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Romney: 47% Believe ‘They Are Victims’ Entitled To Health Care, Food, Housing

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Mitt Romney in this video tells a group of about 30 major donors that 47% of Americans are Obama supporters because they believe they are entitled to health care, food, and housing. The video, one of a series, has been slowly making its way around the Internet for a few weeks, and up until today we decided to not publish it because we could not prove its authenticity. Now, as The Huffington Post reports, David Corn, the Washington Editor at Mother Jones, has been given the full version, not this one that was purposely “degraded” to protect the videographer’s identity.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney says in this video. “All right — there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.”

Ryan Grim and Matt Sledge at The Huffington Post add:

The person who uploaded a series of potentially inflammatory videos from the fundraiser has claimed authorship of them in an email exchange with The Huffington Post. The source said he or she wishes to remain anonymous for professional reasons and to avoid a lawsuit. The videos, which have created a buzz on the Internet, were blurred and at times blacked out to obscure the location of the filming, the source said.

“I have obviously degraded the quality to attempt to camo the location,” said the clandestine filmmaker. The original, which has not been posted in full, is very high quality, the source said.

…

Romney’s comments on the video go a step beyond his August claim, made in public, that the Obama administration’s state-by-state welfare waivers were an effort to “shore up his base.” In the behind-closed-doors speech to donors, Romney seems to be suggesting that nearly half of Americans expect to have all their needs supplied by the government.

As for the other 53 percent? Romney may have been referencing a meme started by conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who has noted that only 53 percent of Americans pay federal income taxes. Erickson argued that the rest of the country, and in particular the Occupy Wall Street movement, should “suck it up you whiners.”

The notion that Democrats hope to ride dependency to political power is one that has no shortage of adherents among conservatives. “We are reaching the tipping point where the majority of Americans are recipients of government programs,” columnist George Will said recently on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. “Heavens, one in seven of Americans is on food stamps today. The gamble — it’s really not a gamble, the tactic — of the Democratic Party is to run up the dependency ratio in this country until you get 50-60 percent of Americans dependent on the government in at least one or often in multiple ways, at which point they figure the party of government will always win.”

But there are a few problems with the idea of the overburdened “53 percent.” Many Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, in part, because of deductions like the child tax credit that have been championed by conservatives and progressives alike.Almost all of the “47 percent” do pay other federal taxes in the form of Social Security and Medicare payroll deductions and gas levies, as well as a variety of state and local sales and property taxes that aren’t dependent on income.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HsyMUxouLP0%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

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Trump Posts Video From 1987 of Him Ranting About Taking Iran’s Oil

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March 30, 2026

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President Donald Trump on Sunday told the Financial Times he wants to take Iran’s oil. On Monday, he posted a video of him saying exactly that — in 1987.

“To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the U.S. say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told FT.

In the resurfaced 1987 clip posted to Truth Social, Trump says, “Why couldn’t we go in and take over some of their oil, which is along the sea?”

Asked by Barbara Walters how he would do it, Trump appeared to have few answers.

“You take their oil,” he said.

“How?” a frustrated Walters pressed.

“You’re gonna have a war by being weak,” Trump retorted.

“How do we go in? What do we do?” Walters, now exasperated, continued to ask.

“You’re going to have a war. And it’s going to start in the Middle East,” was Trump’s response. “The next time Iran attacks this country, go in and grab one of their big oil installations, and I mean, grab it and keep it, and get back your losses, because this country has lost plenty because of Iran.”

Trump reportedly is sending more troops to the Middle East, and preparing for a possible weeks-long ground invasion, The Washington Post reported.

Earlier on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was blasted after declaring that the U.S. has just four goals in the thirty-one day war in Iran — and three of them Trump has insisted are complete. As critics noted, they did not include securing Iran’s nuclear stockpile or opening the Strait of Hormuz.

Mediaite reported that the clip Trump posted had already gone viral on social media Sunday evening.

READ MORE: ‘Alarm Bells’ as Trump Turns to Civil War White Supremacists in SCOTUS Case

 

 

 

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‘Alarm Bells’ as Trump Turns to Civil War White Supremacists in SCOTUS Case

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18 hours ago

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March 30, 2026

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The Trump administration is turning to Civil War-era white supremacists in its challenge to a more than one century-old ruling, based on the 14th Amendment, that states that most children born in the United States are U.S. citizens.

Over a century ago, Confederate officer and Louisiana attorney Alexander Porter Morse “was among a trio of thinkers who spearheaded a failed effort — steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism — to erase birthright citizenship,” The Washington Post reported. “The Trump administration is reviving their arguments to make its case today, some legal scholars say.”

