You don't.

Al I can do is shake my head at this. Even if you feel that it's true you just don't say it because things like that always come out.

He arrived at the 47% figure because that's the percentage of likely voters who will vote Obama.

So he's saying that even full-time employed, non-government benefit receiving Obama voters like m'self are welfare leeches. Because voting for Obama.

He was saying 47% because that's roughly the percentage of people who don't pay federal income tax.

It was an assumption that, that 47% would be voting Obama.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser

1. "Responding to a question about the "Palestinian problem," Romney said peace in the Middle East is not possible and a Palestinian state is not feasible, telling donors that Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish."

TERRIBLE view of the situation.

The ONLY path to a lasting peace in the Middle East, to stop the deaths of Palestinians AND Israeli Jews, is a two-state solution.

Romney in the full video claims Obama's foreign policy has been a failure...

How horrible a stance is THAT, to just tell the Palestinians and, by proxy, most if not all the Arab World to shove off?

You think they hate and want to kill us NOW...!

As a vehement Israel backer, I am appalled at Romney's blank-check attitude towards Israel, and as I've said before, rather offended that he's attempted to try and parlay a false show of support for Israel into a ploy for Jewish votes.

We're too smart for that, Mr. Romney, and your plan would just see more of my people being killed and encourage even more radical stances from Iran and neighbors...how at risk would THAT put Israel?

But returning to Mitt's Tryst about the 47% at home...

2. WOW.

Even though there is some factual truth to that comment...how politically STUPID to you have to be to say 47% of the electorate are not your problem as President of THEIR COUNTRY...that's over 100 million people you've just said do NOT matter yo you, Mr. Romney, and to essentially call them irresponsible leeches...

"My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

And you wonder why people say you don't have the common touch.

Republicans trying to claim Obama is elitist next to Romney is like a Yankees fan trying to argue the Mets are snootier, richer, and more corporate of the two New York teams.

Talk about your glass houses...

3. There is no defense.

None.

Prove me wrong, but I say there is no defense.

He's screwed up, and badly, and either needs to admit it or own it; it looks like he's doing the latter, even going so far as to joke he'd have a better shot in the election of he were Latino.

...

As if he didn't quite alienate ENOUGH people.

I mean, really--if in '08 Obama had said "You know, I'd have a better shot at this thing if I was White," there would have been a firestorm over his playing the race card...

But AT LEAST, well, there would have been an undeniable truth to that statement, with 43 of 43 previous presidents being, well, WHITE.

It's statements like THAT...bemoaning his status as a Wealthy White 1%-er...and I loathe that 1% term, as I loathe the Occupy people on the Off-the-Cliff Left as much as I loathe this Far-Right Cold Capitalism-Without-Restraint, but it's warranted with Mitt, he is the living, breathing embodiment of what the 1% caricature is.



And when your candidate is as blatant as a New Yorker caricature, GOP voters...

My reactions -

1 - Romney explicitly attacked seniors and veterans, along with students and the working poor. Many seniors and veterans vote Republican. Between this, the plan of gutting Medicare & Medicaid, and Romney's refusal to even acknowledge the existence of veterans at the convention, I somehow doubt they will this time.

2 - Romney just shredded any last credibility he had with independent voters. Romney openly said he doesn't care about anybody who doesn't vote his way. He will be the President of the 53%. He wants a bare minimum of support if he manages to buy the Presidency successfully. Most new Presidents want approval ratings in the 60s+. Not Romney. So any promises he makes that his Presidency will usher in some kind of era of bipartisan cooperation that was lacking supposedly due to Obama is just another one of Romney's many lies.

3 - Romney has run the most inept Presidential campaign in recent memory. I mean, even conservatives are not holding back at publishing editorials condemning his utter stupidity and lack of strategy. Big names in the GOP are openly hoping that Romney steps down and Ryan heads the ticket (which is funny in itself). Between this horrendous speech at the 50,000 dinner and his absurd statements on the Libya & Egypt protests, it's clear that the Romney campaign is imploding and that he is out of his depth.

