Open Thread: Oops! Rick Santorum Just Can’t Help Himself
Posted: February 25, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, open thread, racism, U.S. Politics | Tags: "blah people", government dependency, Michigan primary, minority communities, Rick Santorum 60 CommentsEarlier today Rick Santorum spoke to a Tea Party crowd in Troy, Michigan and, as he did about a month ago, suggested that people in “minority communities” are especially reliant on food stamps and welfare.
Speaking to a large crowd at the conservative Americans for Prosperity Presidential forum here, Santorum said he planned to “talk to minority communities, not about giving them food stamps and government dependency, but about creating jobs so that they can participate in the rise of this country.”
Here’s the video:
In Iowa in January, Santorum said what most people thought sounded like this:
“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”
Watch it:
Later he claimed he had really said “blah people.”
Today Santorum was pretty clear in linking food stamps and “dependency” to minorities, even though most of the people using government programs are white. How will he try to weasel out this time? This guy just can’t seem to keep from saying whatever pops into his head.
peej
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Seems like he commits at least one “Kinsley gaffe” per day.
Joe Cannon has a good post up today.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2012/02/jeb-and-mitt-and-newt-and-bill-maher.html
Here’s more of what Santorum is promoting as religious freedom.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120225_Court_filing__Bevilacqua_ordered_shredding_of_memo_identifying_suspected_abusers.html
I’ve been reading about that case. It’s very interesting. It seems the man who is on trial had actually been trying to uncover pedophile priests but the Cardinal put a stop to it. Then they all left Lynn hanging out to dry.
As for Santorum, today he’s promoting racism and ignorance.
In the same speech, Santorum called Obama a “snob” for wanting people to go to college.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/santorum-obama-a-snob-for-wanting-all-americans
I don’t think he’s a snob, but I do think it’s a dumb idea. Herding everyone into college is what has caused our current state of affairs – there are lots of dumbed-down and overcrowded intro courses staffed by instructors and teaching assistants who are being used as cheap labor, and even with the (incredibly extensive) dumbing-down, half of the class routinely flunks.Someone who can’t pass a multiple-choice exam about 20th century american history has zero business being in college, and there are a lot of people like that.
Of course you think it’s a dumb idea but who could possibly care. Education has problems all down the line in this country. They won’t be solved by doing nothing.
Doing nothing is better than doing something that makes things worse. And you apparently cared enough to reply. 😉
Let that be a lesson to me. Don’t talk to trolls.
You’re no fun.
There’s no effort to “herd everyone into college,” that I’ve heard of.
“Dumbed down and overcrowded intro courses?” “Half of the class routinely flunks?”
What sort of college are you attending? Are you in Louisiana?
Bit of a double standard there Mr Santorum. Just looked up his education on wiki, he went to Penn State where he got a BA and then got a Masters and a JD (not Jack Daniel’s) from Dickinson School of Law. So it’s okay for you to go to college, just not other people, or maybe it’s just okay for the right (take that as you will) people to go to college.
I suppose you have to be indoctrinated into something else before you can go to college in his eyes so all those new fangled ideas can’t take hold, you know, like equality, freedom and abolitionism. Good old Dick.
In 2006, he wanted to send all Pennsylvanians to college. Flip, Flop 😉
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/flashback-in-2006-rick-santorum-wanted-to-send-all-paians-to-college.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
If you compare that article with this factsheet I found on Obama’s plan, they seem to be saying the same thing.
Click to access ccfactsheet.pdf
And in the Obama quote it says “provide Americans of all ages a chance” not that they have to go to college. Misquoting is a great thing in politics. 😛
Tim,
That is exactly my reaction. Santorum seems to want to keep the populace ignorant and in low paid jobs. Meanwhile, he went to Penn State and grad school too. What a hypocrite!
I say it’s lying, not misquoting–based on Santorum’s habit of just making up statistics. Take a look at that video I posted about Santorum’s lies about the Netherlands.
I think he blew what should have been a good blue collar talking point. Not everyone should go to college, even if they are smart enough to succeed there. Skilled tradespeople are undervalued in our culture. We should pay them well and treat them well and respect their role in our economy and the social mix. But we don’t. I think the Frothy One totally missed making a good point.