University of New Hampshire history professor Lucy Salyer told the Post “she was struck that the Trump administration had chosen to elevate those figures and their ideas.”

“If you know the history and the broader context of what they were trying to achieve,” Salyer said, “it does ring alarm bells.”

The Post adds that “Trump administration attorneys cite Morse in their Supreme Court brief to argue the disputed idea that commentators in the 19th century widely agreed that the Constitution ‘exclude[s] the children of foreigners transiently within the United States’ from qualifying for citizenship.”

President Trump is making clear exactly where he stands on the issue of birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office Trump signed an executive order attempting to limit birthright citizenship for certain U.S.-born children of undocumented or temporary-status parents.

On Monday, the president went even further.

READ MORE: Trump Promotes Chilling Iran War Op-Ed Warning of What Could Be Coming Next

“Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!”

“Look at the dates of this long ago legislation – THE EXACT END OF THE CIVIL WAR!” he continued. “The World is getting rich selling citizenships to our Country, while at the same time laughing at how STUPID our U.S. Court System has become (TARIFFS!). ‘Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!'”

The Post notes that the ACLU calls the administration’s argument “nothing less than a remaking of our Nation’s constitutional foundations.” They say it would apply to tens of thousands of children born in the U.S. every month, and would be “devastating” to families around the country.

“But worse yet, the government’s baseless arguments — if accepted — would cast a shadow over the citizenship of millions upon millions of Americans, going back generations.”

According to the Post, the 1800s campaign against birthright citizenship also relied on prominent legal scholar Francis Wharton, who posited the idea that citizenship be granted to children of European immigrants but not to children of Chinese immigrants.

“Like Wharton, the Trump administration says in its brief a child’s citizenship is dependent on the parents’ nationality, not birth in the United States.”

The Trump administration, also like Wharton, “highlights the 14th Amendment phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof ,’ saying it disqualifies children of illegal migrants and temporary visitors from becoming citizens because they can’t demonstrate the necessary political allegiance to the United States the phrase evokes.”

The case, which will consider the legality of Trump’s executive order, will be argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

READ MORE: ‘Moving the Goalposts’: Rubio’s Iran War Defense Sparks Fierce Backlash

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‘Moving the Goalposts’: Rubio’s Iran War Defense Sparks Fierce Backlash

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20 hours ago

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March 30, 2026

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President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio continue to appear at odds with each other’s messaging on Iran, as Secretary Rubio declared four “clear objectives” for the war — objectives Trump has said have already been met, with Rubio describing Iran’s new current leadership as possibly impermanent, while the president praises them.

On ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Secretary Rubio on Monday said it is unclear if the current Iran regime will “end up being in charge,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s Alex Ward.

“We have to see [if] these people end up being the ones in charge, seeing if they’re the ones who have the power to deliver,” he said.

Also on Monday, President Trump announced that the U.S. “is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.'”

READ MORE: Trump Promotes Chilling Iran War Op-Ed Warning of What Could Be Coming Next

“Here are the clear objectives of the operation,” Rubio said, as the State Department posted. “You should write them down: 1. The destruction of Iran’s air force 2. The destruction of their navy 3. The severe diminishing of their missile launching capability 4. The destruction of their factories.”

Opening the Strait of Hormuz — which Trump demanded and critics note was open before Trump began his war thirty-one days ago, is not listed among the four objectives Rubio declared on Monday. Trump has stated previously that the first three have already been met — and he is reportedly preparing to send thousands more troops to the Middle East, possibly for a ground invasion.

Rubio’s stated objectives drew strong backlash.

READ MORE: ‘Blank Check’: Trump’s Board of Peace to Get $1.25 Billion From State Department

“Perhaps the reason Secretary Rubio is having trouble convincing people that these are the only objectives is that none of these goals require thousands of ground troops, which makes it curious why they are flowing into the region right now as I type this tweet,” noted associate professor of political science Christopher Clary.

“No mention of nuclear capabilities, vague language that leaves room for interpretation. Preparing the media space to declare victory and leave?” asked Institute for Military Operations Professor Olivier Schmitt.

“Always good to have clear objectives laid out one month after you start a war,” noted Eli Clifton of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

“Moving the goal posts isn’t the solution Mr. Secretary. What happened to nuclear weapons? Uranium enrichment? Support to proxies? Civilian rising up to challenge the regime? Reopening the Strait of Hormuz?” posited retired U.S. Army military intelligence officer Jon Sweet.

READ MORE: ‘Wrong Answer’: Conservative CPAC Audience Cheers Impeachment

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

 

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