4 - Romney's only hope is that his unnamed billionaire backers can ad blitz Romney to victory. As it is he is not even campaigning hard in key battleground states where he is trailing by a sizeable margin - like Ohio. He has spent way too much time with debate prep, thinking he'll pull over a Ronald Reagan 1980 victory. But Romney has none of the charisma and phony optimism of Ronald Reagan, and has given Obama a litany of ammunition to use against him directly in the debates.

This thing is over. The video clinched it.

When are the debates btw?

Of course payroll taxes, social security taxes, and the like don't apparently count for anything. This is a guy who paid 13% in taxes which is lower than most of the "mooching" 47%. This guy is unreal. I guess the GOP's decade-long celebration of stupidity has finally caught up with it.

"Explain yourself."

According to CNN and CBS, he IS factually correct that 47%...

In a loose sense.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57515033-503544/fact-checking-romneys-47-percent-comment/

"Much of Romney's statement relies on assumptions about one demographic: The 47 percent of Americans who he says "pay no income tax." So is it true that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income tax? Essentially, yes, according to the the Tax Policy Center, which provides data showing that in 2011, 46.4 percent of American households paid no federal income tax. The same data shows, however, that nearly two-thirds of households that paid no income tax did pay payroll taxes. And most people also pay some combination of state, local, sales, gas and property taxes."

Still a stupid comment to make and a mark of his overly-elitist attitude, but at least to a certain extent, if the above is true, his remarks, as insulting and political-suicide-worthy as they may be, have a factual basis...if only a twisted factual basis.

The first one is in 2 weeks.

"When are the debates btw?"

2 weeks, I believe...and THAT should be fun--

Even Romney supporters know speaking isn't his strong suit...and Obama IS a good speaker...

And now Romney has to essentially win this thing on his weakest suit in the midst of a slew of stupid statements while Obama is in his element and can lobby one verbal hand grenade after another at him...

They tried to bill Romney as Reagan 2.0 at the RNC:

He'll HAVE to be channeling The Great Communicator to have a chance.

Except he went way beyond saying this 47% don't pay income tax.

I think it is poetic justice that Carter's grandson had a hand in exposing this video.

Yes he also said that 47% also thought as themselves as victims and were entitled to things like food, housing and you know things I feel are basic rights to have.

Yeah the Romney campaign is like a train wreck you just can't pull your eyes from.

"and I loathe that 1% term, as I loathe the Occupy people on the Off-the-Cliff Left as much as I loathe this Far-Right Cold Capitalism-Without-Restraint,"

We loathe you do-nothing faux 'liberals' just as much, if not more.

Everyone receives government benefits. Like driving on roads? Like having fire departments? Sponge.

Like Mitt Romney's company -

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-federal-bailout-that-saved-mitt-romney-20120829

"My reactions -"

For once I had to +1 a comment of yours there, Putin, I agree wholeheartedly with your quartet of talking points there.

"We loathe you do-nothing faux 'liberals' just as much, if not more."

And I was just so nice and spoke the praises of your post...

Well, for what it's worth, we Moderate Liberals--far from "do nothings," it's a Moderate Liberal who's sitting in the White House right now, NOT a radical far-Left pure socialist--don't think much of you Occupy, Off-the-Cliff-Left Liberals who quite frankly embarrass the rest of us trying to work practically with the Center and Right and actually build a working America rather than sit around and, well, "Occupy."

A Moderate Liberal occupies the White House.

Putin-Far Liberals occupy cheap tents in Wall Street and Oakland.

My grandmother does not pay federal income tax because her income is sufficiently low. She receives Social Security and relies on Medicare for health insurance. She also is a staunch Republican voter and watches nothing but Fox News. I expect that she will believe Romney's comments do not apply to her, and that he was instead referring to lazy immigrant welfare recipients who have no reason to work because the government provides them everything. As to them, she probably agrees with his comments. Any claim that Romney was talking about her is just another distortion of the facts promoted by the liberal media. My grandmother will still vote for Romney, and I do not think her situation is unusual. Of course, her vote will be largely irrelevant because she lives in San Francisco.

