NONE of the gop / tea-bagger candidates answered the question posed by a person in Florida, showing their lack of compassion and concern about the day to day struggles of the poor, the working class and the middle class, in short the 99%. Their answers were attacks on the Affordable Care Act ("obamacare") and on romney's "romneycare" passed while he was gov of Massachusetts. This is a clear message to America, the only "medical" procedure these guys will approve is BOHICA, and we will pay for it! From HuffPost....
During the GOP debate in Florida on Thursday, an unemployed Floridian in the audience named Lynn asked the candidates what their policies could do to help her get affordable health insurance again. The candidates offered her a host of long-term solutions and big-picture theories in return.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) told her she was the victim of government meddling. "When government gets involved in medicine, you don't [get] better care -- the cost goes up," Paul said. "You're suffering from the consequences of way too much government."
Asked how he'd help Lynn, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was the first to beat the Obamacare horse. "Repeal Obamacare, repeal Dodd-Frank," the former House speaker said, referring to the financial reform bill. "Give her a chance to have a job ... You combine reforming our insurance system and getting the economy growing again, you cure an awful lot. She is not dependent on Barack Obama to take care of her."
Although his health care overhaul in Massachusetts served as a model for the president's, Mitt Romney, too, grabbed at the opportunity to bash "Obamacare" when asked how his policies could help Lynn. "It's bad medicine," he said of the Affordable Care Act. "The president has failed the American people." Meanwhile, as he has before, Romney admitted that his own plan enacted in Massachusetts was "not perfect," though he said most residents approved of it.
As much as Romney tried to distance "Romneycare" from "Obamacare," Rick Santorum clearly relished drawing a line between the two.
"What he just said is top-down government-run medicine is working pretty well in Massachusetts," Santorum said.
Romney's plan, Santorum went on, has "15 items in common with Obamacare ... 1 in 4 people in Massachusetts don't get the care they need. This is the top-down model that both of these gentlemen" -- Romney and Gingrich (who has voiced support for the individual mandate) -- "say they're against but have been for."
"We cannot give the issue of health care away in this election," Santorum added.
Romney, perhaps taken aback by Santorum's passion, responded, "It's not worth getting angry about...."
BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label gop / tea-bagger presidential debates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gop / tea-bagger presidential debates. Show all posts
27 January 2012
26 January 2012
Newt Gingrich wrong in attack against media on open marriage question from the WASHINGTON POST 26JAN12
It was one of the highlights of the South Carolina debate: Newt Gingrich fielding a question about one of his failed marriages, lashing out at the media, stirring the debate audience to its feet and going on to win the South Carolina primary in a landslide.
According to a CNN report late Wednesday, Gingrich misspoke on the
Republican presidential candidate former House speaker Newt Gingrich makes a point during the opening question of a debate at the North Charleston Coliseum Jan. 19., in South Carolina. (John Moore - GETTY IMAGES) debate stage when he accused ABC of airing an unfair report about his second marriage. The report included an interview with Marianne Gingrich, who accused her ex-husband of asking for an "open marriage" in the 1990s. But it didn't include interviews, Gingrich said on the debate stage last Thursday in Charleston, with people who say the charge is false.
"The story is false," Gingrich told CNN's John King at the debate. "Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested because they would like to attack any Republican."
The Gingrich campaign conceded Wednesday that the only two people they offered to ABC were Gingrich's two daughters, from his first marriage (not Marianne Gingrich’s daughters). ABC contacted both of them and they said Marianne Gingrich’s allegations were false.
What's unclear is whether Gingrich's advisers told him otherwise.When asked Thursday morning to explain the misstatement Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond replied: “I’m not talking about ABC anymore. I’m sick of talking about ABC. It’s a week old.”
At the debate, Gingrich went on to call King "despicable" for opening the debate with a question about Gingrich's marital history. And in an interview this week with King, he said it was "just plain baloney" that that his campaign hadn't offered any other contacts beyond his daughters. But he faltered a little, looking off camera at his staff and saying: "I'll check with R.C. Hammond in a minute, but if they're saying that, they're just not being honest."
In CNN's Wednesday report, King said: "The Gingrich campaign concedes now that Speaker Gingrich was wrong, both in his debate answer and in our interview yesterday.
