there's absolutely nothing taken out of context here. those are his quotes and actual timeline (14 seconds!) between self-contradictory statements. aww, Mittens must not have very good short-term memory.

I was talking about the "fire people quote". But since you brought up the ad comments, what I heard was he said he didn't see that particular ad, then he said the ad he did see - which I took as he saw one ad, but not the one that Gingrich was talking about. Even if I am wrong though, you validate my point... by bringing up this "condradiction" of a comment he made, "he said this and they said that, etc. Again what a way to choose your candidate - by their silly little hissy fits/negative comments against each other. Real intelligent...and that goes for both parties. Now of course the media will focus on this for a week or two at the expense of talking about the candidates platforms on real issues. What fun.

don't put words in Romney's mouth. verbatim quote from him: "with regards to their ads, I haven't seem 'em."

OK William - like I said I may be wrong on the exact quote. So we will dismiss any candidate based on this petty argument. Thanks for the education on how to choose a candidate.
And all this time I thought picking a candidate based on their stance on issues was the important thing. Silly me.

Even if I am wrong though, you validate my point... by bringing up this "condradiction" of a comment he made, "he said this and they said that, etc. Again what a way to choose your candidate - by their silly little hissy fits/negative comments against each other.

He's not talking about the same ad. There must be dozens of ads.

You are wrong, and if you had any integrity at all, you would watch the video clip, see that you are wrong, admit that you are wrong, and discuss relevant truth, rather than continually evading, in the interest of obfuscation. You are preaching the controversy, where there is no controversy. The facts are easily available to you. The facts matter.

Integrity - when it comes to blogging about silly comments made between two bickering candidates about attack ads. Yeah, real relevant to the real world...

William Larry ... You're missing the larger point: Romney is obviously connected to these ads. These "independent" groups obviously don't run ads of which the candidate disapproves. The candidate may not "control" them--but he/she certainly knows they're going to air and has (at least through some back channel) approved of them.

mpguy - I stopped believing anything in campaign ads years ago. I am amazed that anyone with half a brain out there takes them seriously and/or bases their vote on them. To make this much out of them is amusing at best.

Gee, the Republican talking about issues??? When did they do that? All I keep hearing from the candidates is how they are going to ban abortion, birth contraception, start a war with Iran, close down Planned Parenthood, making tax cuts for the job creators who don't create jobs, and closing down government departments that protect the country and citizens.

All of the above are "issues" created by them. The American voters in general have not cared about these "issues" until the Republicans created them and scared the bejeebers out of us with their radical intent to set up a theocratic dictatorship of their making. We are concerned about getting our economy back with jobs, getting the wealthy to pay their fair share, getting decent wages and benefits for our hard work, helping people to keep their homes and getting our poverty levels under 50% of our population. We are concerned about getting out of the war overseas (now that President Obama has gotten us out of at least one). We are concerned about the oil companies and manufacturers destroying our ecology. We are concerned about regulating the massive Wall Street and Banking conglomerates that caused the collapse of our economy and continue to rape the public with their over-burdening charges and actions. We are concerned about the lack of agreement in Congress that is stunting any hope of recovery from our economic situation.

I would love to hear a Republican candidate make an actual statement about what he would specifically do with regard to our actual problems, instead of denigrating our sitting President (who was voted into office by a majority of the American people) who has accomplished a great deal with little or no help from their party. I'm tired of listening to their racist hatred.

I am sorry, but if he walks like a racist, talks like a racist, acts like a racist, in my opinion, he is probably as racist as the late, great Nazis.

I apologize for my humble opinion for those who don't agree, but I have the full intent of voting within my opinion.

Come on, he was talking about having a choice in choosing your insurance. See my post above - taking things out of context. So of course in your mind that is what he said "he likes to fire people" Just in case you didn't see the quote above here it is again below(bold is mine):

"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. . . . You know if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me."

Who uses the word "fire" in the context of terminating a third-party service provider?

"I fired my grocery store today!" "I fired the gas station I've been buying gas at for months." 'I fired my bank last week." Yeah, right. What a goof-ball.

Do you "fire" your insurance company when you spend 15 minutes and get a lower quote? Sounds good, but for most people, it's just a common-sense change of provider.

