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**bsteadman** · 09-18-2012, 11:58 PM

Video: Mitt Romney on Obama Voters

Published on Sep 17, 2012 by MotherJonesVideo

View the video at:

http://youtu.be/XnB0NZzl5HA

**bsteadman** · 09-19-2012, 12:10 AM

Romney "Victim" Statement Not Elegant But Accurate [OPINION]

ForexTV NewsDesk (New York)
Timothy Kelly
9/18/2012

Excerpt:

"Mitt Romney can't seem to shake the monkey of class-warfare attacks from the back of his campaign. And his latest remarks, secretly recorded at a closed-door fundraiser, seem to play right into the class warfare trap. Mitt Romney was recorded telling donor that many Americans see themselves as "victims" dependant on government programs. Mr. Romney later stated that his remarks were not "elegantly stated".

While maybe not elegant, the statement may be the truest phrase uttered by either candidate in the campaign so far. It may not be flattering, but if it is honesty we want in politics, then we better be prepared to hear things about ourselves that we may not like. The Obama campaign pounced on this statement as another example that Mr. Romney is an elitist, only concerned about the welfare of the rich.

The fact is that many Americans do rely on government assistance, and are becoming addicted to it. There are more Americans on public assistance then at any time in our nation's history. Most recently, during the housing market downturn, millions of Americans found themselves with mortgages higher than the value of their homes. The blame for this was immediately cast on lending institutions who were said to be engaging in predatory lending practices against borrowers. In other words, those millions of home owners claimed they were "victims" of a corrupt system of banking.

America is a culture of over-indulgence and consumption, and when homeowners flocked to exploit cheap money during the 1990's and early 2000's to drain the equity in their homes with second and third mortgages, they did so at their own peril. Furthermore, the US government, led in part by Barney Frank, Senator from Massachusetts, was in the forefront of creating cheap housing money. Notwithstanding, many people who took these loans were likely ignorant to the consequences of their actions, and it is likely that some lending institutions exploited this ignorance. In the latter case, those people were victims. Last year the US government itself (the taxpayers) foreclosed on approximately 250,000 homes that were backed by government loans. Just last week, the Mortgage Bankers association reported that 11.9%, or 5.8 million households were delinquent on their mortgage payments.

President Obama last year enacted a moratorium on foreclosures due to questionable practices by lending institutions during the foreclosure process. Many homeowners are simply refusing to pay their mortgages with the knowledge that they will be able to stay in their homes for 4 or more years before foreclosure removes them from their homes. In many cases the lender will capitulate and (modify) reduce the amount on the mortgage obligation and take the loss. This is a dependence on a government subsidy.

Also last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced the Fed's intention to purchase $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities in an effort to keep home prices up and mortgage rates low. This is the program of "Quantitative Easing" whereby the Fed essentially prints money. This again is a form of government subsidy in the housing markets that is entering its third year. If the present administration did not think that Americans are "victims" why spend $5.9 trillion to bail them out? You simply cannot have it both ways."
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View the complete article at:

http://www.forextv.com/forex-news-st...curate-opinion

**bsteadman** · 09-19-2012, 02:56 PM

Recording of Romney Comments Could Be Illegal

Newsmax
Newsmax Wires
9/18/2012

Excerpt:

"The clandestine recording of Republican presidential candidate saying that 47 percent of Americans believe they are victims may have broken Florida’s laws against eavesdropping, legal experts say.

Romney made the comments at a private fundraiser in Boca Raton, Fla., on May 17. Florida is a two-party consent state, meaning the state’s rules require consent from a person being recorded when that person has a reasonable expectation of maintaining his/her privacy, experts tell Politico.

Florida makes it a crime to intercept or record a "wire, oral, or electronic communication" in Florida, unless all parties to the communication consent.

So the question is whether Romney can legitimately claim that expectation, given that fundraising events are designed to influence his supporters and make others aware of his candidacy.

No one has filed a complaint yet, so there is no investigation, Paul Zacks, the chief assistant state attorney for Palm Beach County told the Wall Street Journal.

Zacks warned that although it's clear the person making the Romney video did not seek the candidate's consent, Florida courts have ruled that taping without consent is legal if the subject being recorded doesn't have a “reasonable" expectation of privacy.

According to the Florida Bar, "taking photographs of a person or his property in a private place may be an invasion of privacy. Tape recording a person without his consent may invite damage awards, and, in Florida, also constitutes a crime."