Gingrich spokesman Hammond says the only people the campaign offered to ABC were the speaker's two daughters from his first marriage.
According to a CNN report late Wednesday, Gingrich misspoke on the
Republican presidential candidate former House speaker Newt Gingrich makes a point during the opening question of a debate at the North Charleston Coliseum Jan. 19., in South Carolina. (John Moore - GETTY IMAGES) debate stage when he accused ABC of airing an unfair report about his second marriage. The report included an interview with Marianne Gingrich, who accused her ex-husband of asking for an "open marriage" in the 1990s. But it didn't include interviews, Gingrich said on the debate stage last Thursday in Charleston, with people who say the charge is false.
"The story is false," Gingrich told CNN's John King at the debate. "Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested because they would like to attack any Republican."
The Gingrich campaign conceded Wednesday that the only two people they offered to ABC were Gingrich's two daughters, from his first marriage (not Marianne Gingrich’s daughters). ABC contacted both of them and they said Marianne Gingrich’s allegations were false.
What's unclear is whether Gingrich's advisers told him otherwise.When asked Thursday morning to explain the misstatement Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond replied: “I’m not talking about ABC anymore. I’m sick of talking about ABC. It’s a week old.”
At the debate, Gingrich went on to call King "despicable" for opening the debate with a question about Gingrich's marital history. And in an interview this week with King, he said it was "just plain baloney" that that his campaign hadn't offered any other contacts beyond his daughters. But he faltered a little, looking off camera at his staff and saying: "I'll check with R.C. Hammond in a minute, but if they're saying that, they're just not being honest."
In CNN's Wednesday report, King said: "The Gingrich campaign concedes now that Speaker Gingrich was wrong, both in his debate answer and in our interview yesterday.
Gingrich spokesman Hammond says the only people the campaign offered to ABC were the speaker's two daughters from his first marriage.
21 January 2012
Rick Santorum says Obama prohibits encouraging young people to marry from POLITIFACT 19JAN12
ANOTHER lie by Christian gop / tea-bagger presidential candidate rick santorum about the Obama administration. Some may say santorum's statement is not a lie, just a misunderstanding. Possible, except he is running for president, so he is responsible for making sure this statements are true and factual, especially since he is running as a Christian candidate. Instead, he has shown time and again a total disregard for the fact and for making sure his comments and opinions about Pres Obama are true (check out his section on PolitiFact.com ) , and is deliberately misleading, distorting, deceiving, and lying to the American electorate to inflame hatred of Pres Obama for his own political gain. Pathetic. This from Politifact......
Says an Obama administration policy prohibits people who work with at-risk youth from promoting marriage as a way to avoid poverty.
Rick Santorum on Monday, January 16th, 2012 in a debate in South CarolinaRick Santorum says Obama prohibits encouraging young people to marry
Rick Santorum says the president has issued a gag order on talking to young people about marriage.
During a debate in South Carolina on Jan. 16, 2012, Santorum gave a winding answer to a moderator’s question about combating poverty. He mentioned a study that he said found that people who have a job, earn a high school diploma and get married before having children are far less likely to be poor.
"It's a huge, huge opportunity for us," he said. "But what is the Obama administration doing?" The White House, Santorum said, "now has regulations that tell (people who work with at-risk youths) that they can no longer promote marriage to these young girls. They can no longer promote marriage as a way of avoiding poverty and bad choices that they make in their life."
It was a vague claim but one that piqued our curiosity.
What’s behind this?
We reached out to Santorum’s campaign to ask for the basis of the claim but didn’t get a reply. In the debate, the former Pennsylvania senator said he learned about the no-marriage rule from Elayne Bennett, founder and president of the Best Friends Foundation. The organization provides character education for at-risk girls in Washington, D.C., schools. Its message to adolescents, according to Bennett: "that the best decision is to reject the risk behaviors of sex, drugs and alcohol."
Bennett is the wife of Bill Bennett, former education secretary under President Ronald Reagan and drug czar under President George H.W. Bush. Both Bennetts are well-known conservatives.
In an interview, Elayne Bennett told us Santorum’s statement was incorrect with regard to marriage.
Here’s some background: Best Friends Foundation was awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant by the Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. The Healthy Marriage Grant, which included a component for counseling inner-city teenagers on the benefits of marriage, addressed issues such as abuse prevention and life skills.