Skilled tradespeople *are* well-paid (if you mean people like plumbers and carpenters). They get some serious training though. You don’t just leave high school and get a job as a plumber. There’s an apprenticeship.
Obama never said everyone should get a college education. He argued that we should make it possible for people who don’t have a lot of money to go to community colleges. Not that I think so much of that, but Santorum is every bit as much of a liar as Romney. He just makes shit up.
Yes, BB, some are well-paid, but most are not. If you are a small business owner in a trade, you are likely well-paid, but then again, you’re an entrpreneur.
I was a machinist for 15 years so I’m aware that there’s a lot of training behind being skilled in a trade. I became a machinist because I am really good at math–way bettter than most of my friends who went to college straight from high school. I’m not knocking college. My strange career path is a long story, but my original plan was to go to college right after high school too. Life took a different turn. Ultimately, I did work my way though college and graduated.
One of the points I was making is that there is a shortage of skilled tradespeole because college is valued more than skill but we need skilled tradespeople. A point I want to make now is that many of the college-educated people I work with are not as smart as many of the blue collar people I worked with. They just had the advantage of going to college, whether they were college material or not. Frankly, I don’t think they’d be successful at a trade either.
One thing I’ve noticed is that many people in this country have been educated beyond their intelligence.
I don’t disagree with you, Sophie. My point was that Santorum is lying. Obama never said that he wanted everyone to go to college. In fact, fewer people will be able to go now because of the economy and the lack of action on student loans.
Everything Santorum said about Obama’s policies and about college was a lie, and furthermore Santorum did go to college and grad school to get where he is. He’s a hypocrite AND a liar.
BB: I agree entirely that he’s a hypocrite and a liar (and more). Although I thought I did hear Obama say something similar to that…maybe I imagined it or maybe it just sounded like something Obama would say to get re-elected.
My first sentence was: I think he [Santorum] blew what should have been a good blue collar talking point. That was where I was coming from.
Santorum tells James Dobson about the supposed mass murder going on in the Netherlands and waxes nostalgic for the good old days when abortions were done “in the shadows.”
The Dutch are “outraged.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/dutch-outraged-over-santorums-euthanasia-clai
I’m glad, need more coverage.
“in the shadows” like when women were dying in alleys and back rooms and motels from botched attempts and illegal abortions? Aye, the good ol’ days.
Scum.
That is just what I was thinking Luna when I saw the link.
Let’s all chip in and by Rick a ticket to Amsterdam.
Question: when Santorum was in the Senate, was he this batshit crazy? I realize that he was to the right of nearly everyone else, but did he make such crazy statements, like now, on a regular basis? I’m beginning to believe in zombies and all of them vote Republican. If Rod Serling had written this “story” and shown it on The Twilight Zone, the show would have been cancelled & he would have been committed. It’s just too surreal.
Yes. I can recall hearing about his craziness on abortion over ten years ago.
Yes, yes he was this batshit crazy. Pretty much the only thing he did in the Senate was obsess about abortion.
And homosexuality.
Claiming that most people using government aid are white isn’t strictly true. While most recipients of SNAP are white, members of minority groups use the program at a proportionately higher rate. White people make up ~75 percent of the population, while ~33 percent of SNAP recipients are white. OTOH, black people are ~12 percent of the population, but make up ~22 percent of SNAP recipients. Trying to pretend that lots of members of minorities groups don’t experience multigenerational poverty might make us feel nice, but it does jack to contribute to actually finding out why this is and how to fix it…
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/2010Characteristics.pdf table a.23
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf table 1
Got any statistics comparing white recipients of SNAP from the same economic classes as the minorities? Chances are good that would tell a little different tale.
Just take a look at Appalachia to see multigenerational poverty among low income whites.
We were talking about food stamps and welfare. What are your stats on that?
Michigan Tea Partiers Share Rick Santorum’s Fears Over Obama’s College Push
These tea partiers seem to be dumber than a box of rocks and paranoid on top. Of course, they’re right that not everyone needs a degree but some college is still helpful no matter what you do for a living. F’k, education is good for it’s own sake.