Here's the real problem, IMO... as politicians, these folks do not like to remind people that we actually have brains and free will and the ability to MAKE OUR OWN CHOICES. They really don't! They want to make our choices for us.

They do that by using emotionally-charged words that are not commonly used in casual conversation to get people riled up about stuff that most don't think twice about.

In the process, they continue to distract us from things WE consider to be MOST IMPORTANT ... jobs, the economy, and stupid Government spending habits.

As an example, the vast majority of Americans (around 80% according to most polls) want us to cut back on our "war machinery". We want an END to Iran and Iraq wars, and given the choice, we don't want to start yet another boodoggle war with anybody.

But these candidates don't talk about "war" ... they talk about "nuclear weapons", and why America needs to "neutralize Iran's nuclear weapons program". Who can disagree with THAT sort of proposition? Bahhhh!

And let's not forget that we didn't go to war with Iraq either. We set about to "destroy their weapons of mass destruction" that "reliable reports" assured everybody they had. Only they didn't. So today, all we're left with is a trillion dollar debt for a "war" that nobody wanted to get into in the first place. And GOP supporters who say, "Why do you keep blaming these costs on Bush?" Uh, because it was Bush and Cheney who got us into this "war" that they refused to call a "war". Well ... they called it a "war on terror", not a "war to kill a tyrant".

NO MORE WARS! If the rest of Europe is concerned about Iran's nuclear weapons program, let THEM deal with it. Why do WE need to spend hundreds of billions of US Taxpayer dollars to protect European countries from a tyrannical regime that's right in their own backyard, and that they're perfectly capable of dealing with themselves?

Anyway, who gives a crap if Romney likes the ability to "fire" his insurance company?

Notice that this whole silly interaction distracts us from a much more sinister problem: he's really putting forth an argument for NOT PAYING BENEFITS TO EMPLOYEES! He wants employees to have a "choice" in where they get their insurance from, as opposed to having it "forced on them' by their employer.

The reason employers provide insurance is simple: they can bargain for lower-cost insurance by buying in bulk! Romney is suggesting (wrongfully) that it would be better to let employees seek out their own insurance programs without "interference" from their employer. This is the same twisted logic that belies the Medicare insurance voucher program -- that ten million individual consumers will have more power than a thousand employers who can negotiate group discounts.

It's utter rubbish!

Hmm...I wonder if Romney's "fired" comment will get Donald Trump a little riled. He loves to say "You're fired!"

The DNC isn't concerned with getting him out of the nomination. They're assuming at this point that he IS the nominee (since the Republican party NEVER nominates anyone other than the establishment favorite), and they're just painting him early so that he spends his entire campaign defending himself against this image of a heartless rich guy who did nothing but buy companies, fire all the employees, and come away with millions.

Oh, Mitt Romney is so much more nuanced, than that! He also tied his dog to the roof of his car and drove across country, over the tearful objections of his children, apparently. He also protested in favor of the draft, during the war in Vietnam, while he himself wasn't in the draft pool due to his status a Mormon missionary. He also supports radical anti-choice proposals which seek to eliminate not only abortion access, but the most effective forms of birth control, too.

He also belongs to and professes to believe the tenets of a church which by any objective standard is a cult, founded as it was fully within modern history by a known con man who plagiarized from existing religions, and spun tall tales which are trivially demonstrated as false by modern archaeology and DNA science, and which, when Mitt Romney was protesting in favor of the draft for other people, was right on the brink of a new revelation regarding black people, who previously had been barred from being full members of the club.

There is so much more to Mitt Romney, than mere sociopathic exploiter of human resources, and strip-miner of the American economy.

Republicans are happy people because they can move to states governed by conservatives. Liberals can stay in states like California, New York, Michigan and Illinois and watch their taxes go up to pay for the enormous debt incurred by liberal social and public employee spending.

