The laundry list of misleading statements from the Mitt Romney and his campaign is becoming so annoying that finally someone challenged him on his nonsense.
Mitt Romney's assertion about lobbyists and his presidential campaign was challenged by an Associated Press reporter Thursday. The blogosphere immediately lit up over the exchange.
Speaking at a business supply store in Columbia, S.C., Romney was telling reporters, "I don't have lobbyists running my campaign. I don't have lobbyists that are tied to my -- " when AP writer Glen Johnson interrupted.
"That's not true," Johnson said. "Ron Kaufman's a lobbyist." Kaufman, chairman of communications firm Dutko Worldwide, is a frequent presence in the Romney campaign.
"Did you hear what I said? Did you hear what I said, Glen?" Romney asked. "I said I don't have lobbyists running my campaign, and he's not running my campaign."
Keith Olbermann exposes Romney's latest round of crap.
In a tense exchange with an AP reporter on Thursday, Mitt Romney insisted that even though a registered lobbyist is one of his senior advisers, lobbyists do not "run" his campaign.
The claim is part of Romney's new self-styled outsider message: lobbyists are part of a broken Washington system and Romney has nothing to do with them.
"My campaign is not based on Washington lobbyists," Romney said. "I haven't been in Washington. I don't have lobbyists at my elbow that are arguing for one industry or another industry and I do not have favors I have to repay to people who have been in Washington for years."
The truth is that Romney is tied closely with many lobbyists. The AP reporter Romney exchanged sharp words with later reported that several Romney aides and advisers are lobbyists. Additionally, as the Nation first reported, Romney has accepted the second most money from lobbyists of any Republican presidential candidate, and has received the most endorsements from lobbyists.
The lobbyists who have endorsed Romney have represented, in 2007 alone, nearly every part of the health care and financial services industries, the NRA, members of the tobacco industry, and gambling interests.
In fact, nearly every lobbyist who has endorsed Romney is peddling influence for the health care industry. They represent insurance companies like AIG and New York Life; trade groups like the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association and the Healthcare Leadership Council (which reps "chief executives from all disciplines within the health care system"); pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer; and other extensions of the American health care apparatus like the California Association of Physicians Groups, the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, the American Dental Association, and the Biotechnology Industry Association.
Romney's lobbyists also represent Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte & Touche, and most of the major accounting firms. Several of them work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At least one works for the NRA. Collectively, they represent huge swaths of the energy industry, including big players like the American Petroleum Institute and Chevron Texaco.
Romney's pals have also lobbied for the Carlyle Group, Microsoft, American Airlines, the Venetian Casino Resort, the Poker Players Alliance, and TOP Tobacco.
Maybe we could get Glen Johnson to cover Danbury and confront Boughton on his misleading statements regarding:
04.25.22 (RADIO): WSHU Latino group call on Connecticut lawmakers to open a Danbury charter school
06.03.22 (OP-ED): KUSHNER: "Career Academy ‘a great deal for Danbury"
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
The laundry list of misleading statements from the Mitt Romney and his campaign is becoming so annoying that finally someone challenged him on his nonsense.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