But Bennett said that about two years ago, after Obama was elected, one aspect of the grant’s terms changed.
"We were not to discuss abstinence or sex as a risk behavior," Bennett said. "It was a verbal instruction that we had to remove that word -- abstinence -- from our curriculum materials, which we did because we wanted to adhere to the new policy."
Bennett says she rejects the label "abstinence-only" for what she teaches but said, "we do recommend that the best choice for young people is to say no to risk behaviors."
Formerly that meant encouraging girls to wait to have sex -- until the grant terms changed.
But she said the change never applied to discussing the benefits of marriage, and she thought Santorum’s statement in the debate left that impression. She said she spoke to him the next day, and he acknowledged it was "lost in the translation."
In the debate, Santorum added that the White House had restricted federal grantees from talking about abstinence and described why he thinks that’s harmful.
"They (the grantees) have to be neutral with respect to how people behave," Santorum said. "The problem is neutrality ends in poverty, neutrality ends in choices that hurt people's lives. This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is. That is absolutely unconscionable."
Bennett, who also issued a statement clarifying Santorum’s error, said she still agrees with his broader point about the benefits of discussing abstinence.
Source of the confusion
The Department of Health and Human Services told us that its position (in the prior administration and in this administration) stems from a 2006 law signed by President George W. Bush. Called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, it identifies eight activities on which healthy marriage funds can be used.
Here, word for word, are the eight activities listed in the statute:
• Public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and the skills needed to increase marital stability and health.
• Education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills and budgeting.
• Marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs that may include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution and job and career advancement.
• Pre-marital education and marriage skills training for engaged couples and for couples or individuals interested in marriage.
• Marriage enhancement and marriage skills training programs for married couples.
• Divorce reduction programs that teach relationship skills.
• Marriage mentoring programs which use married couples as role models and mentors in at-risk communities.
• Programs to reduce the disincentives to marriage in means-tested aid programs … .
Clearly, promoting marriage is an express purpose of this grant, not prohibiting promoting it.
A 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office review of the grant found that there was confusion among grant recipients and HHS staff about what was allowed to be taught about abstinence.
"HHS officials told us that abstinence education was not allowable under the Healthy Marriage program, but we observed during our site visits and review of grantee data several Healthy Marriage grantees operating programs that focused on abstinence education," the report states.
To clear up confusion, HHS said that in 2011 they made the existing policy more explicit but did not change the policy. The department also added that the topic of abstinence can be one component of some of these activities, but a stand-alone abstinence education program does not fit within the statutory uses of the funds.
Our ruling
Santorum said the Obama administration is not allowing people who work with at-risk adolescents to promote the benefits of marriage.
Santorum said he had heard this from Elayne Bennett of the Best Friends Foundation, but she told us he misspoke. The change under Obama, according to Bennett, was about what could be taught regarding abstinence -- not marriage. The Department of Health and Human Services said there was confusion in this area, so it clarified the policy, which does allow discussion of abstinence in other contexts but not as a stand-alone education program. Santorum simply got it wrong. His statement is False.
Subjects: Marriage, Poverty
Sources:
Republican presidential primary debate, Jan. 16, 2012, Myrtle Beach, S.C., transcript accessed via Nexis
Interview with Elayne Bennett, Best Friends Foundation, Jan. 17, 2012
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
Government Accountability Office, "Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative," September 2008
Written by: Molly Moorhead
Researched by: Molly Moorhead
Edited by: Martha M. Hamilton
During a debate in South Carolina on Jan. 16, 2012, Santorum gave a winding answer to a moderator’s question about combating poverty. He mentioned a study that he said found that people who have a job, earn a high school diploma and get married before having children are far less likely to be poor.
"It's a huge, huge opportunity for us," he said. "But what is the Obama administration doing?" The White House, Santorum said, "now has regulations that tell (people who work with at-risk youths) that they can no longer promote marriage to these young girls. They can no longer promote marriage as a way of avoiding poverty and bad choices that they make in their life."
It was a vague claim but one that piqued our curiosity.
What’s behind this?