You got that right, ralph, rocks are definitely smarter. Do these tea partiers realize that Paul, Romney, Santorum & Gingrich all graduated from college? Based on tp logic, as stated above, that makes all 4 of them communists as well. Maybe if they pulled their heads out of their butts they could actually hear just how stupid they are.
But does college = education? I mean, is it education when you cram 200 people into a room to listen to a guy talk about things that barely interest them, if at all, and them give them a few multiple-choice tests? The only value that college can offer, aside from being the way to satisfy the mandarin requirements that stand in the way of getting even the most mindless/droney office job, is to force students to think and to give them feedback on the quality of that thinking, and what we have now, with massive classes, a few MC tests and MAYBE a three-page paper comes nowhere near doing either of those things.
Mind you, I’m not knocking college so much as I am the transformation of college into a sort of factory system.
B. Kilpatrick,
It sounds like maybe you’re one of those people who doesn’t belong in college. Maybe you should get a job as a construction worker.
Then we don’t disagree nearly as much as we might think. I personally hate the class in an auditorium that younger students get for the always required courses. I would much rather see more smaller community colleges provide those classes which they can do in a more “normal” manner and cheaper all around.
In today’s world though, I think plumbers and electricians need business and accounting classes to be better entrepreneurs. Every one should benefit from more “learning how to learn” on their own. We used to teach that in elementary and high schools but now seem to spend so much time teaching to the NCLB tests that students get left out that way.
Hah. I have some pretty decent-sized land-holdings in Canada and sometimes I suspect that the best course of action would be to go there, grow blueberries, and sit back and watch while the right in this country goes insane at the thought of a Muslim behind every tree and bush and the left tries to legislate sharp corners, naughty words, and bad attitudes out of existence.
Decent land holdings in Canada sound pretty good. Except for the cold winters 🙂
Ultimately, the debate is how to get that large percentage of Americans who aren’t in a job right now, into a job. So it’s a debate about what employers want to see on people’s resumes in order to give them a job. Most employers want to see that you’re trying to better yourself in some way, that you have relevant skills and that you’re proactive. If you’ve been to college recently that kind of proves you have all three of those things going for you.
Also, I don’t know much about community colleges, but I’m guessing you don’t necessarily have to do an academic subject I’m guessing you can probably do a more practical degree these days too if you want.
Yea, the winters are nasty
Community colleges are a good way to get the required english, history, and assorted non major classes out of the way cheaper than you can do it in a university setting. Students get more teacher involvement there as well, so it helps those who need a little extra.
My own area has a very good community college system which feeds students into the Univ of Texas locally. Most of the instructors are PhD level so the students don’t miss much.
The California Jr. College system was and probably still is great. Small classes and great instructors. When talking to HS students I suggest they look into going to Jr. College — and some Jr College offer a degree program.
I’m biased in favor of west coast colleges — WA, CA and OR have some really great colleges. Even just two years of college help kids to mature and opens up new options. There are technical/Jr. colleges — that are another good option.
A well trained Guidance Counselor should know about all the options — but lately some of the guidance counselors have no business in the business of being around teenagers.
When I was in college — Raygun and other “moral majority” red necks — hated college students. Seems like Sanitorum is whipping up the hate machine against evil colleges just like Raygun did and other “conservative” jerks.
The Lost Party
The strangest primary season in memory reveals a GOP that’s tearing itself apart.
I read that this morning. Not bad for Heilemann. Usually I can’t stand him.
Me either. He was good today.
It does kind of make me wonder if this is just a Democrat plot to get Obama a second term.
Didn’t Gingrich say the same thing as Rick the Dick? I don’t want to give them somebody else’s money…………..I think he said the same thing about a month ago.
I think I remember Gingrich saying that, but he’s said so much it’s had to keep up.
Chair of Committee Considering Alabama “Ultrasound” Bill is VP of an Ultrasound Equipment Co.
Warning: The link is to DKos.
Thanks for the link warning — I’ve not gone to that hell hole in years.
I know the feeling well.
@ ralph that figures…
Rachel Maddow at the Steinbeck Center
This may be good.
This is so cool (pardon the pun):
Musical instruments made of ice!