Ann Romney couldn’t keep the contempt off of her face in an exclusive interview with Natalie Morales excerpted from an upcoming NBC special airing Thursday. Her lip curled in Cheneyesque contempt as reporter Morales asked, “Are you angry that it’s been in the press? I mean, should you not be questioned about your finances?”
Mrs. Romney’s response was that since their finances are “attacked” (implying some sort of unfair questioning), they won’t be releasing them. This is like saying, hey, if you’re going to arrest me for stealing, I’m not going to show you what I stole. I mean, their finances raise questions because of choices they made, not choices the American people made, so it hardly seems fair to punish the people for asking questions.
Natalie Morales, “Why not be transparent, and release more than the 2010 and the estimates for 2011?”
Ann Romney,”Have you seen how we’re attacked? Have you seen what’s happened?”
Natalie Morales, “It’s been in the press quite a bit. Are you angry that it’s been in the press? I mean, should you not be questioned about your finances?”
Ann Romney, doing a poor job of hiding her anger, “We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us. But, (talking down to Morales as if she’s a child), the more we release, the more we get attacked. The more we get questioned. (Yes, because your one year of tax returns was still unclear and raised a lot of questions.) The more we get pushed. And so we’ve done what’s legally required. And there’s going to be no more tax releases given. There’s a reason for that. And that’s because how, what happens when we release anything.”
Apparently, in Mrs. Romney’s worldview, if America doesn’t respond to the limited information she wants to share, they will be punished by not getting anymore. This is Romney “transparency”.
… Mrs. Romney, “We don’t disclose anymore because we just become a bigger target.”
And then, the kill shot. Natalie Morales sums up why the Romney’s won’t release more tax returns, “So, it’s because you’ll just continue to face more questions.”
We have a winner.
[politicususa]
• NBC rockcenter: When pressed by Morales, Mrs. Romney stood her ground. “We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us,” she said. “There’s going to be no more tax releases given.” Mrs. Romney said if they release any more information, “it will only give them more ammunition.” In regards to their finances, she said “there’s nothing we’re hiding.”
• If there is something in the returns that you think the other side can use as ammunition and you don’t want them to find out about it, you are by definition hiding something.
Taxes? Medicare? You don’t need to know, apparently:
• “I think they know their plan is not very popular,” the president said. “You can tell that because they’re being pretty dishonest about my plan.” “Here’s what you need to know,” the president continued. “I have made reforms that have saved millions of seniors with Medicare hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs.” Obama was referencing the fact that Obamacare closed the donut hole, which Romney and Ryan would reinstate. “I have proposed reforms that will save Medicare money by getting rid of wasteful spending in the system. Reforms that will not touch your Medicare benefits, not by a dime.”
• Sense of entitlement – Talking about Mitt is not allowed: On CBS this morning, Mitt explained why he thought it was so unfair: “The president’s campaign has put out a campaign that’s talking about me and attacking me. I think it’s just demeaning to the nature of the process, particularly when we face the kinds of challenges we face.” – The idea that anybody might question him offends his sense of entitlement. In Romney’s view, he should be able to say anything he wants. Tell any lie. What is not OK—what Mitt thinks is out-of-bounds—is for anybody to notice and/or mention any of it.
Just to highlight one bit of visciousness from the Romney folks:
• Swift Boat Part II: A group of ex CIA and special operations officers have launched a campaign — backed by former Tea Party and Republican operatives — to criticize President Obama for what they say were leaks made for political gain surrounding the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Just like with John Kerry, they’re finding a way to hit the president where he’s strongest. And the scary thing is, it actually worked in 2004.
• Just trust me, “you people” are getting told all you need to be told: The Romney campaign is willing to discuss its proposals on taxes “in the light of day,” vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Tuesday evening — just not until after the election.
• Paul Ryan doesn’t trust women with their bodies. He shouldn’t be trusted with the whole country:
Vote Suppression:
• Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) handpicked Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced on Tuesday that the administration will soon begin another voter purge to remove “ineligible” voters from the rolls before the November 6 election. Florida county election supervisors remain wary of the effort, however, telling ThinkProgress that they may not have enough time to implement the purge.
• And if he hadn’t been caught, would he have acted?: Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) said on Wednesday morning that he would unilaterally step in to address what he termed the “political hysteria” over disparities between voting hours across counties. But, while he said he will issue uniform rules for voting hours “long before October 2,” to treat “the largest counties and the smallest counties with equal consideration,” he took no responsibility for his own role in creating the issue.
• Ecuador bristles at British ‘threat’ over Assange asylum. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino accused Britain of threatening to “assault our embassy” if Assange was not handed over. A storming of Ecuador’s embassy would be interpreted as “hostile and intolerable and, as well, an attempt on our sovereignty which would oblige us to respond with the greatest diplomatic force,” he said. London had warned Ecuador in writing earlier in the day that a 1987 British law permits it to revoke the diplomatic status of a building if the foreign power occupying it “ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission or exclusively for the purposes of a consular post.” Its Foreign Office said later in statement that it is Britain’s “obligation to extradite Mr. Assange.”
