LGBTQ news and entertainment
A new Elway Poll of Washington state finds Washington’s Referendum 74, on the question of approving marriage equality for same-sex couples in the state, has a 52 to 40 percent lead.
Two months ago, the same firm found marriage equality leading by a 49 to 39 percent plurality.
Even conservative reporter David Brooks has issues with the recent video footage at a GOP fund raising event:
“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.” – David Brooks, in a New York Times essay titled Thurston Howell Romney.
Mother Jones released more footage of Mitt Romney’s fund raising event caught on video.
In this clip, Mitt Romney says his approach to the Israel/Palestine issue is to “hope for some degree of stability” and “we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately something will happen and resolve it.”
Text from the clip:
Romney spoke of “the Palestinians” as a united bloc of one mindset, and he said: “I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there’s just no way.” Romney was indicating he did not believe in the peace process and, as president, would aim to postpone significant action: “[S]o what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem…and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”
Last night, as the news and details of Mitt Romney’s true thoughts on President Obama’s base were made public by an undercover video recorded at a Romney fundraiser in May, Mitt Romney called an emergency press conference to “stop the bleeding” and explain/clarify what he meant.
His explanations involved phrases like “campaign process” and “not elegantly stated” but in the end didn’t really address why he called 47% of the American population “victims” who are “dependent on the government.”
Interestingly, when you look at a map of the states with the highest levels of “non-tax paying” citizens, 8 of the top 10 are solidly Republican states.
Republican Mitt Romney says a video clip in which he called nearly half of Americans “victims” was “not elegantly stated” and was “spoken off the cuff.” However, he says President Barack Obama’s approach is “attractive to people who are not paying taxes.”
“Not elegantly stated” means in my translation: “damn, I wish someone hadn’t recorded that.”
According to recent sources, 8 of the top 10 “non-tax paying” states are solid red, Republican states: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Idaho.
Romney spoke to reporters Monday evening in a hastily called news conference after the emergence of a video in which the GOP presidential nominee told donors that almost half of American voters “believe that they are victims.”
Loved the New Directions’ performance of “Summer Nights” last season?
Well, you’re in luck because co-creator and executive producer Ian Brennan teased an upcoming episode that sounds to be heavy on Grease lightning.
“Our Grease episode, which we just finished writing, I think, is certainly our strongest episode in a while,” he tells TVGuide.com. “It just ended up really funny and sweet and weird.”
While it won’t be a full-on tribute episode, a la next week’s “Britney 2.0,” Jenna Ushkowitz offered a few more hints: “There’s a possibility of a musical and we may be putting on a show,” she said. When asked if it would follow in the footsteps of last year’s West Side Story production, she said “perhaps, yes, definitely.”
Via TVGuide
David Corn has found a video of Mitt Romney telling donors what he really thinks of voters.
This is the real Mitt, kids. Statements about the use of his wife in the campaign, about how he could do better if he were Latino and this:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
And, I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49 [percent], he starts with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. 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. I mean, that’s what they sell every four years.
And so my job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the five to 10 percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon, in some cases, emotion, whether they like the guy or not . . .
He continued: “[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
In other parts of the video, Romney shares that his campaign decided not to go too harshly at President Obama because the independents who voted for Obama last election don’t want to be told they made a mistake or they were wrong.
Romney also said about his father, “Had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot of winning this.”
Interestingly, take a look at this map of the United States. The red states are the ones with the HIGHEST level of non-tax filers – the ones Romney calls the 47 percent. The ones who don’t pay any federal taxes. Notice where those states are?
Who did Mitt Romney just insult?
Watch more of the video at MotherJones
Over the weekend, results of polls from important swings states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia) were released.
Of particular interest here is all three polls are of “Likely voters” and all three were done after both conventions.
Via CNN