Actually Contessa, I do wish conservative Republicans would carve out their own states and stay there. My guess is people would be fleeing those states in less than fifty years when everything starts falling apart or you can't take the religious oppression any more. I like my liberal, progressive compassionate outlook for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and am quite willing to pay a fair share to allow others to walk the same playing field. You like to gloat about "government" keeping us poor - remember, religiious doctrine will keep you poor too. Both manmade entities can either be uplifting and affirming, or oppressive and condemning. Both will have their eras of positive and negative swings. Money is not the et al of this world: if money went away, there would still be food to grow and harvest, water to keep clean, maintenance of existing infrastructure, etc. In other words, individual do-ism. This is not a progressive or conservative claim of ownership: it is a key factor of survival in life. It's just that I feel the conservative approach hoards and the progressive approach shares. And frankly, if you were to really look at just the history of the US and how it was really founded - you would find Progressive values helping conservative values gain a foothold. The reason it stays there, is because conservatives then kill off or oppress and try to control or even claim the very foundation that allows them to re-create thier image thru the ages. Progressive visions have dragged this world out of conservative quagmires time and again. It takes time, but on the whole, Progressives have made this world a better place to live in. So when you are bashing our tax system, our president, the US at large, take a moment and thank a progressive for giving you the right to do so. Namaste~

No, thank a soldier for defending it. It's been there since the birth of the republic.

Jontara. People are already fleeing California....and people are fleeing to Texas.

"You like to gloat about "government" keeping us poor - remember, religiious doctrine will keep you poor too"

don't know where you're coming from one this one...

p.s. BEEP. You're wrong. I'm not a social conservative.

Someone should put these two together - have Mitt say "I like to fire people" then have people who got fired due to Bain, then end with Mitt's quote once again, "I like to fire people."

Mitt Romney - Job Creator or Job Destroyer?

You can bet the Dems are going to use that for ads in the election. Kennedy used it against Romney when he ran for the Senate.

How about all those people who gave up looking for a job under Obama's "leadership". Mitt can run that ad...there are plenty of people like that.

I caught Mitt's speech where he said he would tie public sector job pay to private sector pay. I wonder which state he would choose from for private sector payscales: would he choose the lowest state mandated wage or the highest, or the average between the two? Conversely, would he as President demand CEO wages and bonuses? And would he tie house and senate rep wages to that of private board members wages? And seeing as how failure to do ones job in these high stakes companies seem to garner the highest pay and bonuses, would he be so inclined to do his best for the people of this country?

so many questions....

The health care industry has had decades to deliver low cost affordable health care. It has not nor is it likely to ever lower costs. Insurance premiums have consistently outpaced inflation despite all the competition.

Don't forget the spiraling cost of the ACTUAL healthcare. The premiums go up in some part because of the cost of healthcare too.

No need to take Romney's glee firing people "out of context" to see his deep-seated presumption of wealth and privilege.

How few of the rest of us with insurance would dare "fire" our insurance company, even if "free to choose," for fear of getting no new insurance or, almost worse, much later being denied coverage when really ill for having "omitted" to declare some pre-existing condition in the transition.

Lots of profit to the investor class, that's what! Mitt looks at the world with investor's eyes. A major illness means that people will spend lots of money, no questions asked. Perfect opportunity for profit, baby!

That was his point Keith. He would like everyone to have the oppurtunity to do just that - "fire" their insurance company if they want.

Captain Renault, Casablanca

Attribution, man, Attribution! Many users on these sites would have no idea where that came from...

I just find him creepy.

So is that how you vetted him as a candidate? :-)

@skiphoffman I find the "gut-o-nometer" to be the best vetting machine out there. If my gut says you're "creepy" then you better believe I'll listen to it because when my gut says something is wrong, there IS something wrong.

OK - fair enough Jo - vote with your gut.

Hilarious. The "Romney-bot"-- nice touch -- you nailed it!

Fire the corrupt,bought off representatives in Congress too!

@Ray But you forget that President Romney will have relieved your employer from providing you with medical insurance by enabling him to provide you with a "voucher" - a la the McCain $5,000 voucher program. That $5,000 will also be taxable income.

When McCain proposed that during the campaign, I asked my HR Generalist how far $5,000 would go toward paying for the insurance my employer provides me. She told me the exact amount it cost my employer which was well over $5,000 and that did not include the 35% that I pay toward my insurance.

At that rate, I'm thinking your insurance will cover you when you have a cold. Otherwise, just die.

This is just one more piece of the "Privatizing America" Republican agenda.