We reached out to Santorum’s campaign to ask for the basis of the claim but didn’t get a reply. In the debate, the former Pennsylvania senator said he learned about the no-marriage rule from Elayne Bennett, founder and president of the Best Friends Foundation. The organization provides character education for at-risk girls in Washington, D.C., schools. Its message to adolescents, according to Bennett: "that the best decision is to reject the risk behaviors of sex, drugs and alcohol."
Bennett is the wife of Bill Bennett, former education secretary under President Ronald Reagan and drug czar under President George H.W. Bush. Both Bennetts are well-known conservatives.
In an interview, Elayne Bennett told us Santorum’s statement was incorrect with regard to marriage.
Here’s some background: Best Friends Foundation was awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant by the Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. The Healthy Marriage Grant, which included a component for counseling inner-city teenagers on the benefits of marriage, addressed issues such as abuse prevention and life skills.
But Bennett said that about two years ago, after Obama was elected, one aspect of the grant’s terms changed.
"We were not to discuss abstinence or sex as a risk behavior," Bennett said. "It was a verbal instruction that we had to remove that word -- abstinence -- from our curriculum materials, which we did because we wanted to adhere to the new policy."
Bennett says she rejects the label "abstinence-only" for what she teaches but said, "we do recommend that the best choice for young people is to say no to risk behaviors."
Formerly that meant encouraging girls to wait to have sex -- until the grant terms changed.
But she said the change never applied to discussing the benefits of marriage, and she thought Santorum’s statement in the debate left that impression. She said she spoke to him the next day, and he acknowledged it was "lost in the translation."
In the debate, Santorum added that the White House had restricted federal grantees from talking about abstinence and described why he thinks that’s harmful.
"They (the grantees) have to be neutral with respect to how people behave," Santorum said. "The problem is neutrality ends in poverty, neutrality ends in choices that hurt people's lives. This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is. That is absolutely unconscionable."
Bennett, who also issued a statement clarifying Santorum’s error, said she still agrees with his broader point about the benefits of discussing abstinence.
Source of the confusion
The Department of Health and Human Services told us that its position (in the prior administration and in this administration) stems from a 2006 law signed by President George W. Bush. Called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, it identifies eight activities on which healthy marriage funds can be used.
Here, word for word, are the eight activities listed in the statute:
• Public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and the skills needed to increase marital stability and health.
• Education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills and budgeting.
• Marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs that may include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution and job and career advancement.
• Pre-marital education and marriage skills training for engaged couples and for couples or individuals interested in marriage.
• Marriage enhancement and marriage skills training programs for married couples.
• Divorce reduction programs that teach relationship skills.
• Marriage mentoring programs which use married couples as role models and mentors in at-risk communities.
• Programs to reduce the disincentives to marriage in means-tested aid programs … .
Clearly, promoting marriage is an express purpose of this grant, not prohibiting promoting it.
A 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office review of the grant found that there was confusion among grant recipients and HHS staff about what was allowed to be taught about abstinence.
"HHS officials told us that abstinence education was not allowable under the Healthy Marriage program, but we observed during our site visits and review of grantee data several Healthy Marriage grantees operating programs that focused on abstinence education," the report states.
To clear up confusion, HHS said that in 2011 they made the existing policy more explicit but did not change the policy. The department also added that the topic of abstinence can be one component of some of these activities, but a stand-alone abstinence education program does not fit within the statutory uses of the funds.
Our ruling
Santorum said the Obama administration is not allowing people who work with at-risk adolescents to promote the benefits of marriage.
Santorum said he had heard this from Elayne Bennett of the Best Friends Foundation, but she told us he misspoke. The change under Obama, according to Bennett, was about what could be taught regarding abstinence -- not marriage. The Department of Health and Human Services said there was confusion in this area, so it clarified the policy, which does allow discussion of abstinence in other contexts but not as a stand-alone education program. Santorum simply got it wrong. His statement is False.
About this statement:
Published: Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 6:09 p.m.Subjects: Marriage, Poverty
Sources:
Republican presidential primary debate, Jan. 16, 2012, Myrtle Beach, S.C., transcript accessed via Nexis
Interview with Elayne Bennett, Best Friends Foundation, Jan. 17, 2012
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
Government Accountability Office, "Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative," September 2008
Written by: Molly Moorhead
Researched by: Molly Moorhead
Edited by: Martha M. Hamilton
12 November 2011
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