation), military bases in Congressional Districts that are no longer needed, tax incentives, and so on, and so on.

Yes, loads and loads of Free Stuff.

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The Confederacy in South Carolina

Let’s face it– most people knew very well that the racism was already there– it was always hidden, disguised, sublimated into guns and states’ rights.

But it’s pretty well out in the open now. Newt Gingrich cemented it with his “yeah, so what” defense of his comments about African Americans needing to get off food stamps and into jobs. He announced that he was willing to attend an NAACP conference and tell them all directly. Yes, he said it. He didn’t say poor Americans, and he didn’t say lower class Americans, and he did not even say unemployed Americans. He said African Americans. He said NAACP. He didn’t offer to make statements like that directly to the Southern Baptist Convention.

That was stunning enough. What was even more stunning is that none of the other candidates thought it would be in their interest to disavow Gingrich’s statement, criticize it, or even disagree — openly– with it. Not even Romney, who has struggled so hard to be so absolutely cosmetically correct in all things. Now we know that the cosmetics of race are this: the Republican Party has no problem with a racist candidate and South Carolina has no problem with a racist Republican. You just have to be subtle about it. This was not subtle.

Ron Paul was booed when he said American foreign policy should adopt an attitude of “do unto others what you would have them do to you”. This is a state Republican Party which, pollsters tell us, is conservative evangelical. Well, no it isn’t, but they say they are.

And I know it sounds rude, but just how stupid are South Carolina Republicans. Do they seriously believe that Romney wants to come down there after the election and do some hunting and kill some large mammalian critters with a weapon? Do they hear him say that and go, why, I just know I can trust him to appoint the right guy to the Federal Reserve and make good decisions about entitlements and interest rates and environmental policy, and I’ll bet he can handle those Iranians too. He’ll just hunt them down and stack them in his freezer.

Well, maybe they do.

They all vow to attack Iran. Do the voters of South Carolina go, well, he talks a big stick but we know there are complications to foreign policy and it might not always be in our interests to just go over there and whack someone.

Like Iraq, hmmm.

A woman came up to Gingrich after the debate and thanked him for “putting [moderator] Mr. Juan Williams in his place”.

The so-called “liberal” main stream media has not done a thing with this story yet. My theory is that they can’t believe it either and just don’t have the language ready to deal with it.