The Romney fundraiser was held with some 100 people in attendance, according to news reports at the time. It was held at the home of private-equity executive Marc Leder and, in the video, it appears to be a small, intimate gathering.

Zacks told the Journal that there would have to be an "extensive legal" investigation before any charges would be brought and that won't happen unlesss a victim -- Romney -- comes forward.

That investigation would have to sort whether Leder, the host, invited his guests with the expectation that cameras were off-limits. Even so, Romney would have to show he had a reasonable expectation that his comments were private in such a public venue.

That may be hard to prove, first-amendment attorney Alison Steele told The Tampa Bay Times.

"The question I think the law would ask is, is it reasonable for a candidate for president to stand at a podium in front of a roomful of people and expect that no one would record anything he said?" Steele said. "I would think that an unreasonable expectation."

View the complete article at:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/rom...9/18/id/456664

**bsteadman** · 09-19-2012, 07:18 PM

Selective Edit? Mother Jones Admits Romney Tape Missing 'One to Two Minutes'

SELECTIVE EDIT? MOTHER JONES ADMITS ROMNEY TAPE MISSING 'ONE TO TWO MINUTES'

Breitbart/Big-Journalism
Joel B. Pollak
9/19/2012

Excerpt:

"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."
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View the complete article at:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...or-Two-Minutes

**bsteadman** · 09-20-2012, 01:54 PM

Cut in Romney video follows Obama pattern

Exclusive: Jack Cashill looks at claim recorder 'inadvertently turned off' during 47% talk

WND
Jack Cashill
9/19/2012

Excerpt:

"It turns out that the person who recorded Mitt Romney’s now notorious comments at a private fundraiser cut out an admitted two minutes of Romney’s answer.

In response to Romney’s claim that the tape had been edited, David Corn of Mother Jones posted the “complete” audio and video in a tweet:

“Romney says we posted ‘snippets’ & not full answers in the secret videos. Uh . . . no. See for yourself. The full tape: motherjones.com/politics/2012/. . . .”

William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection did as requested and noticed that the tape jumped at exactly the critical point in Romney’s discussion. The cut is undeniable:

ROMNEY: “We do all these polls – I find it amazing. We poll all these people to see where you stand in the polls but 45 percent of the people vote for the Republicans and 48 or 49 …

tape cuts out, picks up with:

ROMNEY: “… about twice as much as China, not 10 times as much like is reported. And we have responsibility for the whole world, they’re only focused on one little area of the world, the South China Sea.”

Romney may well have been in the process of clarifying or softening his remarks. We may never know. When Jacobson emailed Corn asking for an explanation, here is what he got back from Corn:

“According to the source, the recording device inadvertently turned off. The source noticed this quickly and turned it back one. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed.”

The temptation is to compare the omission to Nixon secretary Rosemary Woods’ deletion of 18 minutes on one of the Watergate tapes. But there is a more proximate point of comparison.

Those who follow Team Obama’s history of concealment will recognize a trend. In the case of at least two other crucial issues, Obama’s proxies have used the “clerical errors” alibi to explain away some highly troubling data.

Obama and his supporters, for instance, have yet to provide an explanation for how he came to have a Social Security number that begins with the Connecticut prefix “042.”

Carole Gilbert, in the Yahoo-related “Associated Content,” contended that “Barack Obama’s dad attended college in Connecticut and in 1977, Obama was college aged; is it beyond reason to consider that he might have checked out his father’s alma mater?”

Last time I checked, Harvard was in Massachusetts. The closest town to Harvard in Connecticut is about 90 minutes away, and there is no record at all that Obama Sr. lived there, let alone that Obama visited his imaginary alma mater and just happened to apply for a Social Security card while visiting.

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly finessed this claim. “[Obama's] father lived in Connecticut for several years,” O’Reilly said inaccurately on air last April. He added that “babies sometimes get numbers based on addresses provided by their parents.” Wrong again.

The left leaning fact-checking service Snopes.com concludes that “the most likely explanation” is a “simple clerical or typographical era.” Obama, they contend, lived in the Hawaii zip code of 96814 while the zip code for Danbury, Conn., is 06814.

In a vacuum, this explanation might fly, but Obama’s life is crowded with similar explanations. In May of this year, the reader will recall, Obama proxies used the clerical error alibi to rationalize a potentially damaging PR problem."
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View the complete article at:

http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/cut-in-ro...obama-pattern/

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Mitt Romney '47% Video' Is Straight Talk, No Apologies [TRANSCRIPT]

Mitt Romney '47% Video' Is Straight Talk, No Apologies [TRANSCRIPT]

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