I don't really think of Mr. Obama as a moderate liberal. But that's probably because I'm old enough to remember when the Democratic party didn't just shovel cash at Wall Street and claim the right to disappear anyone, anywhere.

^Well, you're right about one thing--

Likely Republicans, more than Democrats, are actually more of the demographic that would make up Romney's 47%--

According to CNN's map, the 10 states with the highest "47%er" concentration, people who would fit in that category?

ALL in The Solid South.

And the 10 lowest?

ALL Blue/Leaning Blue states.

I actually know someone who grew up in a poor, low income family, I think they had food stamps...and the man is a US Air Force veteran--

He's an independent, but I can't imagine that he'd feel rather ingratiated towards a candidate who really just said that he and his family were, in his campaign's view, freeloaders and dependent leeches.

I know it's a shocker to some of the Republicans out there...

Some families are just poor.
It's not a fault in character.
It's not that they are evil, terrible leeches who care for no one else.
Some families are just poor, they get bad breaks or get laid off or whatever else.

They are NOT worthy of this sort of treatment...I mean, again, what did this family produce but a member of the US military--

HARDLY a slacker, wouldn't you say?

"I don't really think of Mr. Obama as a moderate liberal. But that's probably because I'm old enough to remember when the Democratic party didn't just shovel cash at Wall Street and claim the right to disappear anyone, anywhere."

Well, in the context of today's political climate, he's a moderate, I would say...

A Nancy Pelosi--*shudders*--of my home state...THAT is a Far-Left Liberal.

Obama is far closer to the center than she.

On a national level, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that one party is slightly cooler with gay people fucking than the other. Both parties have incredibly similar thoughts about the tax code and American imperialism, however.

"On a national level, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that one party is slightly cooler with gay people fucking than the other"

If by 'slightly' cooler, you mean one party wants to exorcise the 'gay spirits' and advocates bullying them to the point of suicide in schools while the other has eliminated various restrictions on their equal citizenship, then yeah "slightly cooler".

You can be a leftist without having a facile analysis of the two party system. I doubt many of the people in Mississippi and South Carolina, who are having their voting rights suppressed by voter ID laws, or the trade unionists in Wisconsin and Ohio, or the women in Virginia & Texas who are having invasive humiliating misogynistic legislation being passed over their objections find any value in that analysis.

If you're already privileged and have no reason to fear the effects of the Tea Party controlling every branch of government, then you can continue to blather on about how the two parties are 'the same', to the thunderous applause of the extreme-right.

And if you think the qualifier 'national level' has any meaning, then please please look up how the national Republicans and Democrats have behaved vis-a-vis gay, minority, women's rights, immigration, and a multitude of other issues.

If you think the two parties are no different on foreign policy - take a fucking look at Romney's advisers and say that with a straight face. We've somehow managed to avoid a war with Iran to this point. Everybody in Romney's corner is ginning up for an imminent war with Iran. I guess that's not a difference that matters much to people who aren't being bombed.

"Well, for what it's worth, we Moderate Liberals--far from "do nothings,""

Most are. Have you ever actually bothered mobilizing for any political cause, ever? Have you ever bothered exercising any of your rights and responsibilities of citizenship other than reciting the talking points of the mainstream media? Or do you do little more than heap scorn at the people who fight and risk their bodies & lives for the few crumbs we're able to get in this system?

The only reason we're talking about disparity of wealth *at all* in this campaign is because of the shift in discourse caused by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Prior to that there was essentially a national consensus that the burden of economic restructuring had to fall on the poor and working class via massive entitlement cuts.

Note that I said national level, Putin. Here in Wisconsin, I actually support the Democrats by donating and volunteering. We're actually fighting to stop the radical Republicans. The national party apparatus, though, does not appear even slightly willing to fight the transfer of wealth up the economic pyramid, nor does it appear interested in curbing American imperialism.