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POOR WORD CHOICE

GOP Leaders Mocks Urban Voters

Says Detroit precincts are dangerous 'without a sidearm'

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by David Mark

Editor-in-Chief t

Ron Weiser. Image: AP.

A national Republican official has been caught on video saying voters in Detroit get picked up at pool halls and barbershops and bused "from precinct to precinct where they vote multiple times." Ron Weiser, finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, and a former Michigan GOP chairman, also said that someone not from Detroit would not want to go to the polls there at 6:30 a.m. "without a sidearm."

The Detroit Free Press reports that the video of Weiser's Aug. 9 comments were recorded by a Democratic operative shadowing GOP congressional candidate Kerry Bentivolio to a meeting where Weiser also spoke. The video was given to the Free Press and posted on YouTube by the Michigan Democratic Party.

Weiser said there were African Americans present at the meeting and the comments "were never intended to be racist comments." He apologized if he offended anyone.

But that's not enough for Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett), a former Republican policy advisor and now a fierce GOP critic. "What Republicans really think of minorities--too busy playing pool and drinking beer to vote," Bartlett tweeted.

Via The Detroit Free Press.

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  • stepped_in_it
    !
    I don't know about the precinct to precinct comment, but, the rest sounds pretty right! I've been in Detroit and other cities "blighted" areas. Those areas remind me of the bombed out pictures of WWII Germany. Scary enough to make my butt pucker (and I don't pucker easily).
  • Rightwing
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    Republicans are known to tell endless lies,if you guys are right then maybe next presidential election you should try the same tactic to keep from looking like the sore loser's you are !!!
  • Jeff_Woehrle
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    @Rightwing What are you blabbering about? The question is whether or not some of these big cities look like war zones. If you doubt that assertion, it seems like a road trip may be in order for you.
  • stepped_in_it
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    @Rightwing Comment really weird. Did YOU look at my profile? Most likely NOT! First, I don't agree with either you crazy Liberals or the crazy Conservatives. Second, I take NO marching orders from NO man (Dem or Repub). Third, I hear the same rhetoric "tactics" from both you crazies!
    Now, they me something. Have YOU ever been in any "blighted" area of any major city (other than your own)? I have! Been to 90% of the major cities from NY to LA, Chicago to New Orleans. And when in those areas, I see the people in those (or similar) "shops" or porches or walking around. It really makes your "senses" come alive, that is, you become extremely "aware" of your surroundings (similar to being in a war zone). Once again:
    Have YOU ever been in any "blighted" area of any major city (other than your own)?
    ps: sick of the rhetoric "right/left" wings that sit in their living room and comment about the world. Please just play your video games and sit....stay!
  • View all 27 replies >
  • Jeff_Woehrle
    !
    The big cities have been voting reliably liberal for decades. Democrats promise to lift the impoverished from their plight, yet they continue to fall further and further into debt and poverty.

    Now, big bailouts loom as the cities have spent and taxed themselves to the brink of bankruptcy. There will be little choice other than federal assistance as the problems are simply too costly for states to bear.

    Now that same entitlement/tax/spend./borrow mentality has fallen over Washington as well...and the fate is surely the same.

    Except, who will bail out the federal government?

    Good luck, suckers! Your 'hope and change' is coming!
  • DerivePI
    !
    I think the "We need better goverrnment so continue voting for the same party that's been screwing things up for decades" attitude should be mocked.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    Well the federal govt could cut spending by closing down military bases in countries outside the u.s. and cutting military pork weapons projects, like the F-35 plane and other weapons systems. Indeed, if we went back to the military structure imposed by the constitution, we cut cuts cost enormously. But repubs would never agree to cut what military contractors consider their "entitlement" to waste our tax money...
  • o
    LikkerdySplit
    !
    @PoliticalSpice well just for the record up til lincoln just about the only thing the feds did was military so i think the foundin fathers'd be mighty complexed by this whole socialist welfare thing y'all got goin
    sure, close the bases in europe, but ending the f-35 program, expensive as it is, is craziness, we gotta stay a step ahead so we can fight so YOU dont have to buddyboy, unlike welfare which IS an entitlement, defense and defense spendin actually IS a constitutional right, look it up
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    @LikkerdySplit I know the constitution very well, better then a lot on here. Military spending is not a "right" and I don't have time for this today, but I will say the f-35 has cost millions of millions, and they have yet to make it work properly. Since we agree on closing the bases lets just leave it at that, oh but first, I don't believe in wrlfare, I believe in jobs programs instead...
  • sevenSecrets
    !
    @Neo_NtheMatrix correction. Our nation falls apart when we are not united. It is almost as if you want the entire country to fall because your political affiliation lost. How disgusting. Please tell me more about how active division (not healthy competition) keeps the country together
  • Zazziness
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    @sevenSecrets Always have the same problem at corporations. They encourage staff to be aggressive and competitive but if that isn't carefully and constantly directed, it turns into internal aggression and division instead of being targeted at actual outside competitors and uniting employees.
  • UnCommonBoston
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    The statement itself is offensive, the fact that people believe this is worse. Just because people are poor does not mean they don't understand current events or are dishonest. These kind of statements increase the resentment many have for our poor. After all, they live a good life on our tax $$ and they get to vote twice! Seriously? Repeat anything often enough and it gets more and more credible.
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    The problem is not that they are poor, it's that they poor it's that predators hunt the weak and defenceless. Have you seen the price of a good gun. If there is a problem there it's because the law abiding poor are wise enough to keep their heads down. And pray to keep there children as much of the streets as possible. If that's the case who's in the pool halls. My apologies to some pool halls.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
    !
    So what did he say that wasn't true? And why are liberals so fascinated with secret recordings? Why don't we follow a few liberals around and record the nasty vile things they say? Over the last few days I've become extremely worried about our nation, something I usually don't do. I think recent events have been a sign of some really bad omens headed our way.
  • DARSB
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    Why are Republicans so often saying things like this? All the microphones in the world are harmless - unless you're promoting a point of view people find offensive, a principle henceforth to be known as the Romney Rule.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    I'm not a liberal, so I don't know they are fascinated, but t seems to me repubs say things about policy they do not want others to know about. Why not? Doesn't the public have a right to know what people running for public office and their political operatives are up to? You seem to think this is a liberal think. Was george bush a liberal? He approved warrantless wiretapping? Was richard nixon a liberal? he hired people to plant microphones in the office of the psychiatrist treating the man who supplied the pentagon papers to the press. This fascination, as you call it, with secret recordings is hardly confined to one side or the other...
  • Dan_Tien
    !
    I have to wonder if this kind of publicity-catching rhetoric isn't at least a partial contributor to the mental state of people who "go postal". The future is not bright these days. Even the traditional way out of poverty, military service, is no guarantee of future employment anymore. When even Presidential candidates make a point of saying that half of America's population is a worthless burden of takers leeching off of the productive few, what is the effect on ineffectual people? Some people will not care, even consider themselves smart for being able to get over on the system. Some people will agree and strive harder to make something of themselves. Some people will agree that they are worthless and give up because they see no hope of anything better, even commit suicide. Others may agree and go out of their way to prove that you ain't nothing either.

    I expect to be thoroughly mocked for this idea by the usual mockers, but it has crossed my mind. Maybe that is because I have heard a lot of "let them eat cake" type comments recently from the conservative right and one of my ancestors came to this country from France to escape "The Terror".
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
    !
    You're blaming Ron Weiser for Adam Lanza killing a bunch of kids? I doubt Lanza had even heard of Weiser. Ridiculous assertion that should be mocked.

    Here are the cold hard facts that people don't want to accept, we as a nation simply must produce more. It is simply mandatory. Those who are producing at max capacity can't produce any more than they already do. So that means it is up to the unproductive (the 47% if you will) to start producing. If it doesn't happen, well, say goodbye to the America that once was. I've already said goodbye to her. I know she's not coming back.
  • Dan_Tien
    !
    @Neo_NtheMatrix You have distorted my comment (as usual) and used it as a springboard to repeat your theme of the vanishing America (as usual).
  • u
    Clarke12
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    but I guess it is okay for a Detroit councilwoman to openly ask "where is the money from Obama?" in return for delivering Detroit to him in the election.
  • Calfkiller
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    they are. Specifically the black precincts. Is that racist? Hell no that's the reality of the situation. Instead of whining about racism they should take responsibility.
  • dances-weebles
    !
    i've walked all over detroit, chicago and many other major cities and NEVER once have i felt the need to pucker my butt. it's either all in your imagination, or you've been watching too much television. as far as 'bombed out cities', there's nothing to be afraid of in empty buildings.
  • Russell797
    !
    The conservatives blame the liberals. The liberals blame the conservatives. The reality is they are both clueless. Has anyone ever considered the possibility that it is the economic system that is fundamentally unsustainable? Any system dependent on unlimited, never ending growth is doomed to failure. Period.......
  • PNWest
    !
    Ron Weiser, finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, and a former Michigan GOP chairman is just saying what the hard core GOP base believes. These guys are cowards too scared to make their true beliefs known in public because they know that decent Americans won't buy this kind of BS. Just look at what happened to Romney after his 47% comments came out.
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