Romney Attacks Obama for Saying Businesses Need Start-Up Help

(POST PUBLISHED 7/19, REVISED 7/24/12)

Romney Attacks Obama for Saying Businesses Need Start-Up Help  - Something Romney Himself Has Been Saying 

(BTW Here is How President Obama and Mitt Romney compare on support for small businesses.)

Romney - taking an Obama sentence out of context, said the other day:

“It shows how out of touch he is with the character of America. This idea of criticizing and attacking success, of demonizing those in all walks of life who have been successful, is something that is so foreign to us that we can’t understand it.”

Here is the sentence from President Obama:

"If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that." 

And here is the context:

"There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

You be the judge: 

Did Obama say (as Romney spins it):

"It shows how out of touch he is with the character of America. . . ."

Or, was Obama talking about "a great teacher somewhere in your life . . ."

and "roads and bridges" when he said: "you didn’t build that."

Meanwhile, while criticizing Obama for praiding " . . . this unbelievable American system" that fosters business growth, Romney admits that businesses ought to benefit from society's help:

“I was on a bus trip a few weeks ago, you may have seen, across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan. . . . I was in Indiana, Wisconsin, and these are the states headed by Republican governors, and you know what? They are doing the right things, and it’s making a difference.”

Nice to know that Romney wants businesses to benefit from government support - like roads and bridges. Too bad he also wants to remove the Medicare and Healthcare safety nets which keep poor, working people from dropping out of the already-shrinking American middle class. 


American working people? They are not part of Mitt's circle of  support. Romney is much more interested in supporting the super-rich Latin American right wing. (See: Romney's Bain Capital Invested for Right-wing Salvadorans Associated with Supporting Death Squads)

Source: Romney, under pressure to release tax returns, turns fire on Obama - The Washington Post

Plus this VIDEO: President Obama’s fight for small businesses

Civil Marriage Equality Is Important - Reason #9

In case you missed this item on April 15 2012. (I did.)

On April 14, 2012, the White House announced a rule change, which will grant visiting rights to same-sex partners. This is important as it will make it easier for all couples to make medical decisions on behalf of their partners.

The new rule applies to any hospital that participates in Medicare or Medicaid. 

Although the rule does not grant new rights it does 'draw attention to the very real and tragic situations many gays and lesbians face when a partner is hospitalized," said Richard Socarides, who advised President Clinton on gay rights issues.

Gay rights advocates said the rule change is an advance. “It’s a huge deal,” said David Smith, vice president of policy for the Human Rights Campaign. Smith and HRC worked with the Obama administration on the new rule. 

“Nearly every hospital in the country will now be required to provide hospital visitation rights to LGBT families. It’s an enormous step. In the absence of equal marriage rights in most jurisdictions, this step provides an essential right to LGBT families for a gay person or a lesbian person to spend time with their partner in a critical situation.”

The rules change was inspired by a hospital's refusal - for eight hours - to permit a patient's same-sex partner and their four adopted children to see the fatally ill patient. The visits were blocked at the hospital even though the partner had the patient's power of attorney. Ms. Pond died as Ms. Langbehn tried in vain to get to her side. 
(The couple, Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, were profiled in The New York Times in 2009.)  

In conjunction with the rule change, President Obama called Ms. Langbehn, who said later to the New York Times:

“I was so humbled that he would know Lisa’s name and know our story. He apologized for how we were treated. For the last three years, that’s what I’ve been asking the hospital to do. Even now, three years later, they still refuse to apologize to the children and I for the fact that Lisa died alone.”

SOURCE:

Obama Widens Medical Rights for Gay Partners - NYTimes.com