• The Dugway Proving Center in Tooele County, Utah, is planning to expand a facility where biological agents and toxins are tested. Big-D Construction, a Salt Lake City-based company, received a $22.6 million contract to expand Dugway’s 33,150-square-foot Lothar Salomon Life Sciences Test Facility by an additional 41,000 square feet. The expansion will enable the military to develop and test protection, identification, detection and decontamination equipment for first responders and the armed forces, the Tooele Transcript Bulletin reports. The project is anticipated to begin next spring and be completed by May 2015.
F.D.Brightly
Still with the entitlement [Shorter Question Everything]
• Angry Ann Romney Announces They Shouldn’t Be Questioned About Finances:
• NBC rockcenter: When pressed by Morales, Mrs. Romney stood her ground. “We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us,” she said. “There’s going to be no more tax releases given.” Mrs. Romney said if they release any more information, “it will only give them more ammunition.” In regards to their finances, she said “there’s nothing we’re hiding.”
• If there is something in the returns that you think the other side can use as ammunition and you don’t want them to find out about it, you are by definition hiding something.
Taxes? Medicare? You don’t need to know, apparently:
• “I think they know their plan is not very popular,” the president said. “You can tell that because they’re being pretty dishonest about my plan.” “Here’s what you need to know,” the president continued. “I have made reforms that have saved millions of seniors with Medicare hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs.” Obama was referencing the fact that Obamacare closed the donut hole, which Romney and Ryan would reinstate. “I have proposed reforms that will save Medicare money by getting rid of wasteful spending in the system. Reforms that will not touch your Medicare benefits, not by a dime.”
• Sense of entitlement – Talking about Mitt is not allowed: On CBS this morning, Mitt explained why he thought it was so unfair: “The president’s campaign has put out a campaign that’s talking about me and attacking me. I think it’s just demeaning to the nature of the process, particularly when we face the kinds of challenges we face.” – The idea that anybody might question him offends his sense of entitlement. In Romney’s view, he should be able to say anything he wants. Tell any lie. What is not OK—what Mitt thinks is out-of-bounds—is for anybody to notice and/or mention any of it.
Just to highlight one bit of visciousness from the Romney folks:
• Swift Boat Part II: A group of ex CIA and special operations officers have launched a campaign — backed by former Tea Party and Republican operatives — to criticize President Obama for what they say were leaks made for political gain surrounding the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Just like with John Kerry, they’re finding a way to hit the president where he’s strongest. And the scary thing is, it actually worked in 2004.
• Just trust me, “you people” are getting told all you need to be told: The Romney campaign is willing to discuss its proposals on taxes “in the light of day,” vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Tuesday evening — just not until after the election.
• 7 Reasons Why Romney-Ryan’s Desperate Attempts to Spin Medicare Won’t Work
• Paul Ryan doesn’t trust women with their bodies. He shouldn’t be trusted with the whole country:
Vote Suppression:
• Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) handpicked Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced on Tuesday that the administration will soon begin another voter purge to remove “ineligible” voters from the rolls before the November 6 election. Florida county election supervisors remain wary of the effort, however, telling ThinkProgress that they may not have enough time to implement the purge.
• And if he hadn’t been caught, would he have acted?: Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) said on Wednesday morning that he would unilaterally step in to address what he termed the “political hysteria” over disparities between voting hours across counties. But, while he said he will issue uniform rules for voting hours “long before October 2,” to treat “the largest counties and the smallest counties with equal consideration,” he took no responsibility for his own role in creating the issue.
• Republican judge blocks rights groups’ suit over Pennsylvania voter ID law. In Pennsylvania, a Commonwealth Court judge has rejected a suit brought by the ACLU, the NAACP and others to block the state’s stringent new voter ID law, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer‘s website Philly.com. Judge Robert E. Simpson, elected to the bench as a Republican in 2001, rejected the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction against the law, which would potentially disenfranchise 758,000 poor and minority voters.
Bits and pieces:
• Ecuador bristles at British ‘threat’ over Assange asylum. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino accused Britain of threatening to “assault our embassy” if Assange was not handed over. A storming of Ecuador’s embassy would be interpreted as “hostile and intolerable and, as well, an attempt on our sovereignty which would oblige us to respond with the greatest diplomatic force,” he said. London had warned Ecuador in writing earlier in the day that a 1987 British law permits it to revoke the diplomatic status of a building if the foreign power occupying it “ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission or exclusively for the purposes of a consular post.” Its Foreign Office said later in statement that it is Britain’s “obligation to extradite Mr. Assange.”
• The Dugway Proving Center in Tooele County, Utah, is planning to expand a facility where biological agents and toxins are tested. Big-D Construction, a Salt Lake City-based company, received a $22.6 million contract to expand Dugway’s 33,150-square-foot Lothar Salomon Life Sciences Test Facility by an additional 41,000 square feet. The expansion will enable the military to develop and test protection, identification, detection and decontamination equipment for first responders and the armed forces, the Tooele Transcript Bulletin reports. The project is anticipated to begin next spring and be completed by